99Percent

I am also on this same position. There is an absolute absolute truth of which only god could possible know and then there is truth in the human realm of existence where when I say, using your example, that the sun will rise tomorrow you, and all humans on Earth will agree, is a true fact.

It is when relativists want to reserve their joker card that absolute absolute truth doesn't exist to be able to trump any argument in the end that makes me suspicious of their intellectual honesty or simply their denial of reality in a meaningful and rational way.

John Page

Speaking from my own experience, I arrived at relativism through a realization that no fixed starting point had been discovered for laying out what and how things are. This drove me to consider what views of reality could be taken without any a priori assumptions. I arrived at atheism by understanding that the weight of evidence for god being a fiction is greater than otherwise. Similarly, I arrived at relativism by understanding that truth can be better explained as the relation between two things than an absolute in itself. In my case, therefore, your accusation is completely unjustified and, turning your statement on yourself, it just shows how opinionated anti-relativists can become.
Incorrect. You believe in absolutes and therefore assume that I must be claiming one! This is your issue not mine.
Believe what you will, I'm not claiming that a relativistic view needs to be priviledged over other views. My belief is that a relativistic viewpoint is more consistent with the nature of the mind and how the conscious "I" perceives it. In short, our senses compare things and that comparison results in relations.
I have not seen from you any truth that stands a test for being absolute. As a relativist, I do not consider "existence" to be "truth", truth is manufactured in the mind through the cognition of relations between things.
This is simply untrue. What makes you think that truths cannot be considered as contingent for a relativist?
I think your mistake here is assuming that subjectivity/objectivity is an on/off relation. I consider it more to be a question of degrees - it is possibole for an individual to be "less subjective" at some times than others by reflecting on evidence or by diasassociating themselves from emotional influences. A relativistic system can overcome the limitations of purely subjective systems by exploring the links between individual experience. e.g. chimps apparently have the ability to imagine themselves in the place of human subjects by communicating empathy with a blind person through covering their eyes and feeling their way around.
How so? I think this is more true of non-relativistic systems.
Relativism is a viewpoint that does not rely upon a majority for its validity so the above is meaningless gibberish.
I think certain objectivist methods and principles are useful, mainly the modes of critical thought that had been developed by thinkers and scientists way before objectivism was put together. However, the claims of objectivism for the primacy of (human) reason and logic are unsupported. I think it is valid to suppose that observations of our intersubjectivity gave rise to the notion of objectivity and that epistemic value increases as the amount of intersubjective cross-checking increases.
I think humans tend to like certainty, so the habits of our minds drive us toward a set of rules or truths that we feel comfortable with. Indeed, I could characterize your dislike for relativism as a possible unconscious psychological fear that with your anchors gone your mind will simply evaporate.

BTW, you might like to think of relativism as the ultimate in objectivity (not objectivism) since it is permanently sitting on the fence, so to speak.

Cheers, John

John Page

I agree that simple denial can be used by a proxy relativist to jerk someone around. BTW I don't consider myself an absolute (or extreme) relativist but embrace relativism given the failure of any other system to offer viewpoints that don't make assumptions - i.e. they're all relative to/driven by their assumptions which makes them relativistic systems anyway.

Cheers, John

Primal

Are they made up by humankind? Are they even made up? Do I choose how my brain is structured and what data my sensations bring me? Your position seems to be based on some sort of free will, otherwise how do we "humans" make things up instead of inhereting them?


The basic system that started with Aristotle....

What are you talking about? Yeah I'm absolutely sure about that. Why can't you raise anything more then an a priori dismissal or red herring? Something like a possible disproof.

Neither is switching the burden of proof.

You tell me. Your the one claiming all beliefs are relative.




Sorry John but your misreading.


John their a big difference between disagreeing with someone's ideas and bad mouthing a certain race.....grow up John.

John Page

LOL! Are you arguing that Aristotle was not part of humankind?

Can't? I don't need to, all your supposed absolute truths are based on a priori assumptions or claims.

Hilarious w.r.t. your prior statements. Let's examine this shall we:

1. Primal says "I exist" is an absolute truth.
2. Primal's epistemology is (or seems to be) "I think therefore I know I am"
3. Therefore Primal thinks that what he is is what he thinks. Nowhere in this thread has Primal discussed his parentage.
4. Using some double standard, Primal objects to me comparing the professors bad mouthing of a philosophical attitude (relativism) to bad mouthing on the basis of racial origins.
5. Issue: "Are" people really what they "think"? Or do they just think that?
6. Primal, am I my racial origins or my thoughts or am I both? If I am both why should bad mouthing me for one part of what "I am" (my thoughts) be ultimately any different than bad mouthing me for another (my parentage).

Seems to me you're prone to the same kind of mistaken bigotry as the Professor.

