Help! I am an attention whore and want to enfore a reaction!
category: general [glöplog]
-Gross/funny/dadaistic image
-Request to post something random
-Random request for help/group members/fix
-Extremely long and elaborate text showing I am a complete lunatic.
-Blog entry
-..
-Request to post something random
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-Extremely long and elaborate text showing I am a complete lunatic.
-Blog entry
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I LIKE YOU!
What does "enfore" mean?
enfore a penny, enfore a pound
I GO FOR IT! and I enfore aviable.
AND YOU FORGOT THE KITTY IMAGE !
Gross picture, check!
Funny picture, check!
Dadaistic image, check!
Now post a random... dog picture.
Check!
Hi. I'm starting a new demo group tomorrow, I'm looking for coders, graphicians, musicians and drunk fucktards to join my group.
Oh, how do you create a circle in OpenGL?
Check!
Long philosophy text:
WEAK NEO-MEILANDIAN RELATIVISM ABOUT TRUTH
ABSTRACT: Some years ago, Jack Meiland suggested that a viable relativistic concept of truth could be developed within the broad constraints of a correspondence theory by construing the relative truth of a statement as a three place relation among the statement, the world and a third relatum (individual, framework of belief, culture et c.). I attempt to develop this suggestion using a conceptual scheme as the third relatum and offer a thesis of relative truth employing it that avoids self-refutation without making truth overly subjective.
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Relativism retains its interest for a good many meta-scientists and Jack Meiland's 1977 remark that 'our age is an age of relativism'1 seems, in meta-scientific circles at least, to apply still. Relativism is, however, better thought of as a shifting collection of theses of dubious clarity and unclear inter-relationships than as a single thesis pure and simple2 and my concern is what follows is primarily with just one thesis of this collection - that statements (in particular, scientific statements) are (crudely speaking) capable only of relative truth. The thesis3 of relative truth has been called 'the Achilles' heel of relativism'4 and, in some versions at least, has been criticised from Plato on.5 Part of the difficulty has been to state the thesis in a way that, as Meiland puts it, does not include the notion of absolute truth6. Some years ago, Meiland offered an explication of relative truth that he thought held promise in this regard but, in a recent book, Harvey Siegel subjects Meiland's suggestion to refined versions of some standard criticisms and judges that promise not to be fulfilled7. In what follows, I wish to attempt to develop Meiland's idea further, such that it yields a viable concept of relative truth that is not open to standard criticisms. The key clauses in Meiland's paper are the following:
(1) The concept of absolute truth seems to be a concept of a two-term relation between statements (or perhaps propositions) on the one hand and facts (or states of affairs) on the other. But the concept of relative truth, as used by some relativists, seems to be a concept of a three-term relationship between statements, the world and a third term which is either persons, world views, or historical and cultural situations.
(2) The relation denoted by the expression 'absolute truth' is often said to be that of correspondence. The relativist can make use of this type of notion and say that "P is true relative to W" means something like "P corresponds to the facts from the point of view of W" (where W is a person, a set of leading principles, a world view, or a situation).8
In what follows I shall be concerned only with one type of W, namely conceptual schemes. By this I will mean a categorisation scheme for collecting the stuff of the universe into sorts. I mean this to be weaker than the more substantial theoretical commitments of a "world - view" and thus it is perhaps different to anything Meiland had in mind for W. The notion of conceptual scheme which I am employing is not quite what the reader will be assuming and I ask patience, it will be further expanded upon below.
Although admitting that his explication is incomplete and problematic, Meiland takes it to be adequate 'to begin to show that Husserl and other absolutists are making a great mistake by assuming that relative truth must be either nothing at all or else a variety of absolute truth'9 Crucial to the viability of the explication then is that the notion of relative truth does not include the notion of absolute truth.10 In further clarification of his idea, Meiland says that we should not view the form of a relative truth claim as appropriately expressed by 'P is true for W', for that raises the question: 'what does 'truth' mean in this claim?' and encourages us to answer 'absolute truth' and thus have our notion of relative truth include that of absolute truth. Rather, we should hyphenate, to get: 'P is true-for-W'. Here 'true' has no independent semantic role and is to be considered a mere part of a term 'true-for-W' much as 'cat' in 'cattle' is but a semantic fragment and not to be taken to mean the same as 'feline'.11
Relativism retains its interest for a good many meta-scientists and Jack Meiland's 1977 remark that 'our age is an age of relativism'1 seems, in meta-scientific circles at least, to apply still. Relativism is, however, better thought of as a shifting collection of theses of dubious clarity and unclear inter-relationships than as a single thesis pure and simple2 and my concern is what follows is primarily with just one thesis of this collection - that statements (in particular, scientific statements) are (crudely speaking) capable only of relative truth. The thesis3 of relative truth has been called 'the Achilles' heel of relativism'4 and, in some versions at least, has been criticised from Plato on.5 Part of the difficulty has been to state the thesis in a way that, as Meiland puts it, does not include the notion of absolute truth6. Some years ago, Meiland offered an explication of relative truth that he thought held promise in this regard but, in a recent book, Harvey Siegel subjects Meiland's suggestion to refined versions of some standard criticisms and judges that promise not to be fulfilled7. In what follows, I wish to attempt to develop Meiland's idea further, such that it yields a viable concept of relative truth that is not open to standard criticisms. The key clauses in Meiland's paper are the following:
Siegel complains about this that the cases are disanalogous12. Though 'cat' in 'cattle' is not a meaningful part, surely 'true' in 'true-for-W' is. 'For it is, after all, a conception of relative truth...'13 being offered. Siegel continues to say that, this being so, it has not been shown by Meiland that the concept of truth involved in the 'true' of 'true-for' is not that of absolute truth. I have some sympathy with Siegel's complaint here. In what sense, if any, are the concepts of absolute and relative truth both concepts of truth? What seems required of Meiland is a more general notion of truth which has (at least) two sub-species. If something can be done along these lines, then he could either withdraw his hyphenation and have it that 'true' in 'true for W' meant that broader concept or retain his hyphenation and have 'true-for-W' meaning a sub-species of the more general notion of truth (with absolute truth as another sub-species). On this latter option 'truth-for-W' would be meaningful only as a whole and the whole would be a label for the sub-species, relative truth, of the broader notion, truth. Use of the hyphenated label would be just a visual reminder that this is, after all, a (relativistic) variety of the (more general) notion of truth. But, were it to prove muddling to absolutists (who might tend to write in another sub-variety, absolute truth, as what's meant by 'true' in 'true-for-W') then perhaps some other, less misleading, technical label like 'relth' (or 'Jack', or 'Harvey'!) ought be substituted.
