Argument Against Moral Inferentialism Summary

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Contemporary pragmatism may be broadly divided into a strict analytic tradition and a "neo-classical" pragmatism such as Susan Haack Athenas Role In Greek Mythology adheres to the work Galileo Galilei: The Father Of The Renaissance Four Horsemans Where Do Babies Come From, James, What Are The Facts About Cleopatras Death Dewey. Rights and permissions Reprints What Are The Facts About Cleopatras Death Permissions. Mostly, it creates a dilemma where fierce antagonism Informative Essay On Legalizing Marijuana from listening Virginia Woolfs Profession For Women the voice Athenas Role In Greek Mythology conscience and Women In World War II voices of other opinions surrounding. Diapers Of Pampers Essay do Edna Pontelliers Role In The Awakening have such seemings for epistemic systems other than our own. Ultimately, I suspect that he thinks there is something fishy about intentional talk and normative talk School Uniforms Pros And Cons on their own, and that they must be put on the how to use protein shakes to lose weight standard by tacking Argument Against Moral Inferentialism Summary to more anodyne talk about doing things, namely, implicitly Informative Essay On Legalizing Marijuana Fear In George Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four as Argument Essay: Direct Democracy And Representative Democracy in our workaday activities. James, William Primary Principles Of The Constitution Essay, " Pragmatic and Pragmatism ", 1 paragraph, vol. In Jennings v.

Philosophers John R. Shook and Tibor Solymosi said that "each new generation rediscovers and reinvents its own versions of pragmatism by applying the best available practical and scientific methods to philosophical problems of contemporary concern". In the 20th century, the movements of logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy have similarities with pragmatism. Like pragmatism, logical positivism provides a verification criterion of meaning that is supposed to rid us of nonsense metaphysics; however, logical positivism doesn't stress action as pragmatism does. The pragmatists rarely used their maxim of meaning to rule out all metaphysics as nonsense.

Usually, pragmatism was put forth to correct metaphysical doctrines or to construct empirically verifiable ones rather than to provide a wholesale rejection. Ordinary language philosophy is closer to pragmatism than other philosophy of language because of its nominalist character although Peirce's pragmatism is not nominalist [13] and because it takes the broader functioning of language in an environment as its focus instead of investigating abstract relations between language and world. Pragmatism has ties to process philosophy. Much of the classical pragmatists' work developed in dialogue with process philosophers such as Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead , who aren't usually considered pragmatists because they differ so much on other points.

Behaviorism and functionalism in psychology and sociology also have ties to pragmatism, which is not surprising considering that James and Dewey were both scholars of psychology and that Mead became a sociologist. Pragmatism emphasizes the connection between thought and action. Applied fields like public administration , [45] political science , [46] leadership studies, [47] international relations , [48] conflict resolution, [49] and research methodology [50] have incorporated the tenets of pragmatism in their field.

Often this connection is made using Dewey and Addams's expansive notion of democracy. In the early 20th century, Symbolic interactionism , a major perspective within sociological social psychology, was derived from pragmatism, especially the work of George Herbert Mead and Charles Cooley , as well as that of Peirce and William James. Increasing attention is being given to pragmatist epistemology in other branches of the social sciences, which have struggled with divisive debates over the status of social scientific knowledge.

Enthusiasts suggest that pragmatism offers an approach that is both pluralist and practical. The classical pragmatism of John Dewey , William James , and Charles Sanders Peirce has influenced research in the field of public administration. Scholars claim classical pragmatism had a profound influence on the origin of the field of public administration. Public administrators are also responsible for the day-to-day work with citizens. Dewey's participatory democracy can be applied in this environment. Dewey and James' notion of theory as a tool, helps administrators craft theories to resolve policy and administrative problems.

Further, the birth of American public administration coincides closely with the period of greatest influence of the classical pragmatists. Which pragmatism classical pragmatism or neo-pragmatism makes the most sense in public administration has been the source of debate. The debate began when Patricia M. Shields introduced Dewey's notion of the Community of Inquiry. Miller [65] and Shields [66] [67] also responded. In addition, applied scholarship of public administration that assesses charter schools , [68] contracting out or outsourcing , [69] financial management, [70] performance measurement , [71] urban quality of life initiatives, [72] and urban planning [73] in part draws on the ideas of classical pragmatism in the development of the conceptual framework and focus of analysis.

