eowynn

What about mathematical truths? 2+2=4. Are those relativistic or absolute? I think a case could be made either way......

Vorkosigan

When people say "absolute truths" they generally mean moral truths, not physical ones. Or, alternatively, "absolute" in the sense of something like a Platonic Ideal, which do not exist. In thoses cases it is safe to say there are no absolutes.

Michael

svensky

Oops. Malarkey is nonesense.

The part about logic, or the part where they have the audacity to mention a creator ?

Jason

John Page

The "Man's mind was on the principles of.." bit is to me the metaphysical equivalent of many gonads.

Now where were we, oh yes, why must the universe contain some absolute truths?

Maybe we need to define the term "absolute truths" - do you mean soemthing that can always be proven true for specific circumstances, or do you mean something that is true for all time and space etc.?

[ February 28, 2002: Message edited by: John Page ]</p>

Kent Stevens

Can you prove that there exist relativistic or absolute proofs. I would say that you just assume that truths exist.

For to prove there are truths you need premises in some arguments. These premises need to be true for the argument to be valid. So you assume that there are at least some truths to prove that there at least some truths. But this is circular reasoning which is invalid.

If absolute truths exist why do religious people go against them. For in the bible there are absolute truths that slavery is justified, it is all right to kill children if they offend their parents, that it is all right for an invading army to rape the conquered women. Or perhaps morality such as with the use of slavery changes over time. To deny some degree of moral relativism is to deny history and reality.

phaedrus

Hey Adrian

I agree the key word is 'all', I would not see the point in disputing facts such as 'the sun rises in the east' if everyone on earth, and everyone that comes on the earth agrees that this happens.....snip....Pragmatically speaking, I can't think of a single reason why I would dispute such a statement, but in agreeing with the rest of humanity on it, I believe we have an intersubjective truth.

Agreed. It is an intersubjective truth and that is what is required for a smooth functioning of the society. The problem only arises when any statement or issue or system, claims a privileged status due to its "foundation". This is what gave rise to the anti-foundationlism souls who reject any claim for "gods'-eye-view". All are just various interpretations of reality, some are accepted by the majority and some are not.

But as there can be no absolute foundation for this belief, because I could be wrong, I'm saying only that if I were to adapt my thinking to argue that the truth of my statements about reality depends on my conception of it, I would see greater absurdities in conclusions drawn from that than I would from supposing the world to exist objectively. I'm not a fan of the view that I impose truth on reality, rather than attempt to describe reality truly. While truth is a human concept etc. I'm trying to say that I'm not defining reality with it, rather, reality is defining what I can hold to be true, as far as I observe it accurately.

Zigjackly, its the individual who views the world based on your web of beliefs which in turn are formed due to historical/cultural/linguistic grounding. One cant get out of the web of beliefs and try to state absolute objective statements. What we can do is take whatever we assume to be the closest to our beliefs and live life accordingly and more importantly acknowledge that there are other beliefs about reality as well. (We might ridicule some beliefs or reject them, but the fact is everyone lives in their "well" and a healthy respect and interaction between these belief systems is what could give rise to a pluralistic world). I have used this quote earlier, let me use it again...

My reading of relativism is not stating that all beliefs are equal and everything goes, its about realising the pluralistic nature of the world we live in and try to live in it the best way we can.

Whether they are some set of universal natural laws is not important. It is to remember that inspite of the herd mentality, it is the "particular" that matters not the universal. Regarding the remainder of your post, hope my earlier post clarified few things and those links are there as such

JP

John Page

As to Phaedrus' suggestion we should consider a uniquely privileged view: I think you could claim it but not prove it (see above!), what is going on is hypothesizing about what a superview might look like.

And how did you come to the conclusion that i am asking you to consider a uniquely privileged view. If you read again you would see me giving my view on realtivism which rejects the notion of an existence of any uniquely privileged view.

Adrian Selby

"its the individual who views the world based on your web of beliefs which in turn are formed due to historical/cultural/linguistic grounding. One cant get out of the web of beliefs and try to state absolute objective statements. "

I'm not sure I'm trying to say this, with reference to this quote I want to say that I don't view the world based on my web of beliefs, the world shapes my web of beliefs, and it changes according to my understanding of the world. If I therefore think the world doesn't change because of me, it is as it is, then there must be some truths about it that would make various sets of beliefs wrong, consider the evil spirits/medicine man and the doctor/medicine beliefs about illness.