All of this seems to me to be fine and dandy except that it leaves obscure just what this more general notion of truth might be such that it allows of these two sub-varieties. Meiland does, it seems to me, go some way towards meeting this concern with his discussion of correspondence. Speculating as to why Husserl might see any notion of truth as having to include the notion of absolute truth he says that Husserl 'perhaps thinks of absolute truth as correspondence with reality and also thinks that any form or variety of truth has to involve correspondence with reality'14. Meiland responds by 'distinguishing between two-term correspondence and three-term correspondence. In other words we can bring both absolute truth and relative truth under the more general concept of correspondence with reality, although these two types of correspondence may differ considerably from one another'15. This is fine as far as it goes, but, as Meiland recognises,16 it's still obscure what might be meant by the putatively three-term relation of correspondence, 'P corresponds to reality for W', or, for that matter, what the more general, or generic, notion of correspondence might be. Meiland's response is to claim that, obscure though the three-term relativist notion of correspondence (and presumably the more general notion) is, 'the relativist is in no worse a position than the absolutist at this point'17.
Siegel is unimpressed by this and claims that the relativist is worse off but, as he doesn't here consider conceptual scheme variants of W, his discussion doesn't quite mellifluously fit in to our present one and I won't directly address his remarks.18 Rather, I will attempt to develop Meiland's notions further.
The traditional correspondence theory of truth has been widely criticised concerning the obscurity of each relatum and of the relation of correspondence between them but, at an intuitive level at least, it seems clear enough. There's a world "out there", just one world and there's a definite way that it is (it is if you like, one only of a range of "possible worlds" or ways that things might have been). Moreover, people have conceptions of it19, and make statements about how it is, and these statements might correspond to how the world actually is or they might not. Whatever difficulties might emerge upon closer analysis there is nonetheless an obvious commonsense clarity to this picture. Does the relativist have any such intuitively graspable three-term notion of correspondence, one that as easily gets to an intuitive "first base" of understanding? It's not clear to me that he has. The hard thing to grasp, it seems to me, is just how the conceptual scheme, the W, fits in. One obvious way is that any P will employ the categories and concepts of a W but I don't see how this helps distinguish the relativist's views for even the absolutist will say that of course any P employs some W but, that done, and P's sense established, the truth or falsity of that P is a two-place matter of correspondence of P and reality. Either reality is, or it is not, such that P corresponds to it.20 If it is not, the problem might well be that the W employed by P is the culprit, that the world just does not contain the kinds of thing postulated by W (and assumed by P) and thus P, assuming W, won't correspond to it. But to admit this is merely to note one source of non-correspondence of P and the world21 and constitutes no stimulus for conceiving of truth/falsity as some sort of peculiar three-term relation.
Relativism retains its interest for a good many meta-scientists and Jack Meiland's 1977 remark that 'our age is an age of relativism'1 seems, in meta-scientific circles at least, to apply still. Relativism is, however, better thought of as a shifting collection of theses of dubious clarity and unclear inter-relationships than as a single thesis pure and simple2 and my concern is what follows is primarily with just one thesis of this collection - that statements (in particular, scientific statements) are (crudely speaking) capable only of relative truth. The thesis3 of relative truth has been called 'the Achilles' heel of relativism'4 and, in some versions at least, has been criticised from Plato on.5 Part of the difficulty has been to state the thesis in a way that, as Meiland puts it, does not include the notion of absolute truth6. Some years ago, Meiland offered an explication of relative truth that he thought held promise in this regard but, in a recent book, Harvey Siegel subjects Meiland's suggestion to refined versions of some standard criticisms and judges that promise not to be fulfilled7. In what follows, I wish to attempt to develop Meiland's idea further, such that it yields a viable concept of relative truth that is not open to standard criticisms. The key clauses in Meiland's paper are the following:
But if this involvement of W won't suffice, what is the contribution of W to a three-term correspondence? It's not obvious. If I'm right in the above, then it is a legitimate challenge to Meiland to say that there is more of a problem for the relativist than the absolutist in providing a way of understanding his suggestion about truth, even admitting it to be embryonic.
Also, if we have both a two and a three-term relation of correspondence, what warrants us in deeming both to be sub-varieties of a more general notion? What, if you like, are the similarity and difference relationships of the three notions?
I think that something can be done in answering these challenges that is plausibly construable as relativistic and also seems a development of Meiland's ideas.