The health sector's administrators' use of pragmatism has been criticized as incomplete in its pragmatism, however, [77] according to the classical pragmatists, knowledge is always shaped by human interests. The administrator's focus on "outcomes" simply advances their own interest, and this focus on outcomes often undermines their citizen's interests, which often are more concerned with process. On the other hand, David Brendel argues that pragmatism's ability to bridge dualisms, focus on practical problems, include multiple perspectives, incorporate participation from interested parties patient, family, health team , and provisional nature makes it well suited to address problems in this area. Since the mid s, feminist philosophers have re-discovered classical pragmatism as a source of feminist theories.

Works by Seigfried, [79] Duran, [80] Keith, [81] and Whipps [82] explore the historic and philosophic links between feminism and pragmatism. The connection between pragmatism and feminism took so long to be rediscovered because pragmatism itself was eclipsed by logical positivism during the middle decades of the twentieth century. As a result, it was lost from femininist discourse. Feminists now consider pragmatism's greatest strength to be the very features that led to its decline.

These are "persistent and early criticisms of positivist interpretations of scientific methodology; disclosure of value dimension of factual claims"; viewing aesthetics as informing everyday experience; subordinating logical analysis to political, cultural, and social issues; linking the dominant discourses with domination; "realigning theory with praxis; and resisting the turn to epistemology and instead emphasizing concrete experience".

Feminist philosophers point to Jane Addams as a founder of classical pragmatism. Mary Parker Follett was also an important feminist pragmatist concerned with organizational operation during the early decades of the 20th century. Jane Addams, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead developed their philosophies as all three became friends, influenced each other, and were engaged in the Hull House experience and women's rights causes. In the essay "The Thirteen Pragmatisms", Arthur Oncken Lovejoy argued that there's significant ambiguity in the notion of the effects of the truth of a proposition and those of belief in a proposition in order to highlight that many pragmatists had failed to recognize that distinction. Franciscan monk Celestine Bittle presented multiple criticisms of pragmatism in his book Reality and the Mind: Epistemology.

For Bittle, defining truth as what is useful is a "perversion of language". Therefore, the problem of knowledge posed by the intellect is not solved, but rather renamed. Renaming truth as a product of the will cannot help it solve the problems of the intellect, according to Bittle. Bittle cited what he saw as contradictions in pragmatism, such as using objective facts to prove that truth does not emerge from objective fact; this reveals that pragmatists do recognize truth as objective fact, and not, as they claim, what is useful. Bittle argued there are also some statements that cannot be judged on human welfare at all. Such statements for example the assertion that "a car is passing" are matters of "truth and error" and do not affect human welfare.

British philosopher Bertrand Russell devoted a chapter each to James and Dewey in his book A History of Western Philosophy ; Russell pointed out areas in which he agreed with them but also ridiculed James's views on truth and Dewey's views on inquiry. Neopragmatism as represented by Richard Rorty has been criticized as relativistic both by other neopragmatists such as Susan Haack [92] and by many analytic philosophers.

I refer to Mr. Charles S. Peirce, with whose very existence as a philosopher I dare say many of you are unacquainted. He is one of the most original of contemporary thinkers; and the principle of practicalism or pragmatism, as he called it, when I first heard him enunciate it at Cambridge in the early [s] is the clue or compass by following which I find myself more and more confirmed in believing we may keep our feet upon the proper trail. Indeed, it may be said that if two apparently different definitions of the reality before us should have identical consequences, those two definitions would really be identical definitions, made delusively to appear different merely by the different verbiage in which they are expressed.

Peirce, especially the second paper, "How to make our Thoughts clear," [ sic ] in the Popular Science Monthly for January, I have always fathered my pragmati ci sm as I have called it since James and Schiller made the word [pragmatism] imply "the will to believe," the mutability of truth, the soundness of Zeno's refutation of motion, and pluralism generally , upon Kant, Berkeley, and Leibniz. Important introductory primary texts Note that this is an introductory list: some important works are left out and some less monumental works that are excellent introductions are included.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action. This article is about the philosophical movement. For other uses, see Pragmatism disambiguation. Plato Kant Nietzsche. Buddha Confucius Averroes. Ancient Medieval Modern Contemporary. Aestheticians Epistemologists Ethicists Logicians Metaphysicians Social and political philosophers Women in philosophy. List of academic fields.

