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2 ideas
4709 | Ontological relativists are anti-realists, who deny that our theories carve nature at the joints [O'Grady] |
Full Idea: Ontological relativists are anti-realists in the strong sense; they hold as meaningless the view that our theories carve nature at the joints. | |
From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: This pinpoints my disagreement with such relativism, as it seems obvious to me that nature has 'joints', and that we would agree with any sensible alien about lots of things. |
4725 | Contextualism says that knowledge is relative to its context; 'empty' depends on your interests [O'Grady] |
Full Idea: Contextualist about knowledge say that "to know" means different things in different context. For example, a warehouse may be empty for a furniture owner, but not for a bacteriologist or a physicist. | |
From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: There is obviously some truth in this, but we might say that 'empty' is a secondary quality, or that 'empty for furniture' is not relative. We needn't accept relativism here. |