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)

This paper outlines the rationale underpinning the conception of science education as sociopolitical action, and then presents a critique of such a conception from the perspective of liberal education. More specifically, the paper discusses the importance of the conception of science education as sociopolitical action and then raises questions about the content of school science, about the place and value of scientific inquiry, and about the opportunities students have for self-directed inquiry. The central idea behind the critique is that a (...) conception of science education as sociopolitical action downplays the importance of knowledge for its own sake and totally neglects the personal/aesthetic dimension of science. (shrink)

En este ensayo propongo un modelo teórico para comprender el significado y alcance de los acuerdos racionales a partir de una concepción determinada de las relaciones entre justificación y verdad. Desde este modelo, al que denomino “acuerdo como signo”, se puede sostener que no todo consenso racional que surge dentro de una comunidad humana, incluidas las científicas, tiene por qué remitir única y exclusivamente a las creencias de ese grupo social y a sus modos internos de justificarlas sin que ellas (...) supongan nunca una ventana abierta al mundo, como sostiene sin asomo de dudas el etnocentrismo de Rorty. Frente al modelo propuesto y valorado desde él, el modelo que sostiene Rorty supone un caso de sinécdoque. (shrink)

This paper tackles three common misconceptions about responsibility. The first misconception is that it is against our interests to be responsible for our actions. The second is that our responsibility for our actions is fixed at the time when we act. The third is that we can only be responsible to someone in particular, not responsible full stop. The three misconceptions turn out to be related, and disabusing ourselves of them helps us to rediscover the most fundamental point of the (...) courtroom trial. (shrink)

We must allow that knowledge can be transmitted. But to allow this is to allow that an individual can know a proposition despite lacking any evidence for it and reaching belief by an unreliable means. So some explanation is required as to how knowledge rather than belief is transmitted. This paper considers two non-individualistic explanations: one in terms of knowledge existing autonomously, the other in terms of it existing as a property of communities. And it attempts to decide what is (...) at issue between these explanations. (shrink)

This paper reviews and augments important work in philosophy of education on intrinsic aims for education, of knowledge, of knowledge of values, and of rationality. A contemporary conception of knowledge as ``rationality's `data-base''' is proposed and an in-depth section on the intrinsic value of rationality is incorporated.

Little attention is given to Richard Rorty’s metaethical views. No doubt this stems from the fact that most commentators are more interested in his metaphilosophical views; most see his metaethical views, offered in scattered passages, as just the downstream runoff from higher-level reflection. This article considers Rorty’s metaethics on their own merits, quite apart from whether his global picture works. I ultimately argue that Rorty’s metaethical outlook is attractive but beset by internal difficulties. Specifically, I contend that Rorty does not (...) and cannot remain faithful to the methodological approach to metaethics for which he advocates. At the paper’s close, I gesture at a nearby methodological approach that best approximates Rorty’s metaethical methodology. (shrink)

Beginning with a thought experiment about a mysterious Delphic oracle, this article motivates, explains, and attempts to defend a view it calls Ethical Pragmatism. Ethical Pragmatism is the view that we can and should carry on our practice of moral deliberation without reference to moral truths, or more broadly, without reference to metaethics. The defense the article mounts tries to show that neither suspicions about the tenability of fact-value distinctions, nor doubts about the viability of global pragmatism, nor worries about (...) the “force” of ethical injunctions without reference to moral truths constitute good reason to reject Ethical Pragmatism. (shrink)

Values based practice (VBP) is a radical view of the place of values in medicine which develops from a philosophical analysis of values, illness and the role of ethical principles. It denies two attractive and traditional but misguided views of medicine: that diagnosis is a merely factual matter and that the values that should guide treatment and management can be codified in principles. But, in the work of KWM (Bill) Fulford, it goes further in the form of a radical liberal (...) view: that the idea of an antecedently good outcome should be replaced by that of a right process. That however leads to a dilemma as to whether it can account for its own normative status. Given that difficulty, why might one adopt the radical version? I sketch a possible motive drawing on Rorty’s rejection of authoritarianism which replaces objectivity with solidarity as the aim of judgement. But I argue that, nevertheless, this does not justify the rejection of the more modest particularist version of VBP. (shrink)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1991.

