Kusch European Research Council

Part B1

RELATIVISM

ERC Advanced Grant 2013 Research proposal [Part B1]

The Emergence of Relativism Historical, Philosophical and Sociological Perspectives RELATIVISM

Cover Page: - Name of the Principal Investigator (PI): Martin Kusch - Name of the PI's host institution for the project: University of Vienna - Proposal full title: The Emergence of Relativism: Historical, Philosophical and Sociological Perspectives - Proposal short name: Relativism - Proposal duration in months: 60 months Proposal summary Although philosophers as well as scientists are frequently involved in debates over the threat or promise of relativism, there has been little detailed historical, philosophical or sociological work on its emergence and early development. This project addresses this lacuna in a ground-breaking way: it investigates the history of relativism in the German-speaking world (and to some degree, beyond) in the 19th and early 20th century across several disciplinesphilosophy, physiology, psychology, history, theology, linguistics, law, anthropology, and sociologyusing integrated historical, sociological and philosophical methods. The main objectives of this project are thus to: (1) retrace the intellectual history of the emergence of important forms of relativism (and the counterpart versions of anti-relativism) in 19th and early-20th-century German-speaking philosophy and science; (2) explain some key junctures of this intellectual history in sociological terms; and (3) critically evaluate the central arguments for and against relativism as they evolved in the period under investigation, and as they have been developed further in more recent discussions. Accordingly, the overall project has three main perspectives: Intellectual History of Philosophy and the Sciences, Sociology of Knowledge, and Philosophy. Methodologically, the project will be innovative in building on the tensions between these three perspectives. For example, philosophical studies on causal explanation will be used to sharpen sociological or historical analyses. And these analyses will in turn suggest new forms of philosophical reflection on the determinants of intellectual content. The results of this project will impact upon all of the mentioned disciplines in which debates over relativism loom large. The results will give us a new understanding of: how relativism has become a salient philosophical view; which theoretical options the term "relativism" has come to cover; which specific forms of relativism are defensible; and which disputes concerning relativism are resolvable. The project aims primarily to change and deepen the understanding of relativism within academic disciplines, though any such change and deepening will also affect, at least indirectly, wider social and political debates over related themes, such as political pluralism and multiculturalism (themes that lie beyond the immediate focus of the project).

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Section a: Extended Synopsis of the project proposal 1. State of the Art Relativismwhether as threat or panaceahas frequently galvanized debate in both philosophy and the sciences. How striking, then, that there has been little detailed historical, philosophical or sociological work on its emergence and early development. This project addresses this lacuna in a ground-breaking way: it investigates the emergence of relativism in the 19th and early 20th century across several disciplines (philosophy, physiology, psychology, history, theology, law, linguistics, anthropology and sociology) using historical, sociological and philosophical methods. The results of the project will be important to all of the mentioned academic fields of study in which relativism is a contested issue. In particular, we will gain a better grasp of why relativism has come to seem either a threat or a promise; why the controversies over relativism have so often proven interminable; or which arguments for or against relativism are defensible. While the project focuses on changing conceptions of relativism within academic fields of enquiry, it is most likely that it will also impact on wider social and political debates in which relativism is important. The relativist regarding a given domain (say, ethics or epistemology) insists that judgments or beliefs in this domain are true or false, justified or unjustified, only relative to systems of standards. For the relativist there is more than one such system, and there is no neutral way of choosing between them. Some relativists go further and conclude that all such systems are equally valid. Relativism did not exist as a distinct philosophical view prior to the last decades of the 19th century and even then primarily only in the German-speaking lands. This is not to deny that many thinkers in other cultures and traditions had philosophical leanings that we would today classify as relativistic. But it took the particular intellectual and social contexts of 19th-century German-speaking philosophy and science to articulate what elsewhere, and earlier, was present only implicitly, or not clearly separated from other "isms". At the same time, it must be stressed that German-speaking philosophical reflections on relativistic themes were often strongly influenced by British, American and French writers, and no account of the German discourse can ignore these influences and interactions. What We Know about the Emergence of Relativism in "the Long 19th Century" (i.e. 1800 to the 1940s)* Several studies characterize the whole 19th century in the German-speaking world as a "crisis" or "destruction" of "reason". Relativism is sometimes seen as central in this crisis or destruction. The best-understood tradition of the period linked to relativism is "historicism" with its rejection of teleological history, its insistence on the historical variability of values, and its (occasional) denial of the superiority of the present (Hamann, Herder, Humboldt, Niebuhr, von Ranke, Droysen, Dilthey). Another important strand was "psychologism": the idea that our epistemic, mathematical or logical principles are caused by our human physiology and psychology. A different species might have other principles (Erdmann, Lange, Lipps, Sigwart). Frege's and Husserl's attacks on this idea were influential. The term "sociologism" emerged in the early 20th century to characterize relativistic tendencies in strands of political philosophy (especially Marxism) and in the sociology of knowledge (esp. Scheler and Mannheim). (According to sociologism, beliefs vary with social group, class, or culture.) A further important tradition was the "philosophy of life": its advocates sought to "rehabilitate" the will and emotion in response to an alleged one-sided (Kantian) emphasis on reason (Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Dilthey, Langbehn, Klages, Keyserling, Simmel). Many of them voiced relativistic views. No less significant were reflections on language and culture amongst philosophers (influenced by Herder, and von Humboldt), philologists (e.g. Bopp, Grimm), and cultural or physical anthropologists (e.g. Bastian, Virchow). "Linguistic relativity" (akin to the "Sapir-Whorf thesis") was a central motif. A number of key figures in the long 19th century have been repeatedly interpreted with respect to their positions and arguments for or against relativism: especially Nietzsche, Dilthey, Windelband, Rickert, Frege, Husserl, and Wittgenstein. Problems and Open Questions in the State of the Art Many of the secondary sources fail to make clear what defines or characterizes a relativistic position.

