Compare moral relativism, aesthetic relativism, social constructionism, cultural relativism, and cognitive relativism. This article attempts to confine itself to discussion of relativism in morals and ethics Aesthetic relativism is the philosophical view that the judgement of Beauty is relative to individuals cultures time periods and contexts and that there are no Social constructionism and social constructivism are sociological and psychological theories of Knowledge that consider how social phenomena develop in Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual Human 's Beliefs and activities should be understood in terms of his or her own Culture. Cognitive relativism (also called epistemic or epistemological relativism) is a philosophy that claims the Truth or falsity

Relativism is the idea that some element or aspect of experience or culture is relative to, i. Experience as a general concept comprises Knowledge of or skill in or Observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic e. , dependent on, some other element or aspect. Some relativists claim that humans can understand and evaluate beliefs and behaviors only in terms of their historical or cultural context. History is the study of the past particularly the written record Those who study history as a Profession are called Historians Etymology Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic The term often refers to truth relativism, which is the doctrine that there are no absolute truths, i. The meaning of the word truth extends from Honesty, Good faith, and Sincerity in general to agreement with Fact or Reality In philosophy universalism is a doctrine or school claiming universal facts can be discovered and is therefore understood as being in opposition to Relativism. e. , that truth is always relative to some particular frame of reference, such as a language or a culture.

One argument for relativism suggests that our own cognitive bias prevents us from observing something objectively with our own senses, and notational bias will apply to whatever we can allegedly measure without using our senses. For an article about the conceptual problems of the mind see Cognitive closure (philosophy. Notational bias is a form of Cultural bias that is incurred when the available Notation to describe something introduces a bias in the Human ability to In addition, we have a culture bias — shared with other trusted observers — which we cannot eliminate. Cultural bias is when someone is biased due to his or her culture A counterargument to this states that subjective certainty and concrete objects and causes form part of our everyday life, and that there is no great value in discarding such useful ideas as isomorphism, objectivity and a final truth. For other uses of isomorphism, see Isomorphism (disambiguation. Objectivity is both an important and very difficult concept to pin down in philosophy The meaning of the word truth extends from Honesty, Good faith, and Sincerity in general to agreement with Fact or Reality (For more information on the "usefulness" of ideas, see Pragmatism. Pragmatism generally considered to have originated in the late nineteenth century with Charles Peirce, who first stated the Pragmatic maxim. )

Relativism does not say that all points of view are equally valid, in contrast to an absolutism which argues there is but one true and correct view. Moral absolutism is the Meta-ethical view that there are absolute standards against which Moral questions can be Judged, and that certain actions In fact, relativism asserts that a particular instance Y exists only in relation to and as a manifestation of a particular framework or viewpoint X, and that no framework or standpoint is uniquely privileged over all others. A framework is a basic conceptual structure used to solve or address complex issues ViewPoint is a 480ft (146m tall skyscraper topped out in Atlanta Georgia. That is, a non-universal trait Y (e. g. , a particular practice, behavior, custom, convention, concept, belief, perception, ethics, truth, or conceptual framework) is a dependent variable influenced by the independent variable X (e. Behavior or behaviour (see spelling differences) refers to the actions or Reactions of an object or Organism, usually The term "concept" is traced back to 1554–60 ( l conceptum - something conceived but what is today termed "the classical theory of concepts" is the theory of Aristotle Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a Proposition or Premise to be true In Psychology and the Cognitive sciences perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory Information. Ethics is a major branch of Philosophy, encompassing right conduct and good life The meaning of the word truth extends from Honesty, Good faith, and Sincerity in general to agreement with Fact or Reality A conceptual framework is used in research to outline possible courses of action or to present a preferred approach to an idea or thought Dependent variables and independent variables refer to values that change in relationship to each other Dependent variables and independent variables refer to values that change in relationship to each other g. , a particular language, culture, historical epoch, a priori cognitive architecture, scientific frameworks, gender, ethnicity, status, individuality). A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic A cognitive architecture is a blueprint for Intelligent agents It proposes (artificial Computational processes that act like certain cognitive systems most often Gender comprises a range of differences between men and women extending from the biological to the social As commonly used, individual refers to a Person or to any specific object in a collection Notably, this is not an argument that all instances of a certain kind of framework (say, all languages) do not share certain basic universal commonalities (say, grammatical structure and vocabulary) that essentially define that kind of framework and distinguish it from other frameworks (for example, linguists have criteria that define language and distinguish it from the mere communication of other animals). A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them The vocabulary of a person is defined either as the set of all Words that are understood by that person or the set of all words likely to be used by that person when constructing Communication is the process of conveying information from a sender to a receiver with the use of a medium in which the communicated information is understood the same way Moreover, relativism also presupposes philosophical realism in that there are actual objective things in the world that are relative to other real things. Moreover, relativism also assumes causality, as well as a problematic web of relationships between various independent variables and the particular dependent variables that they influence. Causality (but not causation) denotes a necessary relationship between one event (called cause and another event (called effect) which is the direct consequence

Contents 1 Forms of relativism and advocates of relativism 1.1 Anthropological versus philosophical relativism 1.2 Descriptive versus normative relativism 1.3 Indian religions 1.4 Sophists 1.5 Bernard Crick 1.6 Paul Feyerabend 1.7 Thomas Kuhn 1.8 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson 1.9 Robert Nozick 1.10 Joseph Margolis 1.11 Richard Rorty 2 Critics of relativism 3 Postmodern relativism 4 Relativism: pro and con 4.1 Criticisms 4.2 Responses 5 Theater and relativism 6 The Catholic Church and relativism 6.1 John Paul II 6.2 Benedict XVI 6.3 Criticism 7 Notes/References 8 Bibliography 9 See also 10 External links

