Philosophers are familiar with the problem of plurality. There are hardly any issues, questions or topics that enjoy unanimous agreement among philosophers. There is a plurality of opinions on this or that issue, a plurality of philosophical schools, a plurality of approaches. Relativism usually assumes that there are several alternative schemes, practices, epistemic norms, or moral criteria with no absolute criteria that would help us to choose the correct between them. Thus, plurality is usually viewed as one of the pillars of relativism.

But how closely is plurality linked to relativism? Are there different types of plurality? Is there an innocent type or even a fruitful type of plurality? Or is every type of plurality
vicious, perhaps even dangerous? Is it necessary that those who are pluralists are also committed to a version of relativism? Does plurality lead to or even imply relativism? These
are some of the questions which may be addressed while examining issues of plurality and relativism.

Keynote speakers

Giuseppina D’Oro (University of Oulu, Keele University), Aviezer Tucker (University of Ostrava) and Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen (University of Oulu)

Program:

March 3-4, 2026, Faculty of Arts and Letters, Catholic University in Ružomberok, Slovakia

MARCH 3, 2026 TUESDAY, conference room F 403

8:45-10:45 session in Slovak

Ivan Koniar (Katolícka univerzita v Ružomberku), Ako rozumieť strojovej autonómii: pluralita a hranice

Tomáš Priehradný (Katolícka univerzita v Ružomberku), Relativizmus a pluralizmus jazykových hier (Slovenská postmoderná literatúra vo svetle Wittgensteinovej filozofie jazyka)

Peter Rusnák (Univerzita Konštantína Filozofa v Nitre), Myslieť v záhyboch na línii dotyku plurality a relativizmu v dobe posthistorickej

Juraj Šuch (Katolícka univerzita v Ružomberku), Historická pluralita v sporoch historického realizmu a konštruktivizmu

15-minute coffee break

11:00-12:30 session 1

Luís Lóia (Portuguese Catholic University), Does Political Pluralism Imply Moral Relativism?

Jan Géryk (Center for Theoretical Study, Prague), Non-relativistic Limits to Pluralism in Liberal Political Philosophy

Dominique Lämmli (FOA-FLUX and Zurich University of the Arts), Reciprocal Pluralism: Reconfiguring Epistemic Practice in Art and Science Through Boike Rehbein's Kaleidoscopic Dialectic

12:30-13:30 lunch break

13:30-14:30 keynote lecture

Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen (University of Oulu), Pluralism and Relativism Without Nihilism: Practice-Constituted Normativity

15-minute coffee break

14:45-16:45 session 2

Michal Hubálek (University of Hradec Kralove, University of West Bohemia), Against Perspectival Pluralism: Description, Reality, and Historical Action

David Černín (University of Ostrava), Historians as Informavores, Plurality, and Epistemic Constraints in Historiography

Friedrich von Petersdorff (Independent scholar), Distinguishing Plurality and Relativism

ONLINE Marnie Binder (California State University, Sacramento), On José Ortega y Gasset’s Perspectivism in the Plurality versus Relativism Debate

15-minute coffee break

17:00-18:00 keynote lecture

Giuseppina D’Oro (University of Oulu, Keele University), Why explanatory pluralism does not entail relativism

MARCH 4, 2026 WEDNESDAY, conference room F 403

9:00-10:00 keynote lecture

Aviezer Tucker (University of Ostrava), Historiographic Knowledge as Expert Knowledge

15-minute coffee break

10:15-11:45 session 3

Georg Gangl (University of Ostrava), Dissensus on Consensus. Lessons on Plurality and Relativity from the Philosophy of History

Eugen Zeleňák (Catholic University in Ruzomberok), Does Plurality Lead to Harmful Relativism in History? On Engaged and Detached Historians

Krzysztof Brzechczyn (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan), Between dogmatism and relativism: the analysis of the mode of explanation of totalitarian and revisionist approaches from the point of view of idealizational theory of science

11:45-12:45 lunch break

12:45-14:45 session 4

Josef Moural (J. E. Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem), Early Pluralism in the 20th Century – Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Austin

Miloš Taliga (Matej Bel University), Non-factive knowledge relativized: lessons from scientific revolutions for epistemology

ONLINE Timothy Tambassi (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), On Perspectivism in Formal Ontologies

ONLINE Thomas Russell (Stellenbosch University ), Resolving a Tension in Moral Enquiry: Limiting the Fixity of Pluralism and Rationality, Limiting the Flux of Relativism and Situatedness

Supported by the VEGA project 1/0354/24 Plurality and Relativism in Contemporary Philosophy, Faculty of Arts and Letters, Catholic University in Ružomberok, Slovakia.