ABSTRACT
Relativism and Contingency We have seen that strong constructionists maintain that either there is no truth as such or
there is no superior truth, only different truths each veridical in its own domain. The
validity of their claims jumps around according to the issue at hand, but when it comes to
matters of science these claims must be challenged. Science maintains that there is
knowledge and there are truths that are arrived at through procedures of rational
assessment. There are domains that the methods of science touch only gently, such as
history, morality, ethics, and aesthetics, where “truth” depends to varying extents on non-
evidentiary criteria such as taste, politics, social consensus, individual temperament, and
experience. The contested areas are those claimed by social sciences that are not sure
where to fly their colors because they straddle the humanities and the sciences. Because
most social sciences claim the human domain as exclusively theirs, they raise strong
objections when natural scientists bring their big guns to bear on topics constructionists
believe are not amenable to them. Other social scientists welcome natural scientists and
their theories, concepts, and methods as robust allies who can move our enterprise
forward.
