Abstract

This author provides a great service to modern and postmodern philosophers of science who are held at somewhat of a distance by the writing styles of their counterparts. Against Relativism surveys a huge corpus of important texts from both camps, showing many places where they converge and diverge. The most surprising theme of the work is that leading figures of postmodern thought, such as Der and de Man, are neither committed to, nor support, any variant of the relativist, anti-realist, or social-constructivist interpretations of science. Norris also holds that progeny of modern thought, such as Wittgenstein and Quine, who embrace such “relativist” interpretations, are mistaken.