Relativism and Progress

International Encyclopaedia of Organization Studies (Sage)

According to standard dictionaries such as the Oxford English Dictionary, relativism is a doctrine proposing that truth or morality is relative to situations and not absolute or universal. For example, a relativist would claim that statements such as "Peter works more than Sally" or "Peter acts badly" cannot be correct in

ABSTRACT Relativism: a conceptual analysis Vittorio Villa In my paper I will try, in the first part, to give a conceptual definition of relativism, with the aim of singling out the possible basic elements common to all the most relevant relativist conceptions. In conformity with my definition, we have to qualify as “relativistic” all the conceptions according to which all or a relevant part of – cognitive, semantic, ethic, cultural, etc. - criteria and beliefs are necessary dependent on a given context (paradigm, culture, language, conceptual scheme, etc.) that is by its turn chosen as point of reference. From this point of view it is “absolutism” which stands in radical opposition to relativism. In the second part of the paper I will deal with some important critical observations which have been recurrently aroused against relativism. From this point of view, a quite serious problem arises from the fact that many relativists would like to have the chance, at least in some important cases, of expressing some objective judgments, for instance in terms of ethically “right” or “wrong”, or in terms of empirically “true” or “false”. In the third part of my paper, in order to answer to this difficulty, I will propose a sketch of a viable and coherent relativistic conception: a conception that doesn’t incorporate at all absolutist elements and that nevertheless could be able to explain the presence of a common core of criteria and beliefs in all our conceptual schemes and beliefs. Two distinctions are of particular importance here: firstly, the distinction between local conceptual schemes and long term frameworks, through which it is possible to clarify that even the most stable and consolidated beliefs common to our conceptual schemes are after all relative; secondly, the distinction between environment (the commonly shared source of our stimulations and perceptions) and world (the subject of our linguistic and theoretical representations, which is always a human construction). Through this last distinction it becomes possible, in my opinion, to speak, even inside a coherent relativist epistemological conception, of the existence of an objective reality. Vittorio Villa

2015

Th is paper argues that relativism prevents discourse, positive interaction and the growth of understanding since relativism eliminates the possibility of doubt and, subsequently, reason. Conversely, pluralism supports the concept of a universal moral claim in that we can only understand a fragment of the universe, but through dialogue, can advance towards greater understanding. Th is approach allows human beings in a multicultural society to move away from bigotry toward understanding and create a "we" rather than an "us" and "them" mentality. A continued claim of the validity of relativism would only hinder this process. In a more positive vein, we will also try to review some logical and pragmatic arguments that suggest how relativism can be overcome and universal moral rules can be defended without hindering pluralism.

One could say of relativism what Hermann Ebbinghaus once observed with respect to psychology: to wit, that it has a "long past but a short history" (1908, 3). Although relativistic motifs have always played a significant role in philosophy, their systematic investigation-and thus the explicit formulation of different forms and strengths of relativism-is a child only of the twentieth century. Perhaps one could even maintain that most of the really important, detailed and systematic work on relativism was done by philosophers alive today. This volume documents both the long past and the short history of relativism.

This paper contrasts "cold" relativisms, for example between long-term units such as cultures or civilizations, with "hot" ones, between competing viewpoints or paradigms, and with the dynamic form of relativism found in social constructionism.

