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13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 1. Relativism

[knowledge varies according to points of view]

31 ideas
If God had not created honey, men would say figs are sweeter [Xenophanes]
Donkeys prefer chaff to gold [Heraclitus]
Sea water is life-giving for fish, but not for people [Heraclitus]
A dog seems handsome to another a dog, and even a pig to another pig [Epicharmus]
There is no more purely metaphysical doctrine than Protagorean relativism [Benardete,JA on Protagoras]
Man is the measure of all things - of things that are, and of things that are not [Protagoras]
Judgements vary according to local culture and law (Mode 5) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius]
Perception is affected by expectations (Mode 9) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius]
Individuals vary in responses and feelings (Mode 2) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius]
Animals vary in their feelings and judgements (Mode 1) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius]
Perception varies with madness or disease (Mode 4) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius]
Perception and judgement depend on comparison (Mode 10) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius]
Objects vary according to which sense perceives them (Mode 3) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius]
Perception of objects depends on surrounding conditions (Mode 6) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius]
Perception varies with viewing distance and angle (Mode 7) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius]
Perception of things depends on their size or quantity (Mode 8) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius]
Bath water is too hot for some, too cold for others [Epicurus, by Plutarch]
When entering a dark room it is colourless, but colour gradually appears [Epicurus]
If two people disagree over taste, who is right? [Epicurus, by Plutarch]
Everything is perceived in relation to another thing (Mode 13) [Agrippa, by Diog. Laertius]
How can we judge between our impressions and those of other animals, when we ourselves are involved? [Sext.Empiricus]
For Kant, experience is relative to a scheme, but there are no further possible schemes [Kant, by Fogelin]
We now have innumerable perspectives to draw on [Nietzsche]
Each of our personal drives has its own perspective [Nietzsche]
We assume causes, geometry, motion, bodies etc to live, but they haven't been proved [Nietzsche]
There is only 'perspective' seeing and knowing, and so the best objectivity is multiple points of view [Nietzsche]
The extreme view is there are only perspectives, no true beliefs, because there is no true world [Nietzsche]
Saying games of truth were merely power relations would be a horrible exaggeration [Foucault]
Foucault challenges knowledge in psychology and sociology, not in the basic sciences [Foucault, by Gutting]
Ontological relativists are anti-realists, who deny that our theories carve nature at the joints [O'Grady]
Radical perspectivism replaces Kant's necessary scheme with many different schemes [Fogelin]