 In our next module, we'll be engaging with an important philosophical problem that lies at the intersection of the philosophy of science and epistemology, the theory of knowledge, a problem concerning whether scientific claims aim at absolute truths. This is a question about the status of scientific claims, and it's an important one. For example, according to epistemic relativists, what's true according to one scientific system or framework might not be true according to another scientific system or framework. Now in one sense, this should be utterly unsurprising. Science is after all not like other areas that feature disagreements. What the relativist insists though is that when a scientific claim is true by the lights of one scientific framework but false by the lights of another, then there is no further framework independent vantage point from which to say who is right and who is wrong. In this sense, the relativist gives a negative answer to our question of whether scientific claims aim at absolute truths, where absolute truths are truths that hold for all individuals and at all times regardless of their own commitments or beliefs. Relativism in science is a long history, one which our first speaker Martin Kusch at the University of Vienna will be touching upon in some detail. But first it will be helpful to take a step back from this debate about the status of scientific claims so as to appreciate this debate as it is played out in science as a special case of a more general kind of philosophical question. If two parties, be it scientists, musicians, teachers, friends, differ about whether some claim is true, what bearing does this fact of disagreement have on the matter of how to think about the status of the claim under dispute? Here it will be illuminating to consider a straightforward non-epistemic example described by Herodotus and the Histories concerning funerary customs. Now the custom of the ancient Greeks was always to bury their dead, eating them would have been appalling. The Colations on the other hand honor the dead by eating them and burying them would have been out of the question. Now as Herodotus noticed, each thought the other custom was not merely different but obviously wrong. Their differing funerary customs accordingly led to a disagreement overseen by King Darius of Persia about the right way to honor the dead and it's unclear what if anything could have settled such a disagreement. Perhaps in such circumstances it seems that mutual tolerance is the way forward. Here's a slogan that is often trotted out, bearing the dead is right for the Greeks, eating them is right for the Colations and there is no culture independent sense in which either is right or wrong. Let's think about this kind of reasoning in a bit more detail as it features in debates about morals and on this basis sharpen a bit further what's at issue between the absolutist and the relativist about scientific claims. As moral philosopher James Rachel's has put it, this kind of diversity to relativism thinking abstracted from the Greeks versus Colation case and applied more generally in the domain of morality can be framed as the cultural differences argument. The cultural differences argument says, premise one, different cultures have different moral codes. Conclusion, therefore there is no objective truth and morality right and wrong are only a matter of opinion and opinions vary from culture to culture. Now even if the conclusion is true, the cultural differences argument is not a promising argument and that's the case even though its premise is obviously true. For starters the argument is not valid without an additional premise to the effect that if different cultures have different moral codes then there's no objective or culture independent truth about morality. But this premise is open to various kinds of well-worn objections. One thing we can easily imagine instances where one party to a moral disagreement is simply mistaken for example one party to a moral dispute might lack the right kind of information or the ability to think clearly about the issue at hand in a way that is free from prejudice or bias. But if that's right then it's hard to see how just the fact that two parties to a dispute have different perspectives should lead us to conclude that there is no perspective independent truth of the matter. Now a second reason we should be very hesitant to think that if different cultures have different moral codes then there is no objective truth and morality and that right and wrong are just matters of opinion is this. The fact that different cultures have different moral codes is uncontroversial. The absolutist just like the relativist agrees with this descriptive claim. But relativism is not uncontroversial. That is the claim that right and wrong are just a matter of opinion or perspective is a deep kind of philosophical claim one which many reasonable people reject. And so it should be very surprising of such a claim where to simply follow from a claim that everyone is happy to accept. Let's return now to the scientific case. We've seen that by looking at the case study of moral disagreement that the mere fact that different scientific frameworks issue different verdicts on a particular question isn't itself enough to secure a negative answer to the question of whether scientific claims aspire to absolute truth. Now this is instructive for focusing on our initial question about whether scientific claims aspire to absolute truth. We can see that if considerations about disagreement and diversity of frameworks in science are in a position to motivate relativism rather than absolutism about the status of scientific claims that this won't be just due to the mere fact that such disagreements exist, something that all sides can agree to, but rather due to something else. But what might that be? Consider here a famous dispute in the history of science between Galileo and Cardinal Bellarmine concerning the truth of geocentrism, the doctrine that the Earth is the orbital center of the universe. One piece of evidence Galileo had offered against the geocentric model is that moons were spotted orbiting Jupiter. Now this is evidence he acquired through the telescope which counted against the prevailing thought that the Earth was the only center of motion. However, as Cardinal Bellarmine saw it, revealed scripture indicates that geocentrism is correct and so ipso facto the telescope must not be a good source of evidence about the heavens. Notice that in such circumstances Galileo and Bellarmine are not only at odds about the truth of the relevant claim about the moons in Jupiter. Galileo affirmed the existence of the moons orbiting Jupiter while his opponents denied it, but rather they also disagreed about the relevant standards which should be appealed to in order to resolve their disagreement. In such circumstances it looks very difficult for either side to rationally persuade the other side and this is a fact that goes beyond just the fact of scientific disagreement. Rather it's a fact about what certain kinds of deep disagreements can lead to and what they can arguably lead to are dialectical standoffs from which neither party looks to be in a position to rationally budge given the epistemic standards that they accept. Now American philosopher Richard Rorty and his diagnosis of this dispute between Galileo and Bellarmine thought that the fact that neither side was in a position to rationally persuade the other party is a consideration in favor of the view that Galileo was correct according to his epistemic grid. Bellarmine was correct according to his and that there is no further fact of the matter. If this kind of reasoning is right then facts about the impossibility of rational persuasion have a bearing on the matter of whether scientific claims can aspire to absolute truth. And on a slightly different note philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn recognizing that different scientific paradigms have recognized very different kinds of scientific standards has argued that the epistemic authority of a scientific claim is confined to the paradigm that gave rise to it an idea that is more or less shared by other kinds of relativists and which is forcefully disputed by absolutists who take absolutism to be compatible with the actual or possible inability of two sides to rationally resolve deep scientific disagreements. One of the goals of this module covering the status of scientific claims is to work out just what kinds of considerations should really bear importantly on the issue of the status of scientific claims and which should not, something that will be taken up in much more sophistication in the lecture by Martin Kuhn.