This chapter focuses on relativism, and outlines debate about relativism about epistemic modals. The debate will be helpful to say a bit more about the structure of contextualist theories, since contextualism is the main competitor to relativism, and probably is the default starting point view. Accordingly, much of the motivation for relativism comes from the purported inadequacy of the contextualist options. The chapter looks at some of the important features of contextualist views in general. It discusses the internal workings of (...) two different sorts of relativist theories and some standard arguments relativists have deployed to motivate relativism over contextualism. The chapter traces a few of the first steps of the ensuing dialectic of reply and objection and looks at a number of the standard replies to relativist arguments. It looks at some of the anti‐relativists' responses to the relativists' positive arguments. (shrink)

I think that there are good reasons to adopt a relativist semantics for epistemic modal claims such as ``the treasure might be under the palm tree'', according to which such utterances determine a truth value relative to something finer-grained than just a world (or a <world, time> pair). Anyone who is inclined to relativise truth to more than just worlds and times faces a problem about assertion. It's easy to be puzzled about just what purpose would be served by assertions (...) of this kind, and how to understand what we'd be up to in our use of sentences like ``the treasure might be under the palm tree'', if they have such peculiar truth conditions. After providing a very quick argument to motivate a relativist view of epistemic modals, I bring out and attempt to resolve this problem in making sense of the role of assertions with relativist truth conditions. Solving this problem should be helpful in two ways: first, it eliminates an apparently forceful objection to relativism, and second, spelling out the relativist account of assertion and communication will help to make clear just what the relativist position is, exactly, and why it's interesting. (shrink)

Are our beliefs justified only relatively to a specific culture or society? Is it possible to give reasons for the superiority of our scientific, epistemic methods? Markus Seidel sets out to answer these questions in his critique of epistemic relativism. Focusing on the work of the most prominent, explicitly relativist position in the sociology of scientific knowledge – so-called 'Edinburgh relativism' or the 'Strong Programme' –, he scrutinizes the key arguments for epistemic relativism from a philosophical perspective: underdetermination and (...) norm-circularity. His main negative result is that these arguments fall short of establishing epistemic relativism. -/- Despite arguing for epistemic absolutism, Seidel aims to provide an account of non-relative justification that nevertheless integrates the basic, correct intuition of the epistemic relativist. His main positive result is that the epistemic absolutist can very well accept the idea that people using different standards of justification can be equally justified in holding their beliefs: Rational disagreement, he maintains, is perfectly possible. -/- The book provides a detailed critique of relativism in the sociology of scientific knowledge and beyond. With its constructive part it aims at making conciliatory steps in a highly embittered discussion between sociology and philosophy of science. (shrink)

There are many contemporary sources and defenders of epistemological relativism which have not been considered thus far. I have, for example, barely touched on the voluminous literature regarding frameworks, conceptual schemes, and Wittgensteinian forms of life. Davidson's challenge to the scheme/content distinction and thereby to conceptual relativism, Rorty's acceptance of the Davidsonian argument and his use of it to defend a relativistic position, Winchian and other sociological and anthropological arguments for relativism, recent work in the sociology of science, and (...) Goodman's novel articulation of a relativism of worlds and of worldmaking, to mention just some of the contemporary loci of debate, all need to be addressed. So also do the plethora of relativistic arguments spawned by Kuhn and related literature in recent philosophy of science. Therefore, it cannot be said that there is no more to be said on behalf of epistemological relativism. Moreover, the positive task of delineating a defensible version of absolutism remains to be accomplished.Nevertheless, the defenses of relativism considered above do seem to have been successfully undercut. More specifically, the arguments for the incoherence of relativism are as compelling as ever, and have manifestly not been laid to rest by contemporary relativists. The basic Socratic insight that relativism is self-refuting, and so incoherent, remains a fundamental difficulty for those who would resuscitate and defend the ancient Protagorean doctrine or a modern variant of it. (shrink)

Steven Hales defends philosophical relativism by arguing that rational intuition, Christian revelation, and shamanistic use of hallucinogens generate true but conflicting propositions. The alternatives to relativism are naturalistic nihilism and skepticism, both of which he rejects, leaving us with a limited, philosophical relativism. I summarize Hales’s position and undermine its defense by criticizing the handling of skepticism, proposing another way out of the trilemma.

This paper argues for a possible-worlds interpretation of the arguments marshalled by Socrates against Protagoras in Plato’s Theaetetus. Specifically, it reads Protagoras’ position as implying a limited form of modal realism, and evaluates both the self-refutation sequence at 170a–71d and the Future Argument at 177c–9c on the basis of this reading. It emerges that Socrates’ project is only partly successful: while the three main arguments of the self-refutation sequence force Protagoras into ever more awkward and metaphysically top-heavy positions, (...) and the Future Argument is psychologically compelling, these arguments do not force a collapse of the relativist position. Protagoras can still defend himself, though the cost is high. (shrink)

This paper presents a naturalistic response to the challenge of epistemic relativism. The case of the Azande poison oracle is employed as an example of an alternative epistemic norm which may be used to justify beliefs about everyday occurrences. While a distinction is made between scepticism and relativism, an argument in support of epistemic relativism is presented that is based on the sceptical problem of the criterion. A response to the resulting relativistic position is then provided on the basis of (...) a particularist response to scepticism combined with a naturalistic approach to the warrant of epistemic norms. It is argued that it is possible to comparatively assess the ability of epistemic norms to lead to epistemic aims. As against the epistemic relativist, it is possible to provide an objective basis for the choice between alternative epistemic norms. (shrink)