Cheers, John

Keith Russell

Greetings:

What do the various posters here mean by 'absolute'?

Do you mean 'completely independent of consciousness'?

(That's not what I mean by 'absolute'...)

Or, do you mean something else?

Keith.

Primal

This is not evidence for relativism as much as it is an explanation for why you are a relativist and how you think there are no absolutes(question begging.) This thus does not apply to my point.

No John you are making a universal claim: That is pretty absolute.
quote:Originally posted by Primal

So don't you then think consistency priveldges a viewpoint?
quote:Originally posted by Primal

Not my point John. My point was for all your disagreement you were unable to show how my claims could be disproven, even possibly disproven. The above is merely an a priori dismissal of rather obvious facts.
quote:Originally posted by Primal

They can but even a contingent truth is a priveledged belief.

I agree but if what you are saying is that we are completely limited by our subjectivity: to then say we can overcome our limitations is a contradiction. Empirical examples of empathy and such do not overturn this as they make certain assumptions 1) Others exist. 2) Empirical evidence is meaningful. 3) The chimps and their actions are real and not illusions.

Because John you are saying truth is a matter of what people agree on as true. Hence if the majority agree something is true then it is by default. Absolutism and objectivism do not suffer this problem because to both whether an individual agrees or not has nothing to do with truth value: in which case the agreement/disagreement of the majority is irrelevant.

Ah but you are saying truth is determined by preference: by what a person wants to believe/disbelieve. Intersubjectivism merely represents an agreement of many people in determining truth: in which case the majority is everything.

The entire relevance of objectivist methods is based on the truthfulness of objectivism John....


So you accept objectivism as long as you can have its methods but then deny the objectivist idea of an external world and methods independent of preference? That's inconsistent John.

Also saying that objectivism is reached by intersubjective agreement does not escape this dillema: as you have still failed to show why it is that intersubjective agreement is valuable. You have merely assumed it is. Again John, is it valuable because there is an objective reality? Or agreement for its own sake?

John that stinks of freudianism which is now considered a psuedoscience.

Likewise the above had nothing to do with my point which was concerning the relationship between intersubjectivism, perception and testimony.



That would simply make me an objectivist though John. Likewise absolutism,mysticism, infinitism, supernaturalism and objectivism always sit on the fence too. That doesn't mean they are true.

Primal

Of course not. I am saying he discovered the first rules of what we have in the past called "logic". I see no reason why a human cannot do this....


Does this make them untrue? Or are you then dismissing a priori claims on an a priori basis? A dismissal is not a refutation or a possible disproof. The issue is not whether my claims are held via a priori means by whether they can possibly be disproven or are simply dismissed on a priori ground.

Because my parentage does not matter. Whether I do or do not have parents does not change the fact that I 1) Think. and 2) Can infer that since I think I exist. Even if I found out I was in the matrix, and was cloned this would not change my position on this matter.


Yes John because there is an difference between criticizing ideas and bad-mouthing a certain race...Are you really telling me for example that if I criticize/bad-mouth theism that is equivalent to bad mouthing mexicans?



Irrelevant: I am saying they think and exist, now in what manner they think and exist. You are attacking a claim I didn't make now John.
I think racial origins plays a minimal role personally.


John this idea is ludicrous. A person's race is a very different thing then their ideology. In this case, since I am likewise my racial origins, I can label you a racist, as calling any absolutist(and I inferred objectivist) from that a "cancer" was equivalent to you calling mexicans and asians a "cancer".

Seems to me that you are really stretching credulity there pal.

John Page

Primal, Aristotle invented a system of logic, not discovered. For him to discover it would require that system of logic to be already existing.
I am dismissing a claim that a truth can be considered "absolute" when it depends on an a priori.
Stretching credulity can be considered a virtue in the search for knowledge. My point was I object to being discriminated against as evil and corrupt based on my relativistic ideology.

Cheers, John

John Page

Correct observation, this was my intention, showing you that I did not arrive a relativism a priori - which was your prior claim.
No I didn't and it wasn't.
So it seems in objectivism. In relativism, maybe, and in any event not necessarily - consistency might result from complementary errors, tautologies. BTW I don't subscribe to the statement "In relativism, all viewpoints are assumed to be equally valid". This infers there is an overarching "correct" manner of determining validity. I don't know of one.
How so? Priviledged over what, other contingent truths?
No I'm not saying this determines truth. There appears to be no obligation upon me to believe the truths that others have voted for. I'm saying that our concept of and methods of determining truth have been developed by consensus. Invented by humans.
Thus, to the extent that objectivist methods are flawed or error prone, so is objectivism (and, for that matter any other -ism as far as I can tell).
No, read what I wrote.
Is this debate not fruitful enough to supply such valuable demonstration of exchanged views?
Damning with faint praise, I see.

Cheers, John