In this chapter, Grace Andrus de Laguna examines cultural relativism and its bearing on science.

This volume of essays deals with the problem of relativism, in particular cultural relativism. If our society knows better than other societies, how do we know that it knows better? There is a profound irony in the fact that this self-doubt has become most acute in the one civilisation that has persuaded the rest of the world to emulate it. The claim to cognitive superiority is often restricted, of course, to the limited sphere of natural science and (...) technology; and that immediately raises the second main theme of this volume - the differences between the human and natural sciences. These essays reach towards a new style and mode of enquiry - a mixture of philosophy, history and anthropology - that promises to prove more revealing and fruitful. (shrink)

This volume of essays deals with the problem of relativism, in particular cultural relativism. If our society knows better than other societies, how do we know that it knows better? There is a profound irony in the fact that this self-doubt has become most acute in the one civilisation that has persuaded the rest of the world to emulate it. The claim to cognitive superiority is often restricted, of course, to the limited sphere of natural science and (...) technology; and that immediately raises the second main theme of this volume - the differences between the human and natural sciences. These essays reach towards a new style and mode of enquiry - a mixture of philosophy, history and anthropology - that promises to prove more revealing and fruitful. (shrink)

Modern epistomology has been dominated by an empiricist theory of knowledge that assumes a direct individualistic relationship between the knowing subject and the object of knowledge. Truth is held to be universal, and non-individualistic social and cultural factors are considered sources of distortion of true knowledge. Since the late 1950s, this view has been challenged by a cognitive relativism asserting that what is true is socially conditioned. This volume examines the far-reaching implications of this development for the social sciences. (...) Recently, cognitive relativism has become a key issue of debate in anthropology, philosophy, and sociology. In anthropology this is illustrated by a growing awareness of the similarity of all systems of knowledge. In philosophy it is exemplified by the realization that traditional monolithic and absolutist concepts of truth have increasingly lost any power to make sense and to convince. In sociology it is visible in a renewal of interest in a general sociology of knowledge. Yet, in spite of this convergence of interests, practitioners of these three disciplines have on the whole shown no inclination to reach a consensus on the terms of reference that could facilitate an interdisciplinary approach. "Cognitive Relativism and Social Science "aims to do just this. It is a working assumption of this volume that, as far as the subject of cognitive relativism is concerned, anthropologists, philosophers, and sociologists should join forces rather than try to deal with the challenges of cognitive relativism within strictly imposed boundaries that normally separate academic disciplines. Only when they work together will it be possible to treat the problems posed by cognitive relativism in an adequate way. This volume provides the results of attempts to communicate on cognitve relativism across disciplinary boundaries. This is must reading in the philosophy of social science and in social research theory. (shrink)

The institutionalization of History and Philosophy of Science as a distinct field of scholarly endeavour began comparatively earl- though not always under that name - in the Australasian region. An initial lecturing appointment was made at the University of Melbourne immediately after the Second World War, in 1946, and other appoint ments followed as the subject underwent an expansion during the 1950s and 1960s similar to that which took place in other parts of the world. Today there are major (...) Departments at the University of Melbourne, the University of New South Wales and the University of Wollongong, and smaller groups active in many other parts of Australia and in New Zealand. "Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science" aims to provide a distinctive publication outlet for Australian and New Zealand scholars working in the general area of history, philosophy and social studies of science. Each volume comprises a group of essays on a connected theme, edited by an Australian or a New Zealander with special expertise in that particular area. Papers address general issues, however, rather than local ones; parochial topics are avoided. Further more, though in each volume a majority of the contributors is from Australia or New Zealand, contributions from elsewhere are by no means ruled out. Quite the reverse, in fact - they are actively encour aged wherever appropriate to the balance of the volume in question. (shrink)

These books make significant contributions to contemporary realism. Psillos’s book presents an excellent overview of the central components of current scientific realism, the main challenges to it, and the most promising strategies for defending it. It is a work of remarkable clarity, synthesis, and argumentative rigor. Psillos’s realism is committed to three claims: Scientific theories make irreducible assertions about unobservable entities which are literally true or false ; In the case of mature, successful theories, their success provides good reason for (...) taking their assertions about unobservables to be true, or approximately so ; and What makes scientific theories true or false is the mind-independent natural-kind structure of reality. (shrink)

