{"id":554,"date":"2021-10-18T22:15:38","date_gmt":"2021-10-18T12:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/?p=554"},"modified":"2021-10-18T22:32:42","modified_gmt":"2021-10-18T12:32:42","slug":"three-pointless-dialogues-on-relativism-about-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/2021\/10\/18\/three-pointless-dialogues-on-relativism-about-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Pointless Dialogues on Relativism about Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2019t doubt that, but I\u2019m 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 \u2018There are no true statements\u2019 \u2018Is that true?\u2019) Anyway, I thought I\u2019d have three goes at clarifying or Socratizing the claim. They don\u2019t really go anywhere very conclusive, but I thought they were amusing enough to keep.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first effort<\/span><\/p>\n

A: All truths are relative<\/span>
\n B: Do you mean that all truths are subjective and dependent upon persons and circumstances?<\/span>
\n A: Yes, that\u2019s about the size of it.<\/span>
\n B: Well, is that statement itself a relative truth?<\/span>
\n A: Presumably so; why?<\/span>
\n B: Because if it is then it\u2019s only true for some persons and circumstances.<\/span>
\n A: That\u2019s as may be, but if it\u2019s true for just one person then it\u2019s true for all persons.<\/span>
\n B: How so?<\/span>
\n 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\u2019s 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.<\/span>
\n B: I doubt that Bob will agree to that. Bob is likely to say that if a statement is true then it\u2019s true for him, and if someone else says it\u2019s not true for them then they are just wrong. <\/span>
\n A: On what grounds could Bob say that? He\u2019d have to think that in saying that a statement is true that he\u2019s making a universal claim on behalf of all utterer\u2019s of the statement.<\/span>
\n B: Yes, he probably does. He probably thinks that that\u2019s exactly what the truth predicate does \u2013 that\u2019s what it means<\/em> to be true. To talk about \u2018relative\u2019 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.<\/span>
\n A: Well, I suppose we\u2019d better try to work out what is meant by \u2018true\u2019 then.<\/span>
\n B: Yes, and possibly before we start describing it as relative or universal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Second try<\/span><\/p>\n

A: All truths are relative<\/span>
\n B: You mean that all indicative statements are true for some people but not true for other people?<\/span>
\n A: Yes; or all indicative statements may be<\/em> true for some people and at the same time not true for other people.<\/span>
\n B: OK. Let\u2019s put this in clearer terms: you\u2019re saying that for any such statement there\u2019s a possible world in which it is true for some and not true for others.<\/span>
\n A: That\u2019s close enough.<\/span>
\n B: And that would apply to that statement too I suppose?<\/span>
\n A: Of course. The rule applies to any<\/em> indicative statement, and that\u2019s one of those.<\/span>
\n B: Then there\u2019s a possible world in which it is true that that statement is true for some and not true for others?<\/span>
\n A: Sure.<\/span>
\n 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\u2019s a possible world in which it is true that that statement is true for some and not true for others.<\/span>
\n A: Yikes; but yes, that seems right.<\/span>
\n 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. <\/span>
\n 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?<\/span>
\n B: It hardly matters does it?\u00a0 But let\u2019s say it\u2019s our<\/em> 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Third go<\/span><\/p>\n

A: All truths are relative<\/span>
\n B: You mean that all indicative statements are true for some people but not true for other people?<\/span>
\n A: Yes, something like that.<\/span>
\n B: So, if that\u2019s true, then there are going to be people for whom the statement that all truths are relative is going to be false.<\/span>
\n A: Presumably, why?<\/span>
\n 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 \u2013 and the relativist may not truly say that that statement is untrue.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019t doubt that, but I\u2019m not so sure that the argument that no-one is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arguments","category-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":557,"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions\/557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevewatson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}