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Pieb FALL 2015 PHILOSOPHY IS EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS XXII FALL 2015 No 2 Relativism (unedited) Author Unknown Relativism, roughly put, is the view that truth and falsity, right and wrong, standards of reasoning, and procedures of justification are products of differing conventions and frameworks of assessment and that their authority is confined to the context giving rise to them. More precisely, ‘relativism’ covers views which maintain that—at a level of high abstraction—at least some class of things have properties they have (e.g. beautiful, morally good, epistemically justified) not simpliciter, but only relative to a given framework of assessment (e.g. local cultural norms, individual standards), and correspondingly, that the truth of claims attributing these properties holds only once the relevant framework of assessment is specified or supplied. Relativists characteristically insist, furthermore, that if something is only relatively so, then there can be no framework-independent vantage point from which the matter of whether the thing in question is so can be established. 2 Relativism has been, in its various guises, both one of the most popular and most reviled philosophical doctrines of our time. De- fenders see it as a harbinger of tolerance and the only ethical and epistemic stance worthy of the open-minded and tolerant. Detrac- tors dismiss it for its alleged incoherence and uncritical intellectual permissiveness. Debates about relativism permeate the whole spec- trum of philosophical sub-disciplines. From ethics to epistemolo- gy, science to religion, political theory to ontology, theories of meaning and even logic, philosophy has felt the need to respond to this heady and seemingly subversive idea. Discussions of relativ- ism often also invoke considerations relevant to the very nature and methodology of philosophy and to the division between the so- called ‘analytic and continental’ camps in philosophy. And yet, despite a long history of debate going back to Plato and a still de- veloping large body of writing, it is still difficult to come to an agreed definition of what, at its core, relativism is, and what philo- sophical import it has. This entry attempts to provide a broad ac- count of the many ways in which ‘relativism’ has been defined, explained, defended and criticized. 1. What is Relativism? 1.1 The co-variance definition 1.2 Negative definition 1.3 The hidden parameter definition 1.4 The scope of relativism 2. Why Relativism? 2.1. Empirical claims of diversity and their consequences 2.2. Disagreements and intractability 2.3 Underdetermination of theory by data 2.4 No neutral ground 2.5. Context dependence 2.6. Tolerance 3. A Brief History of an Old Idea 2 3 4. Varieties of Relativism 4.1 Cultural relativism 4.2. Conceptual relativism 4.3 Relativism about truth or alethic relativism 4.4. Epistemic relativism 4.5 Moral relativism 5. New Relativism 5.1. The Individuating features of New Relativism 5.2. Truth-relativism and predicates of personal taste 5.3. Truth-relativism and epistemic modals 5.4. Truth-relativism and future contingents 5.5. Truth-relativism and knowledge-attributions 5.5. General objections to New Relativism 6. Conclusion Bibliography Academic Tools Other Internet Resources Related Entries 1. What is Relativism? The label ‘relativism’ has been attached to a wide range of ideas and positions which may explain the lack of consensus on how the term should be defined. The profusion of the use of the term ‘rela- tivism’ in contemporary philosophy means that there is no ready consensus on any one definition. Here are three prominent, but not necessarily incompatible, approaches: 3 4 1.1 The co-variance definition A standard way of defining and distinguishing between different types of relativism is to begin with the claim that a phenomenon x (e.g. values, epistemic, aesthetic and ethical norms, experiences, judgments, and even the world) is somehow dependent on and co- varies with some underlying, independent variable y (e.g. para- digms, cultures, conceptual schemes, belief systems, language). The type of dependency relativists propose has a bearing on the question of definitions. Let us take some examples. (a) Justice is relative to local norms. (b) Truth is relative to a language-game. (c) The measurement of temperature is relative to the scale we use. Each of (a) – (c) exhibits a relation of dependence where a change in the independent variable y will result in variations in the de- pendent variable x. However, of the three examples cited above, normally only (a) and (b) are deemed relevant to philosophical dis- cussions of relativism, for one main attraction of relativism is that it offers a way of settling (or explaining away) what appear to be profound disagreements on questions of value, knowledge and on- tology and the relativizing parameter often involves people, their beliefs, cultures or languages. The co-variance definition proceeds by asking the dual questions: (i) what is relativized? and (ii) what is it relativized to? The first question enables us to distinguish forms of relativism in terms of their objects, for example, relativism about truth, goodness, beauty, and their subject matters, e.g. science, law, religion. The answer to the second question individuates forms of relativism in terms of their domains or frames of reference--e.g., conceptual frameworks, cultures, historical periods, etc. Such classifications have been proposed by Haack (1996), O’Grady (2002), Baghramian (2004), and Swoyer (2010). The following table classifies different relativ- istic positions according what is being relativized, or its objects, and what is being relativized to, or its domains. 