...Yaakov Mascetti In 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger took the occasion of his last homily before election as Pope Benedict XVI to assault what he termed the “dictatorship of relativism,” and Common Knowledge responded in 2007 with a double issue (vol. 13, nos. 2–3) in defense of relativism. Yaakov...

... relativism and absolutism—that all philosophical positions must fall under one or the other heading. Daniel Paksi's response is that Bloor covertly subscribes to a trichotomy of umbrella headings: idealist relativism (or irrealism), materialist relativism, and absolutism. Bloor, it is argued, connects...

...Daniel Boyarin Duke University Press 2007 S y m p o s i u m : A “ D i c t a t o r s h i p o f R e l a t i v i s m ” ? THE SCANDAL OF SOPHISM On the Epistemological Seriousness of Relativism Daniel Boyarin As its subtitle indicates, my essay...

...Kenneth J. Gergen Duke University Press 2007 S y m p o s i u m : A “ D i c t a t o r s h i p o f R e l a t i v i s m ” ? RELATIVISM, RELIGION, AND RELATIONAL BEING Kenneth J. Gergen There was a time of my life in which, by common...

...Barbara Herrnstein Smith In this contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Comparative Relativisim,” Smith argues that relativism is a chimera, half straw man, half red herring. Over the past century, she shows, objections to the supposed position so named have typically involved either...

...Barbara Herrnstein Smith Duke University Press 2007 S y m p o s i u m : A “ D i c t a t o r s h i p o f R e l a t i v i s m ” ? RELATIVISM, TODAY AND YESTERDAY Barbara Herrnstein Smith In view of the occasion, the genre of discourse in which...

...Martin Holbraad This response to Barbara Herrnstein Smith's article, “The Chimera of Relativism: A Tragicomedy,” presents some thoughts on how the debates about “relativism” upon which Smith comments could be refigured in the light of this symposium's theme of “comparative relativism...

...Jeffrey Stout Duke University Press 2007 S y m p o s i u m : A “ D i c t a t o r s h i p o f R e l a t i v i s m ” ? A HOUSE FOUNDED ON THE SEA Is Democracy a Dictatorship of Relativism? Jeffrey Stout In his homily of April 18, 2005, Joseph...

... Battaglia; Roy Wagner This introduction to the Common Knowledge symposium titled “Comparative Relativism” outlines a variety of intellectual contexts where placing the unlikely companion terms comparison and relativism in conjunction offers analytical purchase. If comparison, in the most general sense...

...David Bloor This essay is a follow-up to a previous article by the author, “Epistemic Grace: Antirelativism as Theology in Disguise,” published in Common Knowledge 13, nos. 2–3 (2007): 250–80. Its central claim was that relativism and absolutism should be understood as categories that are mutually...

..., for continued inquiry into these topics, at the University of Vienna or elsewhere, with participants from other fields who would raise other questions and explore relevant areas not examined here. Where else, for example, did relativism emerge as a problem, and, if it emerged only or especially in the German...

...Marilyn Strathern This article exploits the “binary license” offered by the title of the symposium in which it appears (“Comparative Relativism”) as a kind of promise of connection. The author suggests, however tentatively, that in the challenge of heterogeneity, fractality, perspective/-alism...

... between the scientist and the phenomenon she studies. According to Stengers, the comparison, which establishes rapport, is a crucial ingredient in good science. In the context of a symposium titled “Comparative Relativism,” perhaps the crucial point to make about what characterizes Stengers's matter...

... perspective; we should not think of it as a feature purportedly inherent in the very nature of things. It is salutary to remember cases where the “ought” is so relativized, say to an undesirable end, that it identifies no reason for action. The nature of the relation does not change when it is relativized...

...Eduardo Viveiros de Castro The article assumes that the expression “comparative relativism”—the title of the Common Knowledge symposium in which the essay appears—is neither tautological nor oxymoronic. Rather, the author construes the term as an apt synthetic characterization of anthropology...

...Isabelle Stengers The question of universalism and relativism is often taken to be a matter of critical reflexivity. This article attempts to present the question instead as a matter of practical, political, and always-situated concern. The attempt starts from the consideration of modern...

...Isabelle Stengers; Jeffrey M. Perl The question of universalism versus relativism is often taken to be a matter of critical reflexivity. This article attempts to present the question instead as a matter of practical, political, and always situated concern. The attempt starts from consideration...

...G. E. R. Lloyd This piece is a response to Barbara Herrnstein Smith's article, “The Chimera of Relativism: A Tragicomedy,” in the Common Knowledge symposium on “comparative relativism.” The theme is complexity—as distinct from simple contrast or binarism of any kind—similarities as well...

... these physical differences, both humans and nonhumans retain a shared human soul; what is more, each species perceives its own kind as human and all other kinds—including humans—as animals. Viveiros de Castro distinguishes this “perspectivism” from relativism: whereas Western relativism assumes multiple valid...

...Barbara Herrnstein Smith In this response to comments on “The Chimera of Relativism,” her article in the same Common Knowledge issue, by cognitive neuroscientist Andreas Roepstorff, classicist G. E. R. Lloyd, and anthropologist Martin Holbraad, Smith begins by describing her experiences visiting...