Conceptual Schemes
Cognitive relativism (or epistemological relativism) is the theory that truth is relative. There are different positions that cognitive relativism can take, depending on what truth is relative to.
1) What frameworks do you think truth may be relative to?
2) Do you think there’s any problem with saying that a ‘truth’ can be relative?
An argument for cognitive relativism is that when we say that a belief is true, we are not really saying the belief matches the facts. Instead, we mean it is compatible with our other beliefs.
3) What do you think about this?
Some philosophers have said that truth may be relative to conceptual schemes. By this they mean different groups may have such radically different concepts and ideas that they interpret the world in different ways, and furthermore no interpretation is more valid than any other.
4) Do you think it’s possible for different societies to have such radically different conceptual schemes? If not, do you think it ever was?
5) Do you think conceptual schemes are a priori or a posteriori?
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis attempts to show that the difficulty to translate between different languages reveals that societies have completely different concepts of reality from eachother.
6) Is it a problem to say that no interpretation of the world can ever be correct?
7) Do you think that truth is relative to conceptual schemes?
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1 comment:
I have never come across this stuff before. Sounds like pragmatism or something. Is it? Looks nasty.
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