Anti-relativism

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Antirelativism is a term that is used inconsistently in the humanities . While it has a very clearly defined meaning in ethnology , it is only occasionally used in philosophy and other humanities to set itself apart from relativistic currents.

  • In ethnology and anthropology , the use of the term anti-relativism is particularly influenced by Clifford Geertz . Geertz used the term in the 1984 essay "Anti-Anti-Relativism" to designate positions that chauvinistically devalue foreign cultures compared to their own. In contrast, the anti-anti-relativism represented by Geertz wants to emphasize the equality of different traditions. However, this double confrontation increasingly leads to the fact that the New Right increasingly discovers the term anti-relativism as a political battle concept, with the alleged preponderance of "left truth" in social and scientific discourse against the background of the so-called clash of cultures and world views should be pointed out, which leads to scientifically relevant ethnological and anthropological research results being excluded. This relevance is rejected not only by the New Left , but also by the mainstream of the sciences involved.
  • Occasionally the term anti-relativism is also used to oppose a general, philosophical relativism. Such anti-understood relativism represents the thesis that there is a of subjectivity free reality is and that for some statements is true that they perceive are, regardless of whether someone is convinced that they are true.
  • Finally, the term anti-relativism can also be used to oppose the relativization of a certain subject area - such as ethics , aesthetics or history . In this sense, someone is an anti-relativist if he insists on the existence of objective ethical, aesthetic, or historical facts.
  • Recently, Pope Benedict XVI's position critical of relativism has also been Both supporters and opponents of his theses often use the term anti-relativism.

literature

  • Clifford Geertz: "Anti-Anti-Relativism" in American Anthropologist 86, 1984, pp. 263-278.