Download or read book Varieties of Relativism written by Rom Harré and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 1995-12-11 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This clear and comprehensive account of the relativist debate will be invaluable for students as an instructive introduction to the topic. For professional philosophers it will be a useful reference to the continuing discussion. The latest round in the age-old debate between relativists and their opponents has continued unresolved for the last twenty years. Relativism has increasingly become the unconscious theoretical underpinning for a host of theories of ideologies and is beginning to be treated as a simplistic belief that the truth is grounded in the value systems of a culture. Rom Harré and Michael Krausz map the current landscape of relativism and present the whole subject as a complex pattern of inconclusive controversies, to be made sense of only by paying attention to the question of which species of absolutism each variety of relativism opposes.
Download or read book Relativism written by Maria Baghramian and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relativism, an ancient philosophical doctrine, is once again a topic of heated debate. In this book, Maria Baghramian and Annalisa Coliva present the recent arguments for and against various forms of relativism. The first two chapters introduce the conceptual and historical contours of relativism. These are followed by critical investigations of relativism about truth, conceptual relativism, epistemic relativism, and moral relativism. The concluding chapter asks whether it is possible to make sense of relativism as a philosophical thesis. The book introduces readers to the main types of relativism and the arguments in their favor. It also goes beyond the expository material to engage in more detailed critical responses to the key positions and authors under discussion. Including chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading, and a glossary, Relativism is essential reading for students of philosophy as well as those in related disciplines where relativism is studied, such as anthropology, sociology, and politics.
Download or read book Natural Moralities written by David B Wong and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-03 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, David B. Wong defends an ambitious and important new version of moral relativism. He does not espouse the type of relativism that says anything goes, but he does start with a relativist stance against alternative theories such that there need not be only one universal truth. Wong proposes that there can be a plurality of true moralities existing across different traditions and cultures, all with one core human question as to how we can all live together.
Download or read book Foundations for Moral Relativism written by J. David Velleman and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2015-11-23 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this new edition of Foundations for Moral Relativism a distinguished moral philosopher tames a bugbear of current debate about cultural difference. J. David Velleman shows that different communities can indeed be subject to incompatible moralities, because their local mores are rationally binding. At the same time, he explains why the mores of different communities, even when incompatible, are still variations on the same moral themes. The book thus maps out a universe of many moral worlds without, as Velleman puts it, "moral black holes”. The six self-standing chapters discuss such diverse topics as online avatars and virtual worlds, lying in Russian and truth-telling in Quechua, the pleasure of solitude and the fear of absurdity. Accessibly written, this book presupposes no prior training in philosophy.
Download or read book Relativism Cognitive and Moral written by Jack W. Meiland and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Relativism written by Francis J. Beckwith and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 1998-10 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A critique of moral relativism, the belief that there exists no objective moral standards that apply to every place, person, and time.
Download or read book Relativism written by Michael Krausz and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2010-08-06 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume grapple with one of the most intriguing, enduring, and far-reaching philosophical problems of our age. Relativism comes in many varieties. It is often defined as the belief that truth, goodness, or beauty is relative& mdash;relative, that is, to some context or frame of reference& mdash;and that no absolute standards can adjudicate between competing reference frames. This anthology captures the significance and range of relativistic doctrines, rehearsing their virtues and vices and reflecting a spectrum of attitudes toward relativism. Invoking diverse philosophical orientations, these doctrines concern conceptions of relativism in relation to pluralism and moral relativism; facts and conceptual schemes; realism and objectivity; solidarity and rationality; universalism and foundationalism; and feminism and poststructuralism. The thirty-three essays in this book include nine original works and many classical articles.
Download or read book A Companion to Relativism written by Steven D. Hales and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-03-21 with total page 960 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to Relativism presents original contributions from leading scholars that address the latest thinking on the role of relativism in the philosophy of language, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of science, logic, and metaphysics. Features original contributions from many of the leading figures working on various aspects of relativism Presents a substantial, broad range of current thinking about relativism Addresses relativism from many of the major subfields of philosophy, including philosophy of language, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of science, logic, and metaphysics
Download or read book Fear of Knowledge written by Paul Boghossian and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2007-10-11 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The academic world has been plagued in recent years by scepticism about truth and knowledge. Paul Boghossian, in his long-awaited first book, sweeps away relativist claims that there is no such thing as objective truth or knowledge, but only truth or knowledge from a particular perspective. He demonstrates clearly that such claims don't even make sense. Boghossian focuses on three different ways of reading the claim that knowledge is socially constructed - one as a thesis about truth and two about justification. And he rejects all three. The intuitive, common-sense view is that there is a way things are that is independent of human opinion, and that we are capable of arriving at belief about how things are that is objectively reasonable, binding on anyone capable of appreciating the relevant evidence regardless of their social or cultural perspective. Difficult as these notions may be, it is a mistake to think that recent philosophy has uncovered powerful reasons for rejecting them. This short, lucid, witty book shows that philosophy provides rock-solid support for common sense against the relativists; it will prove provocative reading throughout the discipline and beyond.
