Relativism as Reductio

Abstract

Many philosophers believe that the relativistic consequences of a philo? sophical theory are sufficient to refute that theory. The reason relativism is treated as a reductio is that relativism is widely held to be self-refuting. In this paper I argue that there is at least one form of epistemological relativism which is neither self-refuting nor obviously false. If I am successful then any blanket treatment of epistemological relativism as a reductio must be mistaken. The relativist is frequently taken to be critical, not to say sceptical, of what we would as a matter of course claim to know. We would normally claim to know such things as that dashi, a Japanese soup stock, is made with giant kelp and bonito. There are forms of relativism which would deny that this claim can be known to be objectively true (or false). But these revisionary forms of relativism, by striking at what we would ordinarily say, are difficult to take seriously. Since my purpose is to determine if there is a coherent and plausible form of epistemological relativism, I shall consider it a decisive objection to any form of epistemological relativism that it is sceptical of what we would ordinarily call knowledge. On this account, the principal challenge of epistemological relativism is not a denial that what we call objective knowledge is objective knowledge; rather the principal challenge is a critique of a philosophical picture of what that objectivity consists in. In particular the relativist joins the attack on metaphysical realism recently made urgent by Dummett and Putnam. Objectivity does not consist in the agreement of our claims with what Putnam sarcastically calls THE WORLD. THE WORLD, on the meta? physical realist's account, might bear no resemblance to anything we claim to know. Here is Putnam: ' Verified (in any operational sense) does not imply true, on the metaphysical realist picture, even in the ideal limit.n So characterized, THE WORLD is like'. .. a wheel that can be turned though nothing else moves with it, [it] is not part of the mechanism'.2 Since this paper is primarily a consideration of the logical coherence of relativism it is immaterial whether, as I shall assume in this paper, THE WORLD is a world well lost. Nevertheless it must be said that if metaphysical realism