Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

long winded fool,

Perhaps I should make it clear, that when I criticize "absolutism" I am referring to the following things:

(1) The tendency to claim that the axioms of logic (or whatever axioms the arguer prefers) are "absolute truths", when as far as I can see, axioms are just arbitrary starting points for a philosophical model.

(2) The traditional judgement system, which insists that if two statements contradict each other, one must be right and the other must be wrong. (Whereas, in many cases, contradictions are only apparent, and they can be reconciled when you learn more about the context of each statement.)

(3) The habit in traditional critical thinking of assuming absolutes; as in, for example, the assumption that "every example of the thing I have seen" is equivalent to "all things of this type". Personally, I feel that if you cover over uncertainty in this way, it is all too easy to forget that the uncertainty exists.

(4) The belief that derived, syntactical truths -- that is, "truths" you infer from the abstract logic of a philosophical model -- are necessarily true in reality, and apply directly to the universe outside ourselves. (Whereas no model of reality ever has a 1 to 1 correspondence with reality itself, and to show that an idea works in practice and not just in theory, one needs to make some sort of empirical test.)

As far as I'm aware, "absolutism" is a term I have coined, and I don't know whether anyone has ever seriously described themselves in this way. If I have unfairly labelled you an "absolutist", it is probably because you came out so strongly against relativism. When people criticize relativism like this, I find it is often because they are attempting to defend one of the four things I described above.

long winded fool

If there is no reason to doubt an axiom, shouldn't it be assumed true until there is? Why does assuming truth necessarily preclude flexibility to a relativist? Sometimes foundations are assumed true and a system is then built from an assumed foundation. Sometimes that foundation turns out to be false and the system collapses. I see no room for a foundation that can be neither true nor false. A hypothesis that is absolutely neither true nor false can never be used.

(2) The traditional judgement system, which insists that if two statements contradict each other, one must be right and the other must be wrong. (Whereas, in many cases, contradictions are only apparent, and they can be reconciled when you learn more about the context of each statement.)

If two statements contradict each other, one must be right and another must be wrong, or else both are wrong. Do you agree that two contradicting things cannot both be right? If you disagree, please provide an example of two contradicting things that are both right.

(3) The habit in traditional critical thinking of assuming absolutes; as in, for example, the assumption that "every example of the thing I have seen" is equivalent to "all things of this type". Personally, I feel that if you cover over uncertainty in this way, it is all too easy to forget that the uncertainty exists.

Does the fact that it is easy to forget that an assumption is just an assumption make all assumptions wrong? I know you don't think this, so in this respect my version of "absolutist" and your version of relativist share a common boundary. All you need to do to refute an argument is to destroy one of its premises. When this happens, the arguer knows that what he had wasn't absolute truth after all, since errors in logic are what create falsity.

(4) The belief that derived, syntactical truths -- that is, "truths" you infer from the abstract logic of a philosophical model -- are necessarily true in reality, and apply directly to the universe outside ourselves. (Whereas no model of reality ever has a 1 to 1 correspondence with reality itself, and to show that an idea works in practice and not just in theory, one needs to make some sort of empirical test.)

Someone who believes his or her philosophical system has a 1 to 1 correspondence with reality is being dogmatic. Someone who believes in the possibility (however improbable) of a 1 to 1 correspondence with reality is an absolutist. (My definition of absolutist, I suppose.) Someone who denies the possibility of 1 to 1 correspondence with reality is what I call a relativist.

As far as I'm aware, "absolutism" is a term I have coined, and I don't know whether anyone has ever seriously described themselves in this way. If I have unfairly labelled you an "absolutist", it is probably because you came out so strongly against relativism. When people criticize relativism like this, I find it is often because they are attempting to defend one of the four things I described above.

You aren't unfairly labeling me an absolutist, you are confusing dogmatism with belief in absolute truth. You are misapplying the label of absolutist to a specific form of "absolutism." It is true that Christians pray to the Saints. It is not true that ALL Christians pray to the Saints. Not all absolutists believe they have the authority to declare what's true and what isn't. They merely feel that they can rationally explore truths and by doing so get closer to absolute truth and systematically eliminate falsity. Your belief in varying degrees of usefulness reflects the same belief. You can use logic to determine what is useful and what is not. There is no logical difference between more and less useful systems and more and less moral people. The latter is just a little more politically complicated to determine. When it's all said and done, the truth arrived at is, and ever will be, absolute... unless an error was made, in which case it is (and always was) absolutely false. People's perceptions aren't perfect but truth and falsity are absolute.

NearNihil Experience

Keeping this short, I think some of the philosophical consequences of the General Theory of Relativity and the Special Theory of Relativity can go towards giving some answers. Not all, by far and I'm sure every answer would generate two questions each.These theories give material for thinking about relative and absolute from any perspective. Some of the brute fact functions of existence are included and given a verbal and visual component, no matter how strange the concepts seem.
Even applied to ethical circumstances and not everyday mechanics, relativity does seem to be the default function in any system within a singular contained space wherein one object interacts with either the environment(the singular contained space), or both the environment and any other "things" that are in any sort of symetrical(relative) relationship.
I'm no genius but I see a connection somewhere in there. Maybe I'm putting it there myself, chasing ghosts always happens in this area of thinking. But the obviousness of even the words relativ-ism and relativ-ity seems to gleam something.

Bob Stewart

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle,

I have some questions that are very similar to long winded fool's questions.


Yours I'm not sure what you mean here-- not sure about what you mean when you are talking about the 'axioms of logic' and not sure what you mean when you say they are 'arbitrary starting points'. Is

A. ~(P & ~P)

an 'axiom of logic' of the sort you are talking about?

