Even the materialist should be willing to grant that on...

Even the materialist should be willing to grant that on religious assumptions a theory T might be judged superior to rival theories. Likewise, one need not be an intuitionist to discover theorems of intuitionist logics. Generally speaking, one need not accept assumption A in order to reach an understanding with those who do accept the assumption about how such assumptions might influence judgments about the merits of theories.

The natural sciences after the 17th century were formulated in a language that sought neutrality with regard to all human meanings and values. This was the basis of their claim to objectivity. Today, however, because of advances in the history and philosophy of science, it is generally recognized that the practices of modern science are based on their own norms; and a growing number of scholars admit that these norms are neither unquestionable nor unique.

In the case of the social sciences, dependence on Western cultural norms and values is more conspicuous than it is in the natural sciences. The problem of ethnocentrism in the social sciences is fairly widely recognized. For example, different cultures often bear conflicting views of human nature that are so deeply ingrained that researchers cannot simply suspend them at will in order to produce a more universal social science.

What they might be able to manage, however, would be an investigation into how human nature is seen in another culture, and how this would influence views about the issues studied by social scientists. This exercise will heighten awareness of the researcher's own suppositions at the same time as it focuses attention on the alternative sets of suppositions that are to be found in other cultures.

Once such suppositions are identified, two sorts of evaluations may be made: first, the plausibility of the basic assumptions may be considered; and secondly the merits of various alternative theories based on these assumptions may be debated with regard to accuracy, explanatory value, depth, range, cohesion, and other theoretical virtues.

One should certainly not be content to take cultural biases as arbitrary givens, for this would indeed be to surrender to a more pernicious relativism than that which comes with the admission of some perspectivalist theses, and one that Gadamer goes to some pains to avoid.