During his four month fellowship at the IFK David Bloor will work on the preparation of a book on the much-debated and controversial subject of relativism, that is, the doctrine that all knowledge claims, whether about the physical world or moral principles, are incapable of absolute justification and hence are inescapably grounded in local circumstances and contingencies. All knowledge and morality are to be understood in historical and naturalistic terms as the accomplishments of human agents acting in society. The aim will be to defend a relativist position, answer the main objections that are always advanced against it, and expose the confusions of existing forms of anti-relativism.

David Bloor was educated at the University of Keele and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was Lecturer, Reader, and Professor at the University of Edinburgh, where he became the Director of the Science Studies Unit. He is now Professor emeritus. His main research interests and publications have been in the sociology, history, and philosophy of science. Along with colleagues in Edinburgh, he was one of the founders of what is called “the strong programme in the sociology of knowledge”.