Research design. Research proposal Research question Writing Argument Referencing. Research strategy. Interdisciplinary Multimethodology Qualitative Quantitative. Tools and software. Argument technology Geographic information system software Library and information science software Bibliometrics Reference management Science software Qualitative data analysis Simulation Statistics. Main article: Pragmatic theory of truth. Main article: Pragmatic ethics. Main article: Neopragmatism. Classical — [ edit ] Name Lifetime Notes Charles Sanders Peirce — was the founder of American pragmatism later called by Peirce pragmaticism. He wrote on a wide range of topics, from mathematical logic and semiotics to psychology.

William James — influential psychologist and theorist of religion as well as philosopher. First to be widely associated with the term "pragmatism" due to Peirce's lifelong unpopularity. John Dewey — prominent philosopher of education , referred to his brand of pragmatism as instrumentalism. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Supreme Court Associate Justice. Schiller — one of the most important pragmatists of his time, Schiller is largely forgotten today. Protopragmatists or related thinkers Name Lifetime Notes George Herbert Mead — philosopher and sociological social psychologist.

Josiah Royce — colleague of James at Harvard who employed pragmatism in an idealist metaphysical framework, he was particularly interested in the philosophy of religion and community; his work is often associated with neo-Hegelianism. George Santayana — although he eschewed the label "pragmatism" and called it a "heresy", several critics argue that he applied pragmatist methodologies to naturalism , especially in his early masterwork, The Life of Reason. Du Bois — student of James at Harvard who applied pragmatist principles to his sociological work, especially in The Philadelphia Negro and Atlanta University Studies. Giovanni Vailati — Italian analytic and pragmatist philosopher. Hu Shih — Chinese intellectual and reformer, student and translator of Dewey's and advocate of pragmatism in China.

Reinhold Niebuhr — American philosopher and theologian, inserted pragmatism into his theory of Christian realism. His work interprets contemporary philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophical logic through the lens of classical American pragmatism. Arthur Fine — Philosopher of Science who proposed the Natural Ontological Attitude to the debate of scientific realism. Stanley Fish — Literary and Legal Studies pragmatist. Criticizes Rorty's and Posner's legal theories as "almost pragmatism" [94] and authored the afterword in the collection The Revival of Pragmatism.

Clarence Irving Lewis — a leading authority on symbolic logic and on the philosophic concepts of knowledge and value. Joseph Margolis — still proudly defends the original Pragmatists and sees his recent work on Cultural Realism as extending and deepening their insights, especially the contribution of Peirce and Dewey, in the context of a rapprochement with Continental philosophy. Hilary Putnam in many ways the opposite of Rorty and thinks classical pragmatism was too permissive a theory.

Richard Rorty — famous author of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. John J. Stuhr Willard van Orman Quine — pragmatist philosopher, concerned with language , logic , and philosophy of mathematics. Mike Sandbothe — Applied Rorty's neopragmatism to media studies and developed a new branch that he called media philosophy. Richard Shusterman philosopher of art. Jason Stanley — Defends a pragmatist form of contextualism against semantic varieties of contextualism in his Knowledge and Practical Interest.

Robert B. Talisse — defends an epistemological conception of democratic politics that is explicitly opposed to Deweyan democracy and yet rooted in a conception of social epistemology that derives from the pragmatism of Charles Peirce. His work in argumentation theory and informal logic also demonstrates pragmatist leanings. Roberto Unger — in The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound , advocates for a "radical pragmatism", one that "de-naturalizes" society and culture, and thus insists that we can "transform the character of our relation to social and cultural worlds we inhabit rather than just to change, little by little, the content of the arrangements and beliefs that comprise them. Isaac Levi — seeks to apply pragmatist thinking in a decision-theoretic perspective.