As I've said, I favour the third relatum being something like a conceptual scheme but even without exhaustive treatment of the hydra-like multitude of issues and controversies that emerge when one explores the suggestion, something more has to be said to clarify matters before it can be judged that the idea is at least a "starter". Even so, and donning a Meilandian cloak of humility, I acknowledge that what what follows is incomplete and problematic; it is, however, promising, and may be the most that an aspiring truth relativist can have, at least within the context of some sort of correspondence conception of truth. Perhaps it is an error for relativists to so restrict themselves and some sort of coherence account is more promising; but that is another story.22
As a related point, another assumption is some sort of common sense ontological realism, a commitment to there being just one world "out there". Anti-realist, solipsist/idealist, "many world" ontological pluralist23 (et c.) theories are ruled out, however much more promising they might superficially seem as a context within which to advance truth relativistic proposals.
Furthermore, I take what Swoyer24 calls 'strong relativism', in which some statement might be true-relative-to one conceptual scheme and false-relative-to another, to be a hopeless cause25. Rather, the task will be to develop some other, weaker, version of relativism.
I take it also that construing the third relatum as a framework of belief or a substantive theory about reality has intractable difficulties26 and, controversially, I shall operate with the assumption that a distinction can be made between a conceptual scheme in terms of which one might make statements about reality and the content of those statements themselves. Different, indeed contradictory, statements about what reality is like might be made in terms of the same conceptual scheme.
Further, though I have adopted the expression 'conceptual scheme' and the 'scheme' part of that suggests some sort of interlinked web of ideas, or an integrated network of concepts in terms of which to make claims about the world, I wish to remain neutral as to whether such semantic holism or a more semantically fragmented discretism ought be endorsed.
Barring something I shall come to, I shall also make no assumptions about what reality is like (except that there's only one universe). I shall talk of the stuff of the universe and 'stuff' is meant as possibly including gods, hobgoblins, non-corporeal minds, realms of abstract entities (like numbers or propositions) and so on.
Moreover, to avoid collapsing truth and mere belief, any account will have to allow that there might be truths that no-one believes and that some things believed (even widely believed) might be false27.
Finally, if it is to be a three place relation, our neo-Meilandian conception of relative truth must have three genuinely distinct relata28.
So, given all of this, can a viable concept of relative truth be offered? Perhaps, though it might be boring.
In explication of Meiland's idea of a general notion of correspondence with two-place (absolute truth) and three-place (relative truth) sub varieties, consider the following.
First, the general notion, what I shall call: 'The generic concept of truth" (GCT)29.
GCT: 'P is true (simpliciter)' means 'the world is such that it is as P portrays it to be'.
And the corresponding concept of falsehood30 is simply that it is not as P portrays.
Relativism retains its interest for a good many meta-scientists and Jack Meiland's 1977 remark that 'our age is an age of relativism'1 seems, in meta-scientific circles at least, to apply still. Relativism is, however, better thought of as a shifting collection of theses of dubious clarity and unclear inter-relationships than as a single thesis pure and simple2 and my concern is what follows is primarily with just one thesis of this collection - that statements (in particular, scientific statements) are (crudely speaking) capable only of relative truth. The thesis3 of relative truth has been called 'the Achilles' heel of relativism'4 and, in some versions at least, has been criticised from Plato on.5 Part of the difficulty has been to state the thesis in a way that, as Meiland puts it, does not include the notion of absolute truth6. Some years ago, Meiland offered an explication of relative truth that he thought held promise in this regard but, in a recent book, Harvey Siegel subjects Meiland's suggestion to refined versions of some standard criticisms and judges that promise not to be fulfilled7. In what follows, I wish to attempt to develop Meiland's idea further, such that it yields a viable concept of relative truth that is not open to standard criticisms. The key clauses in Meiland's paper are the following:
This is just a version of the usual vague correspondence theory's intuition of true statments corresponding to the facts or to the way things are. It is vague, yes, but all participants in this particular dispute consider the usual difficulties in spelling out a tighter formulation to be just that, difficulties, not catastrophic objections to the core conception. Also it is more the task of the more specific varieties to cash out this general conception.
In explication of the notions of absolute truth and relative truth, consider the following.
I take it that part of the positive idea31 of truth that absolutists have is that there just is a way that the world is, that it just has structures and features and its bits stand in relations and so forth and it is this natural patterning of the world's stuff that, if we're lucky, we might, in part, capture with a true statement .
So far, this is pretty close to a simple (though still vague) expansion of the generic notion so let me select a little. A distinction can be drawn between two sorts of categorisation of the stuff of the universe. In the first, the categorisation might capture a natural kind, in which nature is, as it is sometimes put, "carved at the joints". Whatever the difficulties for the notion of a natural kind32, I take it that the core intuition is clear, the stuff of the universe falls naturally into kinds and these categories are thus, in some sense, reified and not merely imposed upon the universe as some sort of useful artefactual classification of ours. Natural kind terms (should there be any, as opposed to putative natural kind terms) and conventional classification terms differ, then, in the ontological status of the categories of stuff they correspond to. And, of course, putative natural kind terms might fail to be natural kind terms yet succeed in referring to stuff which forms a conventional class33.
A statement (such as many would conceive of some statements of science to be) which, for example, purports to pick out natural kinds and contend that they stand in some relationship seems able to be true/false in a clear-cut world matching way. Either the world is such that it contains those kinds and they stand in that relationship or it is not. This seems a two place correspondence notion. And I shall employ it in the crafting of a concept of absolute truth (CAT).
CAT: 'P is absolutely-true' means 'the world is such that its stuff forms kinds as P portrays and is otherwise as P states'.
And the corresponding notion of absolute falsehood is that the world is such that its kinds are not as P portrays or is not otherwise as P states it to be.