These books make significant contributions to contemporary realism. Psillos’s book presents an excellent overview of the central components of current scientific realism, the main challenges to it, and the most promising strategies for defending it. It is a work of remarkable clarity, synthesis, and argumentative rigor. Psillos’s realism is committed to three claims: Scientific theories make irreducible assertions about unobservable entities which are literally true or false ; In the case of mature, successful theories, their success provides good reason for (...) taking their assertions about unobservables to be true, or approximately so ; and What makes scientific theories true or false is the mind-independent natural-kind structure of reality. (shrink)

. Neither the correspondence nor the coherence theory of truth does justice to the truth claims made in science and theology. I propose a new definition that relates truth to solving puzzles. I claim that this definition is more adequate than either of the traditional theories and that it offers two additional benefits: first, it provides grounds for a theory regarding the relations between theology and science that may stand up better to philosophical scrutiny than does critical realism; (...) and second, it blocks the move to relativism based on recognition of the plurality of perspectives and the historical and social conditioning of knowledge. (shrink)

My view of science involves both relativistic and absolutistic strains. I shall try to sort them out.

The Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium was launched in the early eighties. It began during a particularly lean period in the American economy.

The paper focuses on one central aspect of Karl Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge: his exemption of the contents of mathematics and the natural sciences from sociological investigations. After emphasizing the importance of Mannheim’s contribution and his exemption-thesis to the history and development of the field and the problem of relativism, I survey several interpretations of the thesis – especially those put forward by proponents of the so-called ‘Strong Programme’. I argue that these interpretations do not get the philosophical background (...) and impetus of Mannheim’s contribution right. By distinguishing between naturalistic and anti-naturalistic strands in Mannheim’s work I propose a new reading on which Mannheim did not exempt the contents of the areas in question principally or because of a lack of nerve and will. It is argued that Mannheim’s exemption-thesis rather is a consequence of his own sketchy sociological investigations of ‘the paradigm of the natural sciences’. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Introduction Disentangling the Social The Definition of Relativism The Confusion of Relativism and Idealism The Confusion Between Relativism and Subjectivism The Confusion Between Relativism and Particularism Are All Truths Absolute Truths? Propositions Concept Satisfaction Rules The Naturalistic Framework Verbum Sat Sapienti References.

This paper sets out to assess the internal coherence of Roy Bhaskar's transcendental realist account of science. Whilst fully supporting his transcendental derivation of a stratified ontology of structures and generative mechanisms from the scientific practice of experimentation, I argue that Bhaskar's adoption of the stance of epistemic relativism results in his inability to defend the generalizability of this ontology. My argument against his epistemic stance turns on the fact that it rests on a false dichotomy between epistemic (...) relativism and epistemic absolutism, and, moreover, that it is quite unnecessary for his efforts to avoid the excesses of epistemological foundationalism. The net result of this stance, in my view, is an inability to sustain the normative force of the concepts of truth and scientific explanation precisely at a time when postmodern authors are denying their privileged status. (shrink)