Metaethical relativism is the view that whether a moral claim is true depends on the standards endorsed by an individual or society. This view is attractive because it allows one to hold that moral claims can be true or false in an ordinary correspondence sense, without being committed to the view that moral claims state objective facts. But what could it mean to say that a whether a moral claim is true depends on an individual or society’s standards? How could (...) a single claim be true or false in an ordinary sense, and yet be true for some people while false for others? This thesis defends a certain answer to this question: metaethical truth relativism. Metaethical relativists have historically endorsed a different view: content relativism, which is the view that the semantic contents of moral claims vary across contexts of use. However, semanticists working outside metaethics have recently shown that an alternative exists, namely truth relativism: the view that the truth values of moral contents vary across contexts. Metaethicists have been slow to investigate the significance of this discovery. This is surprising, because truth relativism appears to avoid some of the most influential objections to content relativist views. Thus, this development in semantics appears to offer an exciting new direction for research on relativism in metaethics. The scope of this thesis is not narrowly semantic, however. Questions in moral semantics often interconnect with questions in substantive metaethics, and the question of whether ethical thought and talk is semantically relativistic is no exception. Therefore, while the core of the this thesis focuses on moral semantics, it also contains a fair amount of substantive metaethical material, located primarily in the first and final chapters. The plan of the thesis is as follows. Chapters 1 & 2 begin with a discussion of the most historically influential argument for metaethical relativism: the argument from disagreement. Chapter 1 discusses an epistemic version of this argument, but concludes that this version provides only limited evidence for relativism. However, chapter 2 introduces a different version of the argument, with a more semantic focus, and begins to make the case that this argument provides evidence not only for metaethical relativism broadly construed, but for truth relativism in particular. The broad strokes of this argument are that there can be moral disagreements which are faultless and furthermore that only truth relativism can vindicate the sense that these are genuine disagreements, rather than mere differences of opinion. Chapter 2 presents empirical evidence for the claim that putative moral disagreements can be faultless. Chapters 3 and 4 then take a deep dive into the topic of disagreement. Chapter 3 develops a positive account of disagreement which is available only to truth relativists. And chapter 4 advances detailed arguments against contextualist accounts of disagreement. Chapters 3 and 4 together thus defend in detail the claim that truth relativism can, while content relativism cannot, account for the sense that there is genuine disagreement in the relevant cases. Chapters 2 through 4, therefore, form a single long argument for truth relativism. They show that there is a compelling argument for relativism broadly construed, and that deep analysis of the issues surrounding this argument favour truth relativism over content relativism. Chapter 5 zooms back out to the broader metaethical landscape, discussing two remaining objections to relativism. The first objection is that relativism has objectionably subjectivistic implications, and the second is that moral standards cannot helpfully be understood as determined by societies. In the course of responding to these objections, natural opportunities to flesh out the substantive metaethical commitments of the theory will arise. And this will set us up to conclude with a brief comparison of truth relativism with some of the other main options in the space of substantive metaethical theory. (shrink)

The central aim of this paper is to argue that the main motivation for endorsing colour relativism – namely, the occurrence of so-called standard variation phenomena – constitutes, in the end, a problem for the view itself which is not significantly smaller than the problem these phenomena constitute for most of the view’s competitors. Section 1 provides a brief characterization of the relativist position in question. In Section 2, I provide a prima facie case for colour relativism in the light (...) of the occurrence of standard variation phenomena, and I argue that a certain version of the view can be defended against certain objections that have been raised against colour relativism. Section 3 provides an argument for the central claim of this paper, that is, an argument to the conclusion that standard variation phenomena do, in the end, not at all favour colour relativism over its main competitors. Finally, in Section 4, I suggest and tentatively defend a hitherto neglected account of the meaning of colour terms that accommodates the phenomena in question. (shrink)

This paper develops a version of the self-refutation argument against relativism in the teeth of the prevailing response by relativists: that this argument begs the question against them. It is maintained that although weaker varieties of relativism are not self-refuting, strong varieties are faced by this argument with a choice between making themselves absolute (one thing is absolutely true - relativism); or reflexive (relativism is 'true for' the relativist). These positions are in direct conflict. The commonest response, Reflexive Relativism, is (...) shown to be vulnerable to an iterated version of the self-refutation argument. As a result, Reflexive Relativism possesses only the appearance of content, being either incoherent, or a regressively disguised version of Absolute Relativism. Concluding remarks on Absolute Relativism acknowledge this to be a bare, formal possibility, but claim that in fact it must represent one of a range of weaker varieties of relativism that alone remain tenable. (shrink)

Alternative theories of relativistic rotation considered viable as of 2004 are compared in the light of experiments reported in 2005. En route, the contentious issue of simultaneity choice in rotation is resolved by showing that only one simultaneity choice, the one possessing continuous time, gives rise, via the general relativistic equation of motion, to the correct Newtonian limit Coriolis acceleration. In addition, the widely dispersed argument purporting Lorentz contraction in rotation and the concomitant curved surface of a rotating disk is (...) analyzed and argued to be lacking for more than one reason. It is posited that not by theoretical arguments, but only via experiment can we know whether such effect exists in rotation or not. The Coriolis/simultaneity correlation, and the results of the 2005 experiments, support the Selleri theory as being closest to the truth, though it is incomplete in a more general applicability sense, because it does not provide a global metric. Two alternatives, a modified Klauber approach and a Selleri–Klauber hybrid, are presented which are consistent with recent experiment and have a global metric, thereby making them applicable to rotation problems of all types. (shrink)

Relativism, an ancient philosophical doctrine, is once again a topic of heated debate. In this book, Maria Baghramian and Annalisa Coliva present the recent arguments for and against various forms of relativism. -/- The first two chapters introduce the conceptual and historical contours of relativism. These are followed by critical investigations of relativism about truth, conceptual relativism, epistemic relativism, and moral relativism. The concluding chapter asks whether it is possible to make sense of relativism as a philosophical thesis. -/- (...) The book introduces readers to the main types of relativism and the arguments in their favor. It also goes beyond the expository material to engage in more detailed critical responses to the key positions and authors under discussion. -/- Including chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading, and a glossary, Relativism is essential reading for students of philosophy as well as those in related disciplines where relativism is studied, such as anthropology, sociology, and politics. (shrink)

