Steve Watson

Three Pointless Dialogues on Relativism about Truth

I was reading and listening to some Steven Pinker articles and podcasts (for Quillette, I believe) talking about his new book on rationality, and one of the throwaway points he makes is that relativism about truth is a bad position. I don’t doubt that, but I’m not so sure that the argument that no-one is a relativist about what matters most to them is a very convincing one, and nor is the argument adapted from the anti-total skeptic argument so obviously applicable. (The latter goes ‘There are no true statements’ ‘Is that true?’) Anyway, I thought I’d have three goes at clarifying or Socratizing the claim. They don’t really go anywhere very conclusive, but I thought they were amusing enough to keep.

The first effort

A: All truths are relative
B: Do you mean that all truths are subjective and dependent upon persons and circumstances?
A: Yes, that’s about the size of it.
B: Well, is that statement itself a relative truth?
A: Presumably so; why?
B: Because if it is then it’s only true for some persons and circumstances.
A: That’s as may be, but if it’s true for just one person then it’s true for all persons.
B: How so?
A: Because if it is true for me, say, that all statements are true for some persons and circumstances and not for others, then for any statement if someone, say Bob, says it’s true then there are other persons who will say it is false, and it will follow that that statement will be seen by Bob to be true for some and false for others, and Bob will agree that truth is therefore relative.
B: I doubt that Bob will agree to that. Bob is likely to say that if a statement is true then it’s true for him, and if someone else says it’s not true for them then they are just wrong.
A: On what grounds could Bob say that? He’d have to think that in saying that a statement is true that he’s making a universal claim on behalf of all utterer’s of the statement.
B: Yes, he probably does. He probably thinks that that’s exactly what the truth predicate does – that’s what it means to be true. To talk about ‘relative’ truths is to talk about truth having a qualification which is just outside its scope. A statement that is true for some but not for others is either referring to characteristics of some but not others or is just not a properly formed statement.
A: Well, I suppose we’d better try to work out what is meant by ‘true’ then.
B: Yes, and possibly before we start describing it as relative or universal.

Second try

A: All truths are relative
B: You mean that all indicative statements are true for some people but not true for other people?
A: Yes; or all indicative statements may be true for some people and at the same time not true for other people.
B: OK. Let’s put this in clearer terms: you’re saying that for any such statement there’s a possible world in which it is true for some and not true for others.
A: That’s close enough.
B: And that would apply to that statement too I suppose?
A: Of course. The rule applies to any indicative statement, and that’s one of those.
B: Then there’s a possible world in which it is true that that statement is true for some and not true for others?
A: Sure.
B: It follows that in the possible world where it is true for some and not true for others, there are certain people for whom it is not true that there’s a possible world in which it is true that that statement is true for some and not true for others.
A: Yikes; but yes, that seems right.
B: If for those people there is no such possible world, then certainly the actual world is not going to be such a possible world.
A: Yes, but is this the actual world with respect to them or the actual world with respect to us? I mean is it the world they are in which they would call the actual world, or the world we are actually in which to them is just another possible world?
B: It hardly matters does it?  But let’s say it’s our actual world. For those people it is true that this world is not a world in which that statement is true for some people and not true for other people. So it is not true that any indicative statement may be true for some people and not true for others.

Third go

A: All truths are relative
B: You mean that all indicative statements are true for some people but not true for other people?
A: Yes, something like that.
B: So, if that’s true, then there are going to be people for whom the statement that all truths are relative is going to be false.
A: Presumably, why?
B: Because for those people it will not be the case that all truths are relative. For those people it will be case that some truths are true for everyone at the same time. So they will truly say that some statement is true for everyone – and the relativist may not truly say that that statement is untrue.