AnthonyAdams45

Of course, who could argue that? The question remains to answered, I suppose, why can't a relativist, even of the extremest sort, not make exactly the same claim.

And yet, what is, is.

99Percent

I found NialScorva's argument interesting and important.
I have thought this long and hard since its in fact the basis of our perception of reality. What the heck is reality anyway and how do we get any "truth" out of it. We perceive reality in a persistent fashion that stimulates our neurons by repetitious impulses. These perceptions correlate and agreggate in memory that must be continously refreshed or it is slowly lost, like the electron beam hitting the phosphour of a monitor. It needs to be constantly refreshed and more importantly it must be done so in a logically consistent manner. If we see a bird and then the next instant the bird is no longer there, we literally reject the sightning of the bird, in fact it will probably be forgotten, like a dream. Thats how we can distinguish reality, it has to be logical and has to make sense in a consistent and non-contradictory matter, otherwise this reality fails and is in fact not real.

On a more deeper level (probably frontal lobes in the brain) similar patterns of perception are somehow classified into universal concepts that are useful for storing knowledge. After we see different forms of the handwritten letter "A" we somehow categorize the letter "A" and can then recognize future written letters "A" even though they are not in anyway identical, only similar enough for them to be distinguishable from any other piece of conceptual knowledge. And how this works is indeed still a mystery, which might be discovered with science later. But the fact remains this function applies to all normal fully functional human beings, so its a universal human attribute anyway which leads us to assume that since different individuals are still basic human beings at the core so we all must perceive and store realty and conceptual knowledge in the same way as evidenced by universal attributes of language.It is because of the mystery that we still don't understand exactly how humans categorizes knowledge is why you might consider it related to mysticism, platonims, etc.The rest of your statement here then fall flat because empiricism and metaphysical naturalism must first be based on an epistomological foundation for them to have any usefulness or meaning at all.
I always thought of the cave allegory as implying that there is an "unseeable extra reality" that projects these shadows of which we humans will never be able to perceive, in effect implying some sort of supernatural explanation for reality itself. But still this is in no way discounts the fact that we can still categorize the differently and unique shadows but still similar to certain attributes and form foundational knowledge from these shadows, because its indeed a reality that we perceive that again is logically persistent and consistent with aggregatted memory.
It doesn't work, because if your position is self-contradictory it must be based on some standard on which to be able to make the claim, a standard that relativism itself discards.Which still fails because preconditions X, assumptions Y, within context of Z must rely on an objective standard that relativism itself rejects.Yes, but that doesn't discard objectivism itself. Objectivism states that if you have an error then you must check your premises (assumptions) all the way to its irrefutable foundations such as the law of non-contradiction (A=A), etc and start again.I would like you to see you refute anything I have said here.

Gurdur

Personally, I'ld like to see a response from you, 99percent, to Kantian's criticism of your first post in this thread.

Kantian

I wouldn't count on it.

99%'s response to Nials is confused- the confusion stemming from the use of the word 'objectivism.' Nials meant objectivism in the ancient philosophical sense (in opposition to relativism), whereas 99% is wearing the spectacles of Randianism.

I suggest the word 'objectivity' instead of Objectivism to avoid further confusion.

~Transcendentalist~

Primal

Could I with absolute assurance say for example: "I am having a sensation right now", for example that "I am seeing now" or "I am hearing now"?

If not, how then could I be proven wrong on the matter?

I'm not asking if what I'm seeing is real(part of the outside world), but whether or not I am "seeing" or "sensing" at all.

Keith Russell

Primal:

You're asking this question of someone else?

Really? (LOL.)

Keith.

Keith Russell

Nial:

To accept the analogy of the cave as valid, one has to assume that we can, at least, perceive accurately that there are shadows--and also that we have the ability to accurately perceive that the shadows are, 'in fact', being cast by something else 'beyond' our perception.

The analogy itself was designed to cast doubt even upon this level of accuracy.

It is a contradiction; self-refuting.

Keith.

John Page

There are two interpretations, in my experience. The first is where reality is taken to be one's environment, i.e. that outside the perceiver and not part of the perceiver. The second acknowledges that the perceiver is part of reality him/herself. This second view becomes apparent when imagining the viewpoint of a second person studying the perceiver.

