Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002
Includes bibliographical references and index
A brief history of relativism -- The main types of relativism -- Objections to relativism -- The universals of human life and culture -- The constants of nature -- The war over biology: setting the stage -- Hardwired: the universal of human biology, sex, and brain sex -- Universals of law: the natural law and the moral law -- The natural law and the moral law at work in the world -- How language theory changed the (post) modern world -- German philosophy and the relativist revolt against Western civilization -- The sacred text: the French Nietzsche and the French Heidegger -- Po-mo and the return to absolutes -- The universals of language -- A postscript, with a word about universals of literature, myth, and symbol -- Appendix: some universals and constants of nature and human nature
"Current dogma holds that all cultures and moral values are conditional, nothing human is innate, and Einstein proved that the whole universe is relative. Challenging this position, William Gairdner argues that relativism is not only logically and morally self-defeating but that progress in scientific and intellectual disciplines has actually strengthened the case for absolutes, universals, and constants of nature and human nature." "Gairdner refutes the popular belief in cultural relativism by showing that there are hundreds of well-established cross-cultural human universals. He then discusses the many universals found in physics - as well as Einstein's personal regret at how his work was misinterpreted in the public's eagerness to promote relativism. Gairdner also gives a lively account of the many universals of human biology, including the controversial topic of universal gender differences or "brain sex." He looks at universal concepts of both natural and international law, and ends by discussing language theory. Gairdner shows how philosophers from Nietzsche to Derrida have misused linguistic concepts to justify their relativism, even though a sustained and successful effort by serious scientists and philosophers of language has revealed myriad universals of human language, ranging from language acquisition, to word-order, to Universal Grammar."--Jacket