Download or read book Relativism written by Michael Krausz and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent years have seen a vigorous revival of interest in relativism - both in support and in opposition. This collection of 21 essays, 16 of which appear in print here for the first time, advances the discussion found in an earlier volume, Relativism: Cognitive and Moral. These present selections focus on philosophical and methodological issues of relativism by exhibiting its varieties and by rehearsing its virtues and vices. The contributions concern relativism in a wide range of practices in the human studies.
Download or read book Humanity s End written by Nicholas Agar and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2010-08-20 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An argument that achieving millennial life spans or monumental intellects will destroy values that give meaning to human lives. Proposals to make us smarter than the greatest geniuses or to add thousands of years to our life spans seem fit only for the spam folder or trash can. And yet this is what contemporary advocates of radical enhancement offer in all seriousness. They present a variety of technologies and therapies that will expand our capacities far beyond what is currently possible for human beings. In Humanity's End, Nicholas Agar argues against radical enhancement, describing its destructive consequences. Agar examines the proposals of four prominent radical enhancers: Ray Kurzweil, who argues that technology will enable our escape from human biology; Aubrey de Grey, who calls for anti-aging therapies that will achieve “longevity escape velocity”; Nick Bostrom, who defends the morality and rationality of enhancement; and James Hughes, who envisions a harmonious democracy of the enhanced and the unenhanced. Agar argues that the outcomes of radical enhancement could be darker than the rosy futures described by these thinkers. The most dramatic means of enhancing our cognitive powers could in fact kill us; the radical extension of our life span could eliminate experiences of great value from our lives; and a situation in which some humans are radically enhanced and others are not could lead to tyranny of posthumans over humans.
Download or read book Relativism and Post Truth in Contemporary Society written by Mikael Stenmark and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-09-17 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book approaches post-truth and relativism in a multidisciplinary fashion. Researchers from astrophysics, philosophy, psychology, media studies, religious studies, anthropology, social epistemology and sociology discuss and analyse the impact of relativism and post-truth both within the academy and in society at large. The motivation for this multidisciplinary approach is that relativism and post-truth are multifaceted phenomena with complex histories that have played out differently in different areas of society and different academic disciplines. There is hence a multitude of ways in which to use and understand the concepts and the phenomena to which they refer, and a multitude of critiques and defenses as well. No single volume can capture the ongoing discussions in different areas in all their complexity, but the different chapters of the book can function as exemplifications of the ramifications these phenomena have had.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics written by and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2012-01-10 with total page 3467 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics, Second Edition, Four Volume Set addresses both the physiological and the psychological aspects of human behavior. Carefully crafted, well written, and thoroughly indexed, the encyclopedia helps users - whether they are students just beginning formal study of the broad field or specialists in a branch of psychology - understand the field and how and why humans behave as we do. The work is an all-encompassing reference providing a comprehensive and definitive review of the field. A broad and inclusive table of contents ensures detailed investigation of historical and theoretical material as well as in-depth analysis of current issues. Several disciplines may be involved in applied ethics: one branch of applied ethics, for example, bioethics, is commonly explicated in terms of ethical, legal, social, and philosophical issues. Editor-in-Chief Ruth Chadwick has put together a group of leading contributors ranging from philosophers to practitioners in the particular fields in question, to academics from disciplines such as law and economics. The 376 chapters are divided into 4 volumes, each chapter falling into a subject category including Applied Ethics; Bioethics; Computers and Information Management; Economics/Business; Environmental Ethics; Ethics and Politics; Legal; Medical Ethics; Philosophy/Theories; Social; and Social/Media. Concise entries (ten pages on average) provide foundational knowledge of the field Each article will features suggested readings pointing readers to additional sources for more information, a list of related websites, a 5-10 word glossary and a definition paragraph, and cross-references to related articles in the encyclopedia Newly expanded editorial board and a host of international contributors from the US, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Sweden, and the United Kingdom The 376 chapters are divided into 4 volumes, each chapter falling into a subject category including Applied Ethics; Bioethics; Computers and Information Management; Economics/Business; Environmental Ethics; Ethics and Politics; Legal; Medical Ethics; Philosophy/Theories; Social; and Social/Media
Download or read book Moral Relativism written by Steven Lukes and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2011-05-26 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do we as humans have no shared standards by which we can understand each other? Do we truly have divergent views about what constitutes good and evil, harm and welfare, dignity and humiliation, or is there some underlying commonality that wins out? These questions show up everywhere, from the debate over female circumcision to the UN Declaration of Human Rights. They become ever more pressing in an age of mass immigration, religious extremism and the rise of identity politics. So by what right do we judge particular practices as barbaric? Who are the real barbarians? This provocative book takes an enlightening look at what we believe, why we believe it and whether there really is an irreparable moral discord between 'us' and 'them'.
