El neopragmatismo ha renovado la vieja cuestión del relativismo epistemológico pero enfocándolo, ahora, desde el horizonte del lenguaje. En particular el profesor Richard Rorty ha avanzado algunas tesis que han conmovido al mundo académico, llevando la disuasión hacia un asunto pertinente: ¿Qué función debe cumplir la filosofía? ¿Verdad o solidaridad? ¿Universalismo o contextualismo? Rorty se muestra partidario, a partir de la crítica a la verdad como espejo de la naturaleza, a retomar el diálogo socrático en el que todas las (...) voces puedan tener cabida bajo supuestos de responsabilidad y simpatía en la búsqueda de acuerdos siempre renovables. En definitiva más ética y responsabilidad en la finitud humana, que verdad en la trascendencia histórica. (shrink)

RESUMO: Hilary Putnam procurou solapar o relativismo cognitivo, mediante acusações de incoerência autodestrutiva. A concepção de Thomas Kuhn de desenvolvimento do conhecimento científico ocupa um lugar de destaque nesse empreendimento crítico, e a incomensurabilidade entre paradigmas rivais constitui o núcleo da disputa. Putnam afirmou que a incomensurabilidade é autorrefutante, levando em conta apenas sua dimensão semântica. Este artigo examina essa investida antirrelativista. Considero dois sentidos de autorrefutação, o material e o formal, e defendo que essa acusação não atinge a (...) referida formulação semântica. Adicionalmente, mostro que a dimensão epistemológica da incomensurabilidade também não é afetada. ABSTRACT: Hilary Putnam sought to undermine cognitive relativism by charging it with self- destructive incoherence. Thomas Kuhn's conception of the development of scientific knowledge occupies a prominent place in that critical endeavor, and the incommensurability between rival paradigms constitutes the core of the dispute. Putnam claimed that incommensurability is self- refuting, taking into account only its semantic dimension. This article examines this anti-relativist attack. I consider two senses of self-refutation, the material and the formal, and argue that they do not affect the semantic formulation of incommensurability. Additionally, I show that the epistemological dimension of incommensurability is also unaffected. (shrink)

Esta obra compila los estudios presentados en las I Jornadas de Filosofía del Instituto CEU de Humanidades Ángel Ayala y está prologada por Abelardo Lobato, O. P. Los filósofos tienen el deber de buscar y alcanzar la verdad apelando a las fuerzas de la razón, la cual, por cierto, no impide otras vías genuinas de conocimiento, como la fe. La búsqueda intelectual exige un trabajo de análisis que debe afinarse ante las obcecaciones que a menudo se interponen en el horizonte (...) de la existencia humana. En no pocos momentos de la historia ha habido claudicaciones generalizadas ante esa búsqueda, olvidos más o menos conscientes de que las verdades se alcanzan si se mantiene la esperanza de sabiduría y el amor a ella. El relativismo y el escepticismo se presentan casi como el polo opuesto de esa esperanza y ese amor; como una consecuencia de la “con-fusión” cultural, de las mentiras interesadas y de la desidia moral de algunas sociedades. La nuestra, la europea occidental, es una de ellas. El relativismo afecta al modo de pensar y de comportarse del hombre y es habitual que le lleve por vericuetos que a la postre terminan dañándole a él y a sus congéneres. En este libro se analizan algunos errores que han llevado a suscribir las tesis del relativismo y a rechazar la posibilidad de dar con algunas verdades comunes para todos. La obra tiene dos partes, una histórica y otra temática. Las páginas con enfoque histórico estudian las tesis que sobre el relativismo han mantenido algunos pensadores o corrientes de la filosofía. De su lectura se puede extraer la conclusión de que el fenómeno del relativismo es tan viejo y tan actual como el propio hombre y su apertura inteligente a la verdad. Filósofos de la época antigua de la talla de Protágoras, Pirrón o los “Académicos” coetáneos de San Agustín; modernos como Descartes; contemporáneos como Wittgenstein o Kuhn han dejado huellas que luego abrieron el camino hacia un régimen de pensamiento en que el hombre abandona la posibilidad de admitir verdades universales. Algunos argumentos favorables al relativismo —y, más aún, algunas actitudes “propedéuticas” de él— se han ido instalando culturalmente hasta consolidarse de manera cada vez más indiscutida. La segunda parte analiza el relativismo de forma temática, como un asunto abordable desde las diversas ramas del saber filosófico. Así, se tratan las repercusiones que tiene esta forma de pensamiento en la pragmática, la lógica, la estética o la religión, y se intentan desenmascarar los tópicos y falsos argumentos que justifican un comportamiento ético o religioso “abierto a todas las opciones”. (shrink)

