Relativism and its discontents in antiquity and modernity

Undergraduate / Graduate

Relativism, the view that all knowledge is relative to some percipient subject and that there is no universal, objective truth, is itself a product of the advancement of knowledge. Historically, it was most likely the result of a generalisation of observations made by Greek mariners and merchants, who reported that laws and customs in distant countries were different from, sometimes opposite to, those of the Greeks. We will examine the sophist Protagoras, the first coherent relativist, who argued that "man is the measure of all things", and the answers to his relativism elaborated by Plato and Aristotle. We will then examine how 20th century philosophers revived those positions and will specifically investigate Richard Rorty, Leo Strauss and Alasdair MacIntyre.