Version Of Relativism Research Articles

Ibram X. Kendi and Relativist Antiracism

Ibram X. Kendi’s bestselling book How to be an Antiracist (2019) has been enormously influential and deserves the serious attention it has received. It follows his important historical work Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (2016), which is much more scholarly and won the National Book Award the year it came out. But these books seem to take for granted a fairly simple version of cultural relativism in ethics that is widely regarded by moral philosophers as seriously defective. I want to take these doubts further and show that cultural relativism is a disastrous theoretical choice for an anti-racist like Kendi to make. In Section I I explain the kind of relativism I have in mind: agent-based, cultural, normative ethical relativism. In Section II, using the two books I have mentioned, I give textual support to my attribution of this kind of relativism to Kendi. In Section III I argue for my theoretical-disaster claim and defend it against some Kendi-inspired criticism. In Section IV I address some serious relativist doubts about ethical universalism, the opposite of relativism. Finally, in Section V I offer some brief concluding remarks.

Relativism, Fallibilism, and the Need for Interpretive Charity

Abstract‘Relativists' and ‘absolutists' about truth often see their own camp as promoting virtues, such as open-mindedness and intellectual humility, and see the opposing camp as fostering vices, like closed-mindedness and arrogance. Relativism is accused of fostering these vices because it entails that each person’s beliefs are automatically right for the person who holds them. How can we be humble or open-minded if we cannot concede that we might be wrong? Absolutism is accused of fostering these vices because the view is seen as entailing certainty. This also seems to preclude us from conceding that we could be wrong. However, no relativist defends the Protagorean version of relativism that entails infallibilism. And no absolutist posits infallible certainty. Fallibilism really is a precondition of various virtues, but both camps take themselves to be defending fallibilist positions against opponents who they take to be committed to infallibilism. Philosophers may inadvertently end up promoting precisely the sort of infallibilism they oppose by creating a false dichotomy and caricaturing the opposing camp. This underscores the importance of interpretive charity in both academic and public debate.

Documentary photography as vocation: reflecting on Frank Cancian’s contribution to visual studies

This article explores the works of the late anthropologist Frank Cancian, specifically considering Another Place (1974), Orange County Housecleaners (2006), and Lacedonia – An Italian Town, 1957 (2016). Re-reading his works together reveals Another Place as a point of departure that concretised Cancian’s vision of documentary photography as a vocation. In particular, the article explores the implications of an exchange with none other than John Collier Jr. that followed the publication of Another Place. This moment reveals Cancian’s orientation towards visual ethnography as toolkit to mobilise a version of cultural relativism and demonstrates Cancian’s resistance to any rigid notions of scientific visual anthropology. The article therefore argues that, in essentially separating the products of his photographic practice (e.g., photobooks) from his ‘professional’ anthropology, Cancian sought new modes of expression through photography. In so doing, he thus confronted an enduring problem for visual scholars – how to engage the world analytically vs. aesthetically. Especially for this reason, bringing Cancian out of contemporary obscurity is useful for visually oriented scholars today.

Family Feuds? Relativism, Expressivism, and Disagreements about Disagreement

In Expressing Our Attitudes (OUP, 2015), Mark Schroeder speculates about the relation between expressivism and relativism. Noting that “John MacFarlane has wondered whether relativism is expressivism done right,” he suggests that this may get things back to front: “it is worth taking seriously the idea that expressivism is relativism done right” (Schroeder 2015, 25). In this piece, motivated both by Schroeder’s suggestion and by recent work from Lionel Shapiro, I compare and contrast my version of expressivism with MacFarlane’s version of relativism. I identify some significant differences concerning the treatment of linguistic disagreement, but conclude that despite these differences, MacFarlane’s version of relativism counts as a version of expressivism in my sense, in most of the respects that matter.

Models, Representation and Truth: On Giere’s Perspectival Realism

Could relativist theses about scientific theories be coherent with realist theses about the relationship between such theories and the physical world? This is the central issue of this paper that we approach, mainly, on Giere’s perspectival realism. We consider that his epistemological relativist theses are plausible and sustainable, but his realist thesis about the representational role that plays the theoretical models with respect to real systems as well as his thesis about true hypotheses are not. After trying to show that, we delineate an epistemological version of conceptual relativism which becomes cognate with Giere’s perspectival claims but that it does not comprise realist claims.