Forms of relativism and advocates of relativism

Anthropological versus philosophical relativism

Anthropological relativism refers to a methodological stance, in which the researcher suspends (or brackets) his or her own cultural biases while attempting to understand beliefs and behaviors in their local contexts. Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual Human 's Beliefs and activities should be understood in terms of his or her own Culture. Methodology (also called manner) is defined as "the analysis of the principles of methods rules and postulates employed by a discipline" This has become known as methodological relativism, and concerns itself specifically with avoiding ethnocentrism or the application of one's own cultural standards to the assessment of other cultures. Methodological relativism refers to a practice by Anthropologists who are concerned with describing actual human Behavior, in which the researcher suspends or brackets Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own Culture. ^[1] This is also the basis of the so-called "emic" and "etic" distinction, in which:

• An emic or insider account of behavior is a description of a society in terms that are meaningful to the participant or actor's own culture; an emic account is therefore culture-specific, and typically refers to what is considered "common sense" within the culture under observation. Emic and etic are terms used by some in the Social sciences and the Behavioral sciences to refer to two different kinds of Data concerning human Emic and etic are terms used by some in the Social sciences and the Behavioral sciences to refer to two different kinds of Data concerning human Common sense (or when used attributively as an Adjective, commonsense, common-sense, or commonsensical) based on a strict construction
• An etic or outsider account is a description of a society by an observer, in terms that can be applied to other cultures; that is, an etic account is culturally neutral, and typically refers to the conceptual framework of the social scientist. (This is complicated when it is scientific research itself that is under study, or when there is theoretical or terminological disagreement within the social sciences. )

Philosophical relativism, in contrast, is simply an anti-dogmatic position that asserts that the truth of a proposition depends on who interprets it because no moral or cultural consensus can or will be reached. ^[2]

Methodological relativism and philosophical relativism can exist independently from one another, but most anthropologists base their methodological relativism on that of the philosophical variety. ^[3]

Descriptive versus normative relativism

The concept of relativism also has importance both for philosophers and for anthropologists in another way. Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of In general, anthropologists engage in descriptive relativism, whereas philosophers engage in normative relativism, although there is some overlap (for example, descriptive relativism can pertain to concepts, normative relativism to truth).

Descriptive relativism assumes that certain cultural groups have different modes of thought, standards of reasoning, and so forth, and it is the anthropologist's task to describe, but not to evaluate the validity of these principles and practices of a cultural group. It is possible for an anthropologist in his or her fieldwork to be a descriptive relativist about some things that typically concern the philosopher (e. g. , ethical principles) but not about others (e. g. , logical principles). However, the descriptive relativist's empirical claims about epistemic principles, moral ideals and the like are often countered by anthropological arguments that such things are universal, and much of the recent literature on these matters is explicitly concerned with the extent of, and evidence for, cultural or moral or linguistic or human universals (see Brown, 1991 for a good discussion).

The fact that they various species of descriptive relativism are empirical claims may tempt the philosopher to conclude that they are of little philosophical interest, but there are several reasons why this isn't so. First, some philosophers, notably Kant, argue that certain sorts of cognitive differences between human beings (or even all rational beings) are impossible, so such differences could never be found to obtain in fact, an argument that places a priori limits on what empirical inquiry could discover and on what versions of descriptive relativism could be true. Second, claims about actual differences between groups play a central role in some arguments for normative relativism (for example, arguments for normative ethical relativism often begin with claims that different groups in fact have different moral codes or ideals). Finally, the anthropologist's descriptive account of relativism helps to separate the fixed aspects of human nature from those that can vary, and so a descriptive claim that some important aspect of experience or thought does (or does not) vary across groups of human beings tells us something important about human nature and the human condition.

Normative relativism concerns normative or evaluative claims that modes of thought, standards of reasoning, or the like are only right or wrong relative to a framework. ‘Normative’ is meant in a general sense, applying to a wide range of views; in the case of beliefs, for example, normative correctness equals truth. This does not mean, of course, that framework-relative correctness or truth is always clear, the first challenge being to explain what it amounts to in any given case (e. g. , with respect to concepts, truth, epistemic norms). Normative relativism (say, in regard to normative ethical relativism) therefore implies that things (say, ethical claims) are not simply true in themselves, but only have truth values relative to broader frameworks (say, moral codes). (Many normative ethical relativist arguments run from premises about ethics to conclusions that assert the relativity of truth values, bypassing general claims about the nature of truth, but it is often more illuminating to consider the type of relativism under question directly. )^[4]

Indian religions

Indian religions tend to be naturally relativistic. Indian religions, also called Dharmic religions, are the related religious traditions that originated in the Indian subcontinent, namely Hinduism, Mahavira (599-527 BC), the 24th Tirthankara of Jainism, developed an early philosophy regarding relativism and subjectivism known as Anekantavada. Mahavira (महावीर lit Great Hero) (599 – 527 BCE is the name most commonly used to refer to the Indian sage Vardhamana ( Sanskrit: वर्धमान In Jainism, a Tirthankar (" Fordmaker " (also Tirthankara or Jina) is a Human being who achieves enlightenment (perfect Jainism, traditionally known as Jain Dharma / Shraman Dharma (जैन धर्म is an ancient religion of India. Subjectivism is a philosophical tenet that accords primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measure and law Anekāntavāda (Devanagari sa [[wiktअनेकान्तवाद अनेकान्तवाद]] is one of the most important and basic doctrines of Jainism. Hindu religion has no theological difficulties in accepting degrees of truth in other religions. Hinduism is a religious tradition that originated in the Indian subcontinent. A Rig Vedic hymn states that "Truth is One, though the sages know it variously. The Rigveda ( Sanskrit sa ऋग्वेद ṛgveda, a compound of ṛc "praise verse" and veda "knowledge" " (Ékam sat vipra bahudā vadanti)

