Gellner’s case against cognitive relativism

Thesis Eleven 128 (1):26-40 (2015)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Moral relativism is a tragedy and cognitive relativism is a farce – so Gellner argues. First the tragedy: moral relativism is consistent and compelling given moral diversity and contention worldwide. Then the farce: cognitive relativism is self-contradictory and logically false; it is also absurd in view of hard science, which gets testable, cumulative, applicable results that yield high tech; and it is insidious – where logical consistency and empirical accuracy are a dead letter, mummery rules.

Categories

Keywords

Reprint years

DOI

10.1177/0725513615584212

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,423

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

My notes

Similar books and articles

Relativism and universals.Ernest Gellner - 1982 - In Martin Hollis & Steven Lukes (eds.), Rationality and Relativism. MIT Press. pp. 181--200.
Deconstructing, and reconstructing, Popper.Antony Flew - 1990 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 4 (1-2):155-172.
Relativism and the Social Sciences.Ernest Gellner - 1986 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 37 (3):367-369.
Ernest Gellner: selected philosophical themes.Ernest Gellner - 1973 - New York: Routledge.
Cognitive relativism.Emrys Westacott - 2006 - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Is everything relative?Nicholas Alchin - 2007 - Think 5 (14):27-32.
Words and Things: An Examination of, and an Attack on, Linguistic Philosophy, a Special Issue of Cognitive Neuropsychology.Ernest Gellner - 2005 - Routledge.
Review of Ernest Gellner: Relativism and the Social Sciences. [REVIEW]S. Körner - 1986 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 37 (3):367-369.
Knowledge of number and knowledge of language: Number as a test case for the role of language in cognition.Helen De Cruz & Pierre Pica - 2008 - Philosophical Psychology 21 (4):437 – 441.
Relativism in legal thinking: Stanley fish and the concept of an interpretative community.Torben Spaak - 2008 - Ratio Juris 21 (1):157-171.
Scepticism, relativism and the argument from the criterion.Howard Sankey - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 43 (1):182-190.
Epistemic Relativism.Jonathan Matheson - 2012 - In Andrew Cullison (ed.), Continuum Companion to Epistemology. Continuum. pp. 161-179.
Co głosi relatywizm poznawczy? Rekonstrukcja konstytutywnych twierdzeń relatywizmu.Dorota Leszczyńska - 2005 - Filozofia Nauki 1.
10 Gellner's metaphysic.John A. Hall - 2007 - In Siniša Malešević & Mark Haugaard (eds.), Ernest Gellner and Contemporary Social Thought. Cambridge University Press. pp. 253.
Postmodernism, Reason and Religion.P. M. W. B. & Ernest Gellner - 1994 - Philosophical Quarterly 44 (174):136.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-09-03

Downloads
37 (#422,084)

6 months
10 (#255,509)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas S. Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Ian Hacking.
Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits.Bertrand Russell - 1948 - London and New York: Routledge.
Philosophy and social hope.Richard Rorty - 1999 - New York: Penguin Books.
The collapse of the fact/value dichotomy and other essays.Hilary Putnam - 2002 - Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience.Erving Goffman - 1979 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 39 (4):601-602.

View all 41 references / Add more references