Inconsistency, Rationality and Relativism

Authors

  • Robert C. Pinto University of Windsor

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22329/il.v17i2.2415

Keywords:

deductive closure, doxastic commitment, epistemic appraisal, epistemic faults, epistemic relativism, inconsistency, maximizing truth and minimizing falsehood, rationality, relativism, self-contradiction

Abstract

In section I, I argue that the principal reason why inconsistency is a fault is that it involves having at least one false belief. In section 2, I argue that inconsistency need not be a serious epistemic fault. The argument in section 2 is based on the notion that what matters epistemically is always in the final analysis an item's effect on attaining the goal of truth. In section 3 I describe two cases in which it is best from an epistemic point of view to knowingly retain inconsistent beliefs. In section 4 my goal is to put into perspective the charge that relativism ought to be rejected because it involves one in inconsistency.

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Published

1995-01-01

Issue

Vol. 17 No. 2 (1995)

Section

Articles

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