In contrast, consider statements which do not purport to pick out natural kinds but just conventional classes and, again, say, contend that those classes stand in some relationship. Such a statement does not seem to be capable of truth/falsity in quite so clearcut a world matching way because, although the world stuff so classified is there to be matched, the classifications are not or not in the same ontological sense. The status of the third element, the conceptual scheme, is different; it is, so to speak, more autonomous of the nature or the world than a natural kind categorisation. It is not, however, totally autonomous in that the world might resist being classified in some ways (e.g. 'Phlogiston') even if they are understood as mere conventional classification.
My suggestion is that this distinction between kinds and classes be drawn upon to craft a notion of relative truth.
Accordingly, I offer, as a three-place relation between a statement, the world and the conventional conceptual scheme associated with the statement, the following concept of relative truth (C.R.T.):
CRT: 'P is true-relative-to its associated conventional conceptual scheme' means 'the world is such that its stuff is able to be conventionally classified as P portrays and is otherwise as P portrays'.34
The corresponding notion of relative falsehood is that the world is such that its conventional classifiability is not as portrayed or is otherwise not as P portrays.
Having outlined these three concepts (GCT, CAT and CRT) some discussion and clarification is in order before I employ them to frame a substantive relativist thesis about truth.
First, note that (almost) any participant in the dispute would accept that some of the ways in which we categorise the universe are mere artefactual classifications. Moreover, on pain of fussing verbally to no great point, almost any participant might, however grudgingly, go along with the concept of relative truth and thus accept that some statements are but true/false relative to their associated conventional conceptual schemes.
Second, note that for a conceptual scheme to be associated with a statement is not for that statement to be thereby committed to the applicability of any particular one of those concepts. Just how big a scheme is associated with any given statement is, as I have indicated, not a matter that I see any present point in pursuing, however, I ought make explicit that I take it as axiomatic that the presence of any concept in the conceptual scheme automatically entails the presence of the complement or negation of that concept. This is not of great importance when considering statements of the form: 'A's are B's' but it becomes more significant when we think of disputes between statements of that sort and 'A's are not B's' or 'no A's exist'. For such statements to be such that, say, it can be coherently claimed that 'A's are B's' and 'no A's exist' are contraries, their truth/falsity have to be relativised to the same conceptual scheme, though clearly the former statement holds that the classification 'A' is applicable and the latter does not. So, in short, a distinction is to be drawn between the ontological commitments of a statement (which might include that some conceptual classification concept has application, that the stuff of the world is such that it can be so classified) and the conceptual scheme associated with the statement. Thus, 'A's exist' and 'no A's exist' share an associated conceptual scheme containing at least the pair A/not-A, though they differ in ontological commitment.
What, then, might be a subtantive thesis of relative truth which incorporates such a concept of relative truth? I shall state an extreme thesis and then examine it to see if it suffers the usual problems of viability. So, consider the thesis of radical truth relativism (Th.RTR).
Th.RTR: 'All true35 statements are truths-relative-to the conceptual scheme of conventional classifications associated with the statement in question'.
On the view I'm exploring, the motivation for saying this would be an ontological thesis, that no natural kinds exist but only conventional or artefactual classifications.
The traditional challenge to relativistic theses about truth has been to query the status of the thesis itself. If it is not itself but relatively true, then it refutes itself by constituting its own counterexample.36 If, on the other hand, a thesis of relative truth is taken to speak of itself, then, in virtue of being, at best, but relatively true, it might seem to parochialise its interest, to render itself irrelevant to those for whom relative truth is relativised to another conceptual scheme.
I confess to considerable uncertainty as to the direction that a truth-relativist might be advised to go here. I have, in the past37, argued that perhaps a relativist is unwise to express his thesis too unrestrictedly and ought restrict it to statements made about the stuff of the universe, to, what I called then, object-linguistic claims. Theses of relativism about truth (including a suitably toned down or less sweeping version of Th.RTR) would thus be not included in their own remarks because metalinguistic. This might seem to be a particularly apt move in the case of the present version of relativsm about truth, for the concept of relative truth upon which it was built itself had its genesis in an ontological thesis about kinds. The focus seemed to be on statements about the stuff of the universe, not on meta-statements about these. I now have qualms about the usefulness of this object-statement/meta-statement distinction in this context. Say that our "watered down" thesis of relative truth about object-linguistic statements went something like:
TH. O-L TR: 'All true object-linguistic statements are truths-relative-to the conceptual scheme of conventional classifications associated with the statement in question.'
Though, on the face of it, TH. O-L TR manages to avoid self-reference and thus self-refutation via providing its own counter-example, I am not at all sure that this stands up to deeper examination. After all, the ploy's success depends a lot on what statements are and on what classification concepts are.
I have no wish to pursue the chapter and verse of this as a topic in its own right, for whatever the details of a satisfactory analysis might turn out to be is beside our present purpose; for that purpose, suffice it to say there seem to be three types of possible theory. First, a statement might be taken to be some, perhaps quite complex, social/behavioural phenomenon. Second, it might be held to be something in the head of a cognitive agent (or in those of some community of such agents) or, perhaps, in some non-corporeal mind(s). Third, statements might be held to be denizens of some abstract realm (to be propositions).
If I'm right, and any theory of what statements are fall into one or other of these categories, then it is not at all clear to me that it is inappropriate to ask whether statements form natural kinds or are but conventionally classified.