Most historical studies of relativism assume from the start that relativism is an intellectual pathology of some kind. This perspective sometimes leads to distortions.

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We lack detailed systematic-philosophical assessments of many arguments presented in the period. For example, we have a flood of analyses of Frege's and Husserl's attacks, but little to nothing on the arguments of major psychologistic thinkers. The same is true for sociologism and historicism.

There are sizeable gaps in coverage: (a) We lack studies that track the emergence of relativism in reflections on history and historiography in the long 19th century. Such studies should include a wider range of thinkers (including natural scientists, theologians or psychologists). (b) Although we have many studies of the criticism of psychologism from the 1890s to the 1930s, there is little scholarly work on the emergence of psychologistic forms of relativism. (c) There is a dearth of studies treating the emergence and development of relativistic approaches to social and political themes in the long 19th century. (d) There is little work on how linguistic discussions on linguistic relativity, and anthropological ideas on cultural relativism influenced philosophical discourses. (e) We know little about the role of the "philosophy of life" in the development of cultural and racist forms of relativism. 2. Objectives The main objectives of this project are to: (A) retrace the intellectual history of the emergence of important forms of relativism (and the counterpart versions of anti-relativism) in 19th and early-20th-century German-speaking philosophy and science; (B) explain some key junctures of this intellectual history in sociological terms; and (C) critically evaluate the central arguments for and against relativism as they evolved in the period under investigation, and as they have been developed further in more recent discussions. In the following, the individual objectives are described in more detail. The first two objectives (A) and (B) are best introduced together under the following five headings (I-V). The goal here is to provide original and ground-breaking new analyses of intellectual content and its social-political contexts. The main overall hypothesis is that relativism became a distinctive philosophical "ism" when five strands of relativistic elements began to interact around the turn of the century: namely attempts to "naturalize", "historicize", "lingualize", "vitalize" and "socialize and politicize" the Kantian view of the human subject.* Intellectual History (=A) and Sociology of Philosophy and the Sciences (=B) (I) The Emergence of Psychologism: (A) This subproject aims to describe and explain the development of views that treat logical and mathematical principles as psychological laws of human thinking. Physiologists (e.g. von Helmholtz) and psychologists (e.g. Wundt), or Neokantians (e.g. Lange) will be important here. The influential views of Hume, Mill and Spencer will also loom large. (B) The sociological analysis will situate the debate against the background of changing valuations of the natural sciences and philosophy and broader debates over natural-scientific materialism and positivism. (II) Forms of Historical Relativism: (A) This subproject will reinterpret the development of reflections on historiography and historicity from Hamann to Spengler, with a central focus on the emergence and transformation of relativistic patterns of thought. This will include a range of non-German authors, including, say Vico or Burke. This sub-project will not confine itself to the historicist canon but will include a much broader group of thinkers. The thesis to be tested is that a fully-fledged historical relativism became a salient position only by the late 19th century, but that its various elements can be traced back much further. (B) One strand of this complex story will be analyzed in sociological terms: the debate between historicist philosophers (e.g. Dilthey, Simmel) and their Neokantian and phenomenological critics (e.g. Rickert and Husserl). (III) Philosophy of Life, Racism and Relativism: (A) This subproject will produce the first scholarly monograph on the tradition of philosophy of life. The focus will be on the ways in which the defense of the will and emotions (as against reason) motivated relativistic themes and ideas. This subproject will take the story well into the Nazi period. An investigation of this strand of relativism must also connect it to the input of 19th-century (German- and non-German speaking) philology and anthropology to racistrelativist discourses. (B) The sociological explanation will focus on the debate over relativism during the Nazi period. The sociology of Nazi philosophy is a lacuna in the literature.

