Truth in Context · an Essay on Pluralism and Objectivity

Academic debates about pluralism and truth have become increasingly polarized in recent years. In Truth in Context, Michael Lynch argues that there is a middle path, one where metaphysical pluralism is consistent with a robust realism about truth. Drawing on the work of Hilary Putnam, W.V.O. Quine, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, among others, Lynch develops an original version of metaphysical pluralism that he calls relativistic Kantianism. He argues that one can take facts and propositions as relative without this entailing that our ordinary concept of truth is a relative, epistemic, or "soft" concept. The truths may be relative, but our concept of truth need not be.