Consider the first ontological thesis about statements, that they are some sort of social/behavioural phenomena. Whatever this amounts to on various theory-variants, statements would seem to plausibly be phenomena of the stuff of the universe in some way or other38. Similarly for brains. Non-corporeal minds and their goings-on might seem more difficult to accommodate but I don't see why. Presumably minds are part (albeit a "ghostly" part) of the stuff of the universe39 and thus, as much as matters of brain or social/behavioural practices, fair game for questions about the ontological status of categorisations of their goings-on. Finally, should there be an abstract realm of statements (of propositions, I suppose) as has, on occasion, been suggested, then it, too, is either a part of the universe, however queer a part, or, if some other realm, or "universe" why wouldn't just the same questions be raised about the status of such abstract stuff's categorisations as would be in the case of more common or garden stuff?
In short, the crucial issue is that of the ontological status of categorisations and it doesn't seem of significance, in this context, to draw a distinction between statements employing concepts carving up stuff of a straightforward sort and meta-statements about such statements.
But, if this is so, then the hope that I and others have had of avoiding relativism's prospect of self-refutation by restricting its domain of application as in Th.O-LTR is misguided.
So, if one reverts to Th.RTR, if true, is it absolutely true or true relative to its associated conceptual scheme of conventional classifications? Obviously this is dependent upon whether the categorisation concepts associated with that thesis pick out natural kinds or not. But look at the thesis, what are the associated concepts?
An obvious list would include 'statement' 'true statement', 'conceptual scheme', 'conventional classification' et c. plus, in conceptual contrast role, such things as 'natural kind'. It's hard to see why one ought deem the reference any of these to form a natural kind, not even 'natural kind'. Even if one did not share our relativist's ontological conventionalism and thought there to be natural kinds(say gold, water et c.) though that would mean that 'gold' et c. picked out stuff that formed a natural kind, it wouldn't mean that what 'natural kind' picked out (the kind: gold, the kind: water et c.) themselves formed a natural kind.
My judgement here might be wrong but all of this seems to point to Th.RTR being, if true, true-relative-to its associated conceptual scheme rather than absolutely true. Certainly it would seem that this is how the relativist would be inclined to view her thesis. Such merely relative truth for Th.RTR does not seem problematic to me.
Note, first, that the denial of Th.RTR employs the same associated conceptual scheme.That is, the absolutist is not , on the above account, being distinguished from the relativist in virtue of employing a different conceptual scheme; rather, she employs the same scheme to make different substantive claims.Thus the absolutist's claim that some true statements42 are absolutely true would, as this terminology has been set up above, be judged by the relativist to be false relative to that claim's associated scheme. And, odd though it might seem to those forgetful of the above definitions, the absolutist should, contrarily, conceive of his claim as but relatively true. This does not detract from its (putative) truth status but just reflects the plausible status of the claim's associated categorisation notions as but artefactual.
In similar vein, focusing upon that core ontological issue is interesting. The relativist would subscribe to and hold to be true-relative-to its associated conceptual scheme, the statement:
Th.CC: 'No natural kinds exist, only conventional classifications of the stuff of the universe are possible.'
The absolutist would subscribe to and hold to be true, the statement:
Th.NK: 'Natural kinds exist'.
It's clear that the relativist's view of Th.NK is that it's relatively false but, again, even an advocate of Th.NK playing by the relativist's terminological rules and tying conceptions of relative and absolute truth to the ontological status of the associated scheme of categorisations, should deem Th.NK to be but relatively true.
I fail to see any of this as problematic. What is important for the absolutist, I would have thought, is the status of at least some statements about the world, notably some of those made by science, not the status of any old statement about the world; and that the thesis of absolutism itself is but relatively true (at best) while it might be a disturbing thought on other, more radical, conceptions of relative truth (ones that are, for instance, more open than CRT to the accusation that they collapse the belief/truth distinction) does not seem disturbing as relative truth is here construed.
I take it, then, that CRT and the thesis Th.RTR employing it are not incoherent or self-refuting, that Th.RTR is best thought of as included in its own scope and is thus (at best) true-relative-to its associated conceptual scheme. In short, the notion "gets off the ground"; but is it worth fighting for?41
I think so, but a lot depends on whether or not incommensurable conceptual schemes can exist. I have already remarked that different statements, indeed contradictory statements, might, on the above picture, have identical associated conceptual schemes. (Moreover I take it that the point can be not just about statements but about frameworks of belief or scientific theories). What happens, though, when the associated conceptual scheme differs from one statement to another? It seems to me to depend upon the depth or seriousness of the difference. It might well be that, although the pattern of categories in the conceptual scheme associated with one statement is not superficially semantically isomorphic (so to speak) with that associated with the other, each has the conceptual resources to be inter-translatable with the other. Should this be so, then, though the statements' associated conceptual schemes might be at first glance different, that difference will not impede the two statements being able to stand in logical relations with one another.
If all (or all possible) conceptual schemes associated with statements that (in some sense I will leave unclarified) seem to bear on the same objective phenomena were thus inter-translatable then this notion of relativism would be very minimal indeed. Its hope of being of some interest, though minimal, lies in the possibility that some such possible conceptual schemes are not inter-translatable. Should this be so, in effect, should it be the case that radically different conceptual schemes in terms of which to carve up the universe were possible and, indeed, not "rejected by" the universe, then minimal though CRT might be, I take it that Th.RTR would capture a lot of what relativists have intuitively grasped for. It might not satisfy all of the subjectivist yearnings that seem, on occasion, to manifest themselves in relativist tracts but then, if nothing coherent can capture such relativism, perhaps relativists ought be satisfied that something seems salvageable; a sound fig leaf is preferable to a self-destroying overcoat!42
NOTES
1 Meiland (1977, p. 568).
2 A number of people have noted this, see: Nola (1988, Introduction, pp. 1-36), Hollis & Lukes (1982, Introduction, pp. 1-20), Newton-Smith (1981 & 1982) & Davson-Galle, (1988).