This paper examines the popular philosophical theory of moral relativism. Traditionally, the theory argues that communities have their own conceptual frameworks of morality that are inaccessible to those outside of the community. Thus, one community cannot give another community a moral reason to change a practice. In this paper, I will examine David Velleman’s version of the theory presented in his book Foundations for Moral Relativism. This version posits that the drive towards mutual interpretability is a universal drive among human (...) communities. From this drive stem all the practices and moral values of communities. However, Velleman does not believe that this implies that communities can understand each others’ conceptual frameworks. In this way, his account remains a normal version of moral relativism. I will argue that there are some cases in which a person can understand a different community’s conceptual framework enough to provide a reason for that community to change a practice. Importantly, my argument will not say that the reasons for change are moral reasons. They will be practical reasons based on the normative fact that human communities should strive towards mutual interpretability. Thus, my account will also maintain the crucial tenets of moral relativism. If accomplished, this argument will add a great power to the theory. (shrink)

Though moral relativism has had its supporters over the years, it is not a dominant position in philosophy. I will argue here, though, that the view is an attractive position. It evades some hardcore challenges that face absolutism, and it is reconcilable with an appealing emotivist approach to moral attitudes. In previous work, I have offered considerations in favor of a version of moral relativism that I call “perspectivalism.” These considerations are primarily grounded in linguistic data. Here I offer a (...) self-standing argument for perspectivalism. I begin with an argument against moral absolutism. I then argue that moral terms, such as ‘wrong’ and ‘right’, require for their application that the moral judge instantiate particular affective states, and I use this claim to provide further defense of moral relativism. (shrink)

It has sometimes been argued that Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy is marked by relativism. According to this view people view general concepts in relative terms due to different considerations and perceptions. More specifically, there is a tendency among some philosophers to assign the Wittgensteinian concept of form of life to the idea of culture. The argument goes like this: as language games and forms of life develop within a particular culture and cultures are different they are no absolute phenomena but rather (...) relative depending on the frame within which they developed. I would like to take up this thought and examine whether we can find any relativistic position in Wittgenstein’s writings. The question is whether the existence of a multitude of forms of life points to any sort of relativism. Many philosophers have speculated over the significant concept of “form of life”. There has been an ongoing debate over the question whether the concept is to be understood in the singular or in the plural. The discussion here revolves around the question of whether there is only one prevailing form of life to which others can be subsumed. Or else, is there a variety of coexisting forms of life of equal value? (shrink)

This essay responds to an article, “Epistemic Grace: Antirelativism as Theology in Disguise,” by the philosopher and sociologist of knowledge David Bloor that was published in Common Knowledge 13, nos. 2–3 : 250–80. Bloor's main argument was that there is no third way between relativism and absolutism—that all philosophical positions must fall under one or the other heading. Daniel Paksi's response is that Bloor covertly subscribes to a trichotomy of umbrella headings: idealist relativism, materialist relativism, and absolutism. Bloor, it is (...) argued, connects relativism with neo-Darwinist materialism in order to differentiate his own kind of relativism from the irrealist kind, which denies scientific progress. Paksi argues as well that third ways between idealism and materialism are available—for example, the emergentism of Michael Polanyi—but his main claim is that materialism itself is an absolutist view and thus that its supposed compatibility with relativism undermines Bloor's own aims. (shrink)

Although relativism is most often associated with ethics, one can find defenses of relativism in virtually any area of philosophy. In what follows, I will narrow my focus considerably. I first discuss the general structure of relativist positions and arguments. I will then examine several influential ideas concerning relativism in the late 20th century. Finally, I end by considering the rise of relativism in one area outside of ethics, epistemology.

The “ontological turn” is a recent movement within cultural anthropology. Its proponents want to move beyond a representationalist framework, where cultures are treated as systems of belief (concepts, etc.) that provide different perspectives on a single world. Authors who write in this vein move from talk of many cultures to many “worlds,” thus appearing to affirm a form of relativism. We argue that, unlike earlier forms of relativism, the ontological turn in anthropology is not only immune to the arguments (...) of Donald Davidson’s “The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme,” but it affirms and develops the antirepresentationalist position of Davidson’s subsequent essays. (shrink)

The “ontological turn” is a recent movement within cultural anthropology. Its proponents want to move beyond a representationalist framework, where cultures are treated as systems of belief (concepts, etc.) that provide different perspectives on a single world. Authors who write in this vein move from talk of many cultures to many “worlds,” thus appearing to affirm a form of relativism. We argue that, unlike earlier forms of relativism, the ontological turn in anthropology is not only immune to the arguments (...) of Donald Davidson’s “The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme,” but it affirms and develops the antirepresentationalist position of Davidson’s subsequent essays. (shrink)

This paper is based on the assumption that critical rationalism represents a middle position between absolutist and relativistic positions because it rejects all attempts of ultimate justification as well as basic relativistic claims. Even though the critical-rationalist problem-solving-approach based on the method of trial and error leads to an acknowledgment of the plurality of theories and moral standards, it must not be confused with relativism. The relativistic claims of the incommensurability of cultures and the equality of all views of the (...) world and all moral systems can be challenged by two basic critical‐rationalist arguments:(1) Popper’s critique of ‚the myth of the framework’; (2) the criticalrationalist conception of different levels of rationality (Albert, Agassi and Jarvie). In ethics moral standards and norms can be interpreted from a critical‐rationalist perspective as undogmatic suggestions for the regulation of social behaviour and as attempts to answer different problems, resulting from social life. This allows for the comparison of different moral standards, norms, practices and institutions with reference to the underlying problem situation and the search for culturally overlapping moral standards. (shrink)

