RelativismWe’re both right.

Epistemic vs. Alethic Relativism

• There are two forms of anti-realism (or relativism):

(A) Epistemic anti-realism: whether or not a view is rationally justified depends on your paradigm’s rules. There are no objective rules that transcend all paradigms. (Feldman discusses this.)

(B) Alethic anti-realism: There is no objective truth, no world “out there” that is independent of theory. “Reality” is in fact a mental or social construct. (Allen Wood discusses this.)

Wood on alethic relativism:

“Here I want mainly to discuss (and to criticize) a view I have

encountered among students in philosophy courses, who say

things like this: “What anyone believes is true for that person.

What you believe is true for you, what I believe is true for

me.” We can call the view expressed in such statements

‘relativism’ because it denies that there is any such thing as

“absolute” truth, holds that all truth is relative to the person

who believes it.” (Wood)

• Are there such people?

• Are there any grounds for such an attitude?

The world is a ‘social construct’?

‘Objects’ do not exist independently of conceptual schemes. We cut up the world into objects when we introduce one or another scheme of description.

(Hilary Putnam’s “internal realism”, in Reason, Truth and History, 1981, p. 52).

“If, as I maintain, ‘objects’ themselves are as much made as discovered, as much products of our conceptual invention as of the ‘objective’ factor in experience, the factor independent of our will, then of course objects intrinsically belong under certain labels because those labels are just the tools we use to construct a version of the world with such objects in the first place.

(Putnam, 1981, p. 54, italics his).

• Logic (the science of thought) regards the world as consisting of objects, with properties and relations.

• But surely the world itself isn’t conceptual! So the world itself cannot contain objects with properties and relations.

• Putnam: ‘objects’ themselves are … products of our

conceptual invention … as much made as discovered

• Thus, Putnam denies that there are natural kinds, and even mind-independent objects.

• E.g. does the “Southern Ocean” really exist? Isn’t it just a human construct, pieced together from bits of 3 other oceans?

Classification changes with “paradigm”

Celestial bodies for Ptolemy

Copernican taxonomy

Putnam’s “internalism”

• I shall refer to it as the internalist perspective, because it is

characteristic of this view to hold that what objects does the world

consist of? is a question that it only makes sense to ask within a

theory or description. Many ‘internalist’ philosophers, though not

all, hold further that there is more than one ‘true’ theory or

description of the world.

• ‘Truth’, in an internalist view, is some sort of (idealized) rational

acceptability – some sort of ideal coherence of our beliefs with each

other and with our experiences as those experiences are themselves

represented in our belief system – and not correspondence with

mind-independent or discourse-independent ‘states of affairs’.

• There is no God’s Eye point of view that we can know or usefully

imagine; there are only the various points of view of actual persons

reflecting various interests and purposes that their descriptions and

theories subserve. (49-50)

Internalism is not a facile relativism that says, ‘Anything goes’.

Denying that it makes sense to ask whether our concepts

‘match’ something totally uncontaminated by conceptualization

is one thing; but to hold that every conceptual system is

therefore just as good as every other would be something else.

• If anyone really believed that, and if they were foolish enough

to pick a conceptual system that told them they could fly and

to act upon it by jumping out of a window, they would, if they

were lucky enough to survive, see the weakness of the latter

view at once.

(p. 54)

Qu.: Can an ‘internalist’ explain why the data and epistemic norms priviledge some conceptual systems over others?

The “world” is conceptual?

“Quite literally, men of those days lived in a different

world because their instruments of intellectual interpretation were so different”

[C. I. Lewis, 1929, p. 253].

“[the switch to a radically new scientific view]…produces disciples forming a school, the members of which are separated for the time being by a logical gap from those outside it. They think differently, speak a different language, live in a different world, …”

[Michael Polanyi, 1958, p 151].

Thomas Kuhn on scientific progress

“We may, to be more precise, have to relinquish the notion,

explicit or implicit, that changes of paradigm carry scientists

and those who learn from them closer and closer to the truth”

(p. 170) (Note the weasel word ‘may’ here!)

“Does it really help to imagine that there is some one full,

objective, true account of nature and that the proper measure

of scientific achievement is the extent to which it brings us

closer to that ultimate goal?”

(Note the rhetorical question, rather than statement, here!)

• Kuhn claims that he can’t even make sense of talk about what is “really there” in the world itself, as opposed to what is there according to some theory or paradigm.