The Sikh Gurus (spiritual teacher ) have propagated the message of "many paths" leading to the one God and ultimate salvation for all souls who tread on the path of righteousness. Sikhism was established by Guru Nanak over the period of 1469 to 1708. Ik Onkar (also pa ੴ, pa ਇਕ/ਏਕ ਓਅੰਕਾਰ, Ēk Ōaṅkār, Ik Onkar, Ek Onkar and other variants means In Theology, salvation can mean three related things being saved from or Liberation from something such as Suffering or the punishment of Righteousness in this article refers to the important theological concept in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. They have supported the view that proponents of all faiths can, by doing good and virtuous deeds and by remembering the Lord, certainly achieve salvation. The students of the Sikh faith are told to accept all leading faiths as possible vehicle for attaining spiritual enlightenment provided the faithful study, ponder and practice the teachings of their prophets and leaders. The holy book of the Sikhs called the Sri Guru Granth Sahib says: "Do not say that the Vedas, the Bible and the Koran are false. Sikh (English or; ਸਿੱਖ sikkh, IPA) is the title and name given to an adherent of Sikhism. The Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji (ਗੁਰੂ ਗ੍ਰੰਥ ਸਾਹਿਬ gurū granth sāhib) or Guru Granth Sahib, is the eleventh and eternal Guru of the Those who do not contemplate them are false. " Guru Granth Sahib page 1350. The Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji (ਗੁਰੂ ਗ੍ਰੰਥ ਸਾਹਿਬ gurū granth sāhib) or Guru Granth Sahib, is the eleventh and eternal Guru of the ^[5] and "The seconds, minutes, and hours, days, weeks and months, and the various seasons originate from the one Sun; O nanak, in just the same way, the many forms originate from the Creator. " Guru Granth Sahib page 12,13. The Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji (ਗੁਰੂ ਗ੍ਰੰਥ ਸਾਹਿਬ gurū granth sāhib) or Guru Granth Sahib, is the eleventh and eternal Guru of the

Ethnocentrism of any sort (including the idea of belonging to a 'school of Buddhism' as well as evangelism and religious supremacism) is, according to Buddhist thought, rooted in self-grasping and reified thought - the cause of Samsara itself. The current Dalai Lama has repeatedly pointed out that any attempt to convert individuals from their beliefs is not only non-Buddhist, but abusive: the identification of evangelism as an expression of compassion is considered to be false, and indeed the idea that Buddhism is the one true path is likewise false for Buddhists. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual and political leader of the Tibetan people according to Tibetan Buddhism.

Sophists

Sophists are considered the founding fathers of relativism in the Western World. The term Western world, the West or the Occident ( Latin: occidens -sunset -west as distinct from the Orient) can have multiple meanings Elements of relativism emerged among the Sophists in the 5th century BC. Notably, it was Protagoras who coined the phrase, "Man (i. Protagoras ( Greek:) (ca 490&ndash 420 BC was a pre-Socratic Greek Philosopher and is numbered as one of the Sophists by e. a human being) is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not. " The thinking of the Sophists is mainly known through their opponents, Plato and Socrates. Biography Early life Birth and family Plato was born in Athens Greece SOCRATES is the European Community action programme in the field of Education.

Bernard Crick

Another important advocate of relativism, Bernard Crick, a British political scientist, wrote the book In Defence of Politics (first published in 1962), suggesting the inevitability of moral conflict between people. Sir Bernard Crick (born 16 December 1929) is a British Political theorist and Democratic socialist whose views are often summarised as "politics Crick stated that only ethics could resolve such conflict, and when that occurred in public it resulted in politics. Ethics is a major branch of Philosophy, encompassing right conduct and good life Politics Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions Accordingly, Crick saw the process of dispute resolution, harms reduction, mediation or peacemaking as central to all of moral philosophy. Dispute resolution is the process of resolving disputes between parties. Harm reduction is a Philosophy of Public health, intended to be a progressive alternative to the prohibition of certain potentially dangerous Mediation, a form of Alternative dispute resolution (ADR or "appropriate Dispute resolution " aims to assist two (or more disputants in reaching Peacemaking is a form of Conflict resolution which focuses on establishing Equal power relationships that will be robust enough to forestall future conflict and establishing He became an important influence on the feminists and later on the Greens. Feminism is a discourse that involves various movements theories, and Philosophies which are concerned with the issue of Gender difference, advocate Green politics is a Political ideology which places a high importance on ecological and environmental goals and on achieving these goals through broad-based

Paul Feyerabend

The philosopher-of-science Paul Feyerabend wholeheartedly embraced relativism, and even "epistemological anarchy". Paul Karl Feyerabend ( January 13, 1924 – February 11, 1994) was an Austrian born Philosopher of science best known for ^[6]

"All methodologies have their limitations and the only rule that survives is 'anything goes'"^[7]

Or, in a more conciliatory mood:

"I argue that all rules have their limits, and there is no comprehensive 'rationality', I do not argue that we should proceed without rules and standards"^[8]

Thomas Kuhn

Thomas Kuhn's philosophy of science, as expressed in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is often seen as relativistic (and enthusiastically proclaimed as such within the humanities). Thomas Samuel Kuhn (surname ˈkuːn July 18, 1922  &ndash June 17, 1996) was an American intellectual who wrote extensively The Structure of Scientific Revolutions ( 1962) by Thomas Kuhn, is an analysis of the History of science. He claimed that as well as progressing steadily and incrementally ("normal science"), science undergoes periodic revolutions or "paradigm shifts", leaving scientists working in different paradigms with difficulty in even communicating. Normal science is a concept originated by Thomas Samuel Kuhn and elaborated in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Paradigm shift, sometimes known as extraordinary science or revolutionary science, is the term first used by Thomas Kuhn in his influential

"the third and most fundamental aspect of the incommensurability of competing paradigms: this is a sense that I am unable to explicate further, [in which] the proponents of competing paradigms practice their trades in different worlds. One contains constrained bodies that fall slowly, the other pendulums that repeat their motions again and again. In one, solutions are compounds, in the other mixtures. One is embedded in a flat, the other in a curved, matrix of space. Practicing in two different worlds, the two groups of scientists see different things when they look from the same point in the same direction. Again, that is not to say that they can see anything they please. Both are looking at the world, and what they look at has not changed. However in some areas they see different things and they see them in different relations one to the other. That is why a law that cannot even be demonstrated to one group of scientists may occasionally seem intuitively obvious to another. Equally, it is why, before they can hope to communicate fully, one group or the other must experience the conversion that we have been calling a paradigm shift. "^[9]

Thus the truth of a claim, or the existence of a posited entity is relative to the paradigm employed. However, he was reluctant to fully embrace relativism.

