标签：relativism

[Repost] Related Discussion on “Zhang Tiankan: For Maglev, We Must Persuade the Public with Scientific Evidence zz”

History of Science & Scholarship2008.01.21
[Repost] Related Discussion on “Zhang Tiankan: For Maglev, We Must Persuade the Public with Scientific Evidence zz”
http://hps.phil.pku.edu.cn/bbs/read.php?tid=316&fpage=1&toread=1 It is obvious that the discussion in this thread is mainly aimed at Teacher Tian (the Lean Knight). Schopenhauer’s swagger is long gone; what is being displayed now is basically my own swagger. Personally, I find this sort of dispute quite interesting. Although such arguments are hard to develop into something profound, they can still expose problems fairly well. Many of the ways I now phrase things first emerged in similar disputes—in the past on Teacher Liu’s and Teacher Jiang’s blogs, and now with BBS as an even better venue. I’ve been eagerly hoping that someone would come to my blog too and “provoke” me. How interesting that would…
science discussion sociology scientism
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Jan 21, 2008
Relativism and Absolutism Are Birds of a Feather

Philosophy & Thought2008.01.07
Relativism and Absolutism Are Birds of a Feather
Some people fly the banners of relativism and postmodernism, claiming to oppose absolutism and universalism; in fact, they are unconsciously poisoned by absolutism, and at bottom they are nothing more than a further development of absolutism itself. Relativists will say one moment, “There is no absolute, universal, singular standard,” and then a moment later, either bluntly or obliquely, they say: “There is no standard”; one moment, “There is no interpretation beyond context,” and then a moment later, “interpretation is nothing but telling stories”; one moment, “Every argument has its limits,” and then a moment later they can, with righteous assurance and in complete ignorance of those limits, use their own…
philosophy scholarship Kant modernity
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Jan 7, 2008
We Should Not Deny the Progress of Science

History of Science & Scholarship2006.06.09
We Should Not Deny the Progress of Science
I have by now basically established my position of pluralism, or, perhaps better put, moderate relativism; the best term for it may be perspectivism. However, just as in environmental ethics “misanthropes” are by no means any lovelier than “anthropocentrists,” relativists in the philosophy of science, if they go too far, are in my eyes even less lovable than dogmatic scientism. Some of the more militant forms of relativism even go so far as to deny scientific progress. In their eyes, science merely keeps jumping back and forth among incommensurable paradigms, and it is impossible to say whether it is approaching truth or not; thus it is also hard to say…
science philosophy of science Plato reason
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Jun 9, 2006
Three Stages of Reading Philosophy: “Seeing Mountains as Mountains”

History of Science & Scholarship2005.10.24
Three Stages of Reading Philosophy: “Seeing Mountains as Mountains”
The first stage is reading all sorts of viewpoints and feeling that they all make sense. This is because one has not yet formed an independent view, or one’s stance is still not very firm; as a result, one can simultaneously feel that various different, even opposite, viewpoints are reasonable, while oneself is unable to make up one’s mind. The second stage is that, once one’s own viewpoint and stance have become clear, one feels that the great majority, even all, of the viewpoints one sees are wrong. Because one’s own view is already definite, obviously no one will think that one’s own viewpoint is “wrong,” and all the many…
philosophy scholarship self relativism
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Oct 24, 2005