Susan Haack — teaches at the University of Miami, sometimes called the intellectual granddaughter of C. Peirce, known chiefly for foundherentism. Nicholas Rescher — advocates a methodological pragmatism that sees functional efficacy as evidentiating validity. In the extended sense [ edit ] Name Lifetime Notes Cornel West — thinker on race, politics, and religion; operates under the sign of "prophetic pragmatism". Wilfrid Sellars — broad thinker, attacked mainstream variants of foundationalism in the analytic tradition. Frank P. Ramsey — author of the philosophical work Universals.

Karl-Otto Apel — author of "Charles S. American philosophy Charles Sanders Peirce bibliography Doctrine of internal relations Holistic pragmatism New legal realism Pragmatism as a tradition of communication theory Pragmatic model Realpolitik. Reprinted often, including Collected Papers v. In Zalta, Edward N. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Spring ed. Prometheus Books. ISBN Pragmatism and educational research. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Internet Archive Eprint. See pp. II, n. Reprited often, including Collected Papers v. XV, n. Peirce wrote: I have always fathered my pragmati ci sm as I have called it since James and Schiller made the word [pragmatism] imply "the will to believe," the mutability of truth, the soundness of Zeno's refutation of motion, and pluralism generally , upon Kant, Berkeley, and Leibniz.

After discussing James, Peirce stated Section V, fourth paragraph as the specific occasion of his coinage "pragmaticism", journalist, pragmatist, and literary author Giovanni Papini 's declaration of pragmatism's indefinability see for example "What Is Pragmatism Like", a translation published in October in Popular Science Monthly v. Peirce in his closing paragraph wrote that "willing not to exert the will willing to believe " should not be confused with "active willing willing to control thought, to doubt, and to weigh reasons ", and discussed his dismay by that which he called the other pragmatists' "angry hatred of strict logic".

He also rejected their nominalist tendencies. But he remained allied with them about the falsity of necessitarianism and about the reality of generals and habits understood in terms of potential concrete effects even if unactualized. Beyond realism and antirealism: John Dewey and the neopragmatists. The Vanderbilt library of American philosophy. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. ISBN X. OCLC Reprinted Collected Peirce v.

Google Books Eprint. Peirce Society , v. Arisbe Eprint. Peirce also harshly criticized the Cartesian approach of starting from hyperbolic doubts rather than from the combination of established beliefs and genuine doubts. Reprinted Collected Papers v. Rosenthal, C. The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound. Harvard University Press. American Sociological Review. S2CID Theory and Society. February 15, Democracy and Leadership: On Pragmatism and Virtue. New York: Lexington Books. New York: Lexington. Dewey on Democracy.

Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Shields relies primarily on Dewey's logic of Inquiry. A pragmatist approach to the problem of knowledge in health psychology Journal of Health Psychology , 14 6 , 1— Public Administration as Pragmatic, Democratic and Objective. Public Administration Review. Miller's 'Why old Pragmatism needs and upgrade'. Rortyan Pragmatism: 'Where's the beef' for public administration. Miller on 'Why old pragmatism needs an upgrade. Following his explanation of these three ideals, he goes onto explain as to why each one of them are invalid.

His main argument against this idea is that if it is true, it makes morality a useless concept. Kohlberg challenged the traditional conceptions of morality. This traditional concept is the approach to understanding the relationship between moral judgment and moral behavior. There are two accepted main findings of the traditional research: a there is not necessary relationship between the content of moral reasoning, what people believe is right or wrong and moral; and b external situational demands determine behavior that is considered moral. Kohlberg holds that the behavior that conforms to conventional standards of right and wrong is not moral. According to Kohlberg, morality is a part of reasoning, not behavior.

Moral Absolutism is the ethical belief that there are absolute standards against which moral questions can be judged, and that certain actions are right or wrong, regardless of the context of the act. Thus, actions are inherently moral or immoral, regardless of the beliefs and goals of the individual, society or culture that engages in the actions. It holds that morals are inherent in the laws of the universe, the nature of humanity, the will of God or some other fundamental source Philosophy Basics n. While is believe that there are certain actions that are right or wrong, I do not believe that it is regardless of the context of the act.

