[MD] Relativism

[david buchanan]

dmb said:


Marsha supplied a definition that describes relativism as the theory that truth and values are relative to the persons or groups holding them. Rorty says justification (forget truth) is relative to the group, the audience. This is the position that adds up to relativism.



Steve:


The problem for you, Dave, is that this definition Marsha supplied also fits Pirsig and James to whatever degree it fits Rorty. For Pirsig and James, truth as well as justification are relative. That has been my point all along.



dmb says:

Well, your point can only be sustained by maintaining that Pirsig and James are relativists and radical empiricists at the same time. Since empiricism says our ideas are made true in experience, justification is NOT simply relative to the persons or groups holding them. How do you figure relativism and empiricism can be compatible?

Here's a little Wiki tweaky:  "In philosophy, empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge arises from sense experience. Empiricism is one of several competing views that predominate in the study of human knowledge, known as epistemology. Empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence, especially sensory perception, in the formation of ideas, while discounting the notion of innate ideas."
"Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood in terms of his or her own culture. This principle was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and later popularized by his students. Boas first articulated the idea in 1887: "...civilization is not something absolute, but ... is relative, and ... our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilization goes."[1] but did not actually coin the term "cultural relativism."
The first use of the term recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary was by Alain Locke in 1924 to describe Robert Lowie's "extreme cultural relativism", found in the latter's 1917 book Culture and Ethnology.[2] The term became common among anthropologists after Boas' death in 1942, to express their synthesis of a number of ideas Boas had developed."


"Some relativists claim that humans can understand and evaluate beliefs and behaviors only in terms of their historical or cultural context. There are many forms of relativism which vary in their degree of controversy.[1] The term often refers to truth relativism, which is the doctrine that there are no absolute truths, i.e., that truth is always relative to some particular frame of reference, such as a language or a culture. Another widespread and contentious form is moral relativism.

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. In addition, we have a culture bias—shared with other trusted observers—which we cannot eliminate. 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.
Relativism is sometimes (though not always) interpreted as saying that all points of view are equally valid, in contrast to an absolutism which argues there is but one true and correct view. In fact, relativism asserts that a particular instance Y exists only in combination with or as a by-product of a particular framework or viewpoint X, and that no framework or standpoint is uniquely privileged over all others."


Steve said:
There is no way for you to define relativism in such a way that condemns Rorty, as you are so eager to do, and simultaneously leaves James and Pirsig above reproach. That is the only reason I can imagine that you have continually refused to define the term relativism.


dmb says:

The definition of relativism is common property, not something I get to decide. And the idea that I've refused to define it seems a little bit insane. It's also incredible to suggest that the empiricism of James and Pirsig has no impact on whether or not they are just as worthy of the label as Rorty is. As I keep saying, it is Rorty's refusal to do epistemology that makes all the difference. He abandons what James and Pirsig expand and improve. Rorty calls himself a pragmatist because he refuses to have a truth theory while Pirsig and James maintain that pragmatism IS a theory of truth and an empirical one at that. Obviously, that is going to make a huge difference with respect to relativism. 
 

Steve said:
The so-called problem of relativism is a fake problem that can only be articulated in SOM terms that Rorty, James, and Pirsig reject.


dmb says:

I disagree that relativism is a fake problem. I don't think it can only be articulated in SOM terms and I don't think Rorty rejects SOM as such. He just thinks the S can never have access to the O. As Hildebrand explains it, Rorty's position has to give a nod to objective reality so that it can argue that our access to it is not just impracticable but impossible. The Fish article about Rorty's pragmaitism in the New York times exposed this same point. You have yet to address this crucial criticisms. 


Steve said:
Again I suggest that the issue of concern ought to be moral clarity rather than relativism. Moral clarity rather than relativism is the cleavage term that will separate the liberal intellectuals that Harris complains as "relativists" who can't say that female genital mutilation is wrong from Pirsig, James, and Rorty who can all take a stand and make reasoned arguments against such abominations.



dmb says:

Well, it is not at all clear what you mean by "moral clarity". Sounds like nothing more than vague self-flattery. 

But you've been putting the question in terms of a flat earth, slavery and you seem a bit obsessed with mutilated genitals, I suppose because you're trying to crank up the heat. But to make these arguments you have to resort to a very unRorty-like realism. Likewise, your insistence that truth must be kept separate from justification is a notion that Rorty rejects. Using Putnam and Pierce to defend Rortyism is using realism to defend anti-realism. Likewise, to invoke the "snow is white" iff snow is white equation is to invoke the correspondence theory. The truth of the proposition depends on its correspondence to external material facts. These are the kinds of moves you made that lead me to accuse you of have a very messy position on the topic. 




































 		 	   		  
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