From these remarks, one thing is however certain: Kuhn is not saying that incommensurable theories cannot be compared - what they can’t be is compared in terms of a system of common measure. He very plainly says that they can be compared, and he reiterates this repeatedly in later work, in a (mostly in vain) effort to avert the crude and sometimes catastrophic misinterpretations he suffered from mainstream philosophers and post-modern relativists alike. ^[10]

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson define relativism in their book Metaphors We Live By as the rejection of both subjectivism and metaphysical objectivism in order to focus on the relationship between them, i. "Lakoff" and "Professor Lakoff" redirect here Mark Johnson may refer to Academics Mark Johnson (professor, philosophy professor Mark H In Cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor refers to the understanding of one idea or Conceptual domain in terms of another for example understanding Quantity Not to be confused with the subiectum or Hypokeimenon in Aristotelianism e. the metaphor by which we relate our current experience to our previous experience. Metaphor (from the Greek: μεταφορά - metaphora, meaning "transfer" is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects In particular, Lakoff and Johnson characterize "objectivism" as a "straw man", and, to a lesser degree, criticize the views of Karl Popper, Kant and Aristotle. A straw man argument is an Informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position Sir Karl Raimund Popper ( July 28 1902  &ndash September 17 1994) was an Austrian and British Philosopher and a professor Immanuel Kant (ɪmanuəl kant 22 April 1724 12 February 1804 was an 18th-century German Philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg Aristotle (Greek Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC was a Greek philosopher a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.

Robert Nozick

In his book Invariances, Robert Nozick expresses a complex set of theories about the absolute and the relative. Invariances, published in 2001 by Harvard University Press was Robert Nozick 's last book before his death in 2002 Robert Nozick ( November 16, 1938  &ndash January 23, 2002) was an American Philosopher and Pellegrino University He thinks the absolute/relative distinction should be recast in terms of a variant/invariant distinction, where there are many things a proposition can vary with, or be invariant with regard to. He thinks it is coherent for truth to be relative, and speculates that it might vary with time. He thinks necessity is an unobtainable notion, but can be approximated by robust invariance across a variety of conditions — although we can never identify a proposition that is invariant with regard to everything. Finally, he is not particularly warm to the most (in)famous form of relativism, moral relativism, preferring an evolutionary account. This article attempts to confine itself to discussion of relativism in morals and ethics

Joseph Margolis

Joseph Margolis advocates a view he calls "robust relativism" and defends it in his books: Historied Thought, Constructed World, Chapter 4 (California, 1995) and The Truth about Relativism (Blackwells, 1991). Joseph Zalman Margolis (born on May 16, 1924 in Newark, New Jersey) is an American philosopher. He opens his account by stating that our logics should depend on what we take to be the nature of the sphere to which we wish to apply our logics. Holding that there can be no distinctions which are not "privileged" between the alethic, the ontic, and the epistemic, he maintains that a many valued logic just might be the most apt for aesthetics or history since, because in these practices, we are loath to hold to simple binary logic; and he also holds that many-valued logic is relativistic. Some languages distinguish between alethic moods and non-alethic moods In Philosophy, ontic (from the Greek όντος = part Epistemology (from Greek επιστήμη - episteme, "knowledge" + λόγος, " Logos " or theory of knowledge Multi-valued logics are logical calculi in which there are more than two Truth values Traditionally logical calculi are two-valued—that is there are only two possible Aesthetics or esthetics ( also spelled æsthetics) is commonly known as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values sometimes called History is the study of the past particularly the written record Those who study history as a Profession are called Historians Etymology In Logic, the semantic principle of bivalence states that every proposition takes exactly one of two truth values (e (This is perhaps an unusual definition of "relativistic". Compare with his comments on "relationism"). "True" and "False" as mutually exclusive and exhaustive judgements on Hamlet, for instance, really does seem absurd. Hamlet is a Tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601 A many valued logic — "apt", "reasonable", "likely", and so on — seems intuitively more applicable to Hamlet interpretation. Where apparent contradictions arise between such interpretations, we might call the interpretations "incongruent", rather than dubbing either "false".

The problem with the standard two-valued logic is simply that it only ever applies to sentential formulas and not to interpreted sentences in use. In Propositional logic, a propositional formula is a type of syntactic formula which is well formed and has a Truth value. The principle of non-contradiction can easily be made not to obtain by reinterpreting the terms involved, as is the case with the corpuscular versus the wave theory of light.

It was Aristotle who held that relativism implied we should, sticking with appearances only, end up contradicting ourselves somewhere if we could apply all attributes to all ousiai (beings). Disambiguation For the Wigwam album see Being (album, for spiritual or religious beingness, see Ego (spirituality Aristotle, however, made non-contradiction dependent upon his essentialism. Aristotle (Greek Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC was a Greek philosopher a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. In Philosophy, essentialism is the view that for any specific kind of Entity, there is a set of Characteristics or Properties all of which If his essentialism is false, then so too is his ground for disallowing relativism. (Subsequent philosophers have found other reasons for supporting the principle of non-contradiction).

