Personalism and the “Relativity of Knowledge”

This paper examines the relationship among agnosticism and relativism (in epistemology) with the philosophical movements known as personalism (or personal idealism) (specifically, of the Anglo-American variety) and pragmatism. The paper establishes the commitment of personalism to an anthropomorphic epistemology and asks whether anthropomorphism implies agnosticism of the sort common among British philosophers of the nineteenth century. After examining the personalists’ arguments against agnosticism, it concludes by asking whether personalism’s rejection of agnosticism necessitates acceptance of pragmatism. The paper concludes that personalists must either accept agnosticism or pragmatism, and that their rejection of both yields an unstable view.