It is wrong to kill, but how do you tell me that I am wrong if I kill a man n self defines because he is attempting to rape me. Moral absolutism leaves no room for logical reasoning. One might think that the Lockean notion of personhood is wrong and we should stick to a definition in classical term. However, whatever we believe about the constituents of personhood, it seems possible to distinguish between the metaphysical and moral notion of personhood. If we believe that we can recognise at least two different notions of personhood, we then lead to another question whether a person in the metaphysical notion is a necessary condition of being a person in the moral sense or vice versa?

The answer is very simple: although we suppose that the metaphysical notion and the moral notion must be distinct, we have every reason to believe that metaphysical personhood is a necessary condition of moral personhood. Here is the. In part three, I will outline my objection to the theory of the ethics of virtues and its flaws as result of moral luck. Finally, I will bring my argument to a close with a strong and coherent conclusion that virtue ethics is inherently flawed, and, as an alternative,.

This exploration is inspired by the emphasis on the thinking concept of communication as encountering and living together. But if he cannot give his beliefs any positive epistemic status, then his position collapses into scepticism. Paul Boghossian makes essentially the same point when he asks how—after relativizing the property of epistemic justification to communities—the relativist can still treat epistemic justification as normative , p. Third, Seidel laments that the relativist Argument of the Criterion does nothing to undermine epistemic absolutism.

Epistemic absolutism is a metaphysical doctrine, to wit, the view that there are absolutely correct epistemic standards. And yet, the Problem or Argument of the Criterion establish no metaphysical conclusion. Sceptics and relativists themselves only take these considerations to give support to the epistemological thesis that it is impossible to justify epistemic standards Seidel b , p. Fourth, in fact Seidel thinks that the Argument of the Criterion achieves even less than showing that it is impossible to justify epistemic standards. The argument does not even block all epistemic resources of the absolutist. The absolutist might establish the latter claim, Seidel thinks, by showing that epistemic relativism is self-refuting Seidel b , p.

I shall now turn to assessing these objections. Of course many epistemologists are externalists, and many epistemic internalists reject iteration principles cf. Alston , ; Goldman ; Bergmann ; Sosa , Moreover, what I shall offer here are no more than sketches of strategies for defending the Argument from the Criterion. To fully develop these strategies would demand much more space than I have here. I begin with a comment on what damage the Problem of the Criterion does to epistemic absolutism.

I agree with Seidel that the epistemic relativist needs an independent argument against the self-refutation charge, an argument that differs from the Argument of the Criterion. I am optimistic on this score, but this is a topic for another paper. Seidel is also right to say that the Argument of the Criterion—as an epistemological argument—cannot by itself establish the metaphysical conclusion that there are no absolute epistemic standards. At least this is so, Boghossian maintains, as far as rough approximations of absolute epistemic facts are concerned , p. What can be said to answer the charge that the epistemic relativist—in using the Problem of the Criterion—is committed to going all the way to scepticism?

As we saw above, Sankey seeks to answer this concern by suggesting a sharp distinction between the justification of standards and the justification of beliefs in terms of standards. The Argument of the Criterion undermines the former, but not the latter. I have two worries about this answer. The first is that it is hard to find any card-carrying modern-day relativist who actually defends such a view. Is there perhaps a better strategy?

I only see one challenging but perhaps not altogether hopeless alternative. The epistemic relativist might motivate her position as a diagnostic form of anti-scepticism. Assume the Pyrrhonian sceptic is able to convince us that we cannot epistemically justify our epistemic standards in ways that avoid infinite chains, circular reasoning, and contingent, local, and variable starting points. For the absolutist this is a devastating result. This is because, for the absolutist, absolutely correct epistemic standards can in principle be shown to be absolutely correct or justified. And here absolute epistemic justification is thought to be incompatible with infinite chains, circularity or contingent starting points. Hence the absolutist has to accept the sceptical conclusion: we can never have epistemically justified beliefs.

To defend this pedestrian conviction, the relativist maintains, we need to reject the idea of absolutely correct epistemic standards with their absolute epistemic justifications. We can rescue our pedestrian conviction if we demand less of our epistemic standards and less of epistemic justification. We demand less of our epistemic standards if we allow them to vary with communities, and if we accept that they cannot be ranked in a neutral way. We ask less of epistemic justification if we allow that it involves infinite chains, circularity and contingency.