This paper is a critical analysis of Tristram Engelhardt''s attempts to avoid unrestricted nihilism and relativism. The focus of attention is his recent book, The Foundations of Bioethics (Oxford University Press, 1996). No substantive or content-full bioethics (e.g., that of Roman Catholicism or the Samurai) has an intersubjectively verifiable and universally binding foundation, Engelhardt thinks, for unaided secular reason cannot show that any particular substantive morality (or moral code) is correct. He thus seems to be committed to either nihilism or (...) relativism. The first is the view that there is not even one true or valid moral code, and the second is the view that there is a plurality of true or valid moral codes. However, Engelhardt rejects both nihilism and relativism, at least in unrestricted form. Strictly speaking, he himself is a universalist, someone who believes that there is a single true moral code. Two argumentative strategies are employed by him to fend off unconstrained nihilism and relativism. The first argues that although all attempts to establish a content-full morality on the basis of secular reason fail, secular reason can still establish a content-less, purely procedural morality. Although not content-full and incapable of providing positive direction in life, much less a meaning of life, such a morality does limit the range of relativism and nihilism. The second argues that there is a single true, content-full morality. Grace and revelation, however, are needed to make it available to us; secular reason alone is not up to the task. This second line of argument is not pursued in The Foundations at any length, but it does crop up at times, and if it is sound, nihilism and relativism can be much more thoroughly routed than the first line of argument has it.Engelhardt''s position and argumentative strategies are exposed at length and accorded a detailed critical examination. In the end, it is concluded that neither strategy will do, and that Engelhardt is probably committed to some form of relativism. (shrink)

The particular behavior exhibited by sentences featuring predicates of personal taste such as “tasty” may drive us to claim that their truth depends on the context of assessment, as MacFarlane does. MacFarlane considers two ways in which the truth of a sentence can depend on the context of assessment. On the one hand, we can say that the sentence expresses a proposition whose truth-value depends on the context of assessment. This is MacFarlane’s position, which he calls “truth relativism” and, following (...) Weatherson, I rebrand as “nonindexical relativism”. On the other hand, we can say that what proposition a sentence expresses depends on the context of assessment. MacFarlane calls this position “content relativism” and rejects it on the grounds that it leads to implausible readings of certain sentences and is unable to account for the speaker’s authority over the content of her assertions. In this paper, I too argue against content relativism, which, again following Weatherson, I rebrand as “indexical relativism”. However, my arguments against the theory are different from MacFarlane’s, which I prove unsound. In particular, I show that any version of indexical relativism will be unable to account for at least one of the phenomena that have been standardly used to motivate nonindexical relativism—faultless disagreement and retraction—in most of the ways in which it has been proposed to understand them. (shrink)

This paper presents a particularist and naturalist response to epistemic relativism. The response is based on an analysis of the source of epistemic relativism, according to which epistemic relativism is closely related to Pyrrhonian scepticism. The paper starts with a characterization of epistemic relativism. Such relativism is explicitly distinguished from epistemological contextualism. Next the paper presents an argument for epistemic relativism that is based on the Pyrrhonian problem of the criterion. It then considers a response to the problem of the (...) criterion proposed by Roderick Chisholm, which is based on epistemological particularism. After sketching Chisholm’s approach, a response to epistemic relativism is presented which combines Chisholm’s particularism with epistemic naturalism and reliabilism. A number of objections to the position are then considered. The paper ends with remarks about the relationship between particularism and the naturalistic response proposed to epistemic relativism. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to lay out a meta‐ethical position that is inspired by the framework of Wittgenstein's later philosophy. To achieve this goal, this paper is divided into two parts. First, I explore recent attempts to tie Wittgenstein's epistemology in On Certainty to moral epistemology. I argue that there can be a meaningful parallel drawn between the epistemic certainties discussed in On Certainty and what I consider to be moral certainties. These moral certainties are unjustified fundamental moral attitudes (...) that underlie our moral practices. Then, I show how the debate over moral certainty has branched into two directions. One direction presents the concept of moral certainty as a naturalistic concept. On this reading, moral certainties transcend time and place since they are rooted in our natural tendencies to act or not act in certain ways. The other direction presents moral certainty as a distinctly relativistic concept. On this reading, we have our moral certainties because we belong to communities that agree on these certainties. In the second section, I argue that we have both natural, universal certainties and localized, relative certainties. I also argue that our localized certainties are constrained by non‐moral facts about ourselves and about the world. To make this argument, I rely on Wittgenstein's concept of “general facts of nature.” The result of the paper is a meta‐ethical position that can be located in between moral relativism and moral realism. (shrink)

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;My aim has been to present an abstract model for the acquisition of knowledge, to develop its consequences, and to compare these consequences with science$\sp1$. ;My intention has been to take this remark seriously. I hope to demonstrate that the papers which Feyerabend wrote between 1955 and the mid-1960's can most profitably be understood as a contribution to this project. The first three chapters lay the groundwork of Feyerabend's (...) earlier epistemology. They pick out the themes in his model for the acquisition of 'knowledge'. Chapter One sets out Feyerabend's rather unorthodox conception of scientific or theoretical realism, which has not received the attention which I believe it deserves. I detail Feyerabend's objections to some anti-realist positions and outline the formidable structure of his central argument for realism. I then consider a vital and problematic part of his epistemology, the 'pragmatic theory of observation'. ftn$\sp1$'Reply To Criticism: Comments on Smart, Sellars and Putnam', reprinted in Feyerabend's Philosophical Papers volume I, p.104. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal, Stump argues that pragmatism distances itself from absolutism due to its assent to fallibilism while it rejects relativism at the same time because of its insistence on experience. Therefore, pragmatism can provide a third position between relativism and absolutism. I argue in this note that his argument is profoundly inadequate for both claims. Fallibilism is compatible with both relativism and absolutism, and accordingly cannot be considered as the middle ground. Furthermore, the experience itself (...) and the way it is inferred from is the subject of the relativists’ debates, not a response. (shrink)

In recent work, Herman Cappelen has defended a position he calls content relativism (CR): the thesis that one and the same utterance may have different content at different contexts of assessment or interpretation. In his most recent treatment of the topic, Cappelen argues for CR using examples involving prescriptive language: instructions, orders, and laws. By pointing out some problems for Cappelen’s argument and suggesting ways they might be fixed, I hope to show how CR might best be developed and defended.

