RELATIVISM: Great contribution to the subject at David Thompson!

Foucault Undone | davidthompson

For those of you who like to keep fresh on your apologetics from a Judeo-Christian/Western point of view, David Thompson has an excellent post of the subject of relativism ... though his reference point is not a defense of the Judeo-Christian worldview but rather from a defense of historical western thought.

For some, it is ideologically intolerable that so called ‘Western ways of knowing’ should be largely preeminent in their effectiveness and rewards. If certain ways of looking at the world tend to produce advantages, both materially and culturally, this must somehow be ‘unfair’ and subject to correction, or at least disdain. Thus we arrive at assertions that, for instance, the scientific method and expectations of evidence should not be “privileged” above other, less reliable modes of thinking.

In common usage, this levelling of knowledge claims reduces analysis to mere opinion or lifestyle choice, and is corrosive to critical thought for fairly obvious reasons. In order to maintain a pretence of ‘fairness’ and non-judgmental equivalence, there are any number of things one cannot allow oneself to think about, at least in certain ways.

Thompson is one of my favorite contemporary thinkers; not all but most of his posts are pleasing to the windmills of my mind! It's worth the trip [here].

Christianity, Foucault, Philosophy,
Relativism, Religion