Relativism in the Philosophy of Science (Elements in the Philosophy of Science)

'Relativism versus absolutism' is one of the fundamental oppositions that have dominated reflections about science for much of its (modern) history. Often these reflections have been inseparable from wider social-political concerns regarding the position of science in society. Where does this debate stand in the philosophy and sociology of science today? And how does the 'relativism question' relate to current concerns with 'post truth' politics? In Relativism in the Philosophy of Science, Martin Kusch examines some of the most influential relativist proposals of the last fifties years, and the controversies they have triggered. He argues that defensible forms of relativism all deny that any sense can be made of a scientific result being absolutely true or justified, and that they all reject 'anything goes' – that is the thought that all scientific results are epistemically on a par. Kusch concludes by distinguishing between defensible forms of relativism and post-truth thinking. Cover 1 Title page 3 Copyright page 4 Relativism in the Philosophy of Science 5 Contents 6 1 Introduction 7 2 What Is Relativism? 7 “x Is Relative to y” 7 Ingredients of Epistemic Relativism 8 Relativist Stances 10 Why Relativism? 11 Disagreements – Faultless, Fundamental, Peer 11 Incommensurability 12 Relativism as a Remedy against Skepticism 12 Attacking Absolutist Metaphysics, Semantics, and Philosophy of Science 12 Boghossian’s Relativist Arguments 13 Some Arguments against Relativism 14 Boghossian versus Boghossian 14 Self-Refutation 14 Relativist Double-Think 15 Against Absolute Relativism 16 Variation 16 3 Kuhn, Feyerabend, Perspectivism, Pluralism 16 Introduction 16 Kuhn’s Structure 16 Kuhn after Structure 17 Recent Kuhn-Debates 18 Feyerabend 20 Scientific Pluralism 22 Scientific Perspectivism 23 Relativism? 24 4 Epistemic Voluntarism and Relativism 25 Introduction 25 Relativism-Related Motifs in The Scientific Imageand Scientific Representation 26 Stances 29 Voluntarism 31 Revolutions 32 Voluntarism and Relativism 34 Critical Discussion 35 Stances 35 Objectifying and Voluntarist Epistemology 37 Moderate or Radical Voluntarism 38 Scientific Revolutions and Pluralism 40 Impulses 40 Incommensurability, Absurdity, Rationality 40 Boghossian’s Objections 43 Summary 46 5 Relativism in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge 47 Introduction 47 The Central Elements of SSK 48 The Strong Program 48 Hesse-Nets 49 The Rule-Following Considerations 51 Empiricism 52 Rationality 53 Fundamental Scientific Disagreements 54 Intermediate Summary 56 Answering Boghossian 57 SSK and Voluntarist-Constructive Empiricism 63 Empiricism 63 Stances, Impulses, Interests 64 Wittgenstein 65 Rationality 65 Revolutions and the Role of Philosophy and Sociology of Knowledge 66 Summary 68 6 Relativism and Post-Truth 70 Introduction 70 Relativism and Intelligent Design 71 Relativism and Science and Technology Studies 72 References 76 Acknowledgements 85 'Relativism versus absolutism' is one of the fundamental oppositions that have dominated reflections about science for much of its (modern) history. Often these reflections have been inseparable from wider social-political concerns regarding the position of science in society. Where does this debate stand in the philosophy and sociology of science today? And how does the 'relativism question' relate to current concerns with 'post truth' politics? InRelativism in the Philosophy of Science, Martin Kusch examines some of the most influential relativist proposals of the last fifty years, and the controversies they have triggered. He argues that defensible forms of relativism all deny that any sense can be made of a scientific result being absolutely true or justified, and that they all reject 'anything goes' that is the thought that all scientific results are epistemically on a par. Kusch concludes by distinguishing between defensible forms of relativism andpost-truth thinking.