Abstract
Claims to the truth of statements at the level of our scientific concerns involve an element of idealization. No doubt “the real truth” is one, but in this real and imperfect world of ours we have to accept the limitations of imperfection and face the fact that different inquirers living at different times and in different circumstances do have — and are bound to have — different ideas about the truth of things.
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Notes
Pragmatism (New York, 1907), p. 171. The basic line of thought goes back to the ancient sceptics. Compare Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, 1,54, 59–60,97, et passim.
Peter Winch, “Understanding a Primitive Society,” American Philosophical Quarterly, 1 (1964) 307–24; reprinted in B.R. Wilson (ed.), Rationality (Oxford, 1970).
Lévy-Bruhl, Primitive Mentality (London, 1923; first pub. in French, Paris, 1921).
Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azandi (Oxford, 1937); Nuer Religion (Oxford, 1956).
The relevant issues are interestingly treated in John Kekes’ book, A Justi- fication of Rationality (Albany, NY, 1976), 137–49.
For an interesting critique of cognitive relativism that is akin in spirit though different in orientation from that of the present section see Lenn E. Goodman “Six Dogmas of Relativism,” in Marcello Dascal (ed.), Cultural Relativism and Philosophy (London, 1991), pp. 77–102.
To be sure, someone could convince me that my understanding of the implications of my standards is incomplete and lead me to an internally motivated revision of my rational proceedings, amending those standards from within with a view to greater systemic coherence.
The Will to Power, tr. by Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale (New York, 1968), p. 481.
“Reste von christlicher Theologie innerhalb der philosophischen Prob- lematik” (Martin Heidegger, Sein and Zeit (Leipzig, 1923), p. 230).
William James, “Pragmatism and Humanism,” in Writings, ed. by John J. McDermott (New York, 1967), p. 450.
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© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Rescher, N. (1995). The Limits of Cognitive Relativism. In: Satisfying Reason. Episteme, vol 21. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0483-8_10
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