rationalism and relativism

greenspun.com : LUSENET : History & Theory of Psychology : One Thread

Im interested in other people's views on whether you can be rationalist about some aspects of psychology but relativist about others? I'm new to the philosophy of psychology and have found most textbooks heavy for phuilosophy beginners

Thanks....

-- Karen Scally (karenscally@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001

Answers

I'm not sure rationalism and relativism are opposed in quite the way your question presupposes. Rationalism and empiricism are (classically) both forms of foundationalism -- the belief that there are certain foundations of knowledge. Relativism is opposed to foundationalism(s) of any kind. To answer you question more directly, of course you can be rationalist about some parts of psychology and relativists about others. Most people (though not all) are rationalist, in some sense, about mathematical knowledge, and most are relativist about knowledge of, say, wedding customs. The trick is make sure that you don't run into internal inconsistencies in your position.

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), August 08, 2001.

Hi Karen, well, if by rationalist you mean the likes of Rene Descartes, many of the classes I had as an undergraduate spent the first week attacking the line of rationalistic thinking that begins with him, and most of the psychology professors I had, considered rationalism as anti-empirical and therefore a nasty word. I'm sure many wouldn't admit to any rationalistic thoughts. So it always confused me when in the second week of classes the professor drew an XY axis on the board, and we were required to learn how to do the mathematics which Descartes invented in order to do research. Is there somekind of yen & yan thing here? Rationalist? Relativist? they suggest many meanings. Are they synonyms for idealism vs. what? John Dewey's truth for some. How concrete is your approach? Is it all or nothing, or shades of grey? In order to clarify your question, and get a more meaningful response, I think you will have to work out an example/illustration of how you see the problem. Best, David

-- david clark (doclark@yorku.ca), July 31, 2001.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