3 Or family of theses. Varieties of varieties of relativism about truth on different parameters are possible but will mostly be ignored here. See Swoyer (1982), Davson-Galle (1988) & Meiland (1977).
4 By Swoyer (1982, p. 84).
5 Though Socrates' main target was truth relativised to an individual cognitive agent, which won't concern us here.
6 Meiland (1977, p. 571).
7 Siegel (1987, pp. 10-18). This first appeared in Siegel (1986).
8 Meiland (1977, p. 571); I remarked in my 1988 paper that 'the only apparent hope for relativism about truth (within a correspondence theory was) the three term relation suggestion of Meiland's' (p.61). I also remarked that the suggestion had not been explored and that to do this 'would be a paper in itself' (p.58). This is an attempt at that paper.
9 Ibid., p. 572
10 Ibid., p. 574.
11 Ibid., p. 574.
12 Siegel, (1987, pp. 13-14).
13 Ibid., p. 14.
14 Meiland (1977, p. 573).
15 Ibid., pp. 573-574.
16 Ibid., p. 580.
17 Ibid., p. 580.
18 Siegel's discussion (on p. 17) comes later in his chapter than his purported establishment of the collapse of Meiland's putative three-term relation into a two-term one. Siegel does address relativising truth to conceptual schemes, frameworks of belief and so forth in the second chapter of his book (pp. 32-44). Regrettably, though, the variant of conceptual scheme relativism considered here is not discussed. Siegel is more concerned with epistemological relativism than truth relativism (and in my view blurs them too much in his discussion) and with notions of conceptual scheme rather more closely related to a substantial framework of belief than here discussed.
19 To use Siegel's turn of phrase, see p. 17.
20 For simplicity's sake, I speak here in an implausibly sharp-edged bivalent way.
21 Which will make P (absolutely) false or, maybe, neither true nor false if one is a Strawsonian about failed reference.
22 As I briefly mentioned in my (1988) and have pursued in my (1993).
23 For some consideration of this radical path of taking seriously some writers' talk of theorists living in different worlds, see Davson-Galle (1988, pp. 59-62).
24 See Swoyer (1982, p. 92).
25 Concerning this, a sequenced discussion occurs in Newton-Smith (1981, pp. 34 ff.); White (1986); Davson-Galle (1988); White (1989); and Davson-Galle (1989b). The situation is even worse for the view that it is impossible for there to be statements whose truth is invariant from conceptual scheme to conceptual scheme (a view I once called 'the thesis of radical truth variance' - see Galle, 1983, p. 495).
26 See Edwards (1990). Edwards accepts and tries to work within Davidson's rejection (in Davidson, 1973,-1974) of a conceptual scheme/substantive content distinction. Like Swoyer (1982, pp. 99) my tendency is to dismiss Davidson's views as overly verificationist.
27 Here I borrow from Swoyer (1982, p. 96).
28 Here I borrow from Siegel (1987, p. 12).
29 Actually, there are difficulties associated with the concept of logical truth but I take them to be neutral to the present dispute and shall bypass them.
30 I shall avoid issues arising out of the dispute between Strawson and Russell about failed reference.
31 As opposed to the negative characterisation of their position that is constituted by their objections to relativism.
32 And I take these to be considerable.
33 A possible example is the pre-modern (and whale including) term: 'fish'. It is also worth noting that a putatively artefactual categorisation term might manage to pick out a natural kind.
34 Though it shares a rejection of natural kinds with it, I take such conventionalism to involve a distinct notion of truth to that associated with Putnam's internal realism. Putnam's notion is a form of coherence theory. See for instance, Putnam (1981, pp. 49-74). Further, though sharing with Goodman a rejection of natural kinds, the conventionalism sketched above seems, on some extreme "versions" of Goodman's views anyway, less radical. See Goodman (1978); good critical commentaries of Goodman are Siegel (1984) and Scheffler (1980).
35 In the GCT sense.
36 It seems to me that the charge of 'self-refutation is too lightly bandied about; see Davson-Galle (1989b & 1990), also see a nice exchange between Meiland (1980) and Edward Beach (1984). Siegel's various writings are collected in Siegel (1987).
37 Davson-Galle (1991).
38 Perhaps this seems objectionably reductionist but I think that a closer look will show that it isn't reductionist at all.
39 I made this an explicit assumption earlier and don't see how relativists wishing to run a language stratification line like that in my 1991 paper could expect challenging it to help their case.
40 Meaning, remember, just GCT.
41 The phrase is Nelson Goodman's (1978, p. 20). An issue not addressed in this paper is that of fighting for relativism. Shorn of its terminological proposals, the main substantive thesis is Th.CC. I have held that this thesis can, without awkwardness be held to be but relatively true. An issue not here pursued is whether it can be argued for in a way of interest to someone initially not sharing it. See Siegel (1987, p. 44) on such problems.
42 The "fig leaf" metaphor is borrowed from Michael Devitt (1984, p. 15) who uses it of a minimalist realism. Curiously the minimal (in some ways, though not in scope) relativism discussed above has assumed "fig-leaf realism"! I am aware that my proposal has various unaddressed difficulties, this is , however, a paper, not a book, and at least it seems worth further exploration by any relativistically inclined philosopher who wishes to nonetheless have the world play some sort of truth making role.