Can we ever justly critique the norms and practices of another culture? When activists or policy-makers decide that one culture’s traditional practice is harmful and needs to be eradicated, does it matter whether they are members of that culture? Given the history of imperialism, many argue that any critique of another culture’s practices must be internal. Others argue that we can appeal to a universal standard of human well-being to determine whether or not a particular practice is legitimate or whether (...) it should be eradicated. In this paper, I use the FGC eradication campaigns of the 1980s to show that the internal/external divide is complicated by the inter-connectedness of these debates on the international level. As the line blurs between internal and external criticism and interventions, new questions emerge about the representativeness of global institutions. (shrink)

The theme of knowledge certainty and of enouncements’ universality the classical issue of radical skepticism synthesized by the necessity of an a priori proof for the reality of the external world, the conscience issue, the status of the object and objectivity, and also the subject-object bound are themes which influenced fundamentally the paradigm of philosophical postmodernism. Before Nietzsche have said that “the world became a story”, Kant himself faced (rather indirectly) the impossibility of offering an a priori proof for the (...) external world: we can now (thoroughly) only in the limits of the phenomena and of an object determined by our epistemic inter-subjectivity. (shrink)

In Law, Pragmatism and Democracy, Richard Posner wrestles with the ghost of John Dewey for the mantle of pragmatist jurisprudence. Most commentators have seen this work as pitting Posner against Dewey in a contest of pragmatisms, the stakes for which are no less than their respective legacies for legal and democratic theory. Some have sided with Posner and others with Dewey. I contend that the commentators have misidentified the target of Posner’s critique. Posner had another legal theorist in mind and (...) he was disingenuous in naming Dewey. A careful reconstruction of Posner’s argument shows that Dewey’s pragmatism provides a genuine middle way between Posner’s position and that of his intended rival. (shrink)

Based especially on The Elementary Forms of Religious Life the text tries to delimitate contours of „Durkheim’s epistemology“. It argues that the deep „objective“ of this connection is to ensure autonomy and specific field for the new-born scientific province, sociology, through the claim that this contribution can solve and actually does solve „traditional epistemological hardships“ into which philosophical empiricism and rationalism fall. Durkheim’s sociological deduction of categories, as Ernst Cassirer calls it, is presented in contrast to the „holy positivists interpretations“ (...) of his writing, exclusively intentional conceptualizations of action and notion formation, and correspondence theory of truth. The text concludes that despite noticeable inconsistencies Durkheim’s suggestions provide inspiring material even for today’s sociological production in this field. (shrink)

How should we understand the relationship between the contents of our color, causal, modal, and evaluative beliefs, on the one hand, and color, causal, modal, and evaluative properties, on the other? According to Barry Stroud (2011), because of the nature of the contents of those types of beliefs, we should also think that what he calls a “negative metaphysical verdict” on the latter is not one that we could consistently maintain. The metaphysical project aims to arrive at an improved conception (...) of ourselves and our relation the world, no matter if that conception is positive or negative. But if Stroud is right that we cannot consistently arrive at the view that all of our causal, modal, and evaluative beliefs are systematically false, we will see that we cannot consistently reach the negative verdict. But failure to reach the negative verdict doesn’t mean that we have reached the positive verdict. Stroud calls this philosophical failure “metaphysical dissatisfaction”. In this paper, I argue that we can appropriate a metaepistemological response to the problem of the external world which shares its core features with Stroud’s (2000, 2011) arguments, but which nevertheless leaves us with a distinctive kind of epistemological dissatisfaction. (shrink)

The hermeneutical tradition represented by Yorck, Heidegger, and Gadamer has distrusted Dilthey as suffering from the two sins of modernism: scientific “positivism” and individualistic and aesthetic “romanticism.” On the one hand, Dilthey’s epistemology is deemed scientistic in accepting the priority of the empirical, the ontic, and consequently scientific inquiry into the physical, biological, and human worlds; on the other hand, his personalist ethos and Goethean humanism, and his pluralistic life- and worldview philosophy are considered excessively aesthetic, culturally liberal, relativistic, and (...) subjective. This essay involves two tasks in response to this negative evaluation of Dilthey that has shaped our current understanding of his philosophical project; first, an interpretation of the issues at stake in Heidegger’s reception of and struggles with Dilthey. These issues touch upon language, historicity, and the nature of hermeneutics. Second, by pursuing this task in light of Guignon’s interpretation of Dilthey and Heidegger, I hope to question and challenge the “overcoming” of Dilthey’s epistemic and life-philosophical hermeneutics in the “ontological” or “philosophical” hermeneutics of Heidegger. (shrink)

