Rationality And Relativism
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The Philosophy of Social Science
Author | : Martin Hollis |
Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | : 284 |
Release | : 1994-09-01 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 1316101770 |
This textbook by Martin Hollis offers an exceptionally clear and concise introduction to the philosophy of social science. It examines questions which give rise to fundamental philosophical issues. Are social structures better conceived of as systems of laws and forces, or as webs of meanings and practices? Is social action better viewed as rational behaviour, or as self-expression? By exploring such questions, the reader is led to reflect upon the nature of scientific method in social science. Is the aim to explain the social world after a manner worked out for the natural world, or to understand the social world from within?
Relativism
Author | : Paul O'Grady |
Publisher | : Routledge |
Total Pages | : 172 |
Release | : 2014-12-18 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 1317489829 |
The issue of relativism looms large in many contemporary discussions of knowledge, reality, society, religion, culture and gender. Is truth relative? To what extent is knowledge dependent on context? Are there different logics? Do different cultures and societies see the world differently? And is reality itself something that is constructed? This book offers a path through these debates. O'Grady begins by clarifying what exactly relativism is and how it differs from scepticism and pluralism. He then examines five main types of cognitive relativism: alethic relativism, logical relativism, ontological relativism; epistemological relativism, and relativism about rationality. Each is clearly distinguised and the arguments for and against each are assessed. O'Grady offers a welcome survey of recent debates, engaging with the work of Davidson, Devitt, Kuhn, Putnam, Quine, Rorty, Searle, Winch and Wittgenstein, among others, and he offers a distinct position of his own on this hotly contested issue.
Rationality and Cultural Interpretivism
Author | : Kei Yoshida |
Publisher | : Lexington Books |
Total Pages | : 157 |
Release | : 2014-08-06 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 0739174002 |
Rationality and Cultural Interpretivism: A Critical Assessment of Failed Solutions critically assesses cultural interpretivism by scrutinizing five different proponents of it and their solutions to the problem of rationality. The book examines the works of Peter Winch, Charles Taylor, Clifford Geertz, Marshall Sahlins, and Gananath Obeyesekere and their contributions to the so-called rationality debate in the philosophy of the social sciences. This debate began with Winch’s criticism of Edward Evans-Pritchard and has become one of the central debates in the field since 1960s, continuing as a controversy between Sahlins and Obeyesekere. Kei Yoshida reveals the need for a cogent solution to the problem of rationality. He identifies two main problems with previous theories: first, that they exaggerate the differences between the natural and the social/cultural, and hence they also exaggerate the differences between the natural and the social sciences; and second, that they ignore important social science problems, particularly outcomes from the unintended consequences of human actions. Yoshida urges social scientists not simply to interpret agents’ intentions or symbolic systems, but also to explain the unintended consequences of human actions. Still entangled in positivism, cultural interpretivists claim that the social sciences differ from the natural sciences and thus reject any unity of method. Yoshida argues that we need to overcome the mistaken positivist image of science in order to develop a more fruitful philosophy of the social sciences. The analysis presented in this book will be of value to students and scholars of social epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of the social sciences, and the social sciences themselves, as well as anyone interested in the philosophical problem of rationality and relativism.
Viewpoint Relativism
Author | : Antti Hautamäki |
Publisher | : Springer Nature |
Total Pages | : 220 |
Release | : 2020-01-28 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 3030345955 |
This book offers new insights into truth, knowledge, and reality. It details a unique approach to epistemological relativism based on the concept of points of view. In a point of view, an aspect represents an object for a subject. By applying this concept of points of view, the author develops a consistent and adequate form of relativism, called viewpoint relativism, according to which epistemic questions like “Is X true (or justified or existing)” are viewpoint-dependent. The monograph examines central issues related to epistemological relativism. It analyzes major arguments pro and con from different opinions. The author presents the arguments of well-known philosophers. These include such thinkers as Paul Boghossian, John Dewey, Nelson Goodman, Martin Kusch, C.I. Lewis, John MacFarlane, Hilary Putnam, W.V.O. Quine, Richard Rorty, John Searle, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. In the process, the author deconstructs the standard account of correspondence theory of truth. Viewpoint relativism is a moderate relativism, which is not subjected to standard criticism of extreme relativism. This book argues that knowledge creation presupposes openness to different points of view and their comparison. It also explores the broader implications of viewpoint relativism into current debate about truth in society. The author defends a critical relativism, which accepts pluralism but is critical against all points of view. In the conclusion, he explores the relevance of viewpoint relativism to democracy by showing that the main threat of modern democratic society is not pluralism but absolutism and fundamentalism.
