My objective in this paper is to compare two philosophical problems, the problem of the criterion and the problem of deep disagreement, and note a core similarity which explains why many proposed solutions to these problems seem to fail along similar lines. From this observation, I propose a kind of skeptical solution to the problem of deep disagreement, and this skeptical program has consequences for the problem as it manifests in political epistemology and metaphilosophy.

Although thinkers of the past might have started from presumptions of fundamental difference and inequality between (say) the genders, or people of different races, this is no longer the case. At least in mainstream political philosophy, we are all now presumed to be, in some fundamental sense, basic equals. Of course, what follows from this putative fact of basic equality remains enormously controversial: liberals, libertarians, conservatives, Marxists, republicans, and so on, continue to disagree vigorously with each other, despite all presupposing (...) some kind of basic equality. They may argue about who gets what, how much, and why, but the starting point - that all people are in some sense deserving of prima facie equal consideration - has become an axiom of our moral and political thinking. But why? Why are we basic equals? The trouble is that as soon as one asks for an explanation of this foundational premise, it begins to look shaky. After all, on any conceivable metric human beings are notably unequal, and often to striking degrees. Philosophers in this area tend to talk of equal worth, but often without trying to specify what exactly that means. Philosophically, basic equality is neither acceptable nor rejectable. It is not rejectable because we appear to be, as a matter of fact, profoundly committed to the truth of the claim that we are all one another's basic equals. But to the extent that there appear to be no philosophical arguments for believing in the truth of basic equality, it is not acceptable either. The aim of this book is to try and show why basic equality is acceptable. To do so, however, it will also contend that we need to approach the question rather differently to how it has mostly been handled so far. What's required is an exercise in what Bernard Williams called 'impure philosophy': it must include insights from other areas of human intellectual endeavour, whether psychology and history or even what we learn from how we go about practicing basic equality in our collective lives. (shrink)

An in-depth look at the theory of solidarity of German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, serving also as a comprehensive introduction to his work.

_An in-depth look at the theory of solidarity of German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, serving also as a comprehensive introduction to his work._.

What is objectivity? What would it take to have objective representations and do we have what it takes? This paper aims to contribute to answering these questions. To this end, it isolates one relevant sense of objectivity and proposes a generalization of standard frameworks of representational content in order to engage with the question in a way that is rhetorically fair. Armed with a general conception of perspectival content, taken from the literature on centred or de se content, the paper (...) articulates one necessary condition for objective representation: the possession of objective concepts and therefore objective contents. Two ways of meeting this condition are discussed in an exploratory way. (shrink)

Excavates the experiential structure of Habermas’s communicative action.

_Excavates the experiential structure of Habermas’s communicative action._.

RésuméCet article défend une approche à la philosophic et à l'éthique environnementale qui a originalement été avancée par Aldo Leopold. Selon cet auteur, l'éthique peut être comprise, d'un point de vue biologique, comme la forme spécifiquement humaine de la symbiose. La question cruciate de notre époque est de savoir si les humains peuvent coexister avec l'environnement global en un état de symbiose. La philosophie et les sciences humaines en général peuvent contribuer grandement à l'atteinte de ce but, à cause de (...) la façon très spéciale dont le caractère même des actions et des æuvres humaines peut être amplifié par l'écosystème. Je critique un argument thermodynamique qui a été formulé contre la possibilité de la symbiose humaine; et je mets en garde contre les tendances à l'autoritarisme et è l'évasion par l'introspection qui sont typiques des cultures en état de crise écologique. (shrink)

In the Phaedrus, Socreates sympathetically describes the ability “to cut up each kind according to its species along its natural joints, and to try not to splinter any part, as a bad butcher might do.” (265e) In contemporary philosophy, Ted Sider (2009, 2011) defends the same idea. As I shall put it, Plato and Sider’s idea is that limning structure is an epistemic goal. My aim in this paper is to articulate and defend this idea. First, I’ll articulate the notion (...) of a structural proposition (§1), and the notion of an epistemic goal (§2), where I’ll assume that epistemic goals are species of accuracy. Then (§3), I’ll argue against some proposals for understanding the idea that limning structure is an epistemic goal: limning structure is neither an aim of belief (§3.1), nor of inquiry (§3.2), nor of concept possession (§3.3). Importantly, non-structural belief is not thereby inaccurate; belief does not “aim” at being structural. Next (§4), I’ll propose a framework for understanding the idea that limning structure is an epistemic goal, and defend that idea. What is required, to defend the view that limning structure is an epistemic goal, is the notion of (what I call) theorizing – a propositional attitude that, unlike belief, does “aim” at being structural (§4.1). I’ll argue that structural truths constitute a species of “important” truths (§4.2), and that apt theorizing is a species of understanding (§4.3). Finally (§5), I’ll discuss the possibility that there is no structure. (shrink)