A partir de la reforma penal ilustrada y el normativismo jurídico contemporáneo, las sociedades modernas han intentado valerse de una culpabilización útil y objetiva, en contraposición a ideas metafísicas y teológicas tradicionales de castigo. Sin embargo, la moralidad social que subyace y acompaña la aplicación del Derecho penal está atravesada por motivos premodernos e intereses técnicos y económicos que han hecho de la racionalidad culpabilizadora un ejercicio complejo; entretejido con nociones como maldad, ejemplaridad, seguridad, control y productividad. El objetivo de (...) este ensayo es entonces mostrar el relativismo de la culpabilidad en las sociedades securitarias actuales y sus avatares en medio de la tensión dada entre poderes legales e ilegales y doctrinas neoliberales y neoconservadoras. (shrink)

En este artículo, se defiende un relativismo conceptual sin esquemas conceptuales. En primer lugar, se presenta la crítica de Davidson al relativismo conceptual. Luego, se construye un contraejemplo que cuestiona la eficacia del principio de caridad y se argumenta que, si se trata de sostener el holismo con el fin de evitar el relativismo, habría que aceptar un relativismo moderado que trace la distinción entre un background de creencia y redes internas de creencias. Este relativismo (...) es compatible con el abandono de la idea de un esquema conceptual y, por tanto, no implica ningún tipo de inconmensurabilidad ni de intraducibilidad. (shrink)

RESUMEN En este artículo, se defiende un relativismo conceptual sin esquemas conceptuales. En primer lugar, se presenta la crítica de Davidson al relativismo conceptual. Luego, se construye un contraejemplo que cuestiona la eficacia del principio de caridad y se argumenta que, si se trata de sostener el holismo con el fin de evitar el relativismo, habría que aceptar un relativismo moderado que trace la distinción entre un background de creencia y redes internas de creencias. Este (...) class='Hi'>relativismo es compatible con el abandono de la idea de un esquema conceptual y, por tanto, no implica ningún tipo de inconmensurabilidad ni de intraducibilidad. ABSTRACT The article defends a conceptual relativism without conceptual schemes. First, it presents Davidson's critique of conceptual relativism. Ten, it goes on to build a counterexample questioning the efficacy of the principle of charity, and argues that upholding holism in order to avoid relativism would entail accepting a moderate relativism that distinguishes between a background of belief and internal networks of beliefs. This relativism is compatible with abandoning the idea of a conceptual scheme, and, therefore, does not imply any type of incommensurability or untranslatability. (shrink)

Para diagnosticar y curar una enfermedad del pensamiento y de la cultura tan devastadora en nuestros días como es la del relativismo, parece oportuno reparar antes en las diversas tipologías que este mal adopta, pues es razonable sospechar que seguramente las terapias oportunas podrán resultar más efectivas si lo sometemos a un tratamiento particularizado. Así pues, en mi comunicación, y una vez establecido el criterio según el cual se van a clasificar los diferentes modos de planteamiento epistemológico posible (criterio (...) que residirá en el número de instancias que se reconocen como autoridades normativas para nuestro pensamiento), describo tres tipos de relativismo posible: el relativismo cultural, el relativismo protagórico y el relativismo escéptico. Para el primer tipo de relativismo, las instancias normativas pertinentes son tantas como culturas o “paradigmas” existan en el mundo: se trata, pues, de un pensamiento que apuesta por una pluralidad de instancias normativas, y por el hecho de que estas dependan del contexto desde el cual el agente epistémico aborda la tarea de conocer o pensar. Para el segundo y tercer tipos de relativismo, empero, no existe instancia normativa válida alguna, y la diferencia entre ellos reside en el “talante” con el cual se toman tal creencia en la ausencia de autoridades (el relativismo protagórico tenderá al cinismo del “todo vale”, mientras que el relativismo escéptico se refugiará más bien en la tragedia del “nada vale nada”). Por su parte, y como alternativa a estos relativismos, también apuntamos en nuestra comunicación brevemente a los tres tipos de pensamiento (monista, pluralista y postmetafísico) que acaso podrían plantarle cara a la tríada antes descrita, con diversas posibilidades de éxito. (shrink)

