Concluding Responses

Abstract

I would like to organize my response to the essays of my col­leagues, Professors Hollis, Jarvie, Phillips and Wolterstorff, around a distinction between two forms of relativism. Epistemic relativism involves the relativization of epistemic statuses such as being justified or being rational. Semantic or metaphysical relativism involves the relativization of reference or truth or both. There are individualistic forms of both doctrines, but it is more common to find groups, for example, societies or cultures, spoken of as the things to which other things are relative. Moreover relativism can be global, extending to beliefs of all sorts, or local, covering only the beliefs in a certain domain such as morality or religion.