Various issues are characteristically associated with discussions about relativism. The first concerns defining relativism—which is not an easy matter, since there seems to be no clear and well established usage to which one might appeal. Some stipulation is required, though this need not be arbitrary. One may proceed by distinguishing relativism from its putative contrast: absolutism, although defining this latter notion is as difficult as defining the former. Absolutism, however, at least, holds that the truth or the (...) truth value of a proposition is not tied to the contingent conditions of the assertion of truth or truth value. Relativism denies this, holding that some truths or truth values are tied to such contingent conditions. What the nature of this “tie” is, and for what sorts of cases it might obtain, depends upon more precise formulations. Still, relativism is a theory of logic rather than epistemology, though in particular discussions a clear-cut distinction is not easily drawn. Nelson Goodman, for example, claims to be a “radical relativist with restraints,” and his arguments derive from an unwillingness to carry the dispensable burden of a non-nominalist epistemology. Since no “world” independent of our symbol systems is accessible, it cannot function in our cognitive judgements. So, “truth,” for Goodman, turns out to be a feature of the internal relations within symbol systems, a feature explicable after the epistemic limits have been drawn. But one could argue that the burden of carrying a “heavier” epistemology might be worth the effort—not by insisting that an inquiry-independent world is, after all, accessible, but rather along different lines that concern regulative or pretensial considerations. For example, in answer to the general question, “What does the sort of inquiry I am engaged in pretend to do?”, a scientific realist might say, “I, as a scientist, pretend to explain the ‘external’ world.” Questions of pretense arise for all cultural practices, such as art, religion, science, history, philosophy, and so on, as well as for any accounting of them. So, in discussions of relativism we need to be mindful of these distinguishable areas of concern: the logical, the epistemological, and the pretensial. The main thrust of the present treatment concerns the first two, and it asks, What is the status of the logical thesis of relativism and its negate, and how does that relate to the epistemological thesis of foundationalism and its negate? (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)

Recently, many historians of science have chosen to present their historical narratives from the ‘actors’-eye view’. Scientific knowledge not available within the actors’ culture is not permitted to do explanatory work. Proponents of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge purport to ground this historiography on epistemological relativism. I argue that they are making an unnecessary mistake: unnecessary because the historiographical genre in question can be defended on aesthetic and didactic grounds; and a mistake because the argument from relativism (...) is in any case incoherent.The argument of the present article is self-contained, but steers clear of metaphysical debates in the philosophy of science. To allay fears of hidden assumptions, the sequel, to be published in the following issue, will consider SSK’s prospects of succour from scientific realism, instrumentalism, and a metaphysical system of Bruno Latour’s own devising. (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)

This article explores the relationship between epistemic relativism and Pyrrhonian scepticism. It is argued that a fundamental argument for contemporary epistemic relativism derives from the Pyrrhonian problem of the criterion. Pyrrhonian scepticism is compared and contrasted with Cartesian scepticism about the external world and Humean scepticism about induction. Epistemic relativism is characterized as relativism due to the variation of epistemic norms, and is contrasted with other forms of cognitive relativism, such as truth relativism, conceptual (...) relativism and ontological relativism. An argument from the Pyrrhonian problem of the criterion to epistemic relativism is presented, and is contrasted with three other arguments for epistemic relativism. It is argued that the argument from the criterion is the most fundamental argument for epistemic relativism. Finally, it is noted how the argument of the present paper fits with the author’s previous suggestion that a particularist response to the Pyrrhonian sceptic may be combined with a naturalistic view of epistemic warrant to meet the challenge of epistemic relativism. (shrink)

Epistemology as traditionally conceived seems to have fallen upon hard times. Not only has the cry arisen from diverse philosophical quarters that epistemology is dead, but we have even been offered a plethora of suggestions as to how best fill the vacuum left by her sudden demise. Thus Quine, for example, has recently urged that epistemology be “naturalized” and replaced by empirical psychology and an empirical semantics. Others suggest that epistemology be “historicized” and replaced by a study of the history (...) of ideas, and especially by a study of the history of science. Still others have argued that epistemology be “sociologized” and replaced by a sociology of scientific knowledge and/or a sociology of the scientific community. Finally, we have even been told, in a rather delightful Viennese manner, that epistemology must be “radicalized” and replaced by a kind of opportunistic anarchism, marching under the banner of “Anything Goes!” to the tune of a Dadaist waltz. (shrink)

In this volume Rorty offers a Deweyan account of objectivity as intersubjectivity, one that drops claims about universal validity and instead focuses on utility for the purposes of a community. The sense in which the natural sciences are exemplary for inquiry is explicated in terms of the moral virtues of scientific communities rather than in terms of a special scientific method. The volume concludes with reflections on the relation of social democratic politics to philosophy.

