Carol Rovane is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University.
This is an excellent readable and informative book discussing a
particularly interesting kind of "relativism." Perhaps the most
important contribution of the book (but by far from the only one)
is its careful explication of the relevant sort of relativism as an
instance of what Carol Rovane calls "multimundialism," the
thesis that one person might reject another's beliefs without
supposing that the other beliefs fail to be true. Along the way
there is much useful discussion of potentially relevant ideas in
the history of philosophy through such twentieth-century figures as
Rudolf Carnap, W.V. Quine, Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, Richard
Rorty, and Donald Davidson. This is the best discussion of
relativism that I know of. -- Gilbert Harman, Princeton
University
In recent years, the issue of relativism has been hotly discussed
by the philosophical community, and a number of good books have
been dedicated to the issue. However, to my knowledge no thorough
general and methodical analysis has been offered of what the
content of this doctrine exactly is. Carol Rovane's The
Metaphysics and Ethics of Relativism finally fills this
relevant gap in the philosophical literature. This is a thoughtful,
original, and very deep book. In the next decades it will very
probably represent a milestone in the debate on relativism. --
Mario De Caro, Universita Roma Tre and Tufts University
Rovane breaks new ground in an otherwise-tired debate
between 'relativists,' 'objectivists,' and 'absolutists.' One of
the book's signal achievements lies in clarifying the nature of
relativism, whether in its metaphysical or ethical guise. People
(especially, but not only) from different cultures inhabit
different 'worlds.' The author calls this 'multimundialism,' and it
leads to one of her principal substantive theses: a person/people
can reject the beliefs of another/others without claiming that the
rejected beliefs are false. Ethics, thus, is more than a matter of
taste and sentiment. Furthermore, people occupying different
'worlds' can rightly reject others' claims and stay committed to
their own without judging those of others to be false. Along the
way, Rovane engages with leading contemporary philosophers,
including G. Harman, D. Davidson, R. Rorty, and J. Raz...Rovane's
book deserves a careful reading; it is thoughtful, thorough,
substantive, clear, and challenging. -- H. Oberdiek * Choice *
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