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Descartes and Relativism
How might a philosopher such as Descartes reply to epistemic relativists such as Barnes and Bloor?
Philosophers who prescribe to the concept of moral and ethical relativism believed that right and wrong choices of any given situation are merely socially constructed and that what people decide fit into either of these categories is determined by the society in which the person lives. Philosophers through the ages have continually disagreed about the fundamental reasoning behind why people behave in the ways that they do. Relativists believe completely that moral standards and thus what constitutes ethical behaviors are relative in that they are socially constructed. What may be appropriate in one culture will not be considered moral or ethical in another social setting.
Descartes' most famous quotation "I think therefore I am" began the trend of philosophers to question truth and whether or not it even exists at all. This is the crux...
Morals and ethics are all socially constructed; what society tells the people are true is accepted as truth by the population. Believing in a set of moral values is what makes those things moral or ethical. There is no innate right or wrong, only the determinations which have been made by the majority society.
Boghossion postulates that there are no absolute facts (73). This is the major argument of all relativists, that there is no such thing as facts and Descartes would very likely agree. What we accept as truth and lie is similar to the moral distinction that is made over right or wrong. The personal logic of an individual, according to the theory of epistemic relativism, stems from their belief system. Whence a thing is first believed it logically dictates the rest of the ways that a person thinks. In terms of Descartes, the belief structure of the individual goes so far as to dictate the identity of the particular individual.
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Organizational Structure Critically discuss the extent to which an organisation's structure not only shapes its culture, but also its ability to transform itself As with structure, culture is methodologically analyzable by virtue of its emergent status. Indeed, like structure, culture has relational, causal properties of its own, which confront actualizing agency in the form of situational logics (Archer 2006: Chapter 7). Cultural analysis is also a multi-level affair, from the doctrinal level,
Linguistic relativity hypothesis argues that humans see colors less with their eyes than with their language. (Fountain, 1999) The linguistic relativity hypothesis is important to help in understanding the reasoning behind the way that thought processes develop with the different cultures. The thought processes determine how language comes about and the reasons that the same word can mean different things with different cultures. In the eyes of a linguist, colors are
Epistemological Beliefs and Organizational Leadership Epistemological Philosophies: Comparing Plato and Protagoras To understand our quest for knowledge, we often have to go back to some of the classical theories in order to get a full view of how modern theories have developed. Understanding classical philosophy is not blindly reading one philosopher and then assuming you have the knowledge of thousands of years of Greco-Roman thought. There were major differences within the philosophers
On the other hand, multiculturalism appears to be automatic in conceding division (Werbner, 2006). In multicultural societies, issues of bias and racism invariably summon political leaders whose base of power is dependent on division. This is contrary with cosmopolitan societies, which considers division unworldly and rude. While one society keeps its opening up its wounds, the other one tends to let its wounds heal by themselves. This means that one
Kantian Ethics Conceptual relativism is a thinly distinguished relativism in which what prevails is opposed to epistemic patterns or ethical considerations. In conceptual relativism, ontology is made relative to conceptual themes, science structures, and categorical definitions. The anti-realist thesis is what drives this type of relativism. Antirealism claims that the world does not come to us already made for use, but we are the one who keeps providing various ways of
Moral Objectivism to Moral Skepticism (a) According to Kant, what is the difference between "a posteriori" knowledge and "a priori" knowledge? What kind of knowledge would the statement "All triangles have three sides" be? What about the statement "The 44th U.S. President is African-American"? A posteriori knowledge is knowledge 'after the fact' or knowledge based upon experience, versus a priori knowledge, which is knowledge which can be based upon pure, deductive