Has the emergence of post-positivism in philosophy of science changed the terms of the “is/ought” dichotomy? If it has demonstrated convincingly that there are no “facts” apart from the theoretical frames and evaluative standards constructing them, can such a cordon sanitaire really be upheld between “facts” and values? The point I wish to stress is that philosophy of science has had a central role in constituting and imposing the fact/value dichotomy and a revolution in the philosophy of science should not (...) leave the dichotomy unaffected. The connection between post-positivism and naturalism will be my guiding thread in considering this “last dogma of positivism.” First this essay will specify the sense of naturalism that it will take to be essential to the post-positivist philosophy of science: the deflation of the notion of the “purity” of scientific knowledge. Then it will turn to the question of the implications that follow for the “autonomy” of ethics, including the danger posed by a new form of scientistic reductionism. (shrink)

I critically examine Rorty's social epistemology, specifically his claim that the end of inquiry is solidarity.

This is the second in a series of two papers by the same author on organisational values. The first paper, in the previous issue of Philosophy of Management,1 showed how senior managers interpret texts to constitute organisational values. The research showed that organisational values are constituted through three hermeneutic circles — fragmentation/integration, conceptuality/contextuality and temporality — that provide an integrated medium for interpreting values. The three hermeneutic circles are mediated by a fourth: the tropological circle, where metaphor and homonymy fuse (...) horizons, and synecdoche and metonymy relate parts and whole. Both texts and tropes mediate the transvaluation of organisational values across time. The first paper reported the findings and built a theoretical framework, while this second paper builds on the theoretical and empirical work to consider the implications for management practice. (shrink)

As a response to the common criticism that phenomenology is handicapped by its descriptive faith, this article outlines a program for showing what a rational justification can be from a phenomenological perspective. The phenomenological position defended here stands between Rorty's thesis of objectivity in solidarity and Habermas's view of rationality through universal claims. In the first part of the article, I show how a justification of a stance, an action, or a behavior can only make appeal to standards and criteria (...) which derive from a culture; in the second part, I argue that, since justification involves the making of claims, a claim makes both its author and its community accountable and liable for what is claimed; the third part shows how the encounter between cultures and communities exerts a greater scrutiny on claims made in one culture or community, thereby leading to progress in the justification process. Key Words: deconstruction • justification • phenomenology • relativism • validity claims. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe article investigates which epistemological considerations justify how religious life fits into the school life, and examines the debate on the participation of religiosity in the education system. I do this, first, by addressing the pedagogical implications of the distinction between public and private as maintained by Richard Rorty and, second, by reconsidering the pluralist metaphysics held by William James as an alternative path to understanding and re-addressing the question of religious life in school life. The article analyzes how the (...) strict separation of projects of individual self-creation and the public sphere, as defended by Rorty, poses problems in implementing pluralism in democratic societies and their educational institutions. (shrink)

Acknowledging the power of the id-drives, Freud held on to the authority of reason as the ego’s best tool to control instinctual desire. He thereby placed analytic reason at the foundation of his own ambivalent social theory, which, on the one hand, held utopian promise based upon psychoanalytic insight, and, on the other hand, despaired of reason’s capacity to control the self-destructive elements of the psyche. Moving beyond the recourse of sublimation, post-Freudians attacked reason’s hegemony in quelling disruptive psycho-dynamics and, (...) focusing upon the social domain, they sought strategies to counter the oppressive (repressive) social restrictions and conformist impositions impeding individual freedom that result from thwarted desire. Postmodern celebration of desire at the expense of reason and sublimation leaves the Enlightenment prospects altogether and moves psychoanalysis into a new terrain, where the very notion of rationality and an autonomous ego upon which much of Freudianism rests has been deconstructed. Thus the debate that begins with Freud’s social theories reflects the deeper divisions, which arose with postmodern ethics and discarded Cartesian–Kantian notions of personal identity. Here we consider the moral framework in which Freudian social theory sits and a contrasting understanding of agency that confronts his modernist conception. In that debate, we discern the larger humanist confrontation with postmodernity. Yet, all who engaged Freud shared some version of his utopian ethos, albeit radically restructuring the theory upon which social reform might occur. (shrink)

