The Reflexive Relativism of Georg Simmel

The term relativism covers a variety of different philosophical views. This diversity may be organized and understood by highlighting an underlining structural similarity. Nearly all forms of relativism are distinguishable by what is relative (e.g., truth, meaning, rationality, ethics, etc.) and what these things are relative to (e.g., cultures, individuals, epochs, etc.). Those items that fit in the former category may be termed the "topic," and those in the latter may be called the "perspective." While these terms are only placeholders, my choice of the word perspective reflects the general belief shared by relativists that certain empirical and existential circumstances endow individuals with a unique point of view on the world. In order to do justice to this particularity, relativists insist that we must treat the occupant(s) of a "perspective" as the ultimate arbitrator(s) of its normative categories.

Among the oldest and most common objections raised against relativism is one known as the self-refutation argument. First developed by Plato against Protagorean relativism in the Theaetetus, this argument involves the application of relativism to itself.¹ It is argued that in order to assert the relativity of truth, knowledge, or "everything," the validity, warrant, truth, and so forth of this claim itself either must be absolute, in which case it presupposes the absolute truth it claims to deny, or must be relative. If it is relative, then according to some other "perspective" the claims of absolutism are, or could be, true. However, it is the nature of absolutism to be true across all perspectives; thus, on pain of contradiction, relativism must be false in order for absolutism to be true. Most responses to this dilemma take one of three options. One response is to accept the first horn of the dilemma and to mitigate the claims of relativism by acknowledging that at least one claim is true, justified, and so on absolutely, namely, the claim of relativism. Another response takes the second horn and restricts the validity of relativism to the "perspective" of the relativist while denying the possibility of absolutism's nonperspectival truth. These two options—absolute relativism and reflexive relativism—are joined by a third that obviates the choice between alternatives by denying the dilemma itself. Someone offering this response might suggest that the criticism begs the question by assuming the very criteria of truth and acceptability that the relativist puts in question. The existence of absolute criteria, upon which the absolutist bases the self-refutation argument, is exactly the point at issue, so they cannot be used to fault relativism.

Without assessing the viability of any of these abstract, hypothetical responses, I would like to explore a particular formulation of reflexive relativism that indicates a path leading from reflexivity to the global denial represented by the third response to the charge of self-refutation. It is my contention that the relativism articulated by Georg Simmel in The Philosophy of Money pursues the consequences of reflexivity up to point at which the very opposition between accepting and rejecting absolutism dissolves. Although he is rarely read as a contributor to debates in epistemology, Simmel may be seen as a modern philosopher who believed in the inseparability of philosophy (including epistemology as one of its fields) and sociology. In The Philosophy of Money, Simmel defends an epistemological position that reflects, supports, and complements the methodology with which he analyzes social phenomena.² While I recognize that my focus on the epistemological issues raised in Simmel's work to the exclusion of his methodological and sociological concerns amounts to an artificial separation, I believe that doing so will allow us to bring to light Simmel's relevance for problems raised in contemporary epistemology.

I call Simmel's an epistemological reflexive relativism because its claims involve the nature of truth and knowledge. By employing this broad notion of epistemology I am not seeking to avoid the difficult task of distinguishing between knowledge and truth. However, as will hopefully become clear, Simmel is committed to an epistemic theory of truth. That is to say, he believes that truth is intelligible only in terms of epistemic categories like...