Friedel Weinert: Philosophy of the Social Sciences Year II: Semester II SS-2000M

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Friedel Weinert Philosophy of the Social
SciencesYear II Semester IISS-2000M

• Standard Issues in the Social Sciences
• Relativism
• Lecture VIII

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Standard Issues Relativism

• Standard Issues in the Social Sciences
• the humanism-scientism question ?
• the cross-cultural question (relativism/universali
  sm)
• the individualism-collectivism question (holism)
• the fact-value question
• The Question of Relativism
• How it arises
• essentially through the fact that social actors
  share symbolic meaning
• makes the social scientist a participant observer
• meaning in social life varies from society to
  society
• are these symbolic meanings translatable,
  transferable, comparable to other social contexts?

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Standard Issues Relativism

• What relativism is
• All forms of relativism relate the beliefs held
  by people to some non-universal framework
  (background) against which these beliefs are held
  to be valid
• Judgements of validity of these beliefs must be
  made against the local background beliefs or
  framework
• This framework can be some historical epoch
  (Antiquity, Middle Ages) or some form of culture
  (primitive society, industrial society)
• Forms of Relativism
• moral relativism no universal standards of what
  is morally right or wrong judgements of what is
  morally right or wrong are to be made against the
  local background of beliefs held by the people
  who decide what is right or wrong

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Standard Issues Relativism

• Conceptual relativism conceptual schemes
  organise the world/nature/reality according to
  their own criteria the correctness of these
  criteria cannot be judged from outside the
  conceptual scheme
• Example Witchcraft in primitive societies
• irrational or rational

Implies acceptance of Western criteria (of
science)
Implies acceptance of non Western criteria (of
rationality)
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Standard Issues Relativism

• A relativist defence of reality (P. Winch)
• what counts as real depends on context and
  language used
• reality is not reflected in language, rather
  language shows what is real and what is unreal
• concepts used in other cultures can only be
  interpreted in the context of their way of life
• we cannot legislate what is real and rational in
  other cultures
• rationality is context- or culture-dependent
• rationality conformity to (local) norms
• criteria of logic only intelligible in context of
  ways of living and modes of social life

Relativist position on rationality Primitive
beliefs are rational in their own terms.
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Standard Issues Relativism and Rationality

• Modern sense of rationality of beliefs
• a) subject to rules of logic (non-contradictory,
  consistent, coherent, valid)
• b) subject to empirical testability/confirmation
• c) subject to differentiation
• Perceptual relativism different communities
  live in different worlds depending on different
  concepts people see the world differently
  (example Eskimos)

Reminder Modern sense of rationality in social
sciences modernisation of society -
differentiation into capitalist economy/modern
state/rational administration cultural
rationalisation - empirical science/autonomous
art/systems of morality/ rational law
rationalisation on level of personality
methodical lifestyle
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Standard Issues Relativism, Features

• Some formal features of Relativism
• beliefs on certain topic vary
• beliefs are relative to circumstances of the
  users
• Symmetry or Equivalence Postulate
• All beliefs are on a par with one another with
  respect to the causes of their credibility
  (irrespective of questions of truth or
  falsehood).
• All beliefs must be explained by specifying local
  causes of their credibility
• Contrast the attitudes of relativist and
  rationalist

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Standard Issues Relativism Rationalist,
Relativist

• Rationalist
• distinction between true and false, rational and
  irrational - irrespective of local contexts
• different explanations (I.e. rejection of
  equivalence principle)
• Rational beliefs ? Validity ? reasons
• Irrational beliefs ? Credibility ? causal,
  socio-psychological explanation
• (Habermas) social acceptability versus cognitive
  validity

• Relativist
• what counts as evidence is itself based on local
  assumptions
• Example insistence on intersubjective
  testability in modern science
• distinction between validity and credibility made
  against local background
• no sharp distinction between context of discovery
  and context of justification

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Standard Issues Relativism and Counterarguments

• Four arguments against Relativism
• The Bridgehead Argument
• The Argument from Evolution
• The Argument from Translatability
• The Argument from Validity Claims
• The Bridgehead Argument
• All cultures have a common core of true beliefs
  and rationally justified patterns of inference
• There are cultural universals material object
  perception beliefs simple inferences notions of
  truth falsity right wrong some scientific
  methods
• existence of a common reality between different
  people (s) independence of facts
• same rational expectations, predictions
• some basic logical rules must be identical
• (p?? p) (? p)

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Standard Issues Relativism and Counterarguments

• The Argument from Evolution
• Common ancestry and evolution as a principle
  which spans cultures and epochs and makes them
  commensurable
• all cognitive apparatuses have evolved in the
  same environment
• the environment provides the underlying substance
  which assures commensurability
• The Argument from Translatability
• conceptual schemes are intertranslatable
• conceptual schems share a common ontology man
  concepts refer to the same objects, same events
• facts make sentences and theories true
• differences in conceptual schems are subject to
  communicative rationality

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Standard Issues Relativism and Counterarguments

• The Argument from Validity Claims (Habermas)
• Rejection of inherent relativism of all
  postmodernist thinking
• unity of reason in the diversity of its voices
• distinction between rational validity and social
  acceptability
• Example Geocentrism Great Chain of Being
  discoveries contrary to expectation
• improvement of conceptual frameworks and
  empirical confirmation
• function of concepts like truth, justification,
  rationality
• distinction between concepts and facts
• conceptual schemes guide but do not determine our
  ways of seeing the world

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Standard Issues Relativism and Counterarguments

• Situational reason
• context-dependent (language)
• context-independent (validity)
• cognitive adequacy of knowledge claims
• function of true statements possible within
  conceptual scheme
• Example Copernican Revolution, Darwinian
  Revolution
• cognitive adequacy mirrored in the practical way
  of life
• (un-)readiness to deal with discrepancies and
  contradictions encountered on practical level
• dialectic of openness and closure