• “There is, I think, no theory independent way to reconstruct

phrases like ‘really there’; the notion of a match between the

ontology of a theory and its ‘real’ counterpart in nature now

seems to be illusive in principle” (p. 206).

Alethic Relativism is self-refuting?

“The problem arises as soon as Protagoras tries either to assert

relativism or believe it. If Protagoras asserts relativism, then

he asserts that relativism is true, and that those (such as Plato)

who deny relativism say and believe something false. But

relativism denies that anyone can say or believe anything

false.”

• Is this too simple?

• Wood assumes that “it’s true for me” = “I believe it”, and

“I believe it” = “I believe it’s true”. Is this fair?

Fundamental problem for relativism

• Does the concept of belief make any sense, except as an attempted representation of the truth?

– E.g. if you call something a map, are you not committed to the existence of a territory that the map is at least intended to represent?

Alethic Relativism vs. Scepticism

“… people are often attracted to relativism by the feeling that

others are too confident in the absolute truth of what they believe …”

Wood says that relativism is perhaps attractive as an antidote to dogmatism (p. 24). But scepticism shows that realism doesn’t entail dogmatism.

“… Skepticism does not deny that some beliefs are (absolutely) true, it denies only that we can ever be sure which beliefs these are.”

Absolute truth authority?

“If a relativist catches you audaciously suggesting that there is

such a thing as (absolute) truth, then you are bound to be asked

the rhetorical question: “But who is to decide what the truth

is?” Apparently the relativist thinks that if you hold that there

is an absolute, objective truth, then you have to believe there is

some authority whose word on that truth must not be

questioned.”

Wood says that the possibility of scepticism shows this is all wrong.

Alethic relativism is a rejection of epistemic authority?

• I think Wood is perhaps a bit hasty here.

• I wonder if, in these anti-authoritarian times, the core of alethic relativism is the rejection of epistemic authority?

• Recall that the truth (or the ‘actual world’) functions as the highest (non-defeasible) epistemic authority.

• Appeals to truth, fact and reason are deconstructed as appeals to the viewpoint of colonial powers, Western hegemony, ‘logocentrism’, male supremacy, white supremacy, etc.

• N.B. Wood repeatedly says things like,

“For it is still true that to believe that p is to believe p is true (absolutely).”

• But if the whole notion of absolute truth is unmasked as a bogus appeal to epistemic authority, I don’t think a relativist is likely to agree with this.

• Surely I can believe p without (in so believing) seeing myself as being aligned with some oppressive metanarrative? It’s my belief, my truth, not that of colonial powers, science, God, etc.

Richard Rorty on truth

Worries about “cognitive status” and “objectivity” are characteristic of a secularized culture in which the scientist replaces the priest. The scientist is now seen as the person who keeps humanity in touch with something beyond itself. [I.e. the objective truth – RJ] As the universe was depersonalized, beauty (and, in time, even moral goodness) came to be thought of as “subjective.” So truth is now thought of as the only point at which human beings are responsible to something nonhuman. A commitment to “rationality” and to “method” is thought to be a recognition of this responsibility. The scientist becomes a moral exemplar, one who selflessly expresses himself again and again to the hardness of fact.

• (Rorty, Science as Solidarity)

Richard Rorty on truth

• Rorty seems to regard the notion of objective truth as inherently religious.

• He disparages the idea that:

“…Truth is “out there” waiting for human beings to

arrive at it. This idea seems to us an unfortunate attempt

to carry a religious conception over into a secular

culture.”

• He thinks this desire for objectivity is:

“the desire to be in touch with a reality which is more than

some community with which we identify ourselves…”

21

• “there is nothing to be said about either truth or

rationality apart from descriptions of the familiar

procedures of justification which a given society—

ours—uses in one or another area of inquiry.”

• Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism and Truth (1991): 23

• Here, Rorty endorses epistemic as well as alethic relativism.

Epistemic relativism

• In trying to get a handle on epistemic relativism, Feldman (p. 180) quotes SSKs (sociologists of scientific knowledge) Barry Barnes and David Bloor:

• “For the relativist there is no sense attached to the idea that

some standards or beliefs really are rational as distinct

from merely locally accepted as such. Because he thinks

that there are no context-free or super-cultural norms of

rationality he does not see rationally and irrationally held

beliefs as making up two distinct and qualitatively different

classes of things.” (1982)

• (Feldman summarises this in his proposition R6.)

