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Modern epistomology has been dominated by an empiricist theory of knowledge that assumes a direct individualistic relationship between the knowing subject and the object of knowledge. Truth is held to be universal, and non-individualistic social and cultural factors are considered sources of distortion of true knowledge. Since the late 1950s, this
List of contents
Part One Cognitive Relativism: Rules of Argument and Theoretical Problems 1. Social Scientific Epistemological Discourse: The Problem of Relativism 2. Psychological versus Structural Validity: The Case of Ethnoscience 3. How Useful Is Anthropological Self-Reflection? 4. Conceptual Variation and Conceptual Relativism in the Social Sciences 5. A Neglected Giant: Max Weber and the Strong Program Part Two Cognitive Relativism and the Philosophy of Knowledge 6. Science Beyond Realism and Relativism 7. Defense of Cognitive Relativism: Realism, Idealism and Nominalism 8. Realism, Relativism and Finitism 9. Relativity as Contestation Part Three Substantive Issues: Implications and Applications of Cognitive Relativism 10. Relativism, Specificity and Universals 11. Objectivism versus Relativism: What Are We Arguing About? 12. Dreamtime: Relativism and Irrationality in the Work of Hans Peter Duerr 13. Planning in a Rocking Boat 14. Relativism, Morality, and Feminist Thought, Conclusion
About the author
Diederick Raven is assistant professor at Utrecht University in Holland. He is the author of On the Edge of Reality.
Summary
Modern epistomology has been dominated by an empiricist theory of knowledge that assumes a direct individualistic relationship between the knowing subject and the object of knowledge. Truth is held to be universal, and non-individualistic social and cultural factors are considered sources of distortion of true knowledge. Since the late 1950s, this