Does anti-reductionism in the epistemology of testimony imply interest relativism about knowledge attributions?

Anti-reductionism in the epistemology of testimony is the thesis that testimonial knowledge is not reducible to knowledge of some other familiar kind, such as inductive knowledge. Interest relativism about knowledge attributions is the thesis that the standards for knowledge attributions are relative to practical contexts. This paper argues that anti-reductionism implies interest relativism. The notion of “implies” here is a fairly strong one: anti-reductionism, together with plausible assumptions, entails interest relativism. A second thesis of the paper is that anti-reductionism in the epistemology of testimony creates significant pressure toward attributor contextualism (a version of interest relativism). Even if anti-reductionism does not strictly entail attributor contextualism, the most powerful motivations for anti-reductionism also motivate attributor contextualism over alternative positions.

Review

Review

Indexical Relativism?

The particular behavior exhibited by sentences featuring predicates of personal taste such as “tasty” may drive us to claim that their truth depends on the context of assessment, as MacFarlane does. MacFarlane considers two ways in which the truth of a sentence can depend on the context of assessment. On the one hand, we can say that the sentence expresses a proposition whose truth-value depends on the context of assessment. This is MacFarlane’s position, which he calls “truth relativism” and, following Weatherson, I rebrand as “nonindexical relativism”. On the other hand, we can say that what proposition a sentence expresses depends on the context of assessment. MacFarlane calls this position “content relativism” and rejects it on the grounds that it leads to implausible readings of certain sentences and is unable to account for the speaker’s authority over the content of her assertions. In this paper, I too argue against content relativism, which, again following Weatherson, I rebrand as “indexical relativism”. However, my arguments against the theory are different from MacFarlane’s, which I prove unsound. In particular, I show that any version of indexical relativism will be unable to account for at least one of the phenomena that have been standardly used to motivate nonindexical relativism—faultless disagreement and retraction—in most of the ways in which it has been proposed to understand them.

No matter who: What makes one a relativist?

As part of her argument that relativism and contextualism are nothing but notational variants of each other, Stojanovic holds that contextualism is flexible enough to achieve whatever relativism might do if the matter is what truth-value is assigned to each pair of sentence and context. In this paper, I reply to this statement by arguing that contextualism cannot be made as flexible as relativism without in fact turning it into a version of relativism. The key to my response to Stojanovic is that, while relativism relativizes utterance truth, contextualism does not, so parameters that are not fixed at the context of utterance will be accessible for the relativist, but not for the contextualist. Although the relativity of utterance truth follows as soon as propositional truth is relativized to contexts of assessment, as the relativist does, it is easy to lose sight of this fact if we identify the context of assessment with the assessor’s context. Hence, the point of this paper is that the difference between relativism and contextualism is not one as to whose parameters play a role in determining the sentence’s truth-value. If it were, contextualism could indeed be made just as flexible as relativism.

Moral plurality, moral relativism and accommodation

ABSTRACTIn this paper I will defend a version of pluralistic relativism. In the first section of this paper I will present my view of a functional morality by appealing to the moral diverse traditions in China. If each is indeed conceptually consistent and practically sufficient, then it seems to me that each is a functional morality. In the second section I explain the connection between moral plurality and the perception of moral ambivalence that our own moral beliefs might not be true. In the third section I argue that radical moral relativism and weak universalism cannot accommodate moral plurality and moral ambivalence. In the fourth section I explain why pluralistic relativism can best accommodate moral plurality and moral ambivalence. In the last section I present how pluralistic relativism helps us to deal with disagreement and motivates us to respect those who are different from us.

MULTIPLE INDEXING RELATIVISM ABOUT PREDICATES OF TASTE

Focusing on predicates of taste, this paper puts forward a novel version of relativism, motivated by a recently discussed phenomenon: perspectival plurality. After showing that the phenomenon is problematic for at least some versions of relativism and discussing several possible answers on behalf of the relativist, I put forward my own version. The main feature of the proposal is the introduction in the index not of a single parameter for perspectives, but of a (possibly infinite) sequence of such parameters. In the last part of the paper, I defend the view against three objections.

Relativism in the Philosophy of Law

I consider in this chapter the writings of two prominent legal philosophers, Hans Kelsen and Gustav Radbruch. Kelsen espouses a version of meta-ethical relativism and maintains that democracy presu ...