Octavio Paz representa las fiestas mexicanas en El laberinto de la soledad (1950) con un rasgo adverso y relativista, que se opone a la unificación de la cultura como un instintivo. Inmediatamente, este carácter es reconocible desde la lógica posmoderna, la misma que trabaja Beatriz Sarlo. Al ser así, la configuración que se le atribuye a estas celebraciones cuenta con el propósito de hallar notoriamente la interrelación pluricultural y su respectiva difusión. Esa es la orientación que se le brinda al (...) tópico de la relatividad, que se respalda también de las concepciones de la semiótica tensiva de Jacques Fontanille (la inclusión del cuadrado semiótico) y la configuración teórica del tiempo, tal como la fundamenta Paul Ricoeur. De estas, se aprecia el funcionamiento de la dinámica de opuestos, inmersa en el desarrollo de las festividades. Asumiendo que este estudio abarca a un autor distinguible, he reconsiderado previamente un panorama hermenéutico a esta investigación (análisis bibliográficos en torno a la obra). (shrink)

Los críticos que han interpretado el pensamiento de Feyerabend como un relativismo radical no hacen justicia a su intencionalidad, y se muestran incapaces de comprender la unidad de su obra, en particular, su abandono posterior de los ideales relativis-tas. Se busca distinguir las diversas posiciones de Feyerabend frente al relativismo y exponer su reducción al absurdo de las nociones de la ciencia propias del positivis-mo lógico y del racionalismo crítico. Así mismo, se plantea cómo Feyerabend, ante la ausencia (...) de un criterio para discernir la tarea científica, postula un relativismo, pero, al final de su vida, busca elaborar una metafísica de la abundancia que supere las coordenadas de aquel. (shrink)

En este capítulo, tratar el tema de las intuiciones basadas en las retractaciones, y argumentar que tales intuiciones no favorecen lo que llamar relativismo de apreciaci n (assessment relativism). Las intuiciones en que se basan las semanticas relativistas para los dominios del discurso en consideración conciernen a las retractaciones de afirmaciones pasadas que ocurren cuando el hablante ha cambiado su perspectiva (aunque los hechos independientes de las perspectivas del hablante sigan siendo los mismos).

Las teorías relativistas acerca de las atribuciones de conocimiento sostienen que el valor de verdad de una atribución de conocimiento está determinado por el contexto de evaluación de la atribución. Me ocuparé de dos de las principales críticas que se le han formulado al relativismo. Por un lado, Jason Stanley niega que el relativismo pueda dar cuenta de la factividad del conocimiento. Por otra parte, Manuel García Carpintero sostiene que el relativismo se compromete con una inaceptable imagen (...) sobre las normas que rigen la práctica asertiva. Responderé ambas objeciones. Presentaré primero un modo de dar cuenta de la factividad no evaluado por Stanley. La respuesta a García Carpintero, por su parte, supondrá distinguir en qué sentido la verdad es, y en que otro no es, una norma de la aserción.Relativist’s theories about knowledge attributions maintain that the truth value of such assertions is partially fixed by the assessment context. I will answer two of the main objections that it has received. On the one side, Jason Stanley denies that relativism can explain the factivity of knowledge. On the other side, Manuel García Carpintero believes that relativism is commited to an unacceptable picture of assertion. The answer to Stanley’s objection involves a way of explaining factivity that he has not evaluated. The answer to García Carpintero involves distinguishing in what way truth is, and in what way it isn’t, a norm of assertion. (shrink)

No deja de ser peculiar que pese al notorio revuelo que genera el relativismo -el relativismo, así sin apellidos-, los juicios respecto de su efectiva presencia varíen de un extremo a otro: desde la sospecha rortiana de que jamás haya existido relativista alguno hasta la preocupación del actual Papa, quien no por nada acuñó la expresión "dictadura del relativismo". Fantasma o epidemia: hay filósofos que, sin ir tan lejos como Rorty, tienden al primer diagnóstico; hay otros que, (...) sin estar tan preocupados como el Papa, están preocupados. Así pues, el relativismo genera una adhesión para nada evidente, no obstante el ruido que evidentemente genera. Se habla y habla del relativista, pero bien se lo critique voz en cuello, bien se lo defienda con sordina, la verdad es que no sabemos a ciencia cierta a quién se critica o defiende. "Relativismo" es el nombre de un punto de vista mantenido por alguien que carece de nombre. [Fragmento]. (shrink)

