Taking its cue from the debate between Winch and Gellner, as well as picking up the earlier disputes about the human sciences between Dilthey, Windelband, and Rickerts this paper argues that: ‘Truth has primarily do with what we dwell in in our world-making and not just what can be rendered objectively via argument or reflection.’ While conceding that Gellner is correct to see the dangers of moral relativism in Winch’s Wittgensteinian approach, I argue that the relative-absolutist division is ultimately unhelpful when it comes to looking at human practices, and that entering into the ‘sprit’ of a world does not mean that one must simply go along with all its practices. At the same time I argue that the complexity of relationships that gather around practices and values means that identifying toxic behaviours is far from having solved a social problem.

Philosophy Seminar Series
Date: Friday, 02 Oct 2015
Time: 10am – 12pm
Venue: AS3 #05-23
Speaker: Wayne Cristaudo, University of Charles Darwin
Moderator: Dr. Qu Hsueh Ming

About the Speaker:

Wayne Cristaudo, previously at the University of Adelaide and the University of Hong Kong,  is Professor of Politics at Charles Darwin University. He has written and edited 17 books and special journal issues as well as numerous articles and book chapters on a diverse range of topics in philosophy and the history of ideas and social and political institutions. His books include Power, Love and Evil: Contribution to a Philosophy of the Damaged; Religion, Redemption and Revolution: The New Speech Thinking of Franz Rosenzweig and Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy; and A Philosophical History of Love.  He is presently writing the book Ideas and World-Making: Contribution to a Philosophical Anthropology.