Relativism and Post-Truth in Contemporary Society

This book approaches post-truth and relativism in a multidisciplinary fashion. Researchers from astrophysics, philosophy, psychology, media studies, religious studies, anthropology, social epistemology and sociology discuss and analyse the impact of relativism and post-truth both within the academy and in society at large. The motivation for this multidisciplinary approach is that relativism and post-truth are multifaceted phenomena with complex histories that have played out differently in different areas of society and different academic disciplines. There is hence a multitude of ways in which to use and understand the concepts and the phenomena to which they refer, and a multitude of critiques and defenses as well. No single volume can capture the ongoing discussions in different areas in all their complexity, but the different chapters of the book can function as exemplifications of the ramifications these phenomena have had.

This book approaches post-truth and relativism in a multidisciplinary fashion. Researchers from astrophysics, philosophy, psychology, media studies, religious studies, anthropology, social epistemology and sociology discuss and analyse the impact of relativism and post-truth both within the academy and in society at large. The motivation for this multidisciplinary approach is that relativism and post-truth are multifaceted phenomena with complex histories that have played out differently in different areas of society and different academic disciplines. There is hence a multitude of ways in which to use and understand the concepts and the phenomena to which they refer, and a multitude of critiques and defenses as well. No single volume can capture the ongoing discussions in different areas in all their complexity, but the different chapters of the book can function as exemplifications of the ramifications these phenomena have had.

​1. Introduction: Engaging relativism and post-truth; Ulf Zackariasson.- Part I: The Promise of Relativism.- 2. Relativism versus Absolutism: The Sense of Relativism that Leibniz and Hegel Grasped but Plato didn’t; Steve Fuller.- 3. Postmodern Relativism as Enlightened Pluralism;Raphael Sassower.- Part II: Post-truth as Social Condition and Truth-game.- 4. Post-Truth, Social Media, and the “Real” as Phantasm; Michael Sawyer.- 5. A Theory of Evolution of Religious Knowledge in a Post-Revolutionary Iran: And a New Frontier for Sociology of Knowledge; Morteza Hashemi and Amir R. Bagherpour.- Part III: Relativism and the Academy.- 6. On Extrapolation in Trans-cultural Dialogues: The Example of the Use of Einstein´s Theories of Relativity in the Discourse of Relativism; Bengt Gustafsson.- 7. Mental Health Diagnosis – is it relative oruniversal in relation to culture?; Valerie DeMarinis.- 8. Critique of Human Rights Universalism; Elena Namli.- Part IV: The Threat of Relativism.- 9. Scientism and Utopia: New Atheism as a Fundamentalist Reaction to Relativism; Steven LeDrew.- 10. The Barbarian in Rome and the Cultural Relativism Debate; Mattias Gardell.- 11. Relativism as a Challenge to Religion: Christianity, Truth and the “Dictatorship of Relativism”; Mikael Stenmark.