Over the last three decades, non-adaptationism has developed as an alternative model to more traditional, adaptationist approaches within Evolutionary Epistemology. Despite its great explanatory strength, non-adaptationist EE finds a potential Achilles heel in its adherence to conceptual relativism, namely the idea that empirical content can be relative to many different and radically incommensurable conceptual schemes. In his seminal essay “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme”, Donald Davidson did in fact prove the unintelligibility of an analogous form of conceptual (...) relativism. Although Davidson’s original intent was to debunk a conceptual relativist position which he discerned in the works of authors such as Kuhn, Quine, and Whorf, given the apparent similarity between the conceptual relativism supported by non-adaptationist EE and the one criticised by Davidson, one might well wonder if Davidson’s objections would have the same debunking effect if applied to non-adaptationist EE. In this paper I propose to answer this question by directing Davidson’s critiques of conceptual relativism to non-adaptationist EE and by testing to what extent the latter is de facto undermined by Davidson’s attacks. I demonstrate that Davidson’s arguments do not detract from the reliability of non-adaptationist perspectives and, to some extent, they appear to substantiate the non-adaptationist evolutionary epistemological cause anew. (shrink)

Different views on the connection between relativism and feminist epistemologies are often asserted but rarely are these views clearly argued for. This has resulted in a confusingly polarised debate, with some people convinced that feminist epistemologies are committed to relativism (and that this is a reason so be suspicious of them) whilst others make similar criticisms of anti-feminist views and argue that relativism has no place in feminist epistemologies. This chapter is an attempt to clarify this debate. I begin by (...) asking the question “are feminist projects and goals best served by relativism, or by absolutism?” I then sketch out four broad positions one could take on the answer to this question, and evaluate arguments for each one. In the end I conclude that feminist projects can, at least sometimes, be served by relativism, and that the claim they can be served by anti-relativism is under-supported. (shrink)

The paper is primarily concerned with laying out the space of positions that purport to account for semantic context sensitivity of natural language expressions and with making a prima facie case for relativism. I start with distinguishing between pre-semantic, semantic and post-semantic context sensitivity. In the following section I briefly present the classic picture of indexicals due to David Kaplan and assess some arguments for the introduction of certain parameters in the circumstances of evaluation (specifically, time). In section III (...) I envisage two views that purport to expand semantic context sensitivity beyond expressions from “the basic set”: indexicalism and contextualism. In section IV, by means of an example taken from John Perry, I draw attention to a specific form of semantic context sensitivity, namely that in which what is affected by context are the circumstances of evaluation of utterances rather than their content. The example leads to the necessity of distinguishing between two roles of context: a content-determinative one and a circumstance-determinative one. In section V I introduce relativism as the view incorporating the claim that context has a circumstance-determinative role and contrast it with the two views presented before. In the final section I analyze a certain type of argument usually adduced in favor of contextualism (the so-called “context-shifting arguments”) and show that in order to work it has to rule out relativism. I conclude by claiming that the battle must be fought by giving arguments to the effect that a certain parameter should or should not be part of the circumstances of evaluation rather than the content of utterances. (shrink)

Protagoras was an important Greek thinker of the fifth century BC, the most famous of the so called Sophists, though most of what we know of him and his thought comes to us mainly through the dialogues of his strenuous opponent Plato. In this book, Ugo Zilioli offers a sustained and philosophically sophisticated examination of what is, in philosophical terms, the most interesting feature of Protagoras' thought for modern readers: his role as the first Western thinker to argue for relativism. (...) Zilioli relates Protagoras' relativism with modern forms of relativism, in particular the 'robust relativism' of Joseph Margolis, gives an integrated account both of the perceptual relativism examined in Plato's Theaetetus and the ethical or social relativism presented in the first part of Plato's Protagoras and offers an integrated and positive analysis of Protagoras' thought, rather than focusing on ancient criticisms and responses to his thought. This is a deeply scholarly work which brings much argument to bear to the claim that Protagoras was and remains Plato's subtlest philosophical enemy. (shrink)

This paper responds to criticism presented by Steven Bland of my naturalistic approach to epistemic relativism. In my view, the central argument for epistemic relativism derives from the Pyrrhonian problem of the criterion. This opens relativism to an anti-sceptical response. I combine Roderick Chisholm’s particularist response to the problem of the criterion with a reliabilist conception of epistemic warrant. A distinction is made between epistemic norms which provide genuine warrant and those which do not. On the basis of this distinction, (...) we may reject the relativist claim that all epistemic norms have equal standing. I consider three points made by Bland against my position. These relate to epistemic pluralism, the relevance of evolution to epistemic pluralism, and empirical evidence as a basic source of knowledge. (shrink)

The interest and longevity of philosophical positions and arguments often seem to be an inverse function of the clarity with which these positions and arguments are articulated. Frequently, the most interesting positions are those pregnant with ambiguity and ever teetering on the brink of incoherence. Examples are not hard to find in the history of philosophy. Kant’s philosophy is full of them: the role and status of the Ding an sich; the proof-structure of the transcendental deduction of the (...) categories; the nature and function of the transcendental unity of apperception. Or recall the endless controversies over the unity of Aristotle’s metaphysics. Relativism seems no exception: its interest seems the greater the more obvious its flirtation with absurdity, and the more promiscuous its connection with other claims in the neighborhood. (shrink)

This paper makes a small point concerning the contraposition of relativism and absolutism. Relativism need not be vulnerable to the self‐refutation argument; as for internal consistency both positions can be equally right. They are asymmetric, however, in that according to the absolutist only one of the two positions can be right, whereas from the relativist's viewpoint they can both be right.

