The Equivocation Defense of Cognitive Relativism

Abstract

What makes arguments from self-refutation particularly attractive to many philosophers is that they seem specially decisive in philosophical controversies. Arguments from self-refutation eliminate positions as untenable without appeal to any claims other than those made in the position attacked in that way; nothing other than what is contained within the self-refutating position is used to show its inadequacy. The danger of begging the question is thus circumvented, and the proponent of a position successfully attacked in this way has no further philosophical moves he can make from within his position; he must alter or abandon it. Arguments from self-refutation, if successful, are thus conclusive stopping points in the dialectic of philosophic controversy. They establish limits beyond which that dialectic cannot go, beyond which significant philosophic controversy is impossible.