Fatemeh Saeedi; Abdolrasoul Kashfi
Abstract
In the classic image of knowledge, the category of ‘reality’, and by extension those of ‘truth’ and ‘justification’, are treated as matters independent from the subject’s mind. Relativists, on the contrary, reject independence of these matters from the subject’s ...
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In the classic image of knowledge, the category of ‘reality’, and by extension those of ‘truth’ and ‘justification’, are treated as matters independent from the subject’s mind. Relativists, on the contrary, reject independence of these matters from the subject’s mind and hold that the three, or at least some of them, are shaped under the influence of needs, values and social interests. They are, in other words, ‘social constructs’. Knowledge is therefore a relative matter, varying from society to society and from a society in a certain time to that same society in another time. The result of such an attitude to knowledge is a theory which is known today as ‘epistemological relativism’. Paul Boghossian, contemporary philosopher, is a prominent critic of epistemological relativism. The present paper draws on Boghossian’s views to review and critique a certain type of epistemological relativism which results from ‘constructivism of reality’, demonstrating weaknesses of the theory as well as scrutinising a number of Boghossian’s views in the field.