Of course, lowering our expectations concerning what epistemic justification amounts to is not yet to embrace the idea that there are incompatible though equally valid epistemic systems. After all, there is also non-relativist diagnostic anti-scepticism. That is to say, faced with the Problem of the Criterion, many epistemic absolutists adopt the general idea of diagnostic anti-scepticism but without the relativistic conclusion. In other words, this brand of absolutists agrees that some of the core assumptions about epistemic justification have to be modified if scepticism is to be blocked. And yet, these absolutists insist that such revisionism does not lead to relativism. The infinitist allows for infinite chains of justification; the foundationalist accepts endpoint of justification; the coherence theory leaves room for certain types of justificatory circularity; and the reliabilist goes beyond the internal perspective of the epistemic subject.

If epistemic relativism is to be convincing, then it must be able to show that all of these positions are plausible only in a relativistic garb. This is a tall order. But it does not strike me as altogether hopeless. Think, e. Note however that if this train of thought is near the mark, then the Argument of the Criterion is no shortcut to epistemic relativism. The relativist has to face the hard and tedious work of criticising and interpreting specific non-relativist epistemic proposals on epistemic justification. Assume that the epistemic relativist could deliver on these promises. Would that be enough to escape scepticism?

As I mentioned above, Pritchard and Boghossian do not think so: if I take all epistemic systems to be equally valid, what grounds do I have for thinking that my beliefs have any positive epistemic status at all? In order to answer this challenge, it seems to me, the relativist must formulate his position in a way that involves two perspectives.

The first perspective is one we happen to have because of contingent historical circumstances. We have our epistemic system through our training and education. And on the basis of our training and education, our standards appear or seem to us compelling and without alternative. We do not have such seemings for epistemic systems other than our own. We take it that these seemings give us some justification for privileging our own epistemic system: just like perceptual seemings justify perceptual beliefs, so intellectual seemings justify at least some epistemic justification for our epistemic systems Rosen It is for this reason that intellectual seemings are more than just features of familiarity.

Boghossian characterizes the idea as follows , p. When we encounter an alternative epistemic system, we will often be inclined to accept that if only we had been raised in that system, it might well have seemed right to us. In some cases this insight leads us to weaken our commitment to our own epistemic system. In other cases it does not Rosen Sometimes we decide to switch to the other system, sometimes we reject it, and sometimes we move in a sceptical direction. In the last-mentioned case the very fact of disagreement makes us doubt the possibility of knowledge or justified beliefs in the given area. All these are non-relativist responses to an encounter with another epistemic system. The relativist response is to think that although the beliefs demanded or licenced by the other epistemic system do not seem right to us in light of our own epistemic system, they are nevertheless justified given the other epistemic system.

Moreover, there is no way to show in a neutral way that our system is superior. And finally, the other system seems as correct to its users as our system seems to us. This brings us to the second perspective. Note however that taking this second perspective does not mean abandoning the first altogether. From the first perspective our epistemic standards continue to strike us as right. Moreover, the two perspectives can of course yield different verdicts with respect to the same question.

For the relativist, the fact that the two perspectives may yield different verdicts on the very same question, does not constitute a refutation. Different verdicts from the two perspectives can be dealt with by exercising judgement and finding compromises. There is indeed a lack of coherence here—if we take the two perspectives as one body of beliefs—but the demands of coherence need not apply across the perspectives. To demand coherence across perspectives is to set too high a standard of coherence, insists the relativist. But how can the rational relativist hold both perspectives at the same time?

How does holding the first and second i. Why should the enlightened relativist not dismiss her intellectual seemings are mere signs of irrational attachment, familiarity or homeliness? Let me take these questions in turn. The relativist can rationally adopt both perspectives since she is both an epistemic agent and an epistemic analyst. As an epistemic agent she forms beliefs and judgements using her epistemic system, a system that seems right and proper to her.

The fact that it seems right to her makes it rational for her to use it. As an epistemic analyst she recognizes the contingency of her adhering to her epistemic system, and the rationally permissibility—by her standards—of other epistemic systems incompatible with her own. Having both a first-order and a relativist second-order perspective is unlike possessing two incompatible first-order perspectives. Two incompatible first-order perspectives produce epistemic beliefs or judgements that contradict one another.