Enlightenment confidence in reason and in our individual powers of reasoning have been subjected to growing criticism. One criticism is that Enlightenment universalism about reason has provided a cover story for cultural if not economic or political imperialism. I identify and criticize three central assumptions about reason common from the Enlightenment to the present day: That reason and tradition are distinct, if not conflicting intellectual resources; that reason is inherently a power of individuals; and that rejecting individualism in epistemology entails (...) historicist relativism. The contemporary debates between defenders of universalist views of reason and their multi-culturalist critics reproduce on an inter-cultural level the contests between Christian religious sects that originally compelled the development in Europe of Enlightenment views of reason. Both sets of debates recapitulate at a practical level the theoretical issues posed by dogmatism and question-begging , problems crystallized in Sextus Empiricus' Dilemma of the Criterion. I contend that rectifying the three erroneous Enlightenment assumptions about reason shows that Sextus' Dilemma can be resolved by a constructive account of self- and mutual criticism. This account provides a constructive response to the contemporary debates between the Enlightenment and its multi-culturalist critics. Surprisingly, the basic views required for a tenable, enlightened account of reason were developed by Hegel, whose views have been widely misunderstood because they have been forced into the very dichotomies against which Hegel argued convincingly. (shrink)

Se ofrece una exposición crítica del relativismo cultural desde la perspectiva del materialismo filosófico.

Se nella verità c’è il riferimento a qualcosa di “assoluto” e di “intemporale”, nel relativismo si esprime la mutevolezza del contingente, di modo che la realtà oggettiva e il senso soggettivo risultino separati sin dall’origine. L’aspetto più inquietante della cultura contemporanea stà nell’inimicizia concettuale tra l’io e la verità, con delle conseguenze nella concezione della libertà. Questa, concepita come autonomia dell’individuo, si capovolge nella sottomissione degli individui allo Stato – visto come verità – che offre loro legittimità, dando loro (...) letteralmente l’«essere». La verità dell’io si trasforma nella volontà generale e la libertà del singolo viene a coincidere con sua appartenenza al corpo dello Stato, di modo che il rapporto dell’io e della verità può e deve realizzarsi solo in forma politica. La permanenza di identità e comunità religiose all’interno di un’orizzonte culturale laico fa che il «discorso» religioso nel dibattito pubblico sia considerato una possibile proposta di razionalità. Più di una mera tolleranza dello Stato in ordine alla libertà religiosa, si tratta di un primo livello di integrazione cognitiva delle ragioni religiose nella razionalità laica, nell’ambito dell’etica. Quando si passa alla considerazione delle «verità» diverse, riguardo all’io e al mondo, c’è una asimmetria della verità metafisica e religiosa rispetto ad una semplice visione etica del mondo. Palavras-chave : Multiculturalismo, Stato, Libertà, relativismo, fondamentalismo Resumo Se na verdade existe algo de absoluto e de intemporal, no relativismo expressa-se a mutabilidade do contingente, de modo que a realidade objetiva e o sentido subjetivo se tornam separados desde a origem. O aspecto mais inquietante da cultura contemporânea se encontra na inimizade conceitual entre o eu e a verdade, com conseqüências na concepção da liberdade. Esta, concebida como autonomia do indivíduo, se inverte na submissão dos indivíduos ao Estado – visto como verdade – que lhes oferece legitimidade, dando-lhes literalmente o “ser”. A verdade do eu se transforma na vontade geral e a liberdade do singular passa a coincidir com seu pertencimento ao corpo do Estado, de modo que a relação entre o eu e a verdade pode e deve se realizar apenas na forma política. A permanência de identidades e comunidades religiosas no interior de um horizonte cultural laico faz com que o discurso religioso no debate público seja considerado uma proposta possível de racionalidade. Mais do que uma mera tolerância do Estado com relação à liberdade religiosa, trata-se de um primeiro nível de integração cognitiva das razões religiosas na racionalidade laica, no âmbito da ética. Quando se passa a considerações de verdade diferentes, com relação ao eu e ao mundo, existe uma assimetria da verdade metafísica e religiosa em relação a uma simples visão ética do mundo. Palavras-chave : Multiculturalismo, Estado, Liberdade, relativismo, fundamentalismo. ABSTRACT If indeed there is something timeless and absolute, the mutability of the contingent is expressed in relativism, in a way that objective reality and subjective sense become separated from their origin. The most disturbing aspect of contemporary culture lays is in the conceptual enmity between the self and the truth, with consequences in the conception of freedom. When such freedom is taken as individual autonomy, it becomes itself in the submission of individuals to the state which is always seen as the truth that gives them legitimacy. The truth of the self becomes in the general will and the freedom of the individual happens to belong to the body of the state, so that the relationship between the self and the truth can and should be performed only in political form. The permanence of identities and religious communities within a secular cultural horizon makes the religious discourse in public debate a possible proposal of rationality. More than mere tolerance of the state relating to religious freedom, this is a first level of cognitive integration of religious reasons within secular rationality under ethics. When it comes to considerations other than truth, about the self and the world, there is an asymmetry of the metaphysical and religious truth with regard to a simple ethical vision of the world. Key words : Multiculturalism, State, Freedom, relativism, fundamentalism. (shrink)

