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Why talk of relativism at all? It's such a vague term. Does "relative" mean context dependent? Does it mean arbitrary? Something else? Nobody who uses this ter

Why talk of relativism at all? It's such a vague term. Does "relative" mean context dependent? Does it mean arbitrary? Something else? Nobody who uses this term seems to be in any hurry to clarify this. I suspect it's more of a marketing term, hitchhiking on the prestige of Einstein, than a concrete position worth arguing about.

mensetmanusman 3y ago
People talk about everything.
r_hoods_ghost 3y ago
Given relativism is a term that started being used in English philosophy in the 1860s and in German philosophy prior to that you'd be dead wrong.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  FWIW, Galilean relativity aka Galilean invariance, the idea that Newton's laws are true in all inertial reference frames, predates that by a few centuries. But I'm not sure when they started using the word relativity for this.
  - mdp2021 3y ago
    The term 'relative' is Latin, and it is used for "reference" (of course: fero and latus are in the same verb). Galieo uses the term 'relative', and to mean the judgement about magnitudes, but not for the invariance. The paragraph about the motion (the ships) does not contain it. The term 'relativity' in English was coined by Coleridge; in Physics, adopted by Maxwell - see https://www.etymonline.com/word/relativity https://www.etymonline.com/word/relativity In philosophy, as the parent mentioned, 'relativism' appears first in German in Wilhelm Traugott Krug (the successor of Kant), in 1838 - seemingly in a lexicographical work -, then in English in John Grote (1865) - see https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism
smif 3y ago
In the context of philosophy it's usually meant in contrast to objectivism. So a moral objectivist might say that there exist an objective set of universal morals that apply to everyone. In contrast, a moral relativist might say that morality depends on the culture and that there is no universal set of morals. There are shades in between as well. When using the terms(relativism and objectivism) more generally, it means something like that dichotomy of "there exist an objective set of univeral X" vs. "there is no objective set of X". Note that in other contexts these terms can have other meanings (notably Rand's Objectivism political philosophy means something quite different).
- mjburgess 3y ago
  Subjective is the opposite of objective. Most objective phenomena are relative to something else, eg., space. 'Relative' has no relevance to 'objective'
  - smif 3y ago
    This is true in everyday conversational English usage of the terms, but in the context of philosophy, they acquire additional meaning and connotations. It's kind of like how when we (programmers) say "functional programming" we have a very specific concept in mind. If a lay person read and interpreted that phrase literally, they would probably not have the same concept in mind. They might even ask "What is functional programming? Isn't all programming functional? How can there be non-functional programming? etc." What we mean when we say it is a style of programming that is often contrasted against object-oriented or procedural programming styles. We have supplanted the ordinary English meaning of these words and attached additional connotations and meaning to them. It's the same thing happening with the terms above in philosophy.
    - mjburgess 3y ago
      It's exactly the other way around. It's lay people using 'relative' to mean 'subjective'. In philosophy, 'relativism' is sometimes short for 'cultural relativism' as in the case of moral or epistemic --- but relativism in this sense is short for one highly specific 'relative' relation (ie., a relation to culture). And lay people use 'objective' to mean 'universal', which it doesn't. Cultural relativism is consistent with an objective metaethics.
goatlover 3y ago
Epistemological relativism broadly means we don’t have access to objective truth.
kafkaesque 3y ago
For context, you can refer to section 2.1 here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/protagoras/#AllThinMeasManEpisInte https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/protagoras/#AllThinMeasMa... Sure, it doesn't take long to explain the gist of Protagoras' Truth, because it is fairly bare bones. I'm not sure what the intent was to post this specific University of Reading link. It's the kind of thing that is taught for a few minutes at the start of an intro course.
mdp2021 3y ago
> Why talk of relativism Many deny the existence of truth. 'Relativism' refers at least to that position.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
brutusborn 3y ago
Because it’s useful. If Truth is relative, then we should approach the search for truth differently. These are classes of arguments that use ‘relative’ in this way, and it is useful to collect them together with the term ‘Relativism.’

mensetmanusman 3y ago

People talk about everything.

r_hoods_ghost 3y ago

Given relativism is a term that started being used in English philosophy in the 1860s and in German philosophy prior to that you'd be dead wrong.

mcpackieh 3y ago
FWIW, Galilean relativity aka Galilean invariance, the idea that Newton's laws are true in all inertial reference frames, predates that by a few centuries. But I'm not sure when they started using the word relativity for this.
- mdp2021 3y ago
  The term 'relative' is Latin, and it is used for "reference" (of course: fero and latus are in the same verb). Galieo uses the term 'relative', and to mean the judgement about magnitudes, but not for the invariance. The paragraph about the motion (the ships) does not contain it. The term 'relativity' in English was coined by Coleridge; in Physics, adopted by Maxwell - see https://www.etymonline.com/word/relativity https://www.etymonline.com/word/relativity In philosophy, as the parent mentioned, 'relativism' appears first in German in Wilhelm Traugott Krug (the successor of Kant), in 1838 - seemingly in a lexicographical work -, then in English in John Grote (1865) - see https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism

smif 3y ago

In the context of philosophy it's usually meant in contrast to objectivism. So a moral objectivist might say that there exist an objective set of universal morals that apply to everyone. In contrast, a moral relativist might say that morality depends on the culture and that there is no universal set of morals. There are shades in between as well. When using the terms(relativism and objectivism) more generally, it means something like that dichotomy of "there exist an objective set of univeral X" vs. "there is no objective set of X". Note that in other contexts these terms can have other meanings (notably Rand's Objectivism political philosophy means something quite different).

mjburgess 3y ago
Subjective is the opposite of objective. Most objective phenomena are relative to something else, eg., space. 'Relative' has no relevance to 'objective'
- smif 3y ago
  This is true in everyday conversational English usage of the terms, but in the context of philosophy, they acquire additional meaning and connotations. It's kind of like how when we (programmers) say "functional programming" we have a very specific concept in mind. If a lay person read and interpreted that phrase literally, they would probably not have the same concept in mind. They might even ask "What is functional programming? Isn't all programming functional? How can there be non-functional programming? etc." What we mean when we say it is a style of programming that is often contrasted against object-oriented or procedural programming styles. We have supplanted the ordinary English meaning of these words and attached additional connotations and meaning to them. It's the same thing happening with the terms above in philosophy.
  - mjburgess 3y ago
    It's exactly the other way around. It's lay people using 'relative' to mean 'subjective'. In philosophy, 'relativism' is sometimes short for 'cultural relativism' as in the case of moral or epistemic --- but relativism in this sense is short for one highly specific 'relative' relation (ie., a relation to culture). And lay people use 'objective' to mean 'universal', which it doesn't. Cultural relativism is consistent with an objective metaethics.

goatlover 3y ago

Epistemological relativism broadly means we don’t have access to objective truth.

kafkaesque 3y ago

For context, you can refer to section 2.1 here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/protagoras/#AllThinMeasManEpisInte https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/protagoras/#AllThinMeasMa... Sure, it doesn't take long to explain the gist of Protagoras' Truth, because it is fairly bare bones. I'm not sure what the intent was to post this specific University of Reading link. It's the kind of thing that is taught for a few minutes at the start of an intro course.

mdp2021 3y ago

> Why talk of relativism Many deny the existence of truth. 'Relativism' refers at least to that position.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

brutusborn 3y ago

Because it’s useful. If Truth is relative, then we should approach the search for truth differently. These are classes of arguments that use ‘relative’ in this way, and it is useful to collect them together with the term ‘Relativism.’