This paper discusses conceptual relations between the position of relativism of values and the basic principle of tolerance, as well as both objections stated against the very conceptual framework – its wrong conclusion and insufficient grounding with regard to the presupposed readiness for tolerance. A detailed argumentation reveals that these objections are not appropriate for the actual conceptual structure of corresponding relativistic theories and their possible forms. In this way the relativistic position can be sustained.Im vorliegenden Aufsatz werden die begrifflichen (...) Verbindungen zwischen dem Standpunkt des W ertrelativismus und dem Toleranzgrundsatz erörtert sowie die beiden im gegebenen Zusammenhang vorgebrachten Einwände des Trugschlusses und der fehlenden Begründung für die vorausgesetzte Toleranzbereitschaft diskutiert. Anhand eingehender Argumentation wird gezeigt, dass jene Einwände der tatsächlichen konzeptionellen Struktur entsprechender relativistischer Lehren und ihren möglichen Ausformungen nicht ganz gerecht werden. Somit kann der relativistische Standpunkt erhalten bleiben.U članku se razmatraju pojmovne veze između stajališta relativizma vrijednosti i osnovnog načela tolerancije te se diskutiraju oba prigovora koja se iznose s obzirom na dotični pojmovni sklop – pogrešan zaključak i nedostatno utemeljenje s obzirom na pretpostavljenu spremnost na toleranciju. Podrobnom argumentacijom pokazuje se da ti prigovori nisu primjereni stvarnoj koncepcijskoj strukturi odgovarajućih relativističkih učenja i njihovih mogućih formi. Time se relativističko stajalište može održati. (shrink)

Below I ask whether the theoretical assumptions of the sociology of knowledge imply a subjectivistic and relativistic approach to cognition theory—a matter that has already been discussed in Polish subject literature (among others by Adam Schaff). Does the “social conditioning of cognition” conception propounded by the sociology of knowledge deny the existence of objective truth and adequate knowledge? Karl Mannheim himself called the sociology of knowledge an anti-relativist position. The critics of his anti-relativist argumentation say it is full of ambiguities (...) and contradictions. I will attempt to take a closer look at this problem, and, at the same time, at the relation between Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge project and such measures of the adequacy of knowledge as the coherence and general consensus criterion. The main question I will try to answer is whether the Mannheimian sociology of knowledge project is a form of epistemological relativism (in the specific meaning of the term I use here), and if not, in what sense and to what degree it can be considered a position convergent with the relative truth conception. (shrink)

In recent decades, the scientific study of consciousness has significantly increased our understanding of this elusive phenomenon. Yet, despite critical development in our understanding of the functional side of consciousness, we still lack a fundamental theory regarding its phenomenal aspect. There is an “explanatory gap” between our scientific knowledge of functional consciousness and its “subjective,” phenomenal aspects, referred to as the “hard problem” of consciousness. The phenomenal aspect of consciousness is the first-person answer to “what it’s like” question, and it (...) has thus far proved recalcitrant to direct scientific investigation. Naturalistic dualists argue that it is composed of a primitive, private, non-reductive element of reality that is independent from the functional and physical aspects of consciousness. Illusionists, on the other hand, argue that it is merely a cognitive illusion, and that all that exists are ultimately physical, non-phenomenal properties. We contend that both the dualist and illusionist positions are flawed because they tacitly assume consciousness to be an absolute property that doesn’t depend on the observer. We develop a conceptual and a mathematical argument for a relativistic theory of consciousness in which a system either has or doesn’t have phenomenal consciousness with respect to some observer. Phenomenal consciousness is neither private nor delusional, just relativistic. In the frame of reference of the cognitive system, it will be observable and in other frame of reference it will not. These two cognitive frames of reference are both correct, just as in the case of an observer that claims to be at rest while another will claim that the observer has constant velocity. Given that consciousness is a relativistic phenomenon, neither observer position can be privileged, as they both describe the same underlying reality. Based on relativistic phenomena in physics we developed a mathematical formalization for consciousness which bridges the explanatory gap and dissolves the hard problem. Given that the first-person cognitive frame of reference also offers legitimate observations on consciousness, we conclude by arguing that philosophers can usefully contribute to the science of consciousness by collaborating with neuroscientists to explore the neural basis of phenomenal structures. (shrink)

This paper makes a small point concerning the contraposition of relativism and absolutism. Relativism need not be vulnerable to the self‐refutation argument; as for internal consistency both positions can be equally right. They are asymmetric, however, in that according to the absolutist only one of the two positions can be right, whereas from the relativist's viewpoint they can both be right.