Moral Relativism
Author | : Steven Lukes |
Publisher | : Profile Books |
Total Pages | : 188 |
Release | : 2011-05-26 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 1847653200 |
Do we as humans have no shared standards by which we can understand each other? Do we truly have divergent views about what constitutes good and evil, harm and welfare, dignity and humiliation, or is there some underlying commonality that wins out? These questions show up everywhere, from the debate over female circumcision to the UN Declaration of Human Rights. They become ever more pressing in an age of mass immigration, religious extremism and the rise of identity politics. So by what right do we judge particular practices as barbaric? Who are the real barbarians? This provocative book takes an enlightening look at what we believe, why we believe it and whether there really is an irreparable moral discord between 'us' and 'them'.
Relativism
Author | : Michael Krausz |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : 520 |
Release | : 1989 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : |
Recent years have seen a vigorous revival of interest in relativism - both in support and in opposition. This collection of 21 essays, 16 of which appear in print here for the first time, advances the discussion found in an earlier volume, Relativism: Cognitive and Moral. These present selections focus on philosophical and methodological issues of relativism by exhibiting its varieties and by rehearsing its virtues and vices. The contributions concern relativism in a wide range of practices in the human studies.
Epistemic Relativism
Author | : M. Seidel |
Publisher | : Springer |
Total Pages | : 470 |
Release | : 2014-04-13 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 1137377895 |
Markus Seidel provides a detailed critique of epistemic relativism in the sociology of scientific knowledge. In addition to scrutinizing the main arguments for epistemic relativism he provides an absolutist account that nevertheless aims at integrating the relativist's intuition.
Fear of Knowledge
Author | : Paul Boghossian |
Publisher | : Clarendon Press |
Total Pages | : 160 |
Release | : 2007-10-11 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 0191622753 |
The academic world has been plagued in recent years by scepticism about truth and knowledge. Paul Boghossian, in his long-awaited first book, sweeps away relativist claims that there is no such thing as objective truth or knowledge, but only truth or knowledge from a particular perspective. He demonstrates clearly that such claims don't even make sense. Boghossian focuses on three different ways of reading the claim that knowledge is socially constructed - one as a thesis about truth and two about justification. And he rejects all three. The intuitive, common-sense view is that there is a way things are that is independent of human opinion, and that we are capable of arriving at belief about how things are that is objectively reasonable, binding on anyone capable of appreciating the relevant evidence regardless of their social or cultural perspective. Difficult as these notions may be, it is a mistake to think that recent philosophy has uncovered powerful reasons for rejecting them. This short, lucid, witty book shows that philosophy provides rock-solid support for common sense against the relativists; it will prove provocative reading throughout the discipline and beyond.
Relativism and the Foundations of Philosophy
Author | : Steven D. Hales |
Publisher | : MIT Press |
Total Pages | : 227 |
Release | : 2009-08-21 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 0262263130 |
A defense of the view that philosophical propositions are true in some perspectives and false in others, arguing that the rationalist, intuition-driven method of acquiring basic beliefs favored by analytic philosophy is not epistemically superior to such alternate belief-acquiring methods as religious revelation and the ritual use of hallucinogens. The grand and sweeping claims of many relativists might seem to amount to the argument that everything is relative—except the thesis of relativism. In this book, Steven Hales defends relativism, but in a more circumscribed form that applies specifically to philosophical propositions. His claim is that philosophical propositions are relatively true—true in some perspectives and false in others. Hales defends this argument first by examining rational intuition as the method by which philosophers come to have the beliefs they do. Analytic rationalism, he claims, has a foundational reliance on rational intuition as a method of acquiring basic beliefs. He then argues that there are other methods that people use to gain beliefs about philosophical topics that are strikingly analogous to rational intuition and examines two of these: Christian revelation and the ritual use of hallucinogens. Hales argues that rational intuition is not epistemically superior to either of these alternative methods. There are only three possible outcomes: we have no philosophical knowledge (skepticism); there are no philosophical propositions (naturalism); or there are knowable philosophical propositions, but our knowledge of them is relative to doxastic perspective. Hales defends relativism against the charge that it is self-refuting and answers a variety of objections to this account of relativism. Finally, he examines the most sweeping objection to relativism: that philosophical propositions are not merely relatively true, because there are no philosophical propositions—all propositions are ultimately empirical, as the naturalists contend. Hales's somewhat disturbing conclusion—that intuition-driven philosophy does produce knowledge, but not absolute knowledge—is sure to inspire debate among philosophers.