Can we ever justly critique the norms and practices of another culture? When activists or policy-makers decide that one culture’s traditional practice is harmful and needs to be eradicated, does it matter whether they are members of that culture? Given the history of imperialism, many argue that any critique of another culture’s practices must be internal. Others argue that we can appeal to a universal standard of human wellbeing to determine whether or not a particular practice is legitimate or whether (...) it should be eradicated. In this paper, I use the FGC eradication campaigns of the 1980s to show that the internal/external divide is complicated by the interconnectedness of these debates on the international level. As the line blurs between internal and external criticism and interventions, new questions emerge about the representativeness of global institutions. (shrink)

resumo Um empirismo conseqüente depende da atribuição de um significado racional à nossa experiência perceptiva. Sem isto, a experiência perceptiva fica segregada do universo das crenças. Por outro lado, a experiência perceptiva não pode ser tratada como se fosse uma criação nossa. Ela deve ser vista como uma contribuição vinda de fora, que chega até nós através de nossos órgãos sensíveis. Estas duas exigências podem ser cumpridas desde que concebamos a experiência como a realização de capacidades conceituais na própria consciência (...) sensível. palavras-chave experiência, percepção, capacidades conceituais, crenças, racionalidade. (shrink)

Un biologiste fait une découverte incompatible avec des conceptions religieuses de la vie bonne. En classe, un professeur d'université profite de son exposé magistral pour faire la promotion d'une idéologie politique. Un fonds de recherche des sciences sociales refuse de financer un projet visant à résoudre le problème de la sous-représentation des femmes en politique, affirmant qu'une telle recherche n'est pas scientifique. Tous ces exemples témoignent de l'interaction constante entre, d'une part, l'enseignement et la recherche scientifique, et d'autre part, les (...) enjeux normatifs au sein de sphères d'influence. Les sciences doivent-elles être neutres? La normativité des sciences est-elle inévitable? Et de quoi parle-t-on lorsque nous faisons référence à la neutralité scientifique? Cette entrée exposera les principales réponses à ces trois questions. Après avoir clarifié le cadre conceptuel et la problématique de cette entrée, nous explorerons les approches wébérienne et positiviste en faveur de la neutralité des sciences. Ces deux perspectives seront confrontées à divers objections, notamment celles du pragmatisme américain. En réponse à l’ethos mertonien des sciences, nous présenterons finalement la critique féministe selon laquelle les disciplines scientifiques ne peuvent pas faire l’économie d’objectifs éthiques, politiques ou sociaux. Pour des raisons de simplicité, cette entrée approfondira surtout des modèles et arguments issus de l’économie, de la biologie et des sciences de la santé, des disciplines ayant été au cœur des controverses entourant la neutralité des sciences. (shrink)

The aim of this dissertation is to offer and defend a correspondence theory of truth. I begin by critically examining the coherence, pragmatic, simple, redundancy, disquotational, minimal, and prosentential theories of truth. Special attention is paid to several versions of disquotationalism, whose plausibility has led to its fairly constant support since the pioneering work of Alfred Tarski, through that by W. V. Quine, and recently in the work of Paul Horwich. I argue that none of these theories meets the correspondence (...) intuition---that a true sentence or proposition in some way corresponds to reality---despite the explicit claims by each to capture this intuition. I distinguish six versions of the correspondence theory, and defend two against traditional objections, standardly taken as decisive against them, and show, plainly, that these two theories capture the correspondence intuition. Due to the importance of meeting this intuition, only these two theories stands a chance of being a satisfactory theory of truth. I argue that the version of the correspondence theory incorporating a simple semantic representation relation is preferable to its rival, for which the representation relation is complex. I present and argue for a novel version of this correspondence theory according to which truth is a correspondence property sensitive to semantic context. One consequence of this context-sensitivity is that an ungrounded sentence does not express a proposition. In addition to accounting for the similarity between the Liar and Truth-Teller sentences, this theory of truth is immune to the Liar Paradox, including empirical versions. It is argued that the Liar Paradox is devastating to all of the other theories above, and even formal theories of truth designed to solve it, such as the revision and vagueness theories. Customized versions of the Liar Paradox besetting this theory are handled by its context-sensitivity, and by enforcing the distinction between truth and truth value. This same pair of considerations also yields solutions to Lob's Paradox and Grelling's Paradox. Arguments similar to those given to defend this correspondence theory show that with one minor alteration, Kripke's fixed point theory may be used to model this correspondence notion of truth. (shrink)