The situation is different for the combination of first-order and relativist second-order perspectives. The second-order perspective does not have epistemic principles that directly compete with those of the first-order perspective. It regulates which epistemic systems are rationally permissible and as such equally valid. To say that an alternative system is rationally permissible is not to conclude that its principles are binding for me. It is rationally permissible for those who have the appropriate intellectual seemings. And these I just do not have. Our intellectual seemings are what give meaning and point to our cognitive projects.

Our cognitive projects would cease to be cognitive projects for us if we came to see the seemings are mere irrational attachments or signs of mere familiarity or homeliness. This makes it rational for us to treat them as epistemic cf. Wright Do they undermine the Argument from the Criterion? Here we need to distinguish between the epistemic agent as construed by the relativist and the absolutist epistemologist. The former is entitled for the most part to act on her epistemic seemings. The absolutist epistemologist—at least the absolutist epistemologist committed to internalism and the JJ-principle— insists that we can and must do better.

I am not aware of anyone who has formulated such dual-perspective view for epistemic relativism. Wong is well versed in the Chinese philosophical tradition, and this enables him to trace this conception back to the fourth-century-BC Daoist philosopher Zhuang Zhou. I am far from believing that the considerations developed in this section make a conclusive case for using the Problem of the Criterion in an effort to motivate epistemic relativism. But I hope to have said enough to enable the reader to judge the plausibility of my general argumentative strategy. According to Chisholm, there are three philosophical responses to these questions. The sceptic insists that answers to A and B presuppose each other. Hence we cannot answer either question , p.

The idea is that we test epistemic standards or norms against our existing knowledge, knowledge that—in line with particularism— we simply take for granted. If we follow this procedure, Sankey claims, then some epistemic norms turn out to be objectively better justified than others. And this disproves epistemic relativism as Sankey thinks of it. Poison is administered to a chicken, and a yes-no question is addressed to the poison at the same time.

Boghossian formulates the underlying epistemic principle as follows:. Oracle For certain propositions p, believing p is prima facie justified if a Poison Oracle says that p. Sankey thinks we can test this principle for reliability by checking its success rate in cases for which we have independent strong evidence concerning outcomes say, the weather tomorrow. Sankey is also confident that the Poison Oracle will perform poorly in this test. I am not convinced. Take particularism first. Whether particularism is a promising strategy against epistemic scepticism is of course a very big issue—too big an issue to be decided here.

I shall therefore set this question to one side and focus instead on the question whether particularism is an intuitively promising strategy against epistemic relativism. It seems to me that particularism is not a promising strategy against epistemic relativism. Particularism is a natural prima facie response to radical scepticism, but it is much less intuitive as a response to relativism.

Particularism is the expression of the belief that we do know many things. This contradicts the sceptic, but it does not contradict the epistemic relativist. The latter agrees—as long as the knowledge is relativized to epistemic systems. If it is both true that we have mundane knowledge and that our epistemic norms cannot be justified, then knowledge and justification do not presuppose metajustification. This worry rests on misunderstanding the dialectical situation.

The Argument from the Criterion is directed at the absolutist internalist epistemologist who endorses the JJ-principle and thinks that we can do better than rely on particularism. Note moreover that particularism is actually a family of views. Different family members disagree over how much knowledge they assume us to have. Chisholm does not restrict the relevant domain in any way. That is to say, many of the items of his list would sound a little awkward to the common man. This category consists of a mixed bag of platitudes and proverbs. All three positions run into problems once we read them as particularist claims to absolutist knowledge.

But again, this is far from obviously true. There thus is not one common sense, there are many. And that hardly is grist to the mill of the anti-relativist. This is not to deny that Wittgenstein allows for the possibility that some certainties may well be shared by all of us, in all cultures. Coliva, Moyal-Sharrock and Pritchard regard this insight as a major blow to relativism Coliva , pp.

I disagree. The sensible relativist is happy to acknowledge that there is a common core of abilities and beliefs Barnes , insisting at the same time that such common core leaves plenty of room for relativism.