Donald E Van Duyse wrote:
"I guess what I'm getting at here is that relativism, as an "ism," is
all
about taking the "ah hah" moment and dissecting it into its constituent
atoms. And this implies a crude Foucaultian analysis that is little more
than structuralism meets nihilism. Relativity, as I use the term, is all
about creating possibilities for new "ah hah" moments, re-differentiated
perceptions, that might have a tentative (always contestable) validity."
I do not think that all relativistic theories can be written off as
simply giving in to crude impulses. At a minimum, one would want a
psychological analysis of how sophisticated people can fall into such
traps.
I any case, relativistic theories come in several varieties with
variations within the varieties. Among actual relativisms we can
include:
!) Ontological relativism -- the view that what "is" varies according to
context. An example of this would be Whitehead's epochal theory of
natural law. Whitehead maintains that natural laws vary from
cosmological epoch to cosmological epoch. The "same" object may be quite
different given a different set of rules governing its behavior. If
Whitehead's theory (or another like it) were true, Roberto's Question
(What is a universe) would require a different answer than the one we
are most inclined to give.
2) Epistemological relativism -- the view that the conditions of your
knowledge radically restrict the kind of knowledges you will generate or
acknowledge. This seems to be the dragon you most want to slay. It is
more a hydra than a dragon. There are many rooms in the mansion of
epistemological relativism. There is "standpoint epistemology" which
claims that knowledge is "positional" and that different positions
(e.g.,. gender) secrete different knowledges. There are theories of
"incommensurability" Kuhn, Feyerabend etc. holding that the "objects" of
theoretical discourses are not independent of the discourses and that
the discourses will not suffer mutual translation or incorporation by a
"progressive theory." I am not clear on how an intuition concerning
moments of epiphany bear on refuting these theories. Maybe some kinds of
theoretical discovery require them while others do not. It may be
relative to the context of discovery AND the distinction between the
"logic of discovery" and the logic of justification" may be spurious.
3) Linguistic relativism -- the view that languages are partially or
wholly untranslatable and that the ontological recognitions open to us
are restricted by the languages we can competently deploy. This, of
course, is the Worf-Sapir hypothesis.
4) Moral relativism -- the view that there are no universally valid
moral rules and that any validity we can affirm will be recognized only
by those who share our moral framework.
I am not certain how these versions of relativism relate to one another.
They are not all mutually implicated; e.g., one can surely be a moral
relativist without being an epistemological relativist.
"I guess what I'm getting at here is that relativism, as an "ism," is
all
about taking the "ah hah" moment and dissecting it into its constituent
atoms. And this implies a crude Foucaultian analysis that is little more
than structuralism meets nihilism. Relativity, as I use the term, is all
about creating possibilities for new "ah hah" moments, re-differentiated
perceptions, that might have a tentative (always contestable) validity."
I do not think that all relativistic theories can be written off as
simply giving in to crude impulses. At a minimum, one would want a
psychological analysis of how sophisticated people can fall into such
traps.
I any case, relativistic theories come in several varieties with
variations within the varieties. Among actual relativisms we can
include:
!) Ontological relativism -- the view that what "is" varies according to
context. An example of this would be Whitehead's epochal theory of
natural law. Whitehead maintains that natural laws vary from
cosmological epoch to cosmological epoch. The "same" object may be quite
different given a different set of rules governing its behavior. If
Whitehead's theory (or another like it) were true, Roberto's Question
(What is a universe) would require a different answer than the one we
are most inclined to give.
2) Epistemological relativism -- the view that the conditions of your
knowledge radically restrict the kind of knowledges you will generate or
acknowledge. This seems to be the dragon you most want to slay. It is
more a hydra than a dragon. There are many rooms in the mansion of
epistemological relativism. There is "standpoint epistemology" which
claims that knowledge is "positional" and that different positions
(e.g.,. gender) secrete different knowledges. There are theories of
"incommensurability" Kuhn, Feyerabend etc. holding that the "objects" of
theoretical discourses are not independent of the discourses and that
the discourses will not suffer mutual translation or incorporation by a
"progressive theory." I am not clear on how an intuition concerning
moments of epiphany bear on refuting these theories. Maybe some kinds of
theoretical discovery require them while others do not. It may be
relative to the context of discovery AND the distinction between the
"logic of discovery" and the logic of justification" may be spurious.
3) Linguistic relativism -- the view that languages are partially or
wholly untranslatable and that the ontological recognitions open to us
are restricted by the languages we can competently deploy. This, of
course, is the Worf-Sapir hypothesis.
4) Moral relativism -- the view that there are no universally valid
moral rules and that any validity we can affirm will be recognized only
by those who share our moral framework.
I am not certain how these versions of relativism relate to one another.
They are not all mutually implicated; e.g., one can surely be a moral
relativist without being an epistemological relativist.