4 v- by Table I relati Domains of Relativization (y) 5 ent r proposed diffe been domains. its have or classifies (I) Individual’s (II) Historical (III) Cultures, (IV) Con- (V) Context to view points and epochs society, social ceptual of assess- table preferences groupings schemes, ment, e.g. fications i languages, taste parame- frameworks ter, asses- relativized class sor’s/agent’s following sets of be- being Such liefs The is etc. what (A) Cognitive (2010). norms, Alethic Subjectiv- Alethic and Alethic Cultural Alethic Alethic New and riods, e.g. truth, rationality , ism/ Epistemic Epistemic His- Relativism/ Ep- Relativism/ Relativism e p logic Subjectivism toricism istemic Cultural Epistemic Swoyer (x) Relativism Relativism objects, and tion its a (B) Moral values Moral Subjectivism Ethical Histor- Ethical Cultur- Moral Con- (New) Moral historical or icism al/Social Rela- ceptual Relativism tivism Relativism (2004), Relativiz (C) Aesthetic values Aesthetic Subjec- Aesthetic His- Aesthetic Cul- Aesthetic (New) Aes- cultures, of tivism toricism tural/Social Rel- Conceptual thetic Rela- relativized, ativism Relativism tivism (D)Thoughts, Percep- Thought/percept Thought/perce Thought/percept Thought/pe N/A being Baghramian Objects tion Subjectivism pt Historicism Cultural/Social rcept Con- is Relativism ceptual frameworks, Relativism, what (2002), Linguistic Relativity ceptual (E) Propositionsn or to- N/A N/A N/A N/A New Relativ- co O’Grady kens of utterancesaccording ex- ism pressing personal pre f- e.g., -- erences, future contitions n- i (1996), gents, epistemic pos modals, aesthetic and moral predicates. reference Haack istic Table I reflects the availability of fine-grained distinctions between different forms of relativism as functions of both objects (x) and domains (y) of relativization. In practice, however, much contem- porary discussions of relativism focus on subjectivism, historicism, cultural relativism and conceptual relativism, along the axis of y, and cognitive/epistemic relativism, ethical or moral relativism and aesthetic relativism, along the axis of x. As we shall see in §5, New 5 6 Relativism, where the objects of relativization (in the left column) are utterance tokens expressing claims about cognitive norms, moral values, etc. and the domain of relativization is the standards of an assessor, has also been the focus of much recent discussion. 1.2 Relativism by contrast A second approach to defining relativism casts its net more widely by focusing primarily on what relativists deny. Defined negative- ly, relativism amounts to the rejection of a number of interconnect- ed philosophical positions. Traditionally, relativism is contrasted with: Absolutism, the view that at least some truths or values in the rele- vant domain apply to all times, places or social and cultural frameworks. They are universal and not bound by historical or so- cial conditions. Absolutism is often used as the key contrast idea to relativism. Objectivism or the position that cognitive, ethical and aesthetic norms and values in general, but truth in particular, are independ- ent of judgments and beliefs at particular times and places, or in other words they are (non-trivially) mind-independent. The anti- objectivist on the other hand, denies that there is such thing as simply being “true’, “good”, “tasty” or “beautiful” but argues that we can coherently discuss such values only in relation to parame- ters that have something to do with our mental lives. Monism or the view that, in any given area or topic subject to disa- greement, there can be no more than one correct opinion, judg- ment, or norm. The relativist often wishes to allow for a plurality of equally valid values or even truths. Realism, when defined in such a way that it entails both the objec- tivity and singularity of truth, also stands in opposition to relativ- ism. Relativism in this negative sense is a prominent feature of the work of the relativists malgré eux such as Richard Rorty (1979) and Jacques Derrida (1974). What justifies the appellation ‘relativist’, rather than ‘skeptic’, is not only these philosophers’ suspicion of the possibility of objectivity but their insistence on the role of so- cio-historical, psychological and textual contexts in accounts of ‘truth’ and ‘knowledge’ claims. 1.3 The hidden parameter definition 6 7 What also binds various forms of relativism is an underlying idea that claims to truth, knowledge or justification have an implicit, maybe even unnoticed, relationship to a parameter or domain.
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