Few historians of philosophy in general, and of relativism in particular, aim to provide explanations for why certain ideas became prevalent at a given time and place. There are no satisfactory causal (e.g. sociological) explanations for the emergence of relativistic ideas.

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(IV) Relativism in Social and Political Thought: (A) The aim of this subproject is to investigate the emergence and development of relativistic themes in the long 19th century in theoretical work about the social-political world by political philosophers, forerunners and practitioners of the social sciences in general, and the sociology of knowledge in particular. Key foci will be debates over the concept of ideology, Vlkerpsychologie, the Austromarxists' project of reformulating Kant's epistemology in a sociological key, the reception of Durkheim and other important French theorists, and Neurath's Marxist and physicalist sociology. The debate between advocates and critics of the sociology of knowledge also deserves scholarly attention in this context. (B) The socio-logical explanation will concentrate on "sociological-relativistic" projects in the Viennese context. (V) Relativism in Reflections on Language and Culture: (A) This subproject aims to identify the emergence of linguistic and cultural forms of relativism over the long nineteenth century, focusing in particular on: (a) the ways relativistic themes in linguistics, cultural anthropology, or "Vlkerpsychologie" were taken up in philosophical discourses, and (b) the ways in which racist forms of relativism in linguistics and cultural anthropology influenced, and were influenced by, philosophical discussion of racism during the Nazi period. (B) It seems natural to link (b) to the sociological project relating to the philosophy of life in the Nazi period. (See III above.) Philosophy (=C). The project will contribute to philosophy on several key levels: by re-evaluating familiar arguments; by suggesting new philosophical questions and forms of analysis; and by linking philosophical work tightly to historical and sociological perspectives. ** (The following paragraphs describe subprojects of a smaller scale than (I) to (V) above. 2/3 of the overall project focus on (I) to (V); 1/3 on Philosophy.) Philosophy of History: Some arguments in the contemporary philosophical debate about relativism are in fact arguments about its history. For instance, it is sometimes claimed that relativistic positions often align with unjust regimes or that relativism destroys an ability to criticize injustices. Another example is the oft-heard claim that relativism is invariably antiscientific (Boghossian, Dennett). The project will address these arguments in light of the historical studies. Has Relativism Become Obsolete? It has on occasion been suggested that historical work is able to free us from endlessly rerunning the same tired old philosophical disputes (cf. Hacking). Are worries about relativism tied to assumptions that we can now do without? That is, are they tied to obsolete forms of Kantianism, or to outdated thought-styles? The project aims to offer an answer to this intriguing systematic question on the basis of its historical investigations. The Relativistic Spectrum: The historical record can also help us to better understand the manifold ways in which relativistic doctrines can be formulated (e.g. in terms of faultless disagreement, relative truth, incompatible belief systems, or incommensurability). There is also value in distinguishing between different relativistic motifs and the ways they might interact. Of particular contemporary interest is the relationship between relativism and pluralism as well as other ways in which relativism might be weakened. Such matters were already discussed by several of the historical figures. Guilt by Association: One of the key features of many of today's debates over relativism is that advocates and opponents tend to formulate the opposite position in a form that makes it implausible right from the start. Thus anti-relativists often present relativism as inseparable from irrationalism, skepticcism, or idealism (Boghossian). Relativists conceive of anti-relativism as closely tied to absolutism, infallibilism and anti-naturalism (Bloor). Going back to the historical period when relativistic and antirelativistic positions were first formulated allows one to break these associations, to see how they were forged, and to understand what both sides look like when distinguished from other intellectual "sins". Specific Arguments, Old and New: The main body of the philosophical work will be directed at specific arguments in the main areas of psychologism, historicism and sociologism. Psychologism: The systematic debate over the strengths and weaknesses of Frege's and Husserl's criticisms of psychologism continues to this day. The current interest in arguments for and against psychologism is skewed, however, in that, when it comes to the texts of psychologistic thinkers, only Mill gets his day in court. The numerous arguments and contributions of the German-speaking psychologistic philosophers have largely been forgotten. This subproject aims at a systematic reevaluation of these arguments. This undertaking will be of particular interest because of the original and sophisticated ways in which past psychologistic thinkers dealt with specific antirelativistic arguments that are still prevalent today (e.g. self-refutation arguments).

