ABSTRACT
Epistemic relativism, like other forms of relativism, is motivated by differing considerations and comes in varying degrees of strength. This chapter introduces some of the most prominent attempts to motivate epistemic relativism and investigates the higher-order question of how to make sense of epistemic relativism. Attempts to show that justification is relative to an epistemic system often rely on examples drawn from alternative, incompatible approaches to standards or criteria of justification. Richard Rorty’s influential discussion, in his seminal book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, of the dispute between Galileo and Cardinal Bellarmine are often presented as a typical instance of epistemic relativism. The chapter considers one version of epistemic relativism, the version that claims that the procedures and approaches to epistemic justification can and do vary between different epistemic systems, and thus render knowledge relative to incompatible epistemic systems.
