'Thus': reflections on Loughborough relativism

Through two exchanges in this journal, a type of relativism has been advanc ed by a group of authors from Loughborough University with a view to demoli shing what they see as 'bottom line' arguments for critical realism in the social sciences. Jauntily dismissing realism, they also soberly disown the supposed 'extreme' consequences that some realists insist follow naturally from relativist conceptions of social inquiry. In this article, I contest t he Loughborough team's arguments. Their presentation of relativism itself c an be reconstructed in at least three different ways, none of which suffice s to undermine a generally realist account of explanatory endeavour. The mo st productive note in the critics' conceptual register highlights the utili ty of rhetorical analysis; yet this can proceed effectively only if it is n eutral with respect to different epistemic and ontological stances. The mos t productive thematic possibility raised in their articles, and shared with several other recent discussions, signals that realism and relativism may not be anything like fixed and opposed stances; yet the polemical thrust of their anti-realism compromises this insight.