ABSTRACT
Epistemic relativism claims that what we know, or claim to know, is always bound up with particular historical, cultural and even individual perspectives and conditions and hence cannot be universal or non-contextual. Epistemology is the area of philosophy dealing with questions concerning the nature and the justification of knowledge. It examines issues such as belief, truth, objectivity, evidence, justification, the requirements for the establishment of epistemic agency, and the challenge of scepticism. One of its main aims has been to produce a theory of knowledge and to answer questions about the conditions under which knowledge-claims can be made. Epistemology, since Plato, has been at the centre of much of philosophy, and in modern philosophy, particularly over the last one hundred years, it has become intertwined with philosophy of science, and questions about the nature and scope of scientific explanations, the status of scientific laws, the appropriate methods for scientific investigation, etc.
