5 - Relativism about rationality

Summary

Core rationality

Advocates of relativism about rationality

Quite a number of writers have argued for alternative conceptions of rationality, but in many cases it is not clear what this means. A representative group of those views – taken from sociology of knowledge, anthropology, feminist theory and theology – will be discussed in this section. It will be argued that many of the “alternative” views presented can be accommodated within forms of relativism other than relativism about rationality – for example, as conceptual, ontological or epistemological relativism. Following this, a model for a non-relative account of rationality will be presented and defended. The subsequent three sections of the chapter will deal with the major lines of objection to such an account of rationality. The final section differentiates this approach from a famous attack on relativism by Donald Davidson.

Barry Barnes and David Bloor (see, for example, Barnes & Bloor 1982) have defended relativistic views about rationality, using themes from the sociology of knowledge. They reject universalist conceptions of rationality, holding that there are only local ones available, relative to context, culture, historical epoch and so on. They argue for this by insisting on the importance of investigating the empirical conditions under which beliefs arise for an agent, and showing how these are always local and particular. To counter the obvious objection that such a project merely focuses on causes rather than on reasons and so has nothing to say about rationality, they challenge the cause-reason distinction.