Image by Nick Olsouzidis

Stephen Holland

There is greater scepticism about cognitive relativism in analytic philosophy than in other academic disciplines and non-academic culture. I am less sceptical than most of my colleagues. This short piece suggests the following explanation of this situation. The three main discussions in cognitive relativism are of alethic relativism (relativism about truth), epistemic relativism, and conceptual (or ontological) relativism; there are arguments against each of these considered fatal by philosophers; but I don’t think any of them is fatal.

According to alethic relativism, truth is relative. This is a claim about the nature of truth: the truth-predicate, ‘… is true’ means, ‘…true-for/in-X’ (X being an individual, group, framework, culture, etc.). This allows that P is true-for/in-X and P is not true-for/in-Y. The relativist’s opponent – the absolutist or universalist about truth – claims a different meaning for the truth-predicate: to say, ‘P is true’ is to say that P is true for everyone anywhere, from any perspective. This disallows that P can be true for one person and false for another. Note, in passing, how well motivated alethic relativism is: as a matter of anthropological fact, people(s) do assert conflicting truths.

A putatively fatal rejoinder to alethic relativism is the self-refutation argument. Its various versions trade on the following insight. Reconsider the proposition,

P: The truth-predicate, ‘… is true’ really means, ‘…true-for/in-X’

What is the truth value of P? The alethic relativist is in a pickle. They evidently used it as if it has the truth value, true simpliciter. But it says that truth is not truth simpliciter but, rather, the relativised predicate, ‘true-for/in-X’.

Analytic philosophers like this kind of move (cf. can the proposition, ‘unverifiable propositions are meaningless’ be verified?) which elicits disdain for relativism in philosophy. But there are sophisticated rejoinders. First, a Wittgensteinian might use the argument as an example of something that can only be shown, not said. Second, self-refutation seems grist to the relativist’s mill: we cannot so much as state the ‘truth’ concerning relativism to everyone, but only to ourselves or those very like us. Third, it is very hard not to beg the question against alethic relativism – i.e., not to smuggle the assumption that truth is absolute into what is supposed to be a discussion about the nature of truth – for example, in the premise that ‘we’ all use ‘truth’ to mean ‘truth simpliciter’.

Epistemic relativism labels various discussions. Relativism about logic centres on whether logical rules are universally valid, relativism about mathematical and a priori knowledge being cognate. Thinking logically is a way of being rational; relativism about rationality is the broader issue as to whether there is just one way, or competing ways, of being rational. Epistemic relativism is the broadest category: is knowledge relative, i.e. could two thinkers know different, incompatible things?

A putatively fatal argument against epistemic relativism is that certain principles of rationality are conditions of any thought/talk. A famous example is that assertion entails the law of non-contradiction that nothing can be both P and not-P: to assert is to invoke the law of non-contradiction; all thinkers and speakers assert; so, all thinkers and speakers invoke the law of non-contradiction.

But serious epistemic relativism can survive this argument. Distinguish thoughts or cognitions, from believing and knowing. Focusing on the latter is not conducive to epistemic relativism: there are better and worse ways of acquiring beliefs and knowledge, construed in terms of facts and information about the world. But the former introduces the idea of cognitive systems as governing natural and familiar ways in which minds work. Cognitive systems can be geared to diverse goals or concerns. The point of one cognitive system might be to control and utilise the natural world. The point of another might be to enable people to explain and accommodate misfortune and life’s vicissitudes. Relativism resurfaces: it makes little sense for thinkers using a cognitive system geared to one set of goals to criticise at least some of the cognitive behaviours of users of a cognitive system geared to a different set of goals, even though they all abide by, for example, the principle of non-contradiction.

Ontological or conceptual relativism is the view that things exist only relative to conceptual schemes. This form of relativism is also strongly motivated: we do not perceive a neutral, uninterpreted reality, but make a conceptual contribution to the creation of an experienceable world; and engagement with the world is evidently governed by different conceptual repertoires. It is natural to conclude that different conceptual schemers construct dissimilar, even incommensurable, worlds, and that reality is relative to conceptual framework.

The putatively fatal argument against conceptual relativism is Donald Davidson’s on translation and charity, which is both part of the barrage against scheme-content dualism, and a more focused argument against the possibility of very diverse conceptual repertoires. The latter goes: conceptual relativism requires the possibility of radically diverse conceptual schemes; conceptual schemes are equated to languages; so, radically diverse conceptual schemes equate to non-translatable languages; there can’t be non-translatable languages; so, there can’t be radically diverse conceptual schemes; so, conceptual relativism cannot arise.

But the conceptual relativist can respond. First, they object to Davidson’s argument directly: is he right to equate conceptual schemes with languages, and conceptual diversity with failure of translation? Is failure of translation really impossible? Second – and more potent – forms of conceptual relativity can be constructed that are quite compatible with Davidson’s point about inter-translatability. For example, the furniture in Goodman’s Grue-speakers’ and Hirsch’s Contacti-speakers’[1] worlds is not ours, even though we can translate their languages.

So, for each of the three main kinds of cognitive relativism there is an argument considered fatal by analytic philosophers. But forms of serious cognitive relativism survive them. This goes some way to explaining my sense that analytic philosophers disdain cognitive relativism more than is warranted by the arguments.

Stephen Holland is Lecturer in Philosophy and Health Sciences at the University of York, and the author of Bioethics: A Philosophical Introduction and Public Health Ethics.