One difficulty with even beginning to talk about relativism as a kind of intellectual object is that it is unclear what kind of intellectual object it is. Is it a theory , a metatheory, reflexive paradox, a form of skepticism that insists that any claim (or any first premise) is as good as any other, a methodological principle, a type of inconsistency, a cultural or world-historical condition, a vegetarian expression of nihilism, another word for tolerance as it applies to questions of basic ideologies, a form of the idea of the suspension of judgment, merely another word for the basic principles of tolerance and the acceptance of the possibility of our own fallibility, or an implication that arises from some other philosophical commitment, such as antirealism, existentialism, the fact-value distinction, or any of dozens more ideas? Settling the question of which it "really is" seems pointless, at least if the point is to vindicate or refute relativism, because whatever disputes arise over relativism are likely to again arise in the course of placing it into one or another of these categories, or in deciding what it means to be in the category. The disagreements that arise about relativism will typically still be there once one puts it into a category. If relativism is just intellectual tolerance for example what does this mean when we come to the question of tolerati~g intellectual absolutism? Is there a relevant difference between, say, the absolutisms of Steven Weinberg (1996) and of the Jehovah's Witnesses? If there is, what is its basis? Suppose we say that Weinberg possesses "minimum rationality" and the Witnesses do not. Why is the criterion of minimum rationality itself any-RELATIVISM AS EXPLANATION/ 75 thing other than another form of absolutism? Why is religion less "tolerable" than science? Stalemates of this kind are characteristic of disputes about relativism, and result from the binary structure of the problem: the ability of the relativist to relativize the premises of the absolutist, and the ability of the absolutist to show that the relativist must relativize her own premises as well. Relativistic stalemate in its various forms will not be my concern here,, other than to show that it may be avoided. What I will suggest is that by going around to the unguarded back door of these various versions of relativism, to what I will call the explanatory side of relativism, something new might result. Although relativism is closely connected to explanation, the explanatory structure of relativism is rarely discussed. This contrasts with the case of philosophical skepticism, where the contexts and conditions for the skeptic's claims have come to be seen as critical to the problem itself; and it is generally understood that there is something fishy about the extensions of particular skeptical claims, such as the reasonable skepticism about flying saucers or out-of-body experiences, where we have some checks to distinguish real from fake physical experiences or evidences of the presence of physical objects-to the kinds of skepticism associated with Descartes or Hume, which challenge experience in a totalizing way. The difference is perhaps not surprising, for two reasons. The first is that the relativist operates with real differences, not wild hypotheses, and seems to have evidence on her side. The second is that the explanatory claims, though crucial, are rather dowdy and uninteresting. The implications of rela-tivism for "truth" and other such questions, such as the possibility of establishing the ethical superiority of one culture over another, are flashy and dramatic , and unlike skepticism seem to i.ustify practical conclusions. Nevertheless, these dowdy little explanations, wQ.ich frequently are no more than very thin sketches of explanations {typically even less-no more than allusions to categories of explanatory ide~, such as vague appeals to "culture" or "history"), deserve our attention. They deserve a separate inquiry precisely because they are independent of the conclusions about truth, superiority, and so forth that they are usually taken to ground. As a matter of logic, this means that they may be a weak link in these arguments. This may not seem to be a very likely possibility. But if there is ail'error in one of the rarely discussed steps beyond the facts that relativism rests on, mundane facts about differences, then the conclusions about truth, superiority, and so forth that are supposed to follow might not follow. If the error is a systematic one, one that occurs across the whole range of classes of specific explanations that justify relativism, it may be that relativism is not entitled to its strongest card: the relativistic significance of factual differences in culture, perspectives, frameworks, worldviews, and the like.

Truth and Realism, 2006

Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 2023

Relativism and discussions of the relativity of human judgment have played an important role in philosophy since the 1950s. Such claims are regarded by many as the enemy of realism, the view that human judgments can be valid with respect to their objects as those objects obtain independent of the judgments. Most relativisms assert the relativity of human judgment to some trait of the judge, hence are anthropic. But there is another kind: objective relativism. It was espoused by some of the American pragmatists of the early to mid-twentieth century. Their hope was that objective relativism was compatible with realism while avoiding dualism and idealism. It claimed things themselves are relative. The view eventually disappeared. This article examines this neglected doctrine, not to determine its truth, but its nature. What kind of theory was it, what could it claim to accomplish, and what could it not? Some of its proponents regarded it as a naturalistic metaphysics, but this is problematic. This topic is suggestive for the formulation of a naturalism that rejects physicalism yet is compatible with science and realism.