Medieval Relativism and its Legacy, 1230-1450 - Conference Paris 2008
An international conference sponsored by
Bowdoin College
and
Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne
Paris, June 5-7, 2008
This interdisciplinary conference proposes to examine the later medieval and early modern deployment of and reaction to relativistic modes of thought in theology, ethics, literature and art. When contemporary writers consider the history of relativism, more often than not, they simply gloss over the entire medieval period, suggesting that the absolute (and absolutely accepted) claims of the Catholic church during this period blocked the development of any consideration of relativized notions of truth, morals and ethics. This is an astounding oversight considering the attention that medieval writers themselves paid to the problem in everything from economic treatises to travel literature, from pastoral manuals to commentaries on Aristotle. It is the central claim of this conference that the later medieval discourse of relativism best reveals the tensions and fault lines within which modern relativism arose.
“Relativism” names a variety of philosophical positions that contend there are no absolute standards for determining the truth of empirical, moral and value judgments. Rather, scientific, ethical and aesthetic judgments are true relative to some sort of “framework” or “paradigm,” be it a person’s culture, religion or even scientific training. This is clearly a controversial position, no less so today than in the past, and for as long as there have been proponents of relativistic modes of thought, there have been critics. Already in ancient Greece, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle aligned themselves against Protagoras, perhaps the very first philosophical relativist, famous for his assertion that “Man is the measure of all things.” The philosophical debate continues unabated to this day and, if anything, has only grown more fierce in recent decades under the guise of the “Culture Wars.” Given current controversies surrounding multiculturalism – from the various attacks and defenses of the absolute claims of science and philosophy to debates about the role that religion should play within a secularized nation state – an inquiry into the origins of relativistic thought in the West seems in order. While such historical investigations cannot claim to shed complete light on today’s debates, they can help us understand the interplay of forces and problems that paved the way for and continue to shape the path along which contemporary controversies run.
