[Buddha-l] Universalism?

[JKirkpatrick]

On Jul 7, 2011, at 17:37, "JKirkpatrick" <jkirk at spro.net> wrote:

> Oh, come on.
> Universalism does not mean only Christian or religious
universalism. 
> It's application and ideological function has been a big trend
in 
> social sciences for decades already, counterpoised to
relativism.

I am unfamiliar with sociological literature. In philosophical
literature, the usual counterpoint to relativism is absolutism or
idealism. Like most terms "universalism" is polysemous. In
religious contexts alone there are several senses. 

> 
Richard
_______________________________________________

I agree that these terms are polysemic. But then, aren't most
terms? 
That's why word gamers argue endlessly while trying to work
connotation out of denotation. But the poly part of it all seems
to linger. 
The argument about one of them vs. the other one happened more in
the academic disciplines of history and literature, leading to
the development of literary philosophy to the point that counting
angels on pin heads became almost a self-fulfilling prophecy kind
of thinking (I'm trying to avoid using the term "discourse.").
 
Anthropology (and sociology too) escaped most of this
entertainment, which  began as I recall, in France in the fifties
or sixties. I encountered it in the seventies among historians,
some of whom accused me of being a relativist while they were
universalists. I could not convince them that I was both,
depending on the cirumstances, or the degree of abstraction
involved. Eventually it has seemed, to me anyway, that aside from
the few who are still infected with literary "theory"
(so-called), most of us in the social sciences go with both/and,
instead of either/or. 

Joanna