This is the first of a series of papers in which I present a defense of moderate objectivism about the evaluation of performances of musical works in the Western classical tradition.

I intend to: a) clarify the origins and de facto meanings of the term relativism; b) reconstruct the reasons for the birth of the thesis named “cultural relativism”; d) reconstruct ethical implications of the above thesis; c) revisit the recent discussion between universalists and particularists in the light of the idea of cultural relativism.. -/- 1.Prescriptive Moral Relativism: “everybody is justified in acting in the way imposed by criteria accepted by the group he belongs to”. Universalism: there are at least (...) some judgments which are valid inter-culturally Absolutism: there are at least some particular prescriptions which are valid without exception everywhere and always -/- 2. The traditional proof of prescriptive moral relativism: the argument from variability: Judgments, rules, and shared values are de facto variable in time and space. The traditional counter-proof: examples of variability do not prove what skeptics contend. -/- 3. Pre-history of the doctrine -Ancient sophists: either immoralist or contractualist -Modern moral scepticism (xvii c.): variability as an historical and ethnographic fact supports a sceptical conclusion more moderate than sheer immoralism. - Voltaire, Kant, Reid counter-attack pointing at a universally shared moral sense - Romantics and idealists stage an even more moderate reformulation: instead of universally shared moral sense they point at the Spirit of a People which is: a)alternative to abstract and universal philosophical systems as far as it is lived ‘culture’; b) indivisible unity with an inner harmony and a source of normative standards; c) dynamic, in so far as it is a manifestation of the Spirit through the becoming of National cultures. -/- 4. The birth of Cultural Relativism and its ethical implications 4.1. The 18th c. doctrine was the noble savage (a non-historical doctrine: state of nature vs. social state) 4.2 Edward Tylor (1832-1817) and ethnocentric historicism Savage moral standards are real enough, but they are far and weaker than ours. 4.3 Boas and Malinowski and an holistic reaction to ethnocentric historicism -/- Franz Boas (1858-1942): a) Development of civilizations is not ruled by technical progress nor does it follow a one-way path; instead there are parallel developments (for ex. Agriculture does not follow stock-raising); b) racial characters have no relevance in development of civilization; c) we are not yet in a position to compare externally identical kinds of behaviour till we have not yet understood beliefs and intentions laying at their roots (for ex.: “From an ethnological point of view murder cannot be considered as a single phenomenon”; d) we should distinguish among different practices which are only superficially similar (fro ex. practices traditionally classified under the label “tabù”); e) there is as a fact just one normative ethic, constant in its contents but varying in its extension; f) the implication is not that we cannot judge behavior by members of other groups; it is only a recommendation of caution. -/- Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942): a) against Tylor’s and Frazer’s “magpie” methodology, field-work is required, a culture as a whole should be observed from inside; individual elements are incomprehensible; b) a culture is an organic whole; c) its elements are accounted for by their function (economy), avoiding non-observables (empio-criticism). -/- Ruth Benedict and Melville Herskovitz identify Boas’s approach with “cultural relativism”. Benedict: what is normal and abnormal is to be judged on a culture’s own standards, not on our own (“Anthropology and the Abnormal”). Herskovits: “Boas adumbrates what we have come to call cultural relativism” (The Mind, p. 10); “Judgements are based on experience, and experience is interpreted by each individual in terms of his own enculturation” (Man and his Works). -/- 4. How analytic philosophy understood and misunderstood the discussion 4.1. At the beginning of the 20th c., the new view in ethics was non-cognitivism (emotivist and subjectivist). Eric Westermark combines this view with an old-style ethnographic approach in support of relativity of moralities. Moralities are codes, or systems of emotive ‘disinterested’ reactions selected by evolution on their usefulness in terms of survival value for the society that is the carrier of such systems or codes. The moral relativity thesis: there are cases of disagreement that cannot be settled even after agreement about facts. 