Context: Although Josef Mitterer’s non-dualism has received increasing attention in recent years, it is still underrated by philosophers. It is an ambitious and unusual treatment of epistemological problems concerning truth and reality. Problem: Is non-dualism tenable? Is conceptual relativism tenable? Method: On the basis of a pragmatic semantics, Mitterer’s arguments against conceptual relativism are shown to be unjustified. Results: Non-dualism lacks a clear conception of semantics. Given the similarities to Robert Brandom’s account of truth, as well as Mitterer’s preoccupation (...) with Wittgenstein, pragmatic semantics suggests itself for filling this gap. But then conceptual relativism seems to be the more attractive position. Implications: This paper is a critical survey of non-dualism and a defense of conceptual relativism, but it might also be a worthwhile reading for those interested in semantic issues such as the difference between Ludwig Wittgenstein’s and Robert Brandom’s approaches to “meaning as use.” Constructivist content: Non-dualism is sometimes regarded as an alternative to realistic and constructivist positions in epistemology. This paper, however, defends conceptual relativism, which is a kind of realism that can also be seen as a kind of (non-radical) constructivism. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to draw attention to the position of psychoanalysis regarding the opposition between the quest for truth and relativism. It is a conventional opposition of contemporary thought. On one hand, the quest for truth, and on the other, relativism, as the fundament of our intellectual and political life. I do this by means of Lacanian teachings. My objective is to take on the theoretical tools of psychoanalysis and the consequences of clinical facts, in order to (...) enable a critical reflection on this topic. Before proceeding to the precise argument, I briefly introduce the historical ground correlated to modern subjectivity, characterized by the vanishing of the guarantee of both truth and knowledge. Then I then go into the topic by means of a survey of Lacan’s reading of the path of modern logic. Lacan interprets the whole history of logic as a bungled action, “every bungled action is a successful discourse.” In fact, it points to the cardinal place of lack, which is the topic of psychoanalysis. It opens towards a deeper understanding of the role of the signifier of signification – the Bedeutung des Phallus. Lacan’s interpretation of the whole history of logic transforms the achievements of modern logical thought into the writings of a point de capiton for collective rationality. The key here is to focus on the capital role of what I call in conclusion “an inaccessible point” for both individual and collective life. This is the issue I address in the last point. The article is divided into five points: 1. the relativistic drift; 2. the guarantee of knowledge; 3. the guarantee of truth; 4. logic and point de capiton; and 5. the signification (Bedeutung) of the Phallus. (shrink)

This book confronts the threats of epistemic relativism and Pyrrhonian scepticism to analytic philosophy. Epistemic relativists reject absolute notions of knowledge and justification, while sceptics claim that knowledge and justification of any kind are unattainable. If either of these views is correct, then there can be no objective basis for thinking that one set of methods does a better job of delivering accurate information than any other set of methods. Philosophers have generally sought to resist these threats by responding to (...) the argument that seems to motivate both positions: the Agrippan trilemma. Steven Bland argues that this is a mistaken strategy. He surveys the most influential responses to the Agrippan trilemma, and shows that none of them succeeds in undermining epistemic relativism. Bland also offers a new, dialectical strategy of challenging epistemic relativism by uncovering how epistemic methods depend on one another for their applications. By means of this novel analysis, the book concludes that there are principled reasons to prefer naturalistic to non-naturalistic methods, even if these reasons do little to ease the threat of scepticism. (shrink)

Georges Florovsky’s essay ‘On the Grounding of Logical Relativism’ has attracted attention from various theologians and students of Russian thought but has until now avoided a serious philosophical analysis and critique. The complex but thought-provoking essay presents Florovsky’s so-called logical relativism, a position which he seemed to maintain for the rest of his career. This paper will show that by conflating ‘scientific’ with ‘alethic’ relativism, Florovsky exposed himself to detrimental philosophical and theological critique. After some methodological remarks, the first part (...) of the paper will introduce Florovsky’s article, and present its central argument as a scientific relativism which is then conflated with a truly logical or alethic relativism. The second and third parts will highlight the philosophical and theological problems with Florovsky’s position. (shrink)

The idea of conceptual schemes is one of the most influential and widely used notions in contemporary philosophy. Within the analytic tradition the idea occupies a fundamental position in positivist views as well as in replacing them post-positivist conceptions. Outside the analytic tradition a similar idea is of key importance in structuralist and post-structuralist theories. Despite the broad applicability of the notion of a conceptual scheme, its precise sense is far from being evident in the context of various philosophical trends. (...) Moreover, the well-known American philosopher Donald Davidson's position is that any clear, non-metaphorical meaning cannot be as - cribed to that notion at all – the statement which he tried to substantiate in his famous paper On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme published in 1974.The present paper is aimed, firstly, at outlining the historico-philosophical evolution of the idea of conceptual scheme, concentrating on its development in logical positivism and post-positivist theories of such philosophers as Quine, Sellars, Kuhn, et al., and, secondly, at examining Davidson's criticism of both the idea and the position of conceptual relativism which was raised on its ground, revealing the assumptions which that criticism relies on and which concern relations between language and thought, truth and translation, as well as the role of the scheme-content dualism for empiricism and the place of extensionalism in semantics, etc. Our purpose, on the one hand, is to evaluate the historico-philosophical significance of Davidson's criticism; on the other hand, it is to show that his critical arguments remain to be actual since they shed a new light on the idea of conceptual schemes and allow us to determine their place in tackling the fundamental philosophical question of a relation between reality, thought and language. (shrink)

The view that the basic statements in some areas of language are never true or false absolutely, but only relative to an assessment-perspective, has been advanced by several philosophers in the last few years. This paper offers a critique of that position, understood first as a claim about our everyday concept of truth, and second as a claim about the key theoretical concept of an adequate empirical semantics. Central to this pair of critical discussions will be an argument that the (...) appeal of truth-relativism derives from a specific misconception: namely, that our ordinary concept of absolute truth is substantive — a form of metaphysical or epistemological determination. Building on this argument, the present paper aims to undercut relativism about truth both as a purely philosophical thesis and as an approach to the science of meaning. (shrink)

