Relativism

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Relativism is a family of philosophical views which deny claims to objectivity within a particular domain and assert that facts in that domain are relative to the perspective of an observer or the context in which they are assessed.[1] There are many different forms of relativism, with a great deal of variation in scope and differing degrees of controversy among them.[2] Moral relativism encompasses the differences in moral judgments among people and cultures.[3] Epistemic relativism holds that there are no absolute facts regarding norms of belief, justification, or rationalism, and that there are only relative ones.[4] Alethic relativism is the doctrine that there are no absolute truths, i.e., that truth is always relative to some particular frame of reference, such as a language or a culture (cultural relativism).[5] Some forms of relativism also bear a resemblance to philosophical skepticism.[6] Descriptive relativism seeks to describe the differences among cultures and people without evaluation, while normative relativism evaluates the morality or truthfulness of views within a given framework.

References

  1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, [1] "The label “relativism” has been attached to a wide range of ideas and positions which may explain the lack of consensus on how the term should be defined."
  2. Maria Baghramian identifies 16 (Relativism, 2004,Baghramian)
  3. Swoyer, Chris (February 22, 2003). Relativism.
  4. Epistemic Relativism.
  5. Baghramian, Maria and Carter, Adam, "Relativism", "The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2015 Edition)", Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/relativism/#RelAboTruAleRel/ "Relativism about truth, or alethic relativism, at its simplest, is the claim that what is true for one individual or social group may not be true for another"
  6. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/#BriHisOldIde