Four Arguments for Universal Relativism [presented version 1.1] (original) (raw)
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Four Arguments for Universal Relativism [published version 1.0]
Realism - Relativism - Constructivism: Contributions of the 38th International Wittgenstein Symposium, 2015
In the academic literature and elsewhere, specific relativisms are often a hotly debated topic. In this paper, I considerably up the ante by proposing an across the board universal relativism that is supported by four arguments: the inductive argument, the argument from causality, the argument from elimination, and the argument against self-refutation.
Mind, 1997
Relativism is one of the most tenacious theories about truth, with a pedigree as old as philosophy itself. Nearly as ancient is the chief criticism of relativism, namely the charge that the theory is self-refuting. This paper develops a logic of relativism that (1) illuminates the classic self-refutation charge and shows how to escape it; (2) makes rigorous the ideas of truth as relative and truth as absolute, and shows the relations between them; (3) develops an intensional logic for relativism; (4) provides a framework in which relativists can consistently promote ethical, mathematical, scientific, religious, and political truths (among others) as being relative; (5) argues that the notion of incommensurability is far less troubling than is commonly thought; and (6) argues that the concept of a perspective as needed by the theory is not prey to Davidson's well-known critique of conceptual schemes. The paper will not defend relativism as the correct theory of truth, nor will it provide a fully satisfying theory about the nature of a perspective. The logic of relativism is primarily meant to provide a formal framework in which relativists can consistently develop their theories. This alone is a considerable step forward, since the debate about relativism often founders upon the rock of self-refutation. It is argued that while "everything is relative" is inconsistent, "everything true is relatively true" is not. The latter is all a relativist really needs. "We all know that cultural relativism is inconsistent." (Putnam 1983, p. 236) 1 Opponents of relativism are legion. Recent worthies who subscribe to the self-refutation thesis include Putnam (1981, pp. 119-24; see also the epigraph); Margolis (1991, pp. 9-13; the kind of relativism Margolis considers "logically incoherent" and I show is not is what he calls "relationalism");
One could say of relativism what Hermann Ebbinghaus once observed with respect to psychology: to wit, that it has a "long past but a short history" (1908, 3). Although relativistic motifs have always played a significant role in philosophy, their systematic investigation-and thus the explicit formulation of different forms and strengths of relativism-is a child only of the twentieth century. Perhaps one could even maintain that most of the really important, detailed and systematic work on relativism was done by philosophers alive today. This volume documents both the long past and the short history of relativism.
Philosophical Studies, 2007
Recent years have brought relativistic accounts of knowledge, first-person belief, and future contingents to prominence. I discuss these views, distinguish non-trivial from trivial forms of relativism, and then argue against relativism in all of its substantive varieties. ''point of assessment'' and false relative to another. Now Mark Richard (2004) argues that ''claims'' expressed with gradable adjectives demand relativistic treatment, and Mac-Farlane and Richard both advocate relativist accounts of assertions or claims of knowledge. My purpose here is to distinguish substantive forms of relativism from their insubstantial cousins and to argue against relativism in all of its substantive incarnations. Of course, a fully adequately response to the above authors would involve a defense of non-relativistic accounts of first-person belief, future contingents, and knowledge; and no single paper could hope to effectively accomplish this task. Thus, I will admit at the start that for all I will
The Logic of Logical Relativism
Logique & Analyse, 1998
We explicate the thesis of logical relativism (people of different cultures may have different logics) in logical terms. Our illustrations come from the field of paraconsistent logic.
Relativism: a conceptual analysis
ABSTRACT Relativism: a conceptual analysis Vittorio Villa In my paper I will try, in the first part, to give a conceptual definition of relativism, with the aim of singling out the possible basic elements common to all the most relevant relativist conceptions. In conformity with my definition, we have to qualify as “relativistic” all the conceptions according to which all or a relevant part of – cognitive, semantic, ethic, cultural, etc. - criteria and beliefs are necessary dependent on a given context (paradigm, culture, language, conceptual scheme, etc.) that is by its turn chosen as point of reference. From this point of view it is “absolutism” which stands in radical opposition to relativism. In the second part of the paper I will deal with some important critical observations which have been recurrently aroused against relativism. From this point of view, a quite serious problem arises from the fact that many relativists would like to have the chance, at least in some important cases, of expressing some objective judgments, for instance in terms of ethically “right” or “wrong”, or in terms of empirically “true” or “false”. In the third part of my paper, in order to answer to this difficulty, I will propose a sketch of a viable and coherent relativistic conception: a conception that doesn’t incorporate at all absolutist elements and that nevertheless could be able to explain the presence of a common core of criteria and beliefs in all our conceptual schemes and beliefs. Two distinctions are of particular importance here: firstly, the distinction between local conceptual schemes and long term frameworks, through which it is possible to clarify that even the most stable and consolidated beliefs common to our conceptual schemes are after all relative; secondly, the distinction between environment (the commonly shared source of our stimulations and perceptions) and world (the subject of our linguistic and theoretical representations, which is always a human construction). Through this last distinction it becomes possible, in my opinion, to speak, even inside a coherent relativist epistemological conception, of the existence of an objective reality. Vittorio Villa