Varieties of Realism: A Rationale for the Natural Sciences

by Rom Harré

This comprehensive account of the relativist debate is designed for students as an instructive introduction to the topic, while for professionals it should be a useful reference to the continuing discussion. The latest round in the age-old debate between relativists and their opponents has continued unresolved for the last 20 years. Relativism has increasingly become the unconscious theoretical underpinning for a host of theories of ideologies, and is beginning to be treated as a simplistic belief that truth is grounded in the value systems of a culture. This volume casts relativism as a sincere attempt to resolve sceptical conflicts beyond any reasonable doubt, and seeks to map the current landscape of arguments for the varieties of relativism and opposing varieties of absolutism by clarifying each of the main fields of the relativist/absolutist debate. It presents the whole subject as a complex pattern of inconclusive controversies, to be made sense of only by paying attention to the question of which species of absolutism each variety of relativism opposes.

Genres: Philosophy, Science

375 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1987

About the author

Rom Harré was Distinguished Professor in the Psychology Department of Georgetown University in Washington DC, and the Director of the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science in London. He was for many years the University Lecturer in Philosophy of Science at Oxford and Fellow of Linacre College. He began his career in mathematics and physics, turning later to the foundations of psychology. His research was directed to the use of models and other kinds of non-formal reasoning in the sciences, as well as a long series of studies on the role of causal powers and agency concepts in both natural and human sciences. He held Visiting Professorships in many places, including Australia, Spain and Japan. He was Honorary President of the International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry.