O Programa Forte e o relativismo epistêmico

Abstract

This thesis understands a variant of Relativism: Epistemic Relativism about Scientific Knowledge. This thesis defends that the Strong Program Relativism endorses Epistemic Relativism because it is philosophically committed to epistemological and ontological concepts, noting that both forms of relativism can provide a basis for reflections on multicultural education. The Epistemic Relativism is a thesis according to which beliefs, justification and knowledge depend of a set of conditions such as times, cultures, societies etc. The Relativism of the Strong Program is a form of Methodological Relativism applied to scientific knowledge. For Strong Program, scientific knowledge is a form of collective adaptation of humanity to nature. David Bloor in his work, Knowledge and Social Imaginary, offers a set of important concepts for reflecting the application of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge on science. This work, in addition to highlighting important authors such as Durkheim and Mannheim, among others, presents principles that can sustain a different form of Epistemic Relativism: A Relativism located to the cognitive patterns of a community at a time. His case studies and descriptions of the relationship between social models and scientific models raise the possibility of defending Relativism. Beyond Bloor, there is a critique to Strong Program Relativism that is discussed by epistemologists and thinkers like Bruno Latour and Paul Boghossian. It should be noted that the Strong Program is inspired by Kuhn's works especially the Structure of Scientific Revolutions. More recent criticisms have emerged, such as Harvey Siegel, Markus Seidel, Maria Baghramian and Richard Schantz, seeking to examine the Strong Program and Relativism in order to present their difficulties. David Bloor rejects these criticisms, launching a lemma: Relativism is the opposite of Absolutism. This thesis is based on disciplinary fields such as Anthropology, Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, Philosophy of Science, History of Sciences and interdisciplinary fields such as Science, Technology and Society and Social Studies on Science. For Science Education, the concept of Relativism has become a contemporary theme that can be involved with Multicultural Education around themes such as epistemic and cognitive tolerance, respect for minority groups and different cultures in addition to civic good. The term Relativism is found not only in academic debates, but also in information that circulates in the media especially on the internet, on websites, blogs and social networks and even in everyday discursive practices. In these communication contexts, conceptual distortions are common, relating relativism, for example, with the “anything goes”. It is also intended to show, in this thesis, the importance of classic authors with thinkers, concepts and debates still present and updated. Finally, some theses, such as Social Constructionist Relativism, Underdetermination of Theory by Data, Confirmacional Holism, Theory-ladenness of Observation and Incommensurability are reviewed.