"Sport, Tradition and Freedom" entails a philosophical examination of the relationship between traditions of rationality and understandings of freedom in sport. Chapter One introduces the ideas of freedom and virtue. Chapter Two involves a critical and historical exploration of the traditions of conservatism, liberalism and Marxism and the effects that these traditions have had on accounts of freedom in sport. Chapter Three examines the issue of freedom in sport from a social critical-formalist perspective, particularly addressing the influence that the process (...) of commodification in advanced capitalism has had on sport. It also endeavours to suggest that the virtues, as explained by Alisdair Maclntyre, are important to the protection of formal freedom in sport, from the effects of advanced capitalism. Chapter Four examines the link between the modern liberal tradition and the virtue tradition. This link is made via the ideas of self-determination and authentic social unions which both traditions share. This chapter also investigates the influence that these various traditions have had on the framing and solution to issues in sport, using the drug issue as a paradigm case. The conclusion suggests that it may be profitable to explore the rationality of less dominant traditions in society when investigating sport. Inquiry revealed that many traditions of understanding in sport rely heavily on elements from political traditions in society. Freedom in sport has been linked to conservative notions of a craft, to liberal notions of play and the independent individual and to accounts of freedom which support the dominant capitalist institutions of society. The examination by social critical theorists of the freedom of authentic social practices and the location of this freedom in the formal rules of sport, provided an alternative to these previous explanations which had located freedom in either the attitude of the player or the economic institutions of society. On the formalist view of sport, freedom is located in the pursuit of gratuitous difficulty, which the rules of sport make possible. The protection of this freedom from social abrogation involves virtue, the formation of authentic social unions, and judgement in sporting participation. The concluding chapter suggested that the protection of formal freedom and the importance of judgement and "seeing without illusion" in sport is critical to issues such as feminism, professionalism and creativity in sport. (shrink)

In recent years, interpreters of the fourth century BCE Chinese Daoist text, the Zhuangzi, have increasingly appropriated the term, 'skepticism' as a label for the philosophical contribution of that text to classical Chinese philosophy. Despite their terminological agreement, these authors differ significantly in what they take to be the substance of this philosophical term, especially in its context as an interpretive device for understanding the Zhuangzi. This dissertation aims to understand the philosophy of the Zhuangzi by reference to the Greek (...) tradition of Pyrrhonian skepticism transmitted to the modern age by Sextus Empiricus. ;I illustrate the limitations of interpreting skepticism merely as negative dogmatism and illuminate the virtues of understanding it as the recommendation of a philosophical attitude of non-assertion and open-mindedness. Robert E. Allinson, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Bryan W. Van Norden, and Chad Hansen interpret skepticism as an anti-intellectual negative dogmatism, and I take issue with the appropriateness of such an interpretation. In so doing, I examine the work of A.C. Graham, Paul Kjellberg, and Lisa Raphals, who understand the skeptical sections of the Zhuangzi as recommendations for living a fulfilling life. These thinkers offer more coherent interpretations in so far as their readings construe Zhuangzi's skepticism as supporting rather than conflicting with the passages that advocate a variety of spiritual practices designed to bring about peace of mind and harmony. While these interpreters have drawn attention to the importance of Zhuangzi's spiritual and moral recommendations for living a productive life, my analysis, in suggesting that Zhuangzi moves from non-dogmatic or aporetic skepticism to way-making , develops this positive result of Zhuangzi's non-dogmatic skepticism further. This positive result is explored in connection with the extent to which non-dogmatic skepticism can serve as a foundation for the adoption of an attitude of philosophical pluralism, which suggests that there are a plurality of different standpoints, attitudes, approaches, perspectives, and 'positions' each of which may be valid in some sense and in some degree, and yet none of which is immune from criticism. I also address the criticism of aporetic skepticism that living a life without dogmatic commitments is impossible. (shrink)

The paper intends to study the possibility of evading the relativist dilemma: when you compare cultural forms belonging to different traditions, you either impose the result from outside, or you give up comparisons altogether as dependent on the arbiter’s parochial choices. In this paper one argues that, apart from this kind of comparison, which is called extrinsic, there is another type, called intrinsic, which is not dependent on arbiter’s choices. The essence of the intrinsic comparison is the role played by (...) the “second option” of the representatives of different traditions: it is decisive what these representatives prefer in the second place, when their first options have to be abandoned. Two old stories provide the historical paradigm of the intrinsic comparison: how Volga Khazarians are said to have converted to Judaism in the 8th century, and how the Athenian general Themistocles was voted the best general by the confederate Greek representatives. An example of contemporary intrinsic comparison between three contemporary trends – relativism, fundamentalism, rationalism – is also presented. Contrary to what Ernest Gellner believes, these trends are not incommensurable; rationalism takes precedence while being the second option of the other two trends, as soon as they want to enter a public debate. (shrink)