The aim of this chapter is to explore the relationship between Kuhn’s views about science and scientific realism. I present an overview of key features of Kuhn’s model of scientific change. The model suggests a relativistic approach to the methods of science. I bring out a conflict between this relativistic approach and a realist approach to the norms of method. I next consider the question of progress and truth. Kuhn’s model is a problem-solving model that proceeds by way (...) of puzzles and anomalies rather than progress toward truth. I explore Kuhn’s views about scientific progress in connection with scientific realist views about truth and progress. This leads to consideration of Kuhn’s views about the incommensurability of paradigms, as well as brief consideration of an anti-realist interpretation of his talk of world-change. I conclude by indicating that the scientific realist may endorse some aspects of Kuhn’s view. (shrink)

This book approaches post-truth and relativism in a multidisciplinary fashion. Researchers from astrophysics, philosophy, psychology, media studies, religious studies, anthropology, social epistemology and sociology discuss and analyse the impact of relativism and post-truth both within the academy and in society at large. The motivation for this multidisciplinary approach is that relativism and post-truth are multifaceted phenomena with complex histories that have played out differently in different areas of society and different academic disciplines. There is hence a multitude (...) of ways in which to use and understand the concepts and the phenomena to which they refer, and a multitude of critiques and defenses as well. No single volume can capture the ongoing discussions in different areas in all their complexity, but the different chapters of the book can function as exemplifications of the ramifications these phenomena have had. (shrink)

Richard Rorty's collected papers, written during the 1980s and now published in two volumes, take up some of the issues which divide Anglo-Saxon analytic philosophers and contemporary French and German philosophers and offer something of a compromise - agreeing with the latter in their criticisms of traditional notions of truth and objectivity, but disagreeing with them over the political implications they draw from dropping traditional philosophical doctrines. In this volume Rorty offers a Deweyan account of objectivity as intersubjectivity, one that (...) drops claims about universal validity and instead focuses on utility for the purposes of a community. The sense in which the natural sciences are exemplary for inquiry is explicated in terms of the moral virtues of scientific communities rather than in terms of a special scientific method. The volume concludes with reflections on the relation of social democratic politics to philosophy. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between scepticism and epistemic relativism in the context of recent history and philosophy of science. More specifically, it seeks to show that significant treatments of epistemic relativism by influential figures in the history and philosophy of science draw upon the Pyrrhonian problem of the criterion. The paper begins with a presentation of the problem of the criterion as it occurs in the work of Sextus Empiricus. It is then shown that significant (...) treatments of epistemic relativism in recent history and philosophy of science (critical rationalism, historical philosophy of science and the strong programme) draw upon the problem of the criterion. It is briefly suggested that a particularist response to the problem of the criterion may be put to good use against epistemic relativism. (shrink)

This book concentrates on three topics: the problem of the semantic incommensurability of theories; the non-algorithmic character of rational scientific theory choice and naturalised accounts of the rationality of methodological change. The underlying aim is to show how the phenomenon of extensive conceptual and methodological variation in science need not give rise to a thorough-going epistemic or conceptual relativism.

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 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 aim of this article is to present a variant of epistemic relativism that is compatible with a language practice especially popular among scientists. We argue that in science, but also in philosophy, propositions are naturally ‘relativized’ to sets of hypotheses or theories, and that a similar language practice allows one to interpret canonical problems of epistemology. We apply the model to Gettier’s problem, and derive a condition under which counterexamples à la Gettier to Plato’s account of knowledge (...) do not arise. We argue that these findings give further content to a well-known result by Zagzebski (1994). Our interpretation points to a type of epistemic relativism having links with contextualism in epistemology, and perspectivism in philosophy of science. (shrink)

Fodor claims that the modularity of mind helps undermine relativism in various forms. I shall show first, that the modular vision of mind provides insufficient support for the rejection of relativism, and second, that an alternative model may, in fact, provide a better empirical response to the relativist challenge.

