Cody asked:

Couldn't epistemological relativism simply be defined as a form of limited skepticism? What are the
different aspects that separate the two?

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This is a very good and original question. I'm going to assume that you are talking generally about
"knowledge", and address post-modern criticisms of science. Those do indeed lead to a position best
termed "epistemological relativism". Is it a form of skepticism? Yes, but in a funny kind of way. A true
skeptic would deny even relativism, i.e., would deny that anyposition has justification. A relativist
maintains that the justification of a position, moral or epistemological, has to do with current custom,
beliefs, culture, or some such. And thus, in a sense, it seems to me that it is the mere possession of
those beliefs that somehow justifies them. What that seems to me to amount to is a kind of emotional
justification: if you feel good about something, believe it. I truly do not know that there is, ultimately,
any deeper justification to relativist positions. There are, by definition, no intellectual justifications for
beliefs to a relativist. If there were, they could not be relativists.

I do not agree with this position, but it is very difficult to argue against, in that the argument must be
extremely wide-ranging. The best statement of this argument I know of is Philip Kitcher's in The
Advancement of Science,and in order to do that he had to write a rather long and complex book,
addressing various aspects of the skepticism underlying relativism, and many of the contemporary
philosophers espousing relativism.

I would highly recommend you read Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,then
Kitcher's. He was a student of Kuhn, and has found, I believe, the weaknesses in Kuhn's position.

Steven Ravett Brown