ABSTRACT

A distinctively epistemic form of relativism is outlined, which is independent of a more familiar relativism about truth. It is argued that there is a particularly philosophically interesting form of such relativism (“strong epistemic relativism”) that entails that there can be epistemically incommensurate epistemic systems. It is maintained that one needs epistemic internalism in order to make sense of epistemic relativism, although the former does not entail the latter. In order to explore how epistemic relativism might be motivated within an epistemic internalist framework, a Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology is introduced. This can be used to generate epistemic relativism, although it is moot whether one can use this proposal to specifically motivate strong epistemic relativism.