چکیده:
Since the time of Plato, relativism has been attacked as a self-refuting theory. Today, there are two basic kinds of argument that are used to show that global relativism is logically incoherent: first, a direct descendent of the argument Plato uses against Protagoras, called the peritrope; and, second, a more recent argument that relativism leads to an infinite regress. Although some relativist theories may be formulated in such a way as to be susceptible to these arguments, there are other versions of relativism that are impervious to these charges of incoherence. First the arguments against relativism will be stated. Next, a radical form of global relativism with assessment sensitivity is introduced, RR. Finally, it is shown how RR can be defended against the challenges of the peritrope and the regress. No attempt is made to defend RR as a plausible theory; however, the usual attempts to show the logical incoherence of radical forms of global relativism fail.
خلاصه ماشینی:
Today, there are two basic kinds of argument that are used to show that global relativism is logically incoherent: first, a direct descendent of the argument Plato uses against Protagoras, called the peritrope; and, second, a more recent argument that relativism leads to an infinite regress.
Here, we restrict ourselves to few points about disagreement that will be useful when we consider how some varieties of radical relativism are immune from the peritrope and the regress arguments.
All three writers, MacFarlane, Schafer, and Shapiro, defend forms of relativism that relativize truth or assertion to contexts of utterance and contexts of assessment.
One might be a global relativist in the sense that one holds that all areas of discourse are governed by norms that are sensitive to contexts, but deny that these norms yield results that would differ from non- relative ones for some of the assertions made in any given area.
Let’s say that relativism is global when it covers all areas of discourse and that it is general when, in a given area of discourse, it holds that all assertions or their truth are governed by context sensitive norms or conditions.
If one’s moral relativism is general, and one affirms a context sensitive form of relativism, like that of MacFarlane, then assertions about the relative moral worth of different perspectives will be true or false only relative to a context of utterance and a context of assessment.