Beginning with Protagoras and invoking Charles Peirce, Margolis shows that the historic struggle to discredit relativism is an attempt to impose an unexamined belief in the world's essentially rigid rule-like nature. Protagoras ( Greek:) (ca 490&ndash 420 BC was a pre-Socratic Greek Philosopher and is numbered as one of the Sophists by Charles Sanders Peirce (pronounced purse) (September 10 1839 &ndash April 19 1914 was an American Logician mathematician, philosopher Plato and Aristotle merely attacked "relationalism"--the doctrine of true-for l or true for k, and the like, where l and k are different speakers or different world, or the something similar (Most philosophers would call this positions "relativism"). For Margolis "true" means true. That is the alethic use of "true" remains untouched. However, in real world contexts, and context is ubiquitous in the real world, we must apply truth values. Here, in epistemic terms, we might retire "true" tout court as an evaluation and keep "false". The rest of our value-judgements could be graded from "extremely plausible" down to "false". Judgements which on a bivalent logic would be incompatible or contradictory are further seen as "incongruent", though one may well have more weight than the other. In short, relativistic logic is not, or need not be, the bugbear it is often presented to be. It may simply be the best type of logic to apply to certain very uncertain spheres of our real experiences in the world (although some sort of logic needs to be applied to make that judgement). Those who swear by bivalent logic might simply be the ultimate keepers of the great fear of the flux.

Richard Rorty

Philosopher Richard Rorty has a somewhat paradoxical role in the debate over relativism: he is criticized for his relativistic views, but prefers to describe himself not as a relativist, but as a pragmatist. Richard McKay Rorty (October 4 1931 - June 8 2007 was an American Philosopher. A paradox is a true statement or group of statements that leads to a Contradiction or a situation which defies intuition; or inversely Pragmatism generally considered to have originated in the late nineteenth century with Charles Peirce, who first stated the Pragmatic maxim.

'In short, my strategy for escaping the self-referential difficulties into which "the Relativist" keeps getting himself is to move everything over from epistemology and metaphysics into cultural politics, from claims to knowledge and appeals to self-evidence to suggestions about what we should try. '^[11]

Rorty takes a deflationary attitude to truth, believing there is nothing of interest to be said about truth in general, including the contention that it is generally subjective. Deflation is the opposite of Inflation. Therefore under the usual contemporary definition of inflation 'deflation' means a decrease in the general price level. The meaning of the word truth extends from Honesty, Good faith, and Sincerity in general to agreement with Fact or Reality He also argues that the notion of warrant or justification can do most of the work traditionally assigned to the concept of truth, and that justification is relative; justification is justification to an audience, for Rorty. Theory of justification is a part of Epistemology that attempts to understand the justification of Propositions and Beliefs Epistemologists are concerned Thus his position, in the view of many commentators, adds up to relativism.

In Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity he argues that the debate between so-called relativists and so-called objectivists is beside the point because they don't have enough premises in common for either side to prove anything to the other. Contingency Irony and Solidarity (1989 written by American Philosopher Richard Rorty, is based on two sets of lectures given at

Critics of relativism

Philosopher Paul Boghossian has written a book called Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism. Paul Boghossian is professor of Philosophy at New York University, where he held the chair for ten years (1994&ndash2004

In Science and Relativism, Larry Laudan writes "The displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interest and perspectives, is — second only to American political campaigns — the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of relativism of our time. Larry Laudan (b Austin Texas 1941) is a contemporary philosopher of science and epistemologist "

The literary theorist Christopher Norris has written a book entitled "Against Relativism". Christopher Charles Norris (born 6 November 1947) is a British Literary critic and theorist He is an expert on postmodern thought, particularly deconstruction, and argues that deconstruction, properly understood, does not equate to relativism. Postmodernism literally means 'after the modernist movement' While " Modern " itself refers to something "related to the present" the movement of modernism Deconstruction is a term used in Philosophy, Literary criticism, and the Social sciences, popularised through its usage by Jacques Derrida in

Plato was the first great critic of relativism. Biography Early life Birth and family Plato was born in Athens Greece He criticizes the views of the sophist Protagoras in his dialogue Thaetetus. Protagoras ( Greek:) (ca 490&ndash 420 BC was a pre-Socratic Greek Philosopher and is numbered as one of the Sophists by

Physicist Alan Sokal initiated the science wars with his hoax paper entitled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity". Alan David Sokal (born 1955) is a professor of Physics and faculty member of the physics department at New York University. The Science wars were a series of intellectual battles in the 1990s between " Postmodernists " and " realists " (though neither party would likely A hoax is a deliberate attempt to Dupe, Deceive or trick an audience into believing or accepting that something is real when in fact it is not or that The Sokal affair (also Sokal's hoax) was a Hoax by physicist Alan Sokal perpetrated on the editorial staff and readership of the Postmodern ^[12] . He later co-authored the book Fashionable Nonsense (also known as Intellectual Impostures) with Jean Bricmont, which criticises the postmodernist use of science. Fashionable Nonsense Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science (ISBN 0-312-20407-8 French: Impostures Intellectuelles; published in the UK Jean Bricmont is a Belgian theoretical physicist, Philosopher of Science and a Professor at the Université catholique de Louvain. Postmodernism literally means 'after the modernist movement' While " Modern " itself refers to something "related to the present" the movement of modernism

Postmodern relativism

The term "relativism" often comes up in debates over postmodernism, poststructuralism and phenomenology. Postmodernism literally means 'after the modernist movement' While " Modern " itself refers to something "related to the present" the movement of modernism Post-structuralism encompasses the intellectual developments of continental philosophers and critical theorists who wrote with tendencies of twentieth-century Critics of these perspectives often identify advocates with the label "relativism. " For example, the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is often considered a relativist view because it posits that linguistic categories and structures shape the way people view the world. In Linguistics, the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis ( SWH) (also known as the " Linguistic relativity hypothesis " postulates a systematic relationship Similarly, deconstruction is often termed a relativist perspective because of the ways it locates the meaning of a text in its appropriation and reading, implying that there is no "true" reading of a text and no text apart from its reading. Deconstruction is a term used in Philosophy, Literary criticism, and the Social sciences, popularised through its usage by Jacques Derrida in Claims by literary critic Stanley Fish are also often discussed as "relativist". Stanley Eugene Fish (born 1938 is a prominent American literary theorist and legal scholar