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Historicism: Here the focus will be on a fairly specific issue: the claim by some philosophers and historians of science that historicism in no way induces relativism (Hacking, Daston, Galison). This subproject aims to evaluate the possibilities for a non-relativistic historicism, especially as concerns the history of science. In so doing, the subproject will systematically investigate both arguments found in the historical record (esp. by Dilthey) as well as present-day arguments. Sociologism: Some of todays leading relativistic sociologists of knowledge explicitly build on ideas found in the historical period under investigation here (e.g. Bloor draws on the church historian Baur and the physicist Frank). A re-evaluation of historical arguments is thus directly relevant to todays concerns. Moreover, despite the many undeniable differences between presentday and early 20th-century sociology of knowledge, the alleged or acknowledged relativistic implications are a common element. There was a vigorous debate over this issue in the 1930s, a debate that cries out for detailed critical assessment. Systematic reflection on the arguments of the 1920s and '30s will be related throughout to present-day concerns (e.g. in Bloor and Boghossian).

3. Work Leading Up to the Proposal I have a long-standing systematic and historical interest in relativism. My book Psychologism (1995) is an acclaimed history of the early 20th-century debate over psychologistic relativism. I have continued working on the topic, e.g. in an extensive essay for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2011b). In my book Knowledge by Agreement (2002) I defend a relativistic form of social epistemology. In recent writings, I have extensively discussed relativism in the context of historiography of the sciences, the sociology of knowledge, epistemology, and the philosophy of Wittgenstein. In the last five years I have given more than twenty invited lectures on relativism in major European and North-American universities. The highly positive reactions I have received on presenting my work have provided crucial encouragement for the pursuit of this project. However, the proposed project involves too many different forms of expertise for one person to carry it out on his or her own, or for a single national funding body to be able to finance it. Given the enormous interest in relativism across the spectrum of disciplines, the time is ripe to come to a thorough understanding of its history and to decisively deepen our grasp of its intellectual strengths or weaknesses. 4. Methodology This interdisciplinary project brings into unconventional dialogue the methodologies of three fields, thereby pioneering a highly innovative overall approach. The key idea is to build on the tensions between the very different perspectives of intellectual history, sociology of knowledge, and philosophy. These tensions have not to date been used to creatively advance methodology and theoretical reflection in all three fields. Intellectual history and sociology of knowledge will challenge philosophical reconstructions of arguments to reflect on the historical and social variability in modes of reasoning or taken-for-granted assumptions. This is meant to radicalise the challenges to philosophy currently coming from so-called experimental philosophy. What changes in the way we do (analytic) philosophy when we try to do justice to this "historicity"? Intellectual history will challenge the sociology of knowledge to transcend its usual focus on microhistory, that is, to develop tools and models to explain phenomena of the "dure longue". Philosophical rational reconstruction and argumentative development of nineteenth-century and present-day positions on relativism will challenge intellectual history and sociology of knowledge in more than one way. (i) It will force these latter fields to analyse the arguments of the historical record with greater accuracy and precision. (ii) It will compel them to spell out their models of explanations, and test whether these are adequate. And (iii), philosophy will insist that the consequences of the historical and sociological studies be made explicit. E.g., what picture of the contingency of philosophical and scientific results emerges from these studies? Do they support a sceptical attitude? Do they have untenable philosophical repercussions? Each of the methodologies of the three fields are thus fundamentally enriched through their interaction. The starting points for the interaction are: (1) for intellectual history: detailed textual analysis, identification of patterns and series in the development of central motifs and arguments; (2) for sociology of knowledge: identification of social patterns in the distribution of views on, and arguments for and against, various forms of relativism; formulation and testing of sociological explanatory hypotheses; and (3) for philosophy: forms of philosophical argumentation as these have developed in the analytic tradition. Sources: Primary texts will consist of philosophical and scientific journal articles, anthologies, monographs, popular books and textbooks, popular journals, and unpublished archive materials.