• “Barry Barnes and David Bloor, for instance, have

argued that different societies may have incompatible

but internally coherent systems of logic because

validity and rules of inference are defined by, and hence

are relative to, the practices of a given community,

rather than a priori universal restrictions on all

thought.”

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Relativism”.

Thomas Kuhn

• The whole field of SSK was strongly influenced by the earlier work of Thomas Kuhn, especially The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962).

• Thomas Kuhn has argued in the Structure that during a scientific revolution (= ‘paradigm shift’) the available evidence + logic don’t unambiguously show the new theory to be better than the old.

Kuhn’s Structure

• E.g. in 1770 – 1800 scientists Priestly and Lavoisier had different theories (‘paradigms’) of combustion (phlogiston theory and oxygen theory). But they had the same data!

• Kuhn argues that one’s very standards of epistemic justification are part of one’s paradigm, so that competing paradigms are both justified by their own lights.– E.g. Lavoisier paid enormous attention to the masses of reactants and

products, Priestly focused on heat, colours, and volumes.

• No doubt this is the kind of case that Barnes and Bloor had in mind.

• “In the first place, the proponents of competing

paradigms will often disagree about the list of problems

that any candidate for paradigm must resolve. ...

Lavoisier’s chemical theory inhibited chemists from

asking why the metals were so much alike, a question

that phlogistic chemistry had both asked and

answered. The transition to Lavoisier’s paradigm had,

like the transition to Newton’s, meant a loss not only of a

permissible question but of an achieved solution.” (Kuhn,

p. 148)

• Kuhn compares paradigm shifts to gestalt shifts, political revolutions, and religious conversions, presenting them as essentially non-rational.

• “the fact that a major paradigm revision was needed to

see what Lavoisier saw must be the principal reason

why Priestley was, to the end of his long life, unable to

see it.” (Kuhn, p. 56)

• E.g. during a political revolution, the constitution of the old regime no longer applies, so no rules govern how the revolution itself is to be carried out.

Summary of Kuhn’s arguments

• Paradigm shifts in the history of science have always involved losses in explanatory power as well as gains. So there is no unambiguous improvement.

– E.g. Lavoisier could not explain why all metals are shiny, ductile, etc. Copernicans could not explain why bodies fall.

• All standards of epistemic justification are local to a particular paradigm, so they cannot justify one paradigm over another. (Paradigm shifts are non-rational.)

– E.g. Copernicus appealed to the standard that scientific theories should be economical, not ad hoc, etc.

Feldman’s responses

1. “(R6) is difficult to interpret and assess”.

2. It’s hard to see any reason why we should accept (R6). No doubt our views about rationality are influenced by our culture, experiences, etc. But it doesn’t follow that there are no facts about rationality.

3. (R6) seems to imply the absolutist claim (A1) that:“It is always really rational for a person to conform

to the locally accepted standards of rationality.”

Response #3

• Feldman writes (p. 181):

• “Finally, it is difficult to see why someone who defends (R6)

is not committed to a form of absolutism anyway. Such a

person thinks that all there is to rationality is local standards.

Why not say, then, that what is really rational for a person is

whatever is demanded by local standards. That is, (R6) seems

to be equivalent to (A1)”

• This seems really bizarre. Barnes and Bloor are saying that rational norms are mere social constructs. There is no such thing as what is “really rational for a person”!!

• What do we think about (R6) epistemic relativism? (Are there better criticisms than Feldman’s?)

• My thoughts:

– Kuhn says that since paradigm shifts result in losses as well as gains, logic and experience alone do not determine which of two competing paradigms is superior. But Duhem’s “good sense” might.

– Not all rational norms are local to the paradigm. (E.g. avoidance of ad hocery.) A priori knowledge to the rescue again. (This is just another way of looking at the problem of induction.)

Subjective Bayesianism

• According to Subjective Bayesianism, rationality is just a matter of one’s beliefs conforming to the probability calculus (and hence Bayes’ theorem). There are no rational constraints on priors.

• Two scientists with the same evidence, but different priors, can reach very different conclusions. And both be rational.

• So this view is epistemically relativist, up to a point. (This is partly why I advocate Objective Bayesianism.)

Epistemic relativism alethic?

• While it is helpful to separate alethic from epistemic relativism, they are not wholly unrelated – just as rationality and truth are not unrelated.

• Rationality is a key guide to truth, especially in scientific questions that go far beyond experience.

• If we have no access to reality, and can’t say what’s true, then how is the notion of truth even meaningful to us?

• If there’s no truth, then the insistence on ‘rationality’ as a means to truth is bogus.