Cultural relativism and the recognition of cultural differences

The demand for the recognition of cultural differences is central to a number of debates associated with multiculturalism. Following Charles Taylor's analysis of the relation between modernity and cultural pluralism, it is argued that the demand of cultural relativism, namely, that the equal value of cultures should be recognised, is not justifiable. This however should not serve as an excuse for underestimating the significance of cultural differences or for ethnocentric indifference towards the claim for recognition. The prerequisites for claims towards recognition are further explored by distinguishing between two justifiable claims: on the one hand the claim that the right to differ should be recognised and on the other hand the claim that the inherent value of the difference should be recognised. It is argued that the possibilities of granting recognition are in most cases restricted to the first claim. Although the second claim may also be justified, it is in most cases not possible to meet it. The conclusion is that we here encounter an aporetic ground for both cultural critique and intercultural tolerance; in fact a better ground for tolerance than cultural relativism which easily leads to indifference.     

Understanding and sharing intentions: the origins of cultural cognition

We propose that the crucial difference between human cognition and that of other species is the ability to participate with others in collaborative activities with shared goals and intentions: shared intentionality. Participation in such activities requires not only especially powerful forms of intention reading and cultural learning, but also a unique motivation to share psychological states with others and unique forms of cognitive representation for doing so. The result of participating in these activities is species-unique forms of cultural cognition and evolution, enabling everything from the creation and use of linguistic symbols to the construction of social norms and individual beliefs to the establishment of social institutions. In support of this proposal we argue and present evidence that great apes (and some children with autism) understand the basics of intentional action, but they still do not participate in activities involving joint intentions and attention (shared intentionality). Human children's skills of shared intentionality develop gradually during the first 14 months of life as two ontogenetic pathways intertwine: (1) the general ape line of understanding others as animate, goal-directed, and intentional agents; and (2) a species-unique motivation to share emotions, experience, and activities with other persons. The developmental outcome is children's ability to construct dialogic cognitive representations, which enable them to participate in earnest in the collectivity that is human cognition.     

Historical relativism and the essence of Christianity

This article is a series of reflections by a historian who is also a theologian on some of the theological challenges raised by historicism and the historical study of Christianity. In particular, the question is raised as to whether it is still meaningful to speak of Christianity as having some form of normative “core” given at some point in the past, or an unchanging normative “essence” by which all forms of Christianity can be evaluated. The article begins with a brief look at Adolf von Harnack’s lectures on the essence of Christianity from 1900, before moving into reflections on historical change, relativity and normativity. The author rejects the idea of a religion having an unchanging normative core or essence. Like any other human institution, Christianity has been continually changing and adapting to new contexts, even though its representatives might claim an unchanging continuity. The article concludes with some reflections on the possible contours of a modest theology informed by these historicist reflections.     

Wilhelm Windelband and the problem of relativism

This paper analyzes the shifts in Wilhelm Windelband’s ‘critical philosophy of values’ as it developed hand in hand with his understanding of relativism. The paper has two goals. On the one hand, by analyzing the role that relativism played in his philosophical project, it seeks to contribute to a better understanding of Windelband's intellectual development in the context of historicism and Neo-Kantianism. On the other hand, by highlighting Windelband’s contribution to the understanding of relativism, it sheds light on an important episode in the history of that problem. The paper distinguishes between three phases in Windelband’s thinking and shows that his views about relativism changed in close connection with his conception of history. The early Windelband thought that historicism was compatible with absolute validity because he was firmly convinced of historical progress. The mature Windelband rejected progress as a means for justifying validity and put the problem of relativism into sharp relief. In response to the failure of his mature philosophy to fend off relativism, the later Windelband strengthened the role of history again. The paper concludes that Windelband’s significance lies not in his arguments against relativism, but rather in having furthered philosophical understanding of the problems at stake.     

Using reflective practice to explore the origins and consequences of cultural and faith perspectives

The intention of the symposium is to allow individual voices to speak for themselves and to display their unmediated autobiographical narratives, albeit within a theoretical framework suggested by Part 2 of the Editorial. However, this snowball sample has thrown up some commonalties. So, the third and final part of the Editorial will attempt to point out some of these similarities. From a variety of viewpoints and positions and expressed in different styles of autobiographical narratives, the voices record a sophisticated awareness of the religious traditions discussed; a questioning of substance and loyalty that in one case resulted in a moving from one faith to another; and a display of religious and social values that travel with the individual to be tried and tested in a number of demanding contexts. Impotantly, it would seem that the individuals themselves selected what they would use in the formation of their own personal and professional identities.     

Conditionals and indexical relativism

I set out and defend a view on indicative conditionals that I call “indexical relativism”. The core of the view is that which proposition is (semantically) expressed by an utterance of a conditional is a function of (among other things) the speaker’s context and the assessor’s context. This implies a kind of relativism, namely that a single utterance may be correctly assessed as true by one assessor and false by another.     

Linguistic relativism and colour cognition

Native speakers of two languages (English and Ndonga) were compared on three colour cognition tasks (sorting, triads and visual search) in a test of the linguistic relativity hypothesis (Whorf, 1956). The colour lexicons of these two languages differ because Ndonga has no basic terms for ORANGE, PINK and PURPLE, and stimuli were chosen to exploit this difference. On the sorting task (sorting into similarity‐groups) for each language, nominally similar colours were grouped together more often than nominally dissimilar colours. On the triads task (choosing the most different of three colours), when the most nominally isolated colour differed for the two language‐groups, each group tended to choose their nominal isolate. On the search task (scanning for target colours among distractors), targets were either in a different English category than distractors (cross‐category), or some distractors were in the same English category as distractors (within‐category). The ‘cost’ in speed of having within‐category distractors was much greater for the English than for the Ndonga. Overall, these data suggest that a core universal component is modulated by a small relativist influence. The differences in the visual search task are consistent with language affecting pre‐attentive processes (an indirect language effect) as well as exerting on‐line influences (a direct effect).     

Meaning relativism and subjective idealism

Synthese - The paper discusses an objection, put forward by—among others—John McDowell, to Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s non-factualist and relativist view of semantic discourse....