Relativism

Indexical Relativism versus Genuine Relativism

The main purpose of this paper is to characterize and compare two forms any relativist thesis can take: indexical relativism and genuine relativism. Indexical relativists claim that the implicit indexicality of certain sentences is the only source of relativity. Genuine relativists, by contrast, claim that there is relativity not just at the level of sentences, but also at propositional level. ...

Moral Relativism

There is a general philosophical problem with the status of non-objective judgements, such as evaluative or aesthetic judgements. On the one hand, even judgements in these areas seem to answer to some standard of correctness. They are not arbitrary. We often call them " true " or " false ". One can err in making them. We argue about them. On the other hand, there are reasons to say these judgem...

Linguistic Relativism

Epistemic Relativism

Epistemic relativism rejects the idea that claims can be assessed from a universally applicable, objective standpoint. It is greatly disdained because it suggests that the real ‘basis’ for our views is something fleeting, such as ‘‘the techniques of mass persuasion’’ (Thomas Kuhn 1970) or the determination of intellectuals to achieve ‘‘solidarity’’ (Rorty 1984) or ‘‘keep the conversation going’...

Context, Content, and Relativism∗

Here is a simple and inviting picture: the semantic values of sentences, relative to contexts, are sets of possible worlds. These are the truth conditions of assertions of those sentences in contexts. They are thus the contents of assertions, or the objects of attitudes we might take towards such contents. There have been many questions raised about the simple picture. For instance, sets of wor...