Is a non-relativist post-modernism possible? The attempts of William Dean and Wentzel van Huyssteen

Abstract

This paper aims at creating a third option to foundationalism and relativism. It criticizes William Dean’s historicist radical empiricism for going too far toward a relativist deconstructionism, and Wentzel van Huyss teen’s critical realism for not leaving modernism. Both, however, succeed in creating a third option. This paper examines their respective contributions to a non relativist, reconstructionist post-modernism.