43 For their comments on various versions of the above,I am indebted to Jack Meiland, Kathy Bohsted, Howard Sankey, Edgar Sleinis, Harvey Siegel and those present at it's presentions at the 1991 conference of The Australasian Association of Philosophy andthe 1992 conference of The Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science. Hopefully the paper's present appearance will add to this list!
REFERENCES
Beach, E.: 1984, 'The Paradox of Cognitive Relativism, Revisited: A Reply to Jack W. Meiland,' Metaphilosophy, 15, 157-171.
Davidson, D.: 1973, 'On the very idea of a conceptual scheme', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association, 1973-74, pp. 5-20.
Davson-Galle, P.: 1988 'Relativism about Truth', Metascience, 6, 54-62.
Davson-Galle, P.: 1989a, 'Truth and White "Lies" - A Frank Response', Metascience, 7, 6-7.
Davson-Galle, P.: 1989b, 'The Strong Programme and Reflexive Incoherence', Metascience, 7, 99-100.
Davson-Galle, P.: 1991, 'Can Relativism About Truth Avoid Self-refutation?', Metaphilosophy, 22,Nos. 1&2, pp.175-178.
Davson-Galle, P.: 1993, 'Young & Old Arguments about Global Anti-Realist Relativism', Indian Philosophical Quarterly, XX, No.4, (forthcoming).
Devitt, M.: 1984, Realism and Truth, Blackwell, Oxford.
Edwards, S.: 1990, Relativism, Conceptual Schemes and Categorial Frameworks, Avebury, Aldershot.
Galle, P.: 1983, 'On Kordig's Paradox Objection to Radical Meaning Variance Theories', Philosophy of Science, 50, 444-497.
Goodman, N.: 1978, Ways of Worldmaking, Harvester Press, Sussex.
Hollis, M. and Lukes, S. (eds.): 1982, Rationality and Relativism, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Meiland, J.: 1977, 'Concepts of Relative Truth', The Monist, 60, 568-582.
Meiland, J.: 1980, 'On the Paradox of Cognitive Relativism', Metaphilosophy, 11, 115-126.
Meiland, J. and Krausz, M. (eds.): 1982, Relativism: Cognitive and Moral, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame.
Newton-Smith, W.: 1981, The Rationality of Science, Routledge and Kegan Paul, Boston, London and Henley.
Newton-Smith, W.: 1982, 'Relativism and the Possibility of Interpretation' in M. Hollis and S. Lukes, (eds.), Rationality and Relativism, 106-122.
Nola, R. (ed.): 1988, Relativism and Realism in Science, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
Putnam, H.: 1981, Reason, Truth And History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Scheffler, I,: 1980, 'The Wonderful Worlds of Goodman', Synthese, 45, 201-209.
Siegel, H.: 1984, 'Goodmanian Relativism', The Monist, 67, 359-375.
Siegel, H.: 1986, 'Relativism, Truth and Incoherence', Synthese 68, 225-259.
Siegel, H.: 1987, Relativism Refuted: A Critique of Contemporary Epistemological Relativism, Reidel, Dordrecht.
Swoyer, C., 1982: 'True for', in J. Meiland and M. Krausz (eds.), Relativism: Cognitive and Moral, 84-108.
White, F., 1986: 'On a Proposed Refutation of Relativism', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 64, 331-334.
White, F., 1989: 'Comments on Relativism and Truth', Metascience, 7, 2-5.
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Peter Davson-Galle Phone:(003) 243287 or +61 03 243287
Department of Education Fax: (003) 243048 or +61 03 243048
University of Tasmania at Launceston E-mail: P.DavsonGalle@educ.utas.edu.au
PO box 1214 Launceston
Tasmania 7250 Australia
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Long philosophy text:
WEAK NEO-MEILANDIAN RELATIVISM ABOUT TRUTH
ABSTRACT: Some years ago, Jack Meiland suggested that a viable relativistic concept of truth could be developed within the broad constraints of a correspondence theory by construing the relative truth of a statement as a three place relation among the statement, the world and a third relatum (individual, framework of belief, culture et c.). I attempt to develop this suggestion using a conceptual scheme as the third relatum and offer a thesis of relative truth employing it that avoids self-refutation without making truth overly subjective.
______________________________________________________________________________
Relativism retains its interest for a good many meta-scientists and Jack Meiland's 1977 remark that 'our age is an age of relativism'1 seems, in meta-scientific circles at least, to apply still. Relativism is, however, better thought of as a shifting collection of theses of dubious clarity and unclear inter-relationships than as a single thesis pure and simple2 and my concern is what follows is primarily with just one thesis of this collection - that statements (in particular, scientific statements) are (crudely speaking) capable only of relative truth. The thesis3 of relative truth has been called 'the Achilles' heel of relativism'4 and, in some versions at least, has been criticised from Plato on.5 Part of the difficulty has been to state the thesis in a way that, as Meiland puts it, does not include the notion of absolute truth6. Some years ago, Meiland offered an explication of relative truth that he thought held promise in this regard but, in a recent book, Harvey Siegel subjects Meiland's suggestion to refined versions of some standard criticisms and judges that promise not to be fulfilled7. In what follows, I wish to attempt to develop Meiland's idea further, such that it yields a viable concept of relative truth that is not open to standard criticisms. The key clauses in Meiland's paper are the following:
(1) The concept of absolute truth seems to be a concept of a two-term relation between statements (or perhaps propositions) on the one hand and facts (or states of affairs) on the other. But the concept of relative truth, as used by some relativists, seems to be a concept of a three-term relationship between statements, the world and a third term which is either persons, world views, or historical and cultural situations.