Educators who are reflective about their educational endeavours ask themselves questions like: What is the aim of education? What moral, methodological, or other constraints govern our educational activities and efforts? One natural place to look for answers is in the philosophy of education, which (among other things) tries to provide systematic answers to these questions. One general answer offered by the philosophy of education is that the aim of education consists in fostering the development of students' rationality. On this view, (...) education has as its fundamental task both the development of students' reasoning ability, and also the fostering of a complex of attitudes, habits of mind, dispositions and character traits, such that students are not only able to reason well; they also care about reasons, and organize their beliefs, judgments and actions in accordance with the deliverances of the reasoned evaluation of reasons. Argumentation theory is also concerned with the analysis of the power and convicting force of reasons. When do reasons for a claim warrant acceptance of that claim? By what criteria are reasons evaluated? How are these criteria themselves justified? Such questions as these are the meat and potatoes of argumentation theory, which, in pursuing these questions, promises to shed light on the character of rationality as the aim of education. Rationality, which links education and argumentation theory, provides educators with a reason to care about argumentation-if rationality can be cogently defended as an educational ideal. In this paper I will try to provide such a defense, and in doing so explain why educators should care about argumentation. The defense will be a moral one: I will argue that we are morally obliged to endeavour to foster the rationality of students, because that is what is required to meet our obligations to treat students with respect as persons. I will also consider some general criticisms of the Enlightenment ideal of rationality, offered by Feminist, Multiculturalist, and Postmodemist scholars. If these criticisms are cogent, then both argumentation theory and the view that the aim of education is the fostering of rationality are threatened. I will argue that the criticisms, while important and instructive, are not so destructive of the ideal of rationality as some contemporary scholars suppose. (shrink)

Central to argumentation theory is a concern with normativity. Argumentation theorists are concerned, among other things, with explaining why some arguments are good (or at least better than others) in the sense that a given argument provides reasons for embracing its conclusion which are such that a fair- minded appraisal of the argument yields the judgment that the conclusion ought to be accepted -- is worthy of acceptance -- by all who so appraise it.

Universalism can be religious or secular; within the category of secular universalism, a distinction can be made (especially in China) between universalism focused on ‘universality’ or the universal validity of certain ideas and universalism focused on ‘generality’ or the general extension of certain ideas. Within the category of universality-based universalism, ‘value universalism’ holds one or some values to be universally valid and ‘culture universalism’ holds a certain culture or a certain way of ranking various values to be universally valid. Within (...) the category of ‘value universalism’, a distinction can be made between ‘dialogue-oriented universalism’, which argues for the priority of the right to communication over other rights and ‘monologueoriented universalism’, according to which one subject can unilaterally decide what is of universal validity for all. Not only ‘monologue-oriented universalism’, but also ‘dialogue-oriented universalism’ can be understood in a Euro-centrist way; there is thus a distinction between West-centrist and non-West-centrist varieties of universalism. The key to avoiding West-centrist universalism while upholding universalism is to make a distinction between essentialist universalism and constructivist universalism, and to see what is universally shared by all relevant parties as something to be constructed through the process of ‘Verkehr’ in Marx’s sense that is informed by the process of ‘Kommunikation’ in Habermas’s sense. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss some conditions forunderstanding teaching as an act ofresponsibility towards an other, rather than asan instrumental act identified throughepistemology. I first put the latter intocontext through a critical reading of teachingas it is inscribed in humanistic discourses oneducation. Within these discourses, I explorehow students are treated as objects ofknowledge that reinforce the teacher's ego. Icontend that the taking up of this positionmakes not only an ethical relation to thestudent impossible, but also disqualifies anytype of meaningful social (...) relation. Therefore Iargue that teachers have to give up theirposition on the safe side of knowledge andparticipate in the time of risk when meetingthe other means to take responsibility for thatother from a position of vulnerability.Moreover, it is precisely because of this riskthat teaching as an ethical relation becomespossible and where it begins to resound withpoetry. (shrink)