The article deals with linguistic relativism in the decisions of the Austrian Verfassungsgerichtshof and the Czech Constitutional Court. It focuses on the Courts argumentation in which the state of language and its limiting perception of the word gender about non-binary and intersex people were used. The article conducts an in-depth analysis of two judgments. The first is the ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic Case No. Pl. ÚS 2/20, in which the Court argued the absence of gender-neutral (...) names in Czech as one of the reasons for rejecting the constitutional complaint. The second is the judgment of the Austrian Verfassungsgerichtshof Case No. G 77/2018-9, in which the Court concluded as part of the constitutional review that the language can be adapted to the societal situation. The paper analyses selected parts of both decisions, interpreted using fundamental theses of linguistic relativism (and determinism). I argue that the Czech Constitutional Court has adopted a conservative approach without considering the current societal situation. This opened space for the unequal status of people with an alternative gender identity in society based on ignoring inclusive language, which is the exact opposite of the position of the Austrian Verfassungsgerichtshof. (shrink)

When we disagree with each other at the beginning of a debate, we are confident that we are right and the other side is just wrong, 2017). But at the end of the debate, we could be persuaded that we are wrong and the other side is right. This happens a lot when we disagree on empirical or factual claims. However, when we disagree with each other on moral issues, it is quite rare that either side is persuaded. We could (...) be frustrated by the other’s stubbornness. But sometimes we come to see that the other side has a point. Their view seems reasonable. We might even feel that we could have taken their moral perspective and values. This phenomenon of moral ambivalence is discussed extensively by David Wong as part of his argument for moral relativism that there is no single true morality. Recently, Agustín Vicente and Agustín Arrieta write to refute Wong’s argument. They argue that moral ambivalence is a phenomenon of moral pluralism, the position that there are different acceptable courses of actions, rather than moral relativism. In this paper, I argue that moral ambivalence does not support the kind of moral pluralism that Vicente and Arrieta argue for. Furthermore, I point out that moral ambivalence does not support Wong’s naturalism, the position that morality has human nature constraints, but it does support the kind of relativism that he endorses. (shrink)

This paper deals with a specific version of metaethical moral relativism, known as “speaker-relativism”. It starts by explaining the position, focussing on the views of two prominent contemporary relativists, Gilbert Harman and James Dreier. Both authors draw an analogy between ethics and modern physics: just as Einstein showed that judgments about time or mass were always relative to a specific frame of reference, Dreier and Harman argue that “absolutist” judgments about moral rightness or wrongness need to be reinterpreted as relative (...) to some particular moral system. They also claim that this analogy allows us to salvage ordinary moral talk. I consider a number of possible objections to their argument, beginning with one, concerning the possibility of moral disagreement, which I think can be successfully answered, and then presenting two criticisms that I take to be more problematic for the relativist. I argue that despite its initial appeal, Harman and Dreier’s suggestion regarding our use of moral language seems to be a source of confusion in certain cases of moral disagreement, and does not appear able to preserve specifically moral normativity – which leads me to conclude that it is best viewed as a variant of an error theory about morality, rather than as the distinct metaethical position it purports to be. (shrink)

Epistemic relativists often appeal to an epistemic incommensurability thesis. One notable example is the position advanced by Wittgenstein in On certainty (1969). However, Ian Hacking’s radical denial of the possibility of objective epistemic reasons for belief poses, we suggest, an even more forceful challenge to mainstream meta-epistemology. Our central objective will be to develop a novel strategy for defusing Hacking’s line of argument. Specifically, we show that the epistemic incommensurability thesis can be resisted even if we grant the very insights (...) that lead Hacking to claim that epistemic reasons are always relative to a style of reasoning. Surprisingly, the key to defusing the argument is to be found in recent mainstream work on the epistemic state of objectual understanding. (shrink)

In this contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Comparative Relativisim,” Smith argues that relativism is a chimera, half straw man, half red herring. Over the past century, she shows, objections to the supposed position so named have typically involved either crucially improper paraphrases of general observations of the variability and contingency of human perceptions, interpretations, and judgments or dismaying inferences gratuitously drawn from such observations. More recently, the label relativism has been elicited by the display, especially by anthropologists or historians, (...) of attitudes of epistemic tolerance or efforts at explanatory or evaluative symmetry. Objections here commonly involve mistaken, unwarranted universalizing of those attitudes or recommendations. Purported refutations of what is identified as relativism commonly have no force for alleged relativists because relativism-refuters commonly deploy and depend on the very concepts (e.g., truth and reason) and relations (e.g., between what are referred to as facts and evidence) that are at issue. The result is circular argumentation, intellectual nonengagement, and perfect deadlock. Although there are signs that this tragicomic episode of intellectual history has run its course, two contemporary sites of antirelativist energy are worth noting. One is the claim that so-called cultural relativism is refuted by the existence of cognitive universals. The other is the fear that evaluative symmetry leads to ethically or politically debilitating neutrality. Consideration of the nature of cognitive universals indicates that their existence does not contradict observations of the significance of cultural variability. Consideration of anxieties about the supposed quietistic implications of commitments to epistemic tolerance or symmetry indicates that such anxieties are misplaced. (shrink)

I am concerned with the metaphilosophical questions of how we are to proceed when doing philosophy, and whether there is more than one way of achieving our aim. These questions are tackled initially by an examination of the answers given by Richard Double in his book Metaphilosophy and Freewill. It is argued that the considerations he rehearses in favour of metaphilosophical relativism are inconclusive, and that, in any case, it is a position that contains serious internal difficulties. An analogy is (...) made with the problems encountered by Hume's sceptical theory of the self, and it is suggested that Double, like Hume, is implicitly presupposing the conclusion he is seeking to deny. He does so by relying upon certain critical procedures in the course of his argument. Next, I consider how Double might respond to this criticism, and it is concluded that such a rejoinder fails. Finally, I return to the questions which served as the starting point of this discussion, and I apply the conclusions I have reached to their possible resolution. It is claimed that a form of rationalism has been vindicated. (shrink)