4.2 Anti-realists Brandt, Mackie, Gilbert, Harman adopt Westermark’s approach in a more sophisticated version: a) moralities are codes with an overall function and may be appraised only as wholes; b) variability is an argument for moral subjectivism; c) apparent legitimacy of deriving shift from ought is legitimized only within one institution d) morality should not be described but instead made, and existing moralities may be improved. Is it ‘real’ relativism? It is clearly subjectivism (a metaethical thesis). The normative thesis is that there better and worse codes, and survival values is the normative standard. -/- 4.3 Particularists MacIntyre, Sandel, Taylor, Wiggins, McDowell ‘Wittgensteinian’ prospectivist arguments bent to support weak-relativist claims MacIntyre: there is ‘incommensurability’ between different theoretical systems in both science and ethics. No argument is possible through different systems Different traditions may coexist for a long time without being able to bring their conflicts to a rational solution. -/- 4.4 Kantian universalists Baier, Gewirth, Rawls, Apel, Habermas Shared claim: justice concerns the right and is universal in so far as it may be based on minimal assumptions Other virtues are relative to context in so far as they are related to comprehensive views of the good - O’Neill criticism: a) it is an assumption shared by both alignments; b) after an alleged crisis brought about by alleged loss of metaphysical certainties, theories of justice have dropped demanding assumptions and kept universalism, virtue theories have kept demanding assumptions and dropped universalism; c) the opposition of virtue and justice has arisen in an unjustified way. O’Neill’s positive proposal: ‘constructive’ procedures may be adopted both (i) concerning all the range of virtues and (ii) across cultures once we abandon idealization and confine ourselves to abstraction from real-world cases. -/- 4.5 A metaethical relativist and anti-relativist normative ethicists: Bernard Williams Williams: vulgar relativism may be assumed to claim that: a) 'just' means 'just in a given society'; b) 'just in a given society' is to be understood in functionalist sense; c) it is wrong for one society’s members to condemn another society’s values. It is inconsistent since in (c) uses ‘just’ in a non-relative way that has been excluded in (a). William’s positive proposal: i) keep a number of substantive or thick ethical concepts that will be different in space and time; ii) admit that public choices are to be legitimized through recourse to more abstract procedures and relying on more thin ethical concepts. -/- 5. Critical remarks 5.1 The only real relativism available is ‘vulgar’ relativism (Westermark?) 5.2. Descriptive universalism (or absolutism) has a long pedigree, from Cicero on, reaching Boas himself but it is useless as an answer to normative questions 5.3. Twentieth-century philosophical discussion seems to discuss an ad hoc doctrine reconstructed by assembling obsolete philosophical ideas but ignoring the real theory of cultural relativism as formulated by anthropologists. -/- 6. A distinction between ethoi and ethical theories as a way out of confusions a)There are systems of conventions de facto existing. These may be studies from outside as phenomena or facts. b)There is moral argument and this, when studies from outside, is a fact, but this does not influence in any degree the possible validity of claims advanced. c) the difference between the above claims and Mackie’s criticism to Searle’s argument of the promising game is that promises, arguments etc. are also phenomena, but they are also communicative phenomena with a logical and pragmatic structure. -/- 7.Conclusions: a) cultural relativism, as a name for Boas’s methodology is a valuable discovery, and in this sense we are all relativists; b) ethical relativism, as an alleged implication of cultural relativism, has been argued in a philosophically quite unsophisticated way by Benedict and Herskovits; philosophers apparently discussed ethical relativism in the basis of a rather faint impression of what cultural relativism had been. c) a full-fledged ethical relativism has hardly been defended by anybody among philosophers; virtually no modern philosopher really argued a prescriptive version of the thesis; d) we may accept the grain of truth in ethical relativism by including relativist critique to ethical absolutism into a universalist normative doctrine that be careful in separating open-textured formulations of universal claims from culturally conditioned particular prescriptions. -/- . 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In this paper I argue against John MacFarlane’s radical relativist semantics. By developing an argument of Ross & Schroeder I claim that belief in this relativist theory is incompatible with being a rational agent that acts in accordance with the norms of assertion and retraction. My conclusion is therefore that MacFarlane's semantics is committed to postulating that competent speakers are ignorant of the very theory that provides a – putative – correct account of their linguistic behaviour.