These perspectives do not strictly count as relativist in the philosophical sense, because they express agnosticism on the nature of reality and make epistemological rather than ontological claims. Epistemology (from Greek επιστήμη - episteme, "knowledge" + λόγος, " Logos " or theory of knowledge In Philosophy, ontology (from the Greek, genitive: of being (part Nevertheless, the term is useful to differentiate them from realists who believe that the purpose of philosophy, science, or literary critique is to locate externally true meanings. Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief in a Reality that is completely Ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes linguistic practices beliefs Important philosophers and theorists such as Michel Foucault, Max Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche, political movements such as post-anarchism or post-left anarchy can also be considered as relativist in this sense - though a better term might be social constructivist. Michel Foucault ( (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984 was a French philosopher, Historian, Intellectual, Critic and Sociologist. Johann Kaspar Schmidt ( October 25, 1806 – June 26, 1856) better known as Max Stirner (the Nom de plume Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15 1844 August 25 1900 ( was a nineteenth-century German philosopher and classical philologist Post-anarchism or postanarchism is the term used to represent anarchist philosophies developed since the 1980s using post-structuralist and Post-left anarchy is a recent current in Anarchist thought that promotes a critique of anarchism's relationship to traditional leftism.

The spread and popularity of this kind of "soft" relativism varies between academic disciplines. It has wide support in anthropology and has a majority following in cultural studies. Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of It also has advocates in political theory and political science, sociology, and continental philosophy (as distinct from Anglo-American analytical philosophy). Continental philosophy, in contemporary usage refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe It has inspired empirical studies of the social construction of meaning such as those associated with labelling theory, which defenders can point to as evidence of the validity of their theories (albeit risking accusations of performative contradiction in the process). A performative contradiction arises when the propositional content of a statement contradicts the noncontingent presuppositions that make possible the performance of the speech act such Advocates of this kind of relativism often also claim that recent developments in the natural sciences, such as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, quantum mechanics, chaos theory and complexity theory show that science is now becoming relativistic. In Quantum physics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that locating a particle in a small region of space makes the Momentum of the particle uncertain Quantum mechanics is the study of mechanical systems whose dimensions are close to the Atomic scale such as Molecules Atoms Electrons In Mathematics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain dynamical systems – that is systems whose state evolves with time – that may exhibit dynamics that However, many scientists who use these methods continue to identify as realist or post-positivist, and some sharply criticize the association^[13][14]

Relativism: pro and con

Criticisms

• One common argument^{[15][16][17][18][19]} against relativism suggests that it inherently contradicts, refutes, or stultifies itself: the statement "all is relative" classes either as a relative statement or as an absolute one. In the Philosophy of science, the term post-positivist has been used in two ways 1 To refer to scientific philosophies that arose after and in reaction to Positivism Self-refuting ideas are ideas or statements whose falsehood is a Logical consequence of the act or situation of holding them to be true If it is relative, then this statement does not rule out absolutes. If the statement is absolute, on the other hand, then it provides an example of an absolute statement, proving that not all truths are relative. However, this argument against relativism only applies to relativism that positions truth as relative – i. e. epistemological/truth-value relativism. More specifically, it is only strong forms of epistemological relativism that can come in for this criticism as there are many epistemological relativists who posit that some aspects of what is regarded as "true" are not universal, yet still accept that other universal truths exist (e. g. gas laws). This articles outlines the historical development of the laws describing ideal gases However, such exceptions need to be carefully justified, or "anything goes".

• Another argument against relativism posits a Natural Law. Natural law or the law of nature ( Latin: lex naturalis) is a theory that posits the existence of a law whose content is set by Nature and that Simply put, the physical universe works under basic principles: the "Laws of Nature". Some contend that a natural Moral Law may also exist, for example as argued by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion (2006). Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born 26 March 1941 is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and Popular science The God Delusion is a 2006 bestselling non-fiction book by British biologist Richard Dawkins, holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding ^[20] and addressed by C. S. Lewis in "Mere Christianity" (1952). Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963 Mere Christianity is a theological book by C S Lewis, adapted from a series of BBC radio talks made between 1941 and 1944 while Lewis ^[21]

• Aside from whether relativism is true, critics say it undermines morality, possibly resulting in anomie and complete Social Darwinism. Anomie, in contemporary English language is a sociological term that signifies in individuals an erosion diminution or absence of personal norms standards or values Social Darwinism is a theory that competition among all individuals groups nations or ideas drives Social evolution in human societies Relativism denies that harming others is wrong in any absolute sense. The majority of relativists, of course, consider it immoral to harm others, but relativist theory allows for the opposite belief. In short, if an individual can believe it wrong to harm others, he can also believe it right – no matter what the circumstances.

• The problem of negation also arises. If everyone with differing opinions is right, then no one is. Thus instead of saying "all beliefs (ideas, truths, etc. ) are equally valid," one might just as well say "all beliefs are equally worthless". (see article on Doublethink). Doublethink is the act of simultaneously accepting as correct two mutually contradictory beliefs

• Relativism is also sometimes seen as an over-reaction to colonialism. See Colony and Colonization for examples of colonialism which do not refer to Western colonialism Those upset with the quick evaluation of different cultures and ideas as inferior have over-reacted into 'all cultures and ideas are equal'.

