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Contextualism vs Relativism - What's the difference?

contextualism | relativism |

As nouns the difference between contextualism and relativism

is that contextualism is any of a group of doctrines that stress the importance of context while relativism is the theory, especially in ethics or aesthetics, that conceptions of truth and moral values are not absolute but are relative to the persons or groups holding them.

contextualism

English

Noun

  • (philosophy) Any of a group of doctrines that stress the importance of context
  • *{{quote-journal, 2008, date=March 21, Brendan Larvor, What can the Philosophy of Mathematics Learn from the History of Mathematics?, Erkenntnis, url=, doi=10.1007/s10670-008-9107-0, volume=68, issue=3, pages=
  • , passage=If contextualism is true, then change ramifies through all the contextual connections. }}

    Usage notes

    * Adjectives often applied to "contextualism": developmental, scientific, epistemic, epistemological, linguistic, semantic, methodological, historical, functional, descriptive, radical, moderate.

    relativism

    Noun

  • (uncountable, philosophy) The theory, especially in ethics or aesthetics, that conceptions of truth and moral values are not absolute but are relative to the persons or groups holding them.
  • (countable, philosophy) A specific such theory, advocated by a particular philosopher or school of thought.
  • * 2008 , Paul Boghossian, “Replies to Wright, MacFarlane and Sosa,” Philosophical Studies , vol. 141, no. 3, p. 413:
  • Following Gilbert Harman’s lead, my own formulation of relativism' about the normative domain was based on the classic examples of thoroughgoing ' relativisms drawn from physics.

    See also

    * alternativism * pragmatism