"The political and academic worlds are fractured by two competing discourses: the universalism of human rights and cultural relativism. This fracture is represented by the deep separation of cultural analysis and theories of international politics. Derek Robbins in a brilliant interrogation of European thinkers from Montesquieu to Pierre Bourdieu seeks to replace cultural relativism with cultural relationism as a step towards reconciling Enlightenment universalism and anthropological insistence on cultural difference. Inter alia he reflects on the tensions between political (...) and social science and takes up the challenge from Raymond Aron to construct a sociology of international relations. A dazzling achievement." - Bryan S. Turner, The Graduate Center, CUNY Through historical studies of some of the work of Montesquieu, Comte, Durkheim, Boas, Morgenthau, Aron and Bourdieu, Derek Robbins examines the changing and competing conceptualisations of the political and the social in the Western European intellectual tradition. He suggests that we are now experiencing a new ‘dissociation of sensibility’ in which political thought and its consequences in action have become divorced from social and cultural experience. Developing further the ideas of Bourdieu which he has presented in books and articles over the last twenty years, Robbins argues that we need to integrate the recognition of cultural difference with the practice of international politics by accepting that the ‘field’ of international political discourse is a social construct which is contingent on encounters between diverse cultures. ‘Everything is relative’ (Comte) and ‘everything is social’ (Bourdieu), not least international politics. (shrink)

The first aim of this paper is to introduce a new way of looking at supertasks in the light of special relativity which makes use of the elementary dynamics of relativistic point particles subjected to elastic binary collisions and constrained to move unidimensionally. In addition, this will enable us to draw new physical consequences from the possibility of supertasks whose ordinal type is higher than the usual ω or ω * considered so far in the literature. Thus, the paper shows (...) how an entire collection of infinitely many particles may place itself spontaneously in motion (mechanical self-acceleration) or even reach the speed of light in a way compatible with special relativity. Interesting implications for classical mechanics are also derived, particularly the possibility of a system of particles disappearing spontaneously in spatial infinity even under the condition of the non-existence of non-collision singularities. (shrink)

This paper has four aims: first, to outline the role of the sceptical problem of the criterion in the principal argument for epistemic relativism; second, to establish that methodist and particularist responses to the problem of the criterion do not, by themselves, constitute successful strategies for resisting epistemic relativism; third, to argue that a more fruitful strategy is to attempt to evaluate epistemic frameworks on the basis of the epistemic resources that they have in common; and finally, to (...) make the case that finding this common ground will necessarily involve determining how it is that a framework’s constituent epistemic methods depend on one another for not only their warrant, but for their application. (shrink)

Among the many virtues of Facts, Values and Norms, is the articulation of an especially subtle and detailed form of naturalistic value realism. The theory aspires to vindicate the objective purport of value discourse while granting, indeed insisting, that value is subjective in important respects. Evaluative thought and inquiry are understood to be continuous with empirical inquiry in the human sciences, so that ethical and evaluative conclusions can ultimately be defended on a posteriori grounds. Railton argues that talk of what (...) is good for a person, of what is morally right and morally valuable, and perhaps even of what is beautiful, may be shown to concern evaluative facts that are part of the natural world—a mind-independent world that is causally responsible for our experience. Yet each of these forms of value, he thinks, depends in essential ways on subjects who value them. They depend, that is, upon the existence of beings from whose subjective points of view things can matter; because a world without a locus of valuing or concern would be a world in which nothing mattered. One task Railton sets himself is to develop an understanding of the distinct respects in which value can be at once objective and subjective that could unseat the sort of skepticism about objective value that has seemed to many the inevitable upshot of a sober, naturalistic view of human life and thought: “a dark unease over what sort of thing value is and how it might find a place in the world” (86). While I find much to agree with and still more to admire in these excellent essays, I confine my attention here to an area where I have some misgivings. I want to explore the puzzling category that Railton calls “moral value,” and try to understand how the balance between subjectivity and objectivity is supposed to be achieved in that particular case. For this reason, and because they have not yet received the widespread attention.. (shrink)

The method of appealing to considered judgments in Wide Reflective Equilibrium has been thought to have unwelcome relativistic or ethnocentric implications. This belief, which is widely held, is, I shall argue, mistaken. Wide Reflective equilibrium has no such untoward implications. I shall first specify what I am talking about in speaking of relativism, then generally characterize WRE, then deploy some central arguments for it and finally try to show that it has no relativistic implications.

Some Key Controversies in the Philosophy of Science Larry Laudan. the mouths of my realist, relativist, and positivist. (By contrast, there is at least one person who hews to the line I have my prag- matist defending.) But I have gone to some  ...

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)