• Another argument is that if relativism presupposes that "all beliefs are equally valid," it is then saying belief systems that believe they are the only individual valid belief system nullifies it as being one of many valid beliefs. For example, relativism presupposes all beliefs are equally valid. Most monotheistic religions, Christianity or Islam for example, however, presuppose that they are, individually, the only valid belief systems. Christianity ( Greek Χριστιανισμός from the word Xριστός ( Christ)is a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings For other meanings including people named 'Islam' see Islam (disambiguation. This creates a direct self-contradiction: relativism presupposes that any belief, including one such as Christianity, is valid. On the other hand, Christianity believes that only Christianity (and therefore not relativism) is valid. Relativism states Christianity is one of many true beliefs, while Christianity states it is the only true belief, which only results in contradicting relativism's presupposition that Christianity is one of many truths. In simple terms: If A, then B. If B, then not A. (In this case, A is relativism, while B is a belief system such as Christianity or Islam. )

• Another criticism is that modest admissions of disbelief are impossible. If it was true for me yesterday when I said, "I aced that exam", how can I say today "I failed the exam yesterday that I thought I did so well on"?

Responses

• Contradictions such as "all beliefs are equally worthless" are nonsensical, as they constitute arguing from the premise. Once you have said if the X is absolute (e. g. "all beliefs are equally worthless") you have presupposed relativism is false. And one cannot prove a statement using that statement as a premise. There is a contradiction, but the contradiction is between relativism and the presuppositions of absoluteness in the ordinary logic used. Nothing has been proven wrong and nothing has been proven in and of itself, only the known incompatibility has been restated inefficiently.

• Another counter-argument uses Bertrand Russell's Paradox, which refers to the "List of all lists that do not contain themselves". Part of the Foundations of mathematics, Russell's paradox (also known as Russell's antinomy) discovered by Bertrand Russell in 1901 showed that the Kurt Gödel, Jorge Luis Borges, and Jean Baudrillard have famously debated this paradox. Kurt Gödel (kʊɐ̯t ˈgøːdl̩ (April 28 1906 – January 14 1978 was an Austrian American Logician, Mathematician and Philosopher Jean Baudrillard ( July 29, 1929   – March 6, 2007) (ʒɑ̃ bo

• A very different approach explicates the rhetorical production of supposedly 'bottom-line' arguments against relativism. Edwards et al’s influential and controversial "Death and Furniture"^[22] paper takes this line in its staunch defense of relativism. Part of the rhetoric discussed here involves the portrayal of relativists who say (for example), "torture is not an absolute evil", as saying, in effect, "we don't disapprove of torture as strongly as you do". Relativists argue that this is a rhetorical trick, akin to claiming "you can't throw out the bath water without throwing out the baby too": denying absolute truths still leaves relativists free to be utterly and passionately opposed to torture. Further cultural relativism only implies that differing cultural contexts have to be taken into account when making judgements about what is good or bad relative to that culture. Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual Human 's Beliefs and activities should be understood in terms of his or her own Culture. It does not limit one's ability to disagree with a cultural norm.

• A strong epistemological relativist could theoretically argue that it does not matter that his theory is only relative according to itself. As long as it remains "true" according to a relative framework, then it is just as true as any apparently "absolute" truth that a realist would postulate. The dispute lies in the distinction between whether the framework is relative or absolute, but if a realist could be persuaded it was relative, then the relativist theory could exist logically within that framework, albeit accepting that its "truth" is relative. A strong epistemological relativist must remove his own notions of universal truth if he is to embrace his theory fully, he must accept some form of truth to validate his theory logically, and this truth, by definition, must be relative. So if the initial framework is relativistic and something is true within its context arguments that it is not true outside its context have no value.

Theater and relativism

Relativism found its voice in theater through Pirandello who believed that nothing, neither time nor morals, is absolute. Luigi Pirandello ( June 28, 1867 — December 10, 1936) was an Italian Dramatist Novelist, and short

Pirandello examines the relationship between reality, illusion and relativity, and we should not forget that Einstein’s theory of Relativity was popular in Pirandello’s day. Indeed Einstein reputedly went up to Pirandello after the performance of one of his plays and said to him ‘We are kindred souls. ’

The Catholic Church and relativism

The Roman Catholic Church, especially under John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, has identified relativism as one of the most significant problems for faith and morals today. Pope Pope Benedict XVI ( Latin: Benedictus PP XVI; Italian: Benedetto XVI; German: Benedikt XVI; born Joseph Alois Ratzinger ^[23]

According to the Church and to some philosophers, relativism, as a denial of absolute truth, leads to moral license and a denial of the possibility of sin and of God. Sin is a term used mainly in a religious context to describe an act that violates a moral Rule, or the state of having committed such a violation God is the principal or sole Deity in Religions and other belief systems that worship one deity. Whether moral or epistemological, relativism constitutes a denial of the capacity of the human mind and reason to arrive at truth. Truth, according to Catholic theologians and philosophers (following Aristotle and Plato) consists of adequatio rei et intellectus, the correspondence of the mind and reality. The correspondence theory of truth states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world and whether it accurately describes (i Another way of putting it states that the mind has the same form as reality. MIND ( Moving In New Directions) (est 1975 is an alternative education high school in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. This means when the form of the computer in front of someone (the type, color, shape, capacity, etc. ) is also the form that is in their mind, then what they know is true because their mind corresponds to objective reality.

The denial of an absolute reference, of an axis mundi, denies God, who equates to Absolute Truth, according to these Christian philosophers. They link relativism to secularism, an obstruction of God in human life. Secularism is generally the assertion that governmental practices or institutions should exist separately from Religion or religious beliefs Personal life (or everyday life or human existence) is the course of an individual Human 's life especially when viewed as the sum of personal choices

John Paul II

John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor ("The Splendor of the Truth") stressed the dependence of man on God and his law ("Without the Creator, the creature disappears") and the "dependence of freedom on the truth". Pope Veritatis Splendor ( Latin for "The Splendor of Truth" is an Encyclical by Pope John Paul II. He warned that man "giving himself over to relativism and skepticism, goes off in search of an illusory freedom apart from truth itself".

In Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), he says:

The original and inalienable right to life is questioned or denied on the basis of a parliamentary vote or the will of one part of the people-even if it is the majority. See also Catholic theology of the body, Teachings of Pope John Paul II Evangelium Vitæ ( Latin: "The Gospel of Life" is the This is the sinister result of a relativism which reigns unopposed: the "right" ceases to be such, because it is no longer firmly founded on the inviolable dignity of the person, but is made subject to the will of the stronger part. In this way democracy, contradicting its own principles, effectively moves towards a form of totalitarianism. The State is no longer the "common home" where all can live together on the basis of principles of fundamental equality, but is transformed into a tyrant State, which arrogates to itself the right to dispose of the life of the weakest and most defenceless members, from the unborn child to the elderly, in the name of a public interest which is really nothing but the interest of one part. [Italics added]

Benedict XVI

In April 2005, in his homily^[24] during Mass prior to the conclave which would elect him as Pope, then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger talked about the world "moving towards a dictatorship of relativism":

How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. History See also History of the Papacy Catholics recognize the Pope as a successor to Saint Peter, who Jesus named as the "shepherd" and Pope Benedict XVI ( Latin: Benedictus PP XVI; Italian: Benedetto XVI; German: Benedikt XVI; born Joseph Alois Ratzinger The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves ¬ thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and "swept along by every wind of teaching", looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires. However, we have a different goal: the Son of God, true man. He is the measure of true humanism. Being an "Adult" means having a faith which does not follow the waves of today's fashions or the latest novelties. A faith which is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ is adult and mature. It is this friendship which opens us up to all that is good and gives us the knowledge to judge true from false, and deceit from truth.

On June 6, 2005, Pope Benedict XVI told educators:

"Today, a particularly insidious obstacle to the task of education is the massive presence in our society and culture of that relativism which, recognizing nothing as definitive, leaves as the ultimate criterion only the self with its desires. Events 1508 - Maximilian I Holy Roman Emperor, is defeated in Friulia by Venetian forces; he is forced to sign a three-year Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. And under the semblance of freedom it becomes a prison for each one, for it separates people from one another, locking each person into his or her own 'ego'". ^[25]

Then during the World Youth Day in August 2005, he also traced to relativism the problems produced by the communist and sexual revolutions, and provided a counter-counter argument. The 20th World Youth Day 2005 (XX Weltjugendtag Köln was a Catholic youth festival that started on August 16 and continued until August 21, ^[26]

In the last century we experienced revolutions with a common programme – expecting nothing more from God, they assumed total responsibility for the cause of the world in order to change it. And this, as we saw, meant that a human and partial point of view was always taken as an absolute guiding principle. Absolutizing what is not absolute but relative is called totalitarianism. It does not liberate man, but takes away his dignity and enslaves him. It is not ideologies that save the world, but only a return to the living God, our Creator, the guarantor of our freedom, the guarantor of what is really good and true.

Criticism

These Church documents suggest the position that to accept its version of morality is the only alternative to relativism. Veritatis Splendor insists that we must retain respect for certain fundamental goods, without which one would fall into relativism and arbitrariness where it is further insisted that sodomy, contraception, etc. Veritatis Splendor ( Latin for "The Splendor of Truth" is an Encyclical by Pope John Paul II. necessarily violate such respect for goods such as life. But the claim that rejection of these activities and relativism are the only choices is considered false by relativists, and as a lie could plausibly be labelled unethical itself. There are many other ethical systems which reject this dichotomy; see ethics and normative ethics. Ethics is a major branch of Philosophy, encompassing right conduct and good life Normative ethics is the branch of philosophical Ethics that investigates the set of questions that arise when we think about the question “how ought one act

Notes/References

Bibliography

• Maria Baghramian, Relativism, London: Routledge, 2004, ISBN 0415161509
• Ernest Gellner, Relativism and the Social Sciences, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, ISBN 0521337984
• Rom Harré (Ed. The God Delusion is a 2006 bestselling non-fiction book by British biologist Richard Dawkins, holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding Mere Christianity is a theological book by C S Lewis, adapted from a series of BBC radio talks made between 1941 and 1944 while Lewis ), Varieties of Relativism, Oxford, UK; New York, NY: Blackwell, 1996, ISBN 0631184090
• Martin Hollis, Steven Lukes, Rationality and Relativism, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982, ISBN 0631127739
• Joseph Margolis, M. Krausz, R. M. Burian (Eds. ), Rationality, Relativism, and the Human Sciences, Dordrecht: Boston, M. Nijhoff, 1986, ISBN 9024732719
• Jack W. Meiland, Michael Krausz, Relativism, Cognitive and Moral, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982, ISBN 0268016119

See also

• Anthropology
• Moral relativism
• Philosophical realism
• Social constructionism
• The Science Wars
• Worldview
• Subjectivism

External links

• Professor Ronald Jones on relativism
• What 'Being Relative' Means A passage from Pierre Lecomte du Nouy's "Human Destiny" (1947). Jack W Meiland (1934-1998 was an American philosopher He is best known for comments on Cognitive relativism, and a salvage operation from the "paradox of relativism" Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of This article attempts to confine itself to discussion of relativism in morals and ethics Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief in a Reality that is completely Ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes linguistic practices beliefs Social constructionism and social constructivism are sociological and psychological theories of Knowledge that consider how social phenomena develop in The Science wars were a series of intellectual battles in the 1990s between " Postmodernists " and " realists " (though neither party would likely A comprehensive world view (or worldview) is a term Calqued from the German word Weltanschauung ( Welt is the German Subjectivism is a philosophical tenet that accords primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measure and law Pierre Lecomte du Noüy (1883-1947 was a French biophysicist and Philosopher.
• BBC Radio 4 series "In Our Time", on Relativism - the battle against transcendent knowledge, 19 January 2006
• Christopher Noriss's Against Relativism
• Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Relativism
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Cognitive Relativism
• The Friesian School on Relativism
• The Catholic Encyclopedia
• Harvey Siegel reviews Paul Boghossian's Fear of Knowledge

Paul Boghossian is professor of Philosophy at New York University, where he held the chair for ten years (1994&ndash2004

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