While I have beliefs formed by my upbringing, my belief that it is raining outside hasn't got anything to do with them. Is this a belief that could sensibly be refuted by someone else in the same room looking out of this window, whatever words they use for rain?

I'm not sure one can't get out of the web of beliefs, because it implies that such beliefs are static structures, that can't adapt to new information. Again, while I can respect other belief systems that attempt to describe the world, I couldn't equate science as a belief system with them because of its success, or rather, its consistently intersubjectively agreeable conclusions. When looking for candidates for absolute truth statements in respect of reality, science seems to do very well, I'm not sure the relativist could agree on this, because to me relativism implies that there is no standard beyond science and a competing belief structure which could verify either as describing the world more accurately. In fact 'more accurately' itself is a phrase with objective truth leanings, once one denies that there can be an absolute truth statement, I wonder how one can hold any position that regards certain systems as having greater efficacy than others, when they cannot have standards beyond them to look to.

Adrian

John Page

Phaedrus:

You said: And how did you come to the conclusion that i am asking you to consider a uniquely privileged view. If you read again you would see me giving my view on realtivism which rejects the notion of an existence of any uniquely privileged view.

OK, but you did consider it, right? I think we're in agreement, the uniquely privileged view is at best hypothetical.

Adrian:

Regarding the web of beliefs, I agree with you. i.e. the beliefs interact with each other within your mind and with its external reality. I assert that truth(s) is(are) a value(s) within the mind and must therefore fall within the realm of relativism.

The standards we look to include direct experience of external reality, the structure of the mind and its relation to the body, use of formal systems etc. We internalize these standards and cannot, therefore, achieve true objectivity. Again, this supports relativism.

Have I misconstrued your post?

Adrian Selby

I wouldn't say it supports relativism, because external reality dictates what our beliefs about it are. The question becomes one of deciding on the parameters for success with regard to beliefs about the world, so if we define parameters as predictability, then scientific beliefs about events based on experience and all the rest, will do very well.

Just because truths come about as a result of our interaction with experience doesn't mean that we can't be stating absolute truths while not being able to conceive the absolute nature of them.

I'm sure I can have a belief structure that interprets the drops of water falling from the sky as rain. And somebody else might say they can't see this, or see some phenomenon and use entirely different terms to describe it. Are we living in different realities? No. Are we describing the same reality differently due to our belief structures? Very likely yes.

If we allow the latter, then there must be some description that fits the reality, i.e. that sucessfully identifies that the rain is something and not another thing. And if we're observing the world at large, science has a growing body of consistent explanations for it all, right down to atoms.

Perhaps we do have to concede that descriptions of a given part of the world compete, but they must nevertheless conform to it. One cannot deny there is a door if one cannot pass between two rooms as if it wasn't there. One can therefore distinguish between descriptions of the world on the basis of whether or not they describe, in this instance, an object that stops free movement between rooms.

Is there any meaningful difference between statements that differently describe the same reality, i.e. a door between two rooms, or rain, or can they both be expressions that truly describe some feature of the world, for the statements wouldn't conflict logically, because the only real conflict could occur if one denies the existence of the door or of rain, or the phenomena to which these concepts are attached. And if the statements don't conflict in respect of the world, aren't they both candidates for absolute truth, and not only true relative to the perceiver? I'm sure this doesn't sound totally right, but i'm too busy at the mo to organise my thinking better.

Adrian

John Page

Adran:

I do not disagree that there are localized truths. These localized truths are absolutely true within the scope of their premises and method of truth determination etc. If this is the "absolute truth" you are talking about, pax.

How about this: To attain absolute truth is to be god, the unknowable.

Can we approach our differences by agreeing a definition of the "absolute truth" we cannot attain? Advance warning: This is a Nihilist Trojan Horse - if you agree any such definition you will be agreeing to relativism - on the other hand if you define absolute truth as something you know then you become - <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> god <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> .

[ March 01, 2002: Message edited by: John Page ]</p>