Gordon C. F. Bearn

I use a reading of Kuhn to sketch a form of relativism which maintains that what is considered reasonable to believe is relative to scientific traditions. This form of relativism is articulated by showing how it can be defended against criticisms from three different kinds of realism: convergent realism, metaphysical realism, and internal realism. This involves an interpretation of the work of H. Putnam and M. Dummett. Finally I consider the ancient charge that relativism is self-refuting. I argue that the charge of self-refutation could be avoided if there were a way of announcing relativism without asserting it. Against the view of B. A. O. Williams and J. Lear that the mature Wittgenstein was a transcendental relativist according to whom what relativists mean to say, but refute themselves trying to say, does not need to be said. What truth there is in relativism makes itself manifest not in the paradoxical truth of some relativistic theory of knowledge, but in the fact of incommensurability. Epistemological relativists should let these facts speak for themselves.