Curiously, while the efficacy of the arts for the development of multicultural understandings has long been theorized, empirical studies of this effect have been lacking. This essay recounts our combined empirical and philosophical study of this issue. We explicate the philosophical considerations that shaped the development of the arts course we studied, which was grounded in rather traditional humanist educational thought, informed by Deweyan considerations for pedagogy and multiculturalism. We also provide an overview of the course and of the study (...) design: the ways in which the course worked to teach aesthetic theory through a combination of popular and canonical works, and the ways in which it sought to instill a sense of cross-cultural appreciation and solidarity among students through the inclusion of art from different cultures and generations. We then share our research findings and our return to the realm of philosophy to interpret them. Our postcolonial analysis incorporates emerging discussions of the arts as a tool for resistance and dialogue within the system of public education, and revisit and reconsider the very concept of education for pluralistic democracy. This approach problematizes traditional conceptions of pluralism, in which an attempt is made to dissolve difference in a common understanding, and instead advocates that works from among the contemporary popular arts and works drawn from the artistic “canon” alike must be considered and employed for their instrumental value to the educational process—especially for their ability to prompt an intersubjectivity that is accompanied by a heightened awareness of difference. (shrink)

Yanchar, Slife, and their colleagues have described how mainstream psychology's notion of critical thinking has largely been conceived of as “scientific analytic reasoning” or “method-centered critical thinking.” We extend here their analysis and critique, arguing that some version of the one-sided instrumentalism and confusion about tacit values that characterize scientistic approaches to inquiry also color phenomenological, critical theoretical, and social constructionist viewpoints. We suggest that hermeneutic/dialogical conceptions of inquiry, including the idea of social theory as itself a form of ethically (...) motivated human practice, give a fuller account of critical thinking in the social disciplines. (shrink)

In order to understand Hegel's approach to philosophy, we need to ask why, and how, he reacts to the well-known criticism of German Romantics, like Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel, against philosophical system building in general, and against Kant's system in particular. Hegel's encyclopedic system is a topical ordering of categorically different ontological realms, corresponding to different conceptual forms of representation and knowledge. All in all it turns into a systematic defense of Fichte's doctrine concerning the primacy of us as actors (...) with respect to any knowledge claim or scientific theory. Hegel's limitations of the principle of causality and of the possibility of using mathematical methods in science show, in fact, how a merely compatibilist solution of Kant's third antinomy can be overcome. (shrink)

Liberalism sanctions both democracy and capitalism, but incorporating the two into a coherent intellectual system presents difficulties. The anti-foundational pragmatism of Richard Rorty offers a way to describe and defend a meaningful democratic capitalism while avoiding the problems that come from the more traditional liberal justification. Additionally, Rorty's rejection of the search for extra-human grounding of social and political arrangements suggests that democracy is entitled to a philosophical support that capitalism is not. A viable democratic capitalism therefore justifies its use (...) of markets on the consent of the governed, rather than appeals to liberal notions of individualism, liberty, and property. (shrink)

In Habits of the Heart and The Good Society, Bellah et al. diagnose our loss of public life in areas such as education and relate this loss both to flaws in moral ecology and to our institutions. Their opposition to the Lockean metaphysic of self and community and to objectivist epistemology as a way of understanding schools is helpful in that it naturally suggests the kind of piecemeal, contextualized change that we locate within Dewey's viewpoint. But, I argue, Bellah et (...) al.'s penchant for “first philosophy” ultimately taints their work. While I applaud their turn to Dewey, I find their choice of a “metaphysical”, rather than a Rortyan reading of Dewey misguided. The proper alternative to a Lockean metaphysics is not a communitarian/Aristotelian one; the proper corrective to objectivist epistemology is not “Deweyan epistemology” or “critical theory”. We need to see, as in Rorty, that democracy exists prior to normative philosophy just as it has priority over substantive religion. To think otherwise would lead to a loss of contact with the ordinary, specific, ever-changing realms where our lives, and our democratic institutions — including the university — must either thrive or flounder. Finally, there is no epistemology or metaphysics that will adequately “ground” the university's workings. Instead, there is only, as Dewey put it, growth or failure to grow, guided by hints and resonances that arise in evolving circumstances. (shrink)

