| 释义 |
ˈrelativism Philos.
[f. as prec. + -ism.]
a. The doctrine that knowledge is only of relations. Also, a name given to theories or doctrines that truth, morality, etc., are relative to situations and are not absolute.
1865J. Grote Exploratio Philosophica I. xi. 229 The notion of the mask over the face of nature is exactly that which I am sure Dr Whewell does not wish to fall into—it is what I have called ‘relativism’. If ‘the face of nature’ is reality, then the mask over it, which is what theory gives us, is so much deception, and that is what relativism really comes to. 1885Seth Scot. Philos. 183 Hegel alone of all metaphysicians lifts us completely clear of Relativism. 1892Athenæum 20 Aug. 247/1 Many will be pleased with the attack on thoroughgoing relativism. [1934C. Morris in G. H. Mead Mind, Self & Society p. xix, Philosophically the position is here an objective relativism: qualities of the object may yet be relative to a conditioning organism. 1941H. Marcuse Reason & Revolution ii. ii. 353 According to Comte, relativism is inseparable from the conception that sociology is an exact science dealing with the invariant laws of social statics and dynamics. 1959A. Brecht Polit. Theory v. 172, I do not intend to minimize the extent to which Comte's positivism actually contributed to preparing the ground for modern Scientific Method and Value Relativism. 1976W. J. Stankiewicz Aspects Polit. Theory vii. 135 What is logically excluded is relativism as a methodology: a methodology demands fixity of purpose; a fixed purpose excludes relativism.
b. Special collocations: (a) historical relativism, the view that there can be no objective standard of historical truth, as the interpretation of data will be affected by subjective factors characteristic either of the historian or of the period in which he lives; (b) ethical relativism, the view that there are no universal or objective ethical standards; that each culture develops the ethical standards that it finds acceptable and that these cannot be judged by the ethical standards of another culture; (c) cultural relativism, the theory that there are no objective standards by which to evaluate a culture; that a culture cannot be understood except from the point of view of its own values or customs; the practice of studying a culture from such a standpoint.
(a)1937T. Parsons Struct. Soc. Action xiii. 480 In place of a theory of dialectic evolution on the Hegelian model there emerges a complete historical relativism. 1945K. R. Popper Open Society II. xxii. 191 But this so-called ‘historical relativism’ by no means exhausts the historicist character of the Marxist theory of morals. 1956W. Kluback Dilthey's Philos. Hist. iii. 58 The value of any age was true for that age but could not with validity be applied to other ages. For Dilthey historical relativism did not imply pessimism. On the contrary, it made man aware of his place in history. 1977M. Mandelbaum Anat. Hist. Knowl. vi. 150 Some of the conventional arguments for historical relativism, and against the objectivity of historical knowledge, lose much of their force.
(b)1937T. Parsons Struct. Soc. Action xi. 447 He [sc. Durkheim] was forced to define normality with reference to the social type alone, thus ending in a complete ethical relativism. 1944Brit. Jrnl. Med. Psychol. XX. 113/1 This [empirical] point of view is distinct both from ethical absolutism and ethical relativism. 1964M. Rader Ethics & Human Community ix. 236 There is a kind of incongruity in combining the two kinds of relativism. The methodological type requires tolerance..the ethical type condones the most intolerant of societies. 1968Internat. Encycl. Soc. Sci. V. 158 The ‘reductionist’ form of ethical relativism, which presents the ethical beliefs of a people as functionally dependent on their other beliefs and practices.
(c)1958F. M. Keesing Cultural Anthropol. ii. 47 The scientific habit of looking at each people's standards and values objectively, seeing them as ‘relative’ to the particular view of life fostered within the culture concerned, has led some thinkers to a philosophic position often called ‘cultural relativism’. 1968Internat. Encycl. Soc. Sci. III. 543/2 The methodology of cultural relativism rests on the assumption that the ethnologist is able to transcend, or to eliminate for the moment, his own cultural conditioning and values and to assume the subjective..mentality of an adherent of..the culture. 1976T. Eagleton Crit. & Ideology iv. 134 Imperialism..bred an awareness of cultural relativism at precisely the point where the absolute cultural hegemony of the imperialist nations needed to be affirmed. |