Relativism and autonomy

Philosophical Forum

Volumn 27, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 127-145

  Westacott, Emrys ^a  

^a SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 62949132159     PISSN: 0031806X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. See, in particular, Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth and History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), chapters 5 and 7, hereafter cited as RTH
2. For the way Putnam and Rorty themselves understand the differences between them, see Putnam's "Realism with a human face," RHF, pp. 18-29
3. Conflicts of opinion too fundamental to be settled by an agreed-upon procedure on the basis of tenets and norms accepted by both sides are not confined to large scale cultural conflicts such as arose between science and religion or between the defenders of slavery and abolitionists. The same difficulty can be encountered in much less dramatic conflicts in the arts and sciences. This point was made familiar by Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, where he described the opposition between conflicting paradigms within natural science in the following terms: When paradigms enter, as they must, into a debate about paradigm choice, their role is necessarily circular. Each group uses its own paradigm to argue in that paradigm's defence. The resulting circularity does not, of course, make the argument wrong or ineffectual. The man who premises a paradigm when arguing in its defence can nonetheless provide a clear exhibit of what scientific practice will be like for those who adopt the new view of nature. That exhibit can be immensely persuasive, often compellingly so. Yet, whatever its force, the status of the circular argument is only that of persuasion. It cannot be made logically or even probabilistically compelling for those who refuse to step into the circle. (Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd Edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 94.)
4. "Philosophers and human understanding," "Why reason can't be naturalized," "Beyond historicism" (all reprinted in Realism and Reason (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), hereafter cited as RR
5. and Renewing Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), chapters 5 and 8
6. Sympathetic responses include Carolyn G. Hartz, "What Putnam should have said: an alternative reply to Rorty," Erkenntnis 34, 1991, pp. 287-295
7. and Ronald Lee Jackson, "Cultural Imperialism or Benign Relativism? A Putnam-Rorty Debate," International Philosophical Quarterly Vol. XXVIII, No. 4 Issue No. 112 (December 1988)
8. Jeffery L. Johnson, in "Making Noises in Counterpoint or Chorus: Putnam's Rejection of Relativism," Erkenntnis 34, 1991, pp. 323-345, provides a careful and sympathetic analysis of Putnam's critique of relativism, but suggests that Putnam's arguments are not conclusive
9. For a more critical analysis leading to a similar conclusion see John Preston, "On Some Objections to Relativism," Ratio 5 (1), June 1992, pp. 57-73
10. For more positive defences of relativism against Putnam's attack see Miriam Solomon: "On Putnam's argument for the inconsistency of relativism," The Southern Journal of Philosophy (1990), Vol. XX-VIII, No. 2, pp. 213-220
11. and William M. Throop, "Relativism and Error: Putnam's Lessons for the Relativist," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 49, June 1989, pp. 675-678
12. In addition to the articles by Hartz and Jackson cited above see, for instance, Paul D. Forster, "What Is at Stake Between Putnam and Rorty?" Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. LII, No. 3, Sept. 1992, pp. 585-603
13. and Rorty's response, "Putnam and the Relativist Menace," Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XC, No. 9, Sept. 1993
14. RTH, p. 119
15. Putnam, "Why reason can't be naturalized", RR, p. 235
16. Putnam, Representation and Reality (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1988), p. 110
17. See also The Many Faces of Realism (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1987), Lecture III
18. See "Minds and Machines," MLR, p. 373
19. Representation and Reality, p. 109
20. The epistemological thesis does not logically entail the metaphysical thesis. One could acknowledge the impossibility of proving any standpoint to be ideal, absolute, or supremely privileged while holding onto the idea that such a standpoint exists, perhaps even that it is attainable. But just as relativists tend to presuppose some form of non-realism, so they also typically incline towards a pragmatically grounded skepticism regarding the value - even the meaningfulness - of a concept like that of an absolute standpoint, the use of which cannot be experientially justified. Their attitude is similar to that expressed by Nietzsche toward the philosopher's concept of "the true world": The true world - unattainable, indemonstrable? At any rate, unattained. And being unattained, also unknown. Consequently, not consoling, redeeming, or obligating: how could something unknown obligate us? . . . The "true" world - an idea which is no longer good for anything, not even obligating - an idea which has become useless and superfluous - consequently, a refuted idea: let us abolish it! (Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, trans. Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Nietzsche (New York: Viking Press, 1954), p. 485.) Much more could be said, of course, on the desirability of making this move; but that is a subject for a different paper
21. The person being addressed must also, of course, accept the rules that define valid argumentation. That these cannot themselves be established by means of an argument is the point of Lewis Carroll's "What the tortoise said to Achilles" (Mind, 4 (1895), pp. 278-80)
22. What Kuhn says here with respect to natural science may, of course, be generalized, and not just to conflicts in other areas of theoretical activity but more widely to all conflicts between "incompatible modes of community life." This is precisely what Rorty does in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Discussing the question of how liberal values might be justified, he writes: "a circular justification of our practices, a justification which makes one feature of our culture look good by citing still another, or comparing our culture invidiously with others by reference to our own standards, is the only sort of justification we are going to get." (Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989). p. 57.)
23. Rorty describes his position as "the view that there is nothing to be said about either truth or rationality apart from the descriptions of the familiar procedures of justification which a given society - ours - uses in one or another area of enquiry." (Richard Rorty, "Solidarity or Objectivity,": Philosophical Papers, Vol. 1 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 23. He prefers the labels "pragmatism" or "ethnocentrism" to "relativism," since he thinks the term "relativism" implies (and is often taken to denote) a positive theory of truth. What Rorty wishes to avoid is any theory that claims to identify what it is that all true beliefs have in common in virtue of which they are true. But relativism as I have characterized it here is not a theory of that sort. For it does not conceive of a statement's "truth value" as something it can have independent of the procedures by which it is justified or refuted
24. A similar point is made by Paul Foster, "What is at stake between Putnam and Rorty?," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. LII, No. 3, Sept. 1992, p. 593
25. Putnam's reading of Rorty is questionable, in my opinion, because I do not think Rorty wishes to identify the concept of truth or the concept of rationality with the norms governing their employment in our present culture. Rather, he simply maintains that there is no useful notion of reason or truth that is not equivalent to some set of norms that a particular community actually employs. In his "Reply" to Hartz (Erkenntnis 34, p. 402) Putnam himself criticizes her reading of Rorty for being "uncharitable." To be fair to Hartz, though, what is at issue is not whether Rorty actually denies that we can make sense of other conceptions of rationality, but whether his relativism entails this consequence
26. See Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, especially chapters 3 and 9
27. Putnam, "The "corroboration' of theories," Mathematics, Matter and Method (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 269
28. See Richard Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, pp. 16-26