The article examines the role of apology in a process of reconciling with historic injustice. As with so many other facets of the politics of reconciliation, official apologies are controversial, at times strenuously resisted, and their purpose and significance not always well understood. The article, therefore, seeks to articulate the key moral and practical resources that official apologies can bring to bear in a process of national reconciliation and to defend these symbolic acts against some of the more influential criticisms (...) from the skeptics. The analysis is developed in relation to apologies offered in the context of state-indigenous reconciliation processes in the Americas, Australasia, and other regions of the globe. (shrink)

Although Friedrich Nietzsche had no less to say about value than he did about truth, his writings reflect contradictory views about their interrelation. In several passages, Nietzsche explicitly remarks that no relation exists between phenomena and value, describing value as a derivative and secondary mode of interpretation arbitrarily ‘attached’ to primary, non-evaluative interpretations. Elsewhere and more understated, however, runs an opposing line of argumentation in which Nietzsche presents interpretation as emerging through evaluation and therefore as necessarily ‘colored’ by it. While (...) Gilles Deleauze's exegesis of Nietzsche struggles to maintain a certain faithfulness to this ambiguity, most contemporary inheritors of Nietzschean thought, including Richard Rorty and Michel Foucault, have embraced the claim of ‘no relation’ between value and interpretation. This article provides support, in part through the analytic of race, for the alternative hypothesis that holds the indissociable relation of value and interpretation. (shrink)

Hegel's rejection of the Kantian thing-in-itself makes the "an sich" an ingredient in experience—that about a thing which is not yet present to us is what it is "an sich." Hegel bars thus any philosophical appeal to anything construed as atemporal, a path which I argue was also taken by Nietzsche, Foucault, Rorty, and Habermas. Unlike them, however, Hegel pursues a project of systematic philosophy, which now consists in showing how temporal things mutually support one another. The recent Continental philosophers (...) I discuss do not share this systematic conception; hence some of their most distinctive insights and problems. (shrink)

In this paper I examine Thomas Kuhn’s epistolary and in-person exchanges with Richard Rorty, and their significance to the former’s work on the nature of scientific development during the years 1976–1986. Accordingly, it corresponds to a significant evolution of Kuhn’s thought from the position expounded earlier in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. These letters show how Kuhn’s philosophy of science evolved towards a greater emphasis on a key aspect of his former work—the nature of ‘the essential tension’—and that his more (...) linguistically-oriented perspective in these latter years has that emphasis as its goal—at least as a significant part. (shrink)

The implementation of education programmes in different cultures invites the question whether we are justified in doing so in cultures that may reject the programmes’ underlying principles. Are there indeed ethical principles and educational ideals that can be justified as applicable to all cultures? After a consideration of Zygmunt Bauman's postmodern rejection of the possibility of universal ethics, Ι cite and extend Harvey Siegel's defence of multiculturalism as a transcultural ethical ideal. I conclude the paper with a justification of the (...) transcultural normative reach of moral principles that I have elsewhere defended as the ethics of integrity. The paper's significance lies in its justification of educational interventions founded in these principles across different cultures. (shrink)

The linguistic turn is a central aspect of Richard Rorty’s philosophy, informing his early critiques of foundationalism in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature and subsequent critiques of authoritarianism in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. It is argued that we should interpret the linguistic turn as a methodological suggestion for how philosophy can take a non-foundational perspective on normativity. It is then argued that although Rorty did not succeed in explicating normativity without foundations (or authority without authoritarianism), we should take seriously (...) the ambition motivating his project. But taking that ambition seriously may require reconsidering the linguistic turn. (shrink)

In this paper I examine problems besetting forms of philosophical and social critique that are motivated by the 'hermeneutics of suspicion' and normatively oriented to the goal of 'unmasking'. I argue that there is an urgent need to correct the one-sided emphasis on 'unmasking', and we can do this by reorienting critique to the practice of individual and social transformation. The argument goes like this. The practice of unmasking critique has split off from utopian projects in whose service it was (...) originally placed, and has become the vehicle of a self-consuming, practice-crippling skepticism that - from Friedrich von Schlegel to Paul de Man and Richard Rorty - goes by the name of irony or ironist theory. Postmodernism, in one of its aspects, is the latest form of this skepticism. I interpret postmodernism as the manifestation of a crisis of confidence (in our ideals and in our agency) and as an ironization of critique. Drawing upon Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Foucault, I reformulate the normative demands of critique such that its practice avoids the problem of self-reference while responding to the problem of self-reassurance. Key Words: confidence • critique • irony • postmodernism • reason • skepticism. (shrink)

