Relativism

This video introduces relativism about truth and justification, and then examines three classic objections to it.

0:00 - Intro
2:10 - Defining relativism
Three objections to relativism:
9:02 - Relativism is either self-refuting or self-undermining
33:35 - Infinite regress
52:00 - Relativism is dangerous

[StatelessLiberty]

Nozick's argument about relativism "enfolding" absolutism is very interesting, it reminds me of Lewis Carroll's "what the tortoise said to Achilles."

[cliffordhodge]

It seems like unless one is not actually a trivialist, sitting down and writing a paper arguing for trivialism is an exercise in futility.

[carluzaramo]

I really enjoy these videos. Keep it up!

[Megaghost_]

Thanks again for your videos, I'll watch this as soon as I have the time available! One little thing I wanted to ask you, in your first video of Q&A responses (from 2 weeks ago) I left you a short question in the comment section 3 days ago, I know I was very late but if you could read it I would appreciate it very much. Keep the good work coming! ;-)

[cliffordhodge]

I trust that in a follow-up video you will address the question of what a perspective is such that it is not merely a set of assumed propositions, as in this:
A) Our theory of arithmetic is true.
B) Assuming A, it is true simpliciter, that 2+2=4.
This would be readily assented to by an absolutist an example in which B is true relative to A, and given the nature of the relation between A and B, it is also true absolutely.

[savyblizzard]

In regards to talking about option 2 in the beginning, I want to dive into the quote saying, "The relativist grants that absolutism is true, per the absolutist's perspective." a bit more. I don't think we quite captured the issue as well as we could have.
So reading it this way, it's obvious to see why relativists have nothing to fear; they just view that perspective as wrong.
Now, viewing a different perspective as wrong or mistaken has its own interesting implications under certain kinds of relativism, but setting that aside this sounds like a mistaken assumption on the relativist's part.
Rather, the absolutist would say that absolutism is true regardless of perspective; to which the relativist would again respond, "yes, from /your/ perspective."
But the problem here is that the relativist is still imposing a sort of truth about the state of affairs upon the absolutist to keep them from having any teeth; that it is still a truth that is constrained to perspective.
So the dilemma still isn't resolved. By taking up this defense, the relativist seems to be invoking Option 1 again; that for all true statements they are only true within scope of a perspective.
If they were to avoid this problem, they would need to concede that "Absolutism is true." with no mention of perspective, and this is a clear contradiction that many find convincing as I understand it.
I hope that makes sense.

Also, at 48 minutes I'm not sure I understand the defense of the second response.
I don't see how one makes a distinction between asserting something is the case from a perspective and asserting something is true from a perspective.

[eternalbyzantium]

Hello! Would you ever consider doing an analysis on Veganism?

[JhonnySerna]

Don't you think that a Ramsey-style theory of truth avoids the objection of infinite regress to the absolutist?

To claim Fa is to claim a has the property F and that's it. We avoid the objection of a statement referring to Fa as true if we claim such kind of statements are not true statements at all.

[bambiknow]

Are the more videos on relativism described at the end ever created?

[cliffordhodge]

The better absolutist arguments I have encountered all seem to rest on the implicit assumption that there is a relevant asymmetry which is reflected in the claim of a parasitic dependence for relativism. "Relative truth is parasitic on the notion of absolute truth, " is perhaps better shown in the following propositions:
The proposition "A is relatively true, " is parasitic on,
P': "A is true."
And P' is apparently equivalent to
P'': "A is true, simpliciter."
And P'' is apparently equivalent to
P''': "A is true in an absolute sense."
Although one might object that this claim of equivalence is mere question-begging, it does seem that truth simpliciter is logically prior to truth qualified (as relative to something).
Relative truth is parasitic on the concept of truth, simpliciter; and the concept of truth simpliciter would seem on the face of it to simply be the concept of absolute truth."

[tzakman]

Where are the arguments for relativism?

[cliffordhodge]

"Relativism is only relatively true." This seems to rest on a hidden circularity: "Relativism is only true relative to relativism."

