Refuting Relativism: Why Is Relativism About Truth Inadequate?

Members of different societies and cultures have different criteria for what counts as knowledge of the world. While in some societies they draw on modern science to gain knowledge of the world, in other societies, to understand the world, individuals may cite what exists in their oral tradition, or attempt to describe the external world and what happens or will happen in it through specific customs and rituals such as consulting a magic crystal ball, a soothsayer, or a fortune-teller. For example, suppose we want to examine where the people who settled in America came from. While scientific investigations show that the first inhabitants of America migrated to this continent from East Asia, Native Americans believe that after supernatural spirits prepared the conditions for life on Earth, the first inhabitants emerged from the heart of the earth and settled there. These two views cannot both be correct. One cannot say that the first inhabitants of America both emerged from the heart of the earth and came from East Asia, unless someone says that "the heart of the earth" is a metaphor and what is meant by this metaphor is East Asia itself.

In the humanities today, however, an approach has emerged which claims that there are different methods of acquiring knowledge about the world, all of which are equally valid, and that science is merely one of these methods. For those who accept this approach, the scientific fact that the first inhabitants of America came from East Asia has equal value with the common belief among Native Americans that the first inhabitants emerged from the heart of the earth, and each of these two is merely a perspective on events in the external world. Any attempt to demonstrate the superiority of one of these viewpoints is considered an effort to perpetuate Western imperialist culture. In some non-Western countries, this idea has been exploited and used as a tool to prevent the practice of science. While examining the existence of superior methods for acquiring knowledge of the world is an epistemological issue, the political dimensions of this matter have led to the formation of two undesirable spectrums. On one hand, postmodernists in Western societies, and on the other, conservatives in non-Western societies, oppose the idea of the existence of superior methods for acquiring knowledge of the external world due to political concerns. This question must first be examined epistemologically; if it is defensible, a solution can then be devised to prevent its undesirable political consequences, but the potential emergence of undesirable political consequences cannot be a reason to erase the problem itself. John Searle is among the philosophers critical of postmodernism. His critique of the relativistic attitude towards methods of acquiring knowledge of the external world follows.

.

---

.

Download pdf article Refuting Relativism

.

---

.

Refuting Relativism: Why Is Relativism About Truth Inadequate?

Author: John Searle

Translator: Zohair Bagheri No’parast

Taken from: Iran-e Chashm‌Andaz Bimonthly, No. 98, July-August 2016

.

---

.