Relativism and the Foundations of Philosophy by Steven D. Hales Week 1

Many radical empiricists in the history of philosophy have attempted to rid philosophy of its need for rational intuition. The idea is to build a foundation for philosophy on pure empirical facts. Though many have tried, most philosophers would agree that intuition will have to play a role in selecting at least a few base principals at the foundational level of philosophy, and hence the problem of justifying intuition in philosophy seems unavoidable. In this book, Steven Hales argues this point by laying out carefully the Problem of Intuition and demonstrating that there seems to be no way of avoiding the claim of an arbitrary choice at this foundational level. He proposes a relativistic solution which is carefully articulated as to avoid the usual claim that relativism is self defeating. Although relativism is often feared and derided by its opponents, we should be guided by the reality of where philosophical inquiry seems to lead us, and be open to the possibility that relativism is not as bad as it might seem at first sight. Join us as we critically discuss this contemporary issue with Steven D. Hales, Professor of Philosophy at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania in the analytic tradition, as our guide.

Participants should read the entire reading before attending this in person meeting. We will read pages 1-62 for the first week. I will be reading from this version here.

For questions please send me a message or post to meetup.

Best,

Brian