[ac]

I'm not really sure what it would mean for a proposition's truth to be stance-dependent, though I understand what it means for a sentence's meaning (and therefore, truth) to be stance-dependent.

Sentences I'm familiar with that people typically say are "stance-dependent" ("Ice cream is tasty", "That house is huge", for instance) just seem to be sentences whose meanings tend to change sharply with the speaker or context. Like, when "That house is huge" is true for me but false for you, as far as I can tell, what's going on is that I'm comparing the house to a different standard than you, and to really understand what each of us is saying, it would help to clarify those standards ("That house is huge compared to houses AC has typically seen").

Once we've fixed the meaning, though, whats expressed is just true or false, or at least, I'm not sure what it means to say its stance-dependent.

[hamdaniyusuf_dani]

Is there any perspective which makes 1 = 2 a true statement?

[Ansatz]

Surely the real issue here is over the nature of truth. What is truth, why are things true, and what does it mean to say that a claim is true. That must be the realm of discussion in which we should object to relativism about truth. All the objections mentioned in the video seem to be too low-level.

The idea of relativism being self-refuting is stuck in the muck of the confusion raised by the philosophy it is trying to object to. It has no foundation in a common ground between relativists and absolutists, so it may be convincing to absolutists, but a meaningless objection to relativists who presumably see no issue with relativism being refuted while still holding it to be true.

A more meaningful objection to relativism would be that it forces us to deny the correspondence theory of truth. In other words, if P and not-P be both true at the same time from different perspectives, then that would imply that P is not a statement about the world. The world is independent of perspective, but P is apparently not independent of perspective, and so the truth value of P varies even when the world does not vary. So it seems that the relativist must deny the possibility of talking about the world. That in itself is not an objection to relativism, but it raises relevant questions about the purpose of truth and what work we expect propositions to achieve when we speak them.

We each have our own individual perspectives, but language can allow us to bridge the gaps between our perspectives and understand each other. The concept of truth is fundamental to that bridge by allowing us to associate the claims we make with a shared reality, except of course relativism denies that truth can associate claims with a shared reality. So under relativism everything we say is only meaningful within our own perspective and is meaningless to anyone we might be talking to.

If Alice says the grass is wet from her perspective, there's no apparent way that Bob can make use of that statement because Bob has no access to Alice's perspective. It's like if Alice told Bob that the price of gasoline is going up in China while Bob will never go to China, knows no one in China, and has no potential to ever make any use of this information. It's hopelessly beyond Bob's ken, and unfortunately relativism would seem to render all statements equally useless.

Suppose Bob has never felt wet grass before and wants to touch it, but since he doesn't know what wet grass feels like he isn't sure whether this grass is wet or not. Under ordinary use of language, Alice could tell Bob that the grass is wet thanks to her experience with wet grass and so Bob can learn the feel of wet grass. Under relativism this can't work, because Alice can only tell Bob that the grass is wet from her perspective, but this obviously does not mean that the grass is also wet from Bob's perspective. Despite Alice's claim, Bob has no way to determine whether he is touching wet grass or dry grass, so he can't learn what wet grass feels like. We could try to tell Bob that he can be sure the grass is wet by pouring water on it, but all we'd accomplish is telling Bob about the effect of water from our perspective. Bob has no way to know whether water makes grass wet from his perspective. It's as if each of us it talking our own separate language with no hope of ever understanding each other.

[ericb]

I like your videos, but this one is disingenuous. The relativism you describe is one that no one actually advocates. The point of "relativism" is that "truth, " even in science, is not "important" because it can't be identified. What is important is "justification, " which is "relative" only to an audience and the utility they perceive in a proposition. People who realize this are called pragmatists. People who don't, complain about "relativism" being not to their liking.

[perceivingacting]

Hve you ever seen God? I mean _seen_ ...??? How? If you haven't, then you will keep asking these academic questions. If you have, you'll cut to the chase. I suspect you have not. When you see, all this will seem wasted time.