Against the common view that a European identity is a functional precondition for legitimate EU governance, this article argues that conceptual weaknesses of the term ‘collective identity’ have led to a confusion of several analytic dimensions of ‘identity’ and to an overestimation of strong forms of collective identity. Insights provided by analytic philosophy will be introduced in order to redefine and differentiate ‘collective identity’. The ways in which people refer to themselves as members of we-groups will be outlined and illustrated (...) in order to contribute to an innovative model of the problem and therefore the policy-related formation of collective identities. The article concludes that a strong European identity is not a functional precondition for legitimate everyday democratic governance in the EU. Only in extraordinary situations and in order to institutionalize integration in ethically sensitive policy fields is it necessary that EU citizens discursively agree on an ethical self-understanding of their way of life. (shrink)

Putnam's internal realism entails the simultaneous rejection of metaphysical realism and (anything goes or total or cultural) relativism. Putnam argues, in some places, that relativism is self-contradictory, and in others, that it is self-refuting. This paper attempts the exegetical task of explicating these challenging arguments, and the critical task of suggesting that a full-blown epistemological relativism may be capable of surviving the Putnam attack.

In recent discussions of the so-called “value of truth,” it is assumed that what is valuable in the relevant way is not the things that are true, but only various states and activities associated with those things: knowing them, investigating them, etc. I consider all the arguments I know of for this assumption, and argue that none provide good reason to accept it. By examining these arguments, we gain a better appreciation of what the value of the things that are (...) true would be, and why it would matter. We also encounter three indications that what is true really is valuable, each of which provides a promising starting point for a serious argument with that conclusion. (shrink)

This paper addresses the questions of whether and, if so, how and to what extent the Internet brings about homogenisation of local cultures in the world. It examines a particular case, that of Thai culture, through an investigation and interpretation of a Usenet newsgroup, soc.culture.thai. Two threads of discussion in the newsgroup are selected. One deals with criticisms of the Thai government and political leaders, and the other focuses on whether the Thai language should be a medium, or perhaps the (...) only medium, of communication in the newsgroup. It is found that, instead of erasing local cultural boundaries, creating a worldwide monolithic culture, the Internet reduplicates the existing cultural boundaries. What the Internet does, on the contrary, is to create an umbrella cosmopolitan culture which is necessary for communication among people from disparate cultures. That culture, however, is devoid of ‘thick’ backgrounds, in Michael Walzer's sense. (shrink)

Reason, objectivity, and human nature are now suspect ideas. Among postmodern thinkers, Richard Rorty has advanced an especially forceful critique of these notions. Drawing partly on Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, Rorty contends that objectivity is no more than a metaphysical name for intersubjective agreement, and that “human nature” is an empty category, there being nothing beneath history and culture. Wittgenstein himself, however, recognized within the world's many civilizations “the common behavior of mankind,” without which Rorty's ethnocentric “solidarity” would be inconceivable. (...) This common form of life—the life of those who speak—encompasses countless human activities that presuppose and are interwoven with the concepts of reason and objectivity. (shrink)

According to Thomas Nagel we have a natural impulse to transcend our personal point of view. However, it appears to be difficult to give this notion of transcendence any real content while maintaining a connection with everyday speech and behaviour. In this essay I show that the description of what happens in a discussion when a speaker convinces a listener suggests an interesting interpretation of transcendence. The notion of 'truth' linked to the listener who is being convinced introduces a normative (...) dimension in argumentation. This inescapable normative stance of the listener saddles her with the obligation to answer all credible objections against all arguments she has accepted. The evaluation of the arguments is not reserved for the participants of a discussion. Nothing more is required. For instance, the notion of a universal consensus has no place in the analysis of argumentation. If there is a universal dimension in argumentation and discussion, it is because there is no way of telling where convincing objections may come from. (shrink)

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. (shrink)