Metaepistemology and Relativism

Carter, J. Adam

doi:10.1057/9781137336644_9

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…It is no surprise, then, that no particular claim which Galileo could put forward would be a candidate for swaying him. 45 Various epistemological interpretations of this dispute have been noted by Rorty (1980), Boghossian (2006), Siegel (2011), MacFarlane (2009), Hales (2014) and Carter (2016), among others. In particular, what has been a point of dispute is two related issues.…”

Section: Meta-epistemic Defeatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meta-epistemic defeat

Carter

2016

Synthese

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Meta-epistemic Defeatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meta-epistemic defeat

Carter

2016

Synthese

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The second objection to the relational aspect regards the loss of non‐circular justification. This objection is especially interesting because relativism is often suggested to be motivated by attempts to avoid circularity and to retain non‐circular justification (see, e.g., Sankey ; Carter , chap. 5; and Seidel , chap.…”

Section: Objections To the Relational Aspectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking Epistemic Relativism

Ashton

2019

Metaphilosophy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“Relativism” is often treated as a dirty word in philosophy, but relativistic theories are not entirely unappealing—they have features that might be tempting if they weren't thought to be outweighed by problematic consequences. The aim of this paper is to rethink both our attitude to epistemic relativism and the basic features of the view itself. The paper discusses four objections and uses them to isolate five constraints on a more plausible epistemic relativism. It then sketches out a view that meets all of these constraints. This stratified epistemic relativism offers a complex, socially informed picture of justification that accounts for the many different kinds of roles that epistemic agents act, and think, in accordance with each day, and can serve as a starting point for constructing a more detailed epistemic relativism, which could secure its appealing benefits without incurring the costs traditionally associated with relativist views.

show abstract

“…On the contrary, I have in previous work on the 'No Neutrality, Therefore Relativism' argument, focused primarily on problems to do with (6). For a discussion of these problems, see in particular Carter (2016, Chap 4, 2018b. 18 We'll return later to the significance of this difference.…”

Section: The Elusiveness Questionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I've criticised the substantive details of Hales's interesting version of this template argument elsewhere (e.g.,Carter 2016, Chap. 4, 2018a.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Archimedean Metanorms

Carter

2018

Topoi

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

One notable line of argument for epistemic relativism appeals to considerations to do with non-neutrality: in certain dialectical contexts-take for instance the famous dispute between Galileo and Cardinal Bellarmine concerning geocentrism-it seems as though a lack of suitably neutral epistemic standards that either side could appeal to in order to (non-questionbeggingly) resolve their first-order dispute is itself-as Rorty (Philosophy and the mirror of nature, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1979) influentially thought-evidence for epistemic relativism. In this essay, my aim is first to present a more charitable reformulation of this line of reasoning, one that is framed not merely in terms of the availability of epistemic norms that are suitably neutral between interlocutors, but in terms of the availability of what I call Archimedean metanorms. Once this more charitable line of argument is developed, I show how, even though it avoids problems that face 'non-neutrality' versions of the argument, it nonetheless runs into various other problems that appear ultimately intractable and, further, that the strategy in question gives us no decisive reason to draw the relativist's conclusion rather than the Pyrrhonian sceptic's. Keywords Epistemic relativism • Relativism and epistemology • Metaepistemology • Disagreement "Give me a fulcrum on which to rest, and I will move the earth."-Archimedes.

show abstract

Metaepistemology and Relativism

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Meta-epistemic defeat

Meta-epistemic defeat

Rethinking Epistemic Relativism

Archimedean Metanorms

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About