Download or read book Ethics for A Level written by Mark Dimmock and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2017-07-31 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does pleasure have to do with morality? What role, if any, should intuition have in the formation of moral theory? If something is ‘simulated’, can it be immoral? This accessible and wide-ranging textbook explores these questions and many more. Key ideas in the fields of normative ethics, metaethics and applied ethics are explained rigorously and systematically, with a vivid writing style that enlivens the topics with energy and wit. Individual theories are discussed in detail in the first part of the book, before these positions are applied to a wide range of contemporary situations including business ethics, sexual ethics, and the acceptability of eating animals. A wealth of real-life examples, set out with depth and care, illuminate the complexities of different ethical approaches while conveying their modern-day relevance. This concise and highly engaging resource is tailored to the Ethics components of AQA Philosophy and OCR Religious Studies, with a clear and practical layout that includes end-of-chapter summaries, key terms, and common mistakes to avoid. It should also be of practical use for those teaching Philosophy as part of the International Baccalaureate. Ethics for A-Level is of particular value to students and teachers, but Fisher and Dimmock’s precise and scholarly approach will appeal to anyone seeking a rigorous and lively introduction to the challenging subject of ethics. Tailored to the Ethics components of AQA Philosophy and OCR Religious Studies.
Download or read book Moral Relativism written by Paul K. Moser and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2001 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is devoted solely to the topic of moral relativism. The 19 contemporary selections are nontechnical and fall under five main headings which include general issues of moral relativism, moral diversity, the coherence of moral relativism, and relativism, realism, and rationality.
Download or read book Varieties of Logic written by Stewart Shapiro and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Logical pluralism is the view that different logics are equally appropriate, or equally correct. Logical relativism is a pluralism according to which validity and logical consequence are relative to something. In Varieties of Logic, Stewart Shapiro develops several ways in which one can be a pluralist or relativist about logic. One of these is an extended argument that words and phrases like "valid" and "logical consequence" are polysemous or, perhaps better, are cluster concepts. The notions can be sharpened in various ways. This explains away the "debates" in the literature between inferentialists and advocates of a truth-conditional, model-theoretic approach, and between those who advocate higher-order logic and those who insist that logic is first-order. A significant kind of pluralism flows from an orientation toward mathematics that emerged toward the end of the nineteenth century, and continues to dominate the field today. The theme is that consistency is the only legitimate criterion for a theory. Logical pluralism arises when one considers a number of interesting and important mathematical theories that invoke a non-classical logic, and are rendered inconsistent, and trivial, if classical logic is imposed. So validity is relative to a theory or structure. The perspective raises a host of important questions about meaning. The most significant of these concern the semantic content of logical terminology, words like 'or', 'not', and 'for all', as they occur in rigorous mathematical deduction. Does the intuitionistic 'not', for example, have the same meaning as its classical counterpart? Shapiro examines the major arguments on the issue, on both sides, and finds them all wanting. He then articulates and defends a thesis that the question of meaning-shift is itself context-sensitive and, indeed, interest-relative. He relates the issue to some prominent considerations concerning open texture, vagueness, and verbal disputes. Logic is ubiquitous. Whenever there is deductive reasoning, there is logic. So there are questions about logical pluralism that are analogous to standard questions about global relativism. The most pressing of these concerns foundational studies, wherein one compares theories, sometimes with different logics, and where one figures out what follows from what in a given logic. Shapiro shows that the issues are not problematic, and that is usually easy to keep track of the logic being used and the one mentioned.