Legalism in the Kitchen: Relativizing the Ethics and Performance of Gastronomic Expertise

By adopting a “weak” version of cultural relativism, we can manage our own ethical discomfort without disrespecting those whose culinary values and practices we do not share. This entails recognizing the contextual and performative aspects of all gastronomic rhetoric, including claims of expertise over questions of culinary authenticity and standards of acceptable behavior during the consumption of food and drink; all such claims, while often couched in the language of moral certainty, are in reality susceptible to contestation. It is thus in the language of right and wrong that those engaged in culinary discussions affirm, negotiate, and modify the prevailing standards of taste and good manners. This becomes especially clear when local people test foreigners' willingness to adapt to local gastronomic practices and styles of consumption, aspects of performance that are often coded in ways that force uninitiated outsiders to fail, perhaps unknowingly, in local eyes.

«Мера вещей» Протагора как критерий истины

The article is about an interpretation of the concept of Measure in the famous thesis of Protagoras (TP) “Man is the Measure of all things” as a criterion of knowledge. The main purpose of this work is to show how the concept of “measure” was gradually transformed into the criterion of truth. The answer to this question can be found in the relevant passages of Plato’s “Theaetetus” and Sextus Empiricus’ “Adversus Mathematicos” and “Outlines of Pyrrhonism”. In the “Theaetetus” Plato represents “the secret doctrine” of Protagoras. According to Ugo Zilioli this doctrine is a robust version of relativism, encompassing different types of it: Relativism of Truth, Relativism of Being and Relativism of Knowledge. Among the other interpretations of the concept of Measure, Plato proposes the following substitution: “to be a Measure” means “to possess the criterion of knowledge”. This replacement allowed Plato to show the internal inconsistency of the TP. In the works of Sextus the concept of Measure in TP is unambiguously interpreted as the criterion of knowledge. For Plato the word criterion is still a philosophical neologism, but in the Hellenistic period it becomes an oft-used philosophical term.

DO IGNORANT ASSESSORS CASES POSE A CHALLENGE TO RELATIVISM ABOUT EPISTEMIC MODALS?

1.IntroductionOur ordinary conversations are filled with talk about what could or must be. For instance, in an iconic scene from On the Waterfront, the protagonist Terry bemoans his ruined boxing career. could have been a contender, he says, instead of a bum, which is what I am.1 Terry's regret is tied not only to the way things are but also to the way things might have been. As it was, Terry lost his chance at the title. However, had he not thrown a big fight, things might have turned out quite differently for him. Could and might, along with their duals, should and must, are modal terms: we use them to talk about what is possible and what is necessary. Terry's statement has to do with what is metaphysically possible. Although certain things are essential to Terry's nature, presumably being a bum is not. T here are other kinds of possibility besides metaphysical possibility. For instance, when a parent tells a child You must not lie, she is reminding the chi ld of what is morally necessary - that is, what is not possible given the constraints of morality.One particularly interesting type of modality is epistemic modality, which concerns what is possible given a body of knowledge or evidence. For instance, consider Luke and Max's conversation in (1).(1) Luke: What did you catch out on the lake?Max: I'm no expert, but it might be a rainbow trout.Luke: It can't be a rainbow trout. It is missing the pink streak down its side.Max: Oh, then I guess I was wrong.Cases involving epistemic modals, such as (1), present an interesting semantic challenge. In order to give a semantic treatment of epistemic modals, we must explain how informational states figure in the semantic representation of these terms. Recently, there have been several proposals for a semantic theory of epistemic modals.2 One major view - relativism -holds that claims involving epistemic modals are only true or false relative to epistemic agents or informational states. On this view, epistemic modals are quantifiers over epistemic possibilities, and the range of possibilities quantified over changes depending on knowledge is relevant. For now, we can think of epistemic possibilities as represented by epistemically possible worlds - worlds compatible with what is known.3 Formally, utterances containing epistemic modals express propositions (which we can think of as either sets of worlds or functions from worlds to truth values) that are evaluated for truth relative to a circumstance of evaluation (or index). The circumstance of evaluation includes a parameter i that represents an informational state that determines the range of the quantifier.Because informational states vary from person to person, an important question for the relativist to answer is whose knowledge is relevant? According to a basic version of relativism - call it speaker relativism - the truth of an epistemic modal claim depends upon what the speaker knows at the time of utterance. It is true just in case what the speaker knows at the time she utters the claim does not rule out the possibility in question. Relativist John MacFarlane claims that speaker relativism is inadequate. He argues that examples like (1) show that it cannot be the speaker's information that is relevant. If the speaker's evidence alone is relevant, then it would hardly be appropriate for Luke to contradict Max's claim, or for Max to retract it. After all, for all Max knew at the time he uttered the claim, the fish was a rainbow trout. Instead, MacFarlane suggests that the truth of epistemic modal claims depends on the informational state of the person assessing the claim. According to MacFarlane's view - call it assessor relativism - epistemic modal claims are assessment-sensitive in that their truth depends on what is known by the assessor at the time he or she assesses the claim. Hence, truth for epistemic modal claims varies with what MacFarlane calls the context of assessment4Examples such as (1) seem especially suited to support assessor relativism because, in this case, the assessor knows more than the speaker. …