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5. Groundbreaking Approach, Challenges and Impact of the Project The scope of the project: This project covers a century of intellectual history and aims to address a range of related systematic issues. Lest this seems too big an undertaking, it is worth remembering that the relevant historical sources are only a subset of the philosophical and scientific writings of the period; that the philosophical reflections are clearly defined and of a reasonable scope; and that the work will be done by people who have already acquired strong expertise in the relevant areas. --The project does not attempt a history of relativism in a global European or "Western" perspective. Such undertaking would require a network of teams across several countries. And yet, it is obvious that many authors writing in languages other than German have made key contributions to the emergence of relativism. As far as the historical perspective of the project is concerned, these thinkers will be considered as influences on the Germanspeaking debate. As far as the systematic perspective goes, they will be included fully in the discussion. The interdisciplinary nature of the project: Interdisciplinary work is challenging. The challenge will be met by a combination of measures: the choice of team members, their interdisciplinary experience, regular meetings, and the PI's directing of the investigations. I have published in all three fields in the past. I have extensive experience in training, and co-operating with, philosophers, historians and sociologists. Nonpartisan investigation: Although the PI is on record as a defender of certain forms of relativism, the project as a whole is not tied to his specific views in this area. The aim is to reach a balanced view. This can be seen, amongst other things, from the fact that the visiting scholars include both the best-known living relativist (David Bloor) and the currently most influential critic of relativism (Paul Boghossian). The impact of the project: The results of this project are bound to benefit all of the mentioned disciplines in which debates over relativism loom large. The results will help us to understand: how relativism has become a salient view; which theoretical options the term "relativism" has come to cover; which forms of relativism are defensible; and which disputes concerning relativism are resolvable. The project aims primarily to change and deepen the understanding of relativism within academic disciplines, though any such change and deepening is likely to affect, at least indirectly, wider social and political debates over related themes. 6. Resources The project team will consist of the PI, four Postdocs, two PhD Students, and three Visiting Scholars. I will devote 60% of my working time to the project. The junior team members will be four Post-docs and two PhD Students. All six positions will be advertised internationally. The first Postdoc will be a historian of German-speaking 19th and early 20th-century historicism. The second Postdoc will have special competence in one or more figures in the philosophy of life. The third Postdoc should have special interests in the history of German-speaking social and political philosophy in the 19th and early 20th century. The fourth Postdoc will be a systematic philosopher specialising in contemporary debates over relativism. The PhD Students will be trained as philosophers, and write theses on the role of relativism in the sociology of knowledge, cultural anthropology, and on the contemporary relevance of historicist positions. Visiting Scholars who have agreed to each come for a period of up to three months: Prof. F. Beiser (Syracuse), 2014 (he is the leading historian of the historicist movement); Prof. D. Bloor (Edinburgh), 2015 (he is a leading relativistic sociologist of knowledge); Prof. Paul Boghossian (New York), 2016 (he is the most influential critic of relativism today). They will be commentators of the project, and conference participants. The project team will organise three landmark conferences to bring together historians, sociologists and philosophers interested in the history of relativism, and to produce two first-rate anthologies. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------* Here are but a few key secondary sources concerning the history: Baghramian, M. (2004), Relativism, Routledge; Beiser, F. (2011), The German Historicist Tradition, OUP; Gardiner, P. (1981), "German Philosophy and the Rise of Relativism in Nineteenth-Century Thought", The Monist 64: 138-154; Iggers, G. H. (1971), Deutsche Geschichtswissenschaft, DTV; Lukcs, G. (1953), Die Zerstrung der Vernunft, Aufbau; Meja, V. and N. Stehr (eds.), 1982, Der Streit um die Wissenssoziologie, Suhrkamp; Oexle, O. G. (ed.) (2007), Krise des Historismus--Krise der Wirklichkeit, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Schndelbach, H. (1974), Philosophie in Deutschland 1831-1933, Suhrkamp; Troeltsch, E. (1924), Der Historismus und seine berwindung, Berlin: Heise; Wittkau, A. (1994), Historismus, Vandenhoeck. ** A few key sources are: Bloor, D. (1991), Knowledge and Social Imagery, Chicago UP; Boghossian, P. (2006), Fear of Knowledge, Oxford University Press; Daston, R. and P. Galison (2007), Objectivity, Zone Books; Hales, S.D. (ed.) (2011), A Companion to Relativism, Blackwell.