Relativism

Relativism is sometimes identified (usually by its critics) as the thesis that all points of view are equally valid. In ethics, this amounts to saying that all moralities are equally good; in epistemology it implies that all beliefs, or belief systems, are equally true. Critics of relativism typically dismiss such views as incoherent. Perhaps because relativism is associated with such views, few philosophers are willing to describe themselves as relativists. How controversial, and how coherent, forms of relativism are will obviously vary according to what is being relativized to what, and in what manner. In contemporary philosophy, the most widely discussed forms of relativism are moral relativism, cognitive relativism, and aesthetic relativism.

Socrates was more interested in ethical matters than metaphysical questions about the nature of reality. Socrates was not an epistemic or moral relativist. He used rational questioning as a way of discovering the truth about ethical matters. But he did not advance any ethics or claim to know to about ethical matters. Instead, his criticism of the Sophists and his contribution to philosophy and science came in the form of his method of questioning.

Plato is not convinced that philosophy can go beyond knowledge to replace opinion. He says radical relativism is the same as silence. Plato’s answer is the dualism of the senses and the Forms, the search for knowledge consisting of the discovery of or participation with innate ideas. He portrays Socrates as a fair questioner who is “barren of wisdom,” whose method will give true answers to the epistemological questions Plato is concerned with. Seems an incorrect account of Plato’s views toward Socrates since he was a follower and friend of Socrates.

“A human being is the measure of all things; of things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not.” From this famous quotation, the notion of Protagorean relativism is also commonly referred to as the �measure doctrine.’ This is the idea that there is no objective truth to anything; truth is always relative to the subject—the person doing the observing. Things actually are for me as I perceive them to be, and the same goes for you and every other person.

If all truth is relative, then the truth of this claim is relative. To say that all truth is relative cannot be absolutely true. Let me take another approach leading to the same result. Truth for me include such claims as, "Jesus rose from the dead." Is it possible that for me this could be true, but for you it could be false? Can the statement, "Jesus rose from the dead," be true if the statement, "Jesus did not rise from the dead," is true also? In other words, can a statement and its contradiction both be true? If the key terms have the same meaning, both statements can’t be true without violating the law of no contradiction.