Political Rationality and Cultural Distance in the European Embassies to Shah Abbas

The embassy of Don García de Silva y Figueroa, sent in 1614 by Philip iii of Castile and ii of Portugal to negotiate an alliance with Shah Abbas against the Ottomans, was a fiasco. Not only did it fail to secure a deal, but within three years of the ambassador’s departure from Ispahan, in 1622, Persian troops, with the help of English ships, conquered the strategic island and fortress of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, marking a turning point in the decline of Portuguese power in Asia. For many historians the embassy was doomed from the start, notwithstanding the lavish gift offered to the Safavid ruler, because the Spanish ambassador could never offer Shah Abbas what he wanted. This analysis however assumes that the two sides understood each other perfectly well, and that the cultural distance between the ambassador and Shah Abbas was no obstacle to perfectly accurate political calculations. Taking advantage of the plurality of agendas and perspectives that can be documented during these exchanges, including English adventurers and commercial agents, various Carmelite and Augustinian friars, and the independent observer Pietro della Valle, this article seeks to test the degree of cultural commensurability in inter-cultural diplomacy, proposing a model that takes account of cultural distance without falling into a facile version of cultural relativism.

Untergräbt der Relativismus die Autorität der Moral und die regulative Funktion ihrer Wahrheit?

In this article, various objections will be discussed that have been put forward against ethical relativism, but which haven’t been considered seriously enough on the part of relativists and have been overrated on the part of their opponents. The objections will be concentrated into three arguments: the action-theoretic, the epistemological and the truth-theoretic argument. The article will discuss whether they can be rebutted by proponents of the two main types of relativism: indexical relativism and truth-relativism. The conclusion will be as follows: (i) one version of indexical relativism, the analytical version, gets into serious troubles by the action-theoretic argument, while its revisionary version will remain unaffected, (ii) the epistemological argument fails with respect to indexical relativism and stands on shaky ground as regards truth-relativism, (iii) the truth-theoretic argument puts considerable pressure (solely) on truth-relativism.

Is Epistemology Tainted?

Abstract Epistemic relativism comes in many forms, which have been much discussed in the last decade or so in analytic epistemology. My goal is to defend a version of epistemic relativism that sources the relativity in the metaphysics of epistemic properties and relations, most saliently knowledge. I contrast it with other relativist theses. I argue that the sort of metaphysical relativism about knowledge I favor does not threaten the objectivity of the epistemological domain.

Human Rights and Cultural Identity

Abstract Universal human rights and particular cultural identities, which are relativistic by nature, seem to stand in conflict with each other. It is commonly suggested that the relativistic natures of cultural identities undermine universal human rights and that human rights might compromise particular cultural identities in a globalised world. This article examines this supposed clash and suggests that it is possible to frame a human rights approach in such a way that it becomes the starting point and constraining framework for all non-deficient cultural identities. In other words, it is possible to depict human rights in a culturally sensitive way so that universal human rights can meet the demands of a moderate version of meta-ethical relativism which acknowledges a small universal core of objectively true or false moral statements and avers that, beyond that small core, all other moral statements are neither objectively true nor false.

Epistemic Relativism: A Constructive Critique, by Markus Seidel

When Protagoras proposed a version of relativism, philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle took on the task of refuting it. Down the centuries, relativism has had a way of bouncing back, and the ta...