If A is an 'axiom of logic', when you say it is arbitrary, do you mean that we, who use this 'axiom' could just as easily not use it? By use it, I mean make the inferences of the kind Bob makes in the following scenario and by not use it I mean make the kind of response that Alice makes in the following scenario:

Bob: "You lied to me! You said you didn't go to the movies".
Alice: "I know I said that I didn't go to the movies, but that didn't mean that I didn't go to the movies. That is only if you believe that ~( P & ~P). Since I don't, what I did is not inconsistent with what I did. So, I didn't lie.
Bob: Right!

Yours Could you give an example of what you have in mind here. It looks as if you are merely saying that sometimes something that looks like a contradiction turns out not to be a contradiction. But the traditional judgement system doesn't reject these possibilities. Do you really think that there are things that really are contradictory that can both be true? If so, can you give an example?

Yours Sometimes people may say something about "all things of this type" and it is based only on their experience of "Every example of the thing that they have seen". But this doesn't mean that they think the two are equivalent, does it? It just means that they are over-generalizing. Or isn't this what you mean?

Yours Could you give us an example (or some examples) of what you mean here? This is so abstract that I don't really understand it. For example, could you give a 'model of reality' that illustrates your point?

Thanks,

Bob Stewart

mhc

Not that you asked me, but.....

I think that axioms like the law of non-contradiction [~(P&~P)]
are necessarily true *as we define P*.

I think the problem is with the generalizing nature of language.

One might say, "This ball is red." According to sentential logic, we cannot then say "And, this ball is not red."

But of course the term "red" requires a strict definition if we are not to fall into a relativistic view, such as "To some colorblind people the ball is not red." Or, "Red is not a property of the ball, but of the light it reflects."

In short, we must know exactly what P represents when allowing it to represent some real thing.

But you guys know all that right?

Frotiw

Just to avoid confusion the theories of relativity are by no means relitivistic in epistemological philosophical terms. As bohr pointed out during the Einstein/Bohr debates*1 the theories of relativity relies on classic newtonian physics. This goes even more so for epistemological absolutism as the theory like any other theoty need as some knowledge to be true. It cannot be the case that not even one single fact is neither true or false hence relativism is false. Again the -ism in relativsm is important to note relativism is the postulate that NO(not even one) judgements can be accepted as true. I believe I agree with long winded fool.

Speculating on reltivism i think(along the lines of long winded fool I believe) that many feel tempted by reltivism for it's apparent modesty. The problem is just that absolutism is more "modest" than reltivism. Presume less.

I believe Kim o' the Concrete Jungle change to logical configuration of the problem. That is accepting as least one absolute truth while still being a relativist. Debatting on what concept should be used to what logical correlate is obviosly not intersting. One may say absolutism as accepting at least one true judgement other relatism as atleast one true judgment, this is not interesting. I have mosly(nearly always I believe) encounted the absolutist view that there is at least one true judgement and therefor accept this view.

My point of absolutsm is something along the lines of the statement that a judgement cannot be understood without accepting at least one absolute*. Whenever I am presented to a statement(including statements about relatism) I must consider it either true or false. A true relatism might actually be expressed but no meaning might be derived from it without viewing it through the categories of logic. In this view there is an open posibity that absolutism might be solely epistemological, that is as Kant's categories. Again this is just something I came up with it might "***te" after thorough thinking. At least I think it is a much more modest claim than the relativistic claim(as in the above definition).
I don't think the "any philosophical stance might be as good as another argument -> relativism" is very good. First of all this is easily acceptable by absolutism there is no contradition with this view and absolutism. An absolutist does not have to prove that a stance is correct one just as long as he believes that there is one that is correct. Again differentiating between varius stances depend on absolutism. We may never finally prove a theory true but this is not a proof for relatism. It is an example of epistemological borders and critic of the ability to accept anything as truth.

*1 Without further following this debate.

*2 This just something I came up with not that well though through, it's just for the sake of debate.

Anyway thanks for writting some great posts.

John Page

Yes, because a proposition is defined as a statement that is either absolutely true or absolutely false. However, in reality, the LNC (which is a proposition in of iteself, heehee) is false for some propositions.

e.g. All dogs have four legs. True? What about three legged dogs? OK, All dogs normally have four legs ad nauseum.
Relativism heap good. Relativism have no strict definition. White man speak with forked logic.

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Cheers, John

long winded fool

"All dogs have four legs," and "Some dogs have three legs," does not violate the law of non-contradiction, as the first is obviously a false proposition. Not all dogs have four legs. A false proposition cannot also be true, (and vice versa.) How about, "All men are mortal?" This is a true proposition. If you provide an example of an immortal man then the proposition becomes absolutely false and can never be true. In either case, the law of non-contradiction still applies. Any apparent violation of the LNC is merely a lapse in logic. The LNC is, for all intents and purposes, absolute. Paradoxes don't exist in reality. They exist within the limits of human understanding.

John Page

False. Men that are alive are not yet dead and therefore no proven to be mortal.
Apparent?
Paradoxes do exist in reality. Are human minds not part of reality?

Cheers, John

Keith Russell

Good morning.

The law of non-contradiction has nothing to do with the number of legs on a dog.

The fact that some dogs have four legs, while other (less fortunate) dogs have only three (or perhaps even fewer) legs, does not contradict A is A. A is A refers to the same object (an object is equal to itself), not to differences between two or more objects.

The Law of Identity states that a dog cannot (and will not) have both three and four legs at the same time.

The Law of Identity also has nothing to do with whether all human beings are mortal, or only the ones who happen to be dead right now.

It does, however, state that a person who is dead, is not alive--and vice versa.

A is A.

Keith.