内容

目次

Part 1 The debate: the roots of relativism; our conceptual tools; theargument for discursive relativism in general; contemporary relativismin context; the basic insights spelled out; varieties of relativism;the shape of relativist arguments; our argumentative strategy. Part 2Semantic relativism: absolutist accounts of meaning; the argument for auniversal root vocabulary; the upshot of these arguments. Part 3Epistemic relativism: arguments for epistemic relativism organizedaround different conceptions of epistemic framework; a global argumentagainst epistemic relativsm; the paradoxes of epistemic relativism; theStrong programme - is it a sociological reduction?; some standardobjections to the Strong programme; the Strong programme reconsidered.Part 4 Ontological relativism: what is ontological relativism?;possible resolutions; ontological relativism and its epistemicgroundings; a paradox of ontological relativism; the existence ofartifacts. Part 5 Moral relativism: what is moral relativism?; how wemight distinguish moralities from practical maxims; some arguments formoral relativism; some arguments for moral absolutism. Part 6 Fromrelativism to anarchy; the sources of strong relativism; theextremists, from relativism to anarchy - Rorty - beyond grounding andcertainty, Fayerbend - beyond logic and truth, Gergen - beyondauthenticity and responsibility. Part 7 The upshot: patterns of varietyof relativism and absolutism; Antinomies - some principles of polaropposition, are "true" and "false" exclusive and exhaustive assessmentof statements, the structure of antinomies; paradoxes; our position.