INTRODUZIONE 2 1. POVERA E NUDA VAI, FILOSOFIA… 19 1.1 TRA SCIAMANI E CALCOLATORI 20 1.2 AUTOCASTRAZIONI E DINTORNI 25 1.2.1 Debes, ergo potes 26 1.2.1.1 Scienze della natura e scienze dello spirito 27 1.2.1.2 Orizzonti di responsabilità 32 1.2.1.3 Ritrovare la saggezza 36 1.2.2 Potes, ergo debes 37 1.2.2.1 Disintegrando la frammentazione 40 1.2.2.2 Disarticolando lo smembramento 51 1.2.2.3 Oltrepassando l’autosuperamento 58 1.3 IL (MIO) PUNTO DI VISTA 62 2. GLOBALIZZAZIONE E UNIVERSALISMO 70 2.1 PENSARE LA GLOBALIZZAZIONE 73 2.1.1 (...) Una civiltà universale? 73 2.1.1.1 Quale cultura? 74 2.1.1.2 Singolare e plurale 78 2.1.2 Scontro delle civiltà? 85 2.2 CERCANDO UN’ETICA GLOBALE 89 2.2.1 Il minimalismo morale 92 2.2.1.1 Un confronto con il liberalismo neo-contrattualista 96 2.2.1.2 La quercia, la ghianda e la foresta 100 2.2.2 L’etica mondiale 102 2.3 RIFLESSIONI CRITICHE 107 3. RELATIVISMO 112 3.1 LE RAGIONI DEL RELATIVISMO 114 3.1.1 Ragioni della politica 116 3.1.1.1 Multiculturalismo e neutralità etica 116 3.1.1.2 Antifondazionalismo e democrazia 121 3.1.2 Ragioni dell’antropologia 125 3.1.3 Ragioni dell’ermeneutica 130 3.1.4 Ragioni dell’epistemologia 135 3.1.5 Ragioni dell’etica 143 3.1.5.1 Nel regno della necessità 145 3.1.5.2 In regime di cieca obbedienza 146 3.1.5.3 Il piacere e l’interesse 151 3.1.5.4 Intuizioni, emozioni, prescrizioni 153 3.1.5.5 Accordo, consenso e permesso 159 3.1.5.6 Etica della ragione 166 3.2 LA RAGIONE PRATICA 170 3.2.1 Oltre l’ansia cartesiana 171 3.2.2 Autenticità e ragionamento 176 3.2.3 Ragioni della diversità e ragioni del riconoscimento 181 4. FIGURE DI RAZIONALITÀ PRATICA 185 4.1 UTILITARISMO 186 4.1.1 Cosa è «migliore»? 187 4.1.1.1 Piacere, felicità, bene 188 4.1.1.2 L’atto e la regola 191 4.1.2 Conta solo il risultato? 194 4.2 CONTESTUALISMO 197 4.2.1 Recupero della phrónesis 198 4.2.2 Recupero della prâxis 204 4.2.3 Recupero dell’éthos 208 4.3 ETICA DEL DISCORSO 217 4.3.1 Dalle pretese di validità del discorso al principio di un’etica universale 218 4.3.2 Universalità e formalismo 224 4.3.3 Limiti dell’etica del discorso 226 4.4 ETICA DELLA RELAZIONE 231 4.4.1 Relazione versus rappresentazione 232 4.4.2 L’umanità dell’altro uomo 236 4.5 UN BILANCIO 241 ALCUNE PROSPETTIVE. POSTILLA 245 . (shrink)