I subscribe to the second definition which results in part of reality perceiving itself, consistent with self-consciousness.
How does it fail and why is it not real? Why does it have to be logical? Everything is part of reality (unless you are excluding the perceiver's imagination). IMO logic is driven by our reality not the other way around, mankind's fallibility is demonstrated by the development of logic over time to fit more closely our reality. Truth, therefore, (going back to your first question) comes from the "persistence" or "repetition" that you mention. Our perception that "something" exists is due to our ability to differentiate between the many parts of reality (black, white, hard, soft, hot cold etc. all the way through to good, bad, logical, illogical etc.).
Agreed we don't fully understand our minds yet.
I don't think usefulness enters into it. Meaning is contextual and is our apprehension of the usefulness of language. IMO epistemology alone doesn't provide a full picture, there needs to be a complementary explanation of what there is and how we come to know it, i.e. ontology + epistemology.
That there may be parts of reality we do not yet apprehend.
My own brand of relativism permits one to observe the outcome of X,Y,Z but does not admit those variables as absolutes. IMO reality is an ever changing environment and our minds pick out "constant relationships". In this manner, an objective methodology can be seen to expand the limits of a truth (or hypothesis) through experimentation. What I deny is that one can be completely objective about reality.
Your statement above about objectivism (objectivity) is self-refuting. If objectivity is the method then there would be no errors! LNC is not irrefutable BTW and besides you've given the formula for the Law of Identity. LOI and LNC are axioms (conventions) in logic used in methods for determining truth functionality. Propositional logic and set theory are blighted by their inability to resolve the Liar Paradox and Russell's Antinomy (and other paradoxes). IMO this is because truth (or truthfulness) is a relation and not an absolute - again fully consistent with relativism.

Hope this explains why our perception of reality differs.

Cheers, John

Thomas Ash

Hi Hugo - can I join in? I'll try and reprise my role as an intrepid epistemologist, in search of Objective Morality. (I had quite an interesting conversation with a Christian last night, with me trying to convince him about this while we were both drunk... we did both realize that this was a bit of an odd thing to be doing, but oh well...)
I'll try to stay as general as possible, but wouldn't you say that two specific types or relativism - relativism about reality and relativism about morality, are the two over-arching branches? It's quite common for people to be relativists about morality but not about reality, or to be relativist about both (like you, I think ) or relativist about neither.
Well, I think that relativism is self-refuting because it does necessarily involve a truth-claim. But I'll try to prove that, not just assert it.
One objection I have to the first point is that it's vague. I'd agree that in a sense almost all our perceptions are relative to something, and I think a lot of non-relativists would also agree. It all depends on the sense in which you mean it, and whether you think there is some 'objective reality' on which your relative perceptions are based. This is the viewpoint I'd defend, but it's still perfectly compatible with accept that our experiences (eg. my seeing the empty Coke bottle in front of me) are themselves just relative and do not truly capture the objective reality. (I don't see how they could...)
Well, I agree that most people wouldn't cry 'relativist!' In fact, I can agree that beauty is relative and intersubjective like you suggest, though there are in fact quite precise scientific models of what type of faces look the most beautiful (I guess a few people might cry 'reductivist!' at this, but I don't think it undermines the experience of beauty at all.)
Oh no, I don't think this will work . The problem is that it still makes morality arbitrary, and there's no way to slice that that avoids making it a problem. A skeptic can just come along, ask 'So why should I not drop litter?' (or worse!), and you'll have no real answer for him.
I noticed you capitalized Objective Morality, and put it next to God. I don't think this is fair for a number of reasons:
1) The concept of objective morality, justified or not, is not supernatural.
2) People who argue for it rarely capitalize it, and it's there definition that should be argued against, just like you asked us (fairly) to argue against your definition of relativism and not a straw man.
3) If objective morality does exist, then it's just another part of reality, just as if Religion or Christianity turned out to be true, they would simply become branches of science or philosophy.
I've jumped the gun a bit, and answered this point and 3 and 4 in my above paragraph.
Best wishes,
Thomas

99Percent

I will respond to Kantian as requestedEven though you claim not to be a relativist, your response is self evident.And will they ever agree to anything fundamentally? A relativist can agree to another relativist and then change his mind later by altering the parameters of his original agreement. In the end its futile and uselessNot so. The failure to converse with a theist is merely the difference on where the foundation rests. The theist has a fundamental faith on some ultimate source of truth outside of his ability to perceive it and understand it. The objectivist relies on his ability to perceive current reality and understand it with reason to lay down the philosophical, not theological, foundations of truth. For example I understand that total truth in the absolute sense is impossible, since we would have to know the whole universe, past and present. But we can certainly as human beings know the relevant truth that applies to us in a meaningful and rational way. There is an absolute truth in the human sense which is derived through metaphysical naturalism. Personally I don't think relativists really are what they claim to be. They would literally go insane in their inability to understand reality. The relativists refuges in his freedom to alter reality to what he sees fit for himself to escape his responsibility as a human to face it, much like a theist.