(2) The relation denoted by the expression 'absolute truth' is often said to be that of correspondence. The relativist can make use of this type of notion and say that "P is true relative to W" means something like "P corresponds to the facts from the point of view of W" (where W is a person, a set of leading principles, a world view, or a situation).8
In what follows I shall be concerned only with one type of W, namely conceptual schemes. By this I will mean a categorisation scheme for collecting the stuff of the universe into sorts. I mean this to be weaker than the more substantial theoretical commitments of a "world - view" and thus it is perhaps different to anything Meiland had in mind for W. The notion of conceptual scheme which I am employing is not quite what the reader will be assuming and I ask patience, it will be further expanded upon below.
Although admitting that his explication is incomplete and problematic, Meiland takes it to be adequate 'to begin to show that Husserl and other absolutists are making a great mistake by assuming that relative truth must be either nothing at all or else a variety of absolute truth'9 Crucial to the viability of the explication then is that the notion of relative truth does not include the notion of absolute truth.10 In further clarification of his idea, Meiland says that we should not view the form of a relative truth claim as appropriately expressed by 'P is true for W', for that raises the question: 'what does 'truth' mean in this claim?' and encourages us to answer 'absolute truth' and thus have our notion of relative truth include that of absolute truth. Rather, we should hyphenate, to get: 'P is true-for-W'. Here 'true' has no independent semantic role and is to be considered a mere part of a term 'true-for-W' much as 'cat' in 'cattle' is but a semantic fragment and not to be taken to mean the same as 'feline'.11
Relativism retains its interest for a good many meta-scientists and Jack Meiland's 1977 remark that 'our age is an age of relativism'1 seems, in meta-scientific circles at least, to apply still. Relativism is, however, better thought of as a shifting collection of theses of dubious clarity and unclear inter-relationships than as a single thesis pure and simple2 and my concern is what follows is primarily with just one thesis of this collection - that statements (in particular, scientific statements) are (crudely speaking) capable only of relative truth. The thesis3 of relative truth has been called 'the Achilles' heel of relativism'4 and, in some versions at least, has been criticised from Plato on.5 Part of the difficulty has been to state the thesis in a way that, as Meiland puts it, does not include the notion of absolute truth6. Some years ago, Meiland offered an explication of relative truth that he thought held promise in this regard but, in a recent book, Harvey Siegel subjects Meiland's suggestion to refined versions of some standard criticisms and judges that promise not to be fulfilled7. In what follows, I wish to attempt to develop Meiland's idea further, such that it yields a viable concept of relative truth that is not open to standard criticisms. The key clauses in Meiland's paper are the following:
Siegel complains about this that the cases are disanalogous12. Though 'cat' in 'cattle' is not a meaningful part, surely 'true' in 'true-for-W' is. 'For it is, after all, a conception of relative truth...'13 being offered. Siegel continues to say that, this being so, it has not been shown by Meiland that the concept of truth involved in the 'true' of 'true-for' is not that of absolute truth. I have some sympathy with Siegel's complaint here. In what sense, if any, are the concepts of absolute and relative truth both concepts of truth? What seems required of Meiland is a more general notion of truth which has (at least) two sub-species. If something can be done along these lines, then he could either withdraw his hyphenation and have it that 'true' in 'true for W' meant that broader concept or retain his hyphenation and have 'true-for-W' meaning a sub-species of the more general notion of truth (with absolute truth as another sub-species). On this latter option 'truth-for-W' would be meaningful only as a whole and the whole would be a label for the sub-species, relative truth, of the broader notion, truth. Use of the hyphenated label would be just a visual reminder that this is, after all, a (relativistic) variety of the (more general) notion of truth. But, were it to prove muddling to absolutists (who might tend to write in another sub-variety, absolute truth, as what's meant by 'true' in 'true-for-W') then perhaps some other, less misleading, technical label like 'relth' (or 'Jack', or 'Harvey'!) ought be substituted.
All of this seems to me to be fine and dandy except that it leaves obscure just what this more general notion of truth might be such that it allows of these two sub-varieties. Meiland does, it seems to me, go some way towards meeting this concern with his discussion of correspondence. Speculating as to why Husserl might see any notion of truth as having to include the notion of absolute truth he says that Husserl 'perhaps thinks of absolute truth as correspondence with reality and also thinks that any form or variety of truth has to involve correspondence with reality'14. Meiland responds by 'distinguishing between two-term correspondence and three-term correspondence. In other words we can bring both absolute truth and relative truth under the more general concept of correspondence with reality, although these two types of correspondence may differ considerably from one another'15. This is fine as far as it goes, but, as Meiland recognises,16 it's still obscure what might be meant by the putatively three-term relation of correspondence, 'P corresponds to reality for W', or, for that matter, what the more general, or generic, notion of correspondence might be. Meiland's response is to claim that, obscure though the three-term relativist notion of correspondence (and presumably the more general notion) is, 'the relativist is in no worse a position than the absolutist at this point'17.
Siegel is unimpressed by this and claims that the relativist is worse off but, as he doesn't here consider conceptual scheme variants of W, his discussion doesn't quite mellifluously fit in to our present one and I won't directly address his remarks.18 Rather, I will attempt to develop Meiland's notions further.
The traditional correspondence theory of truth has been widely criticised concerning the obscurity of each relatum and of the relation of correspondence between them but, at an intuitive level at least, it seems clear enough. There's a world "out there", just one world and there's a definite way that it is (it is if you like, one only of a range of "possible worlds" or ways that things might have been). Moreover, people have conceptions of it19, and make statements about how it is, and these statements might correspond to how the world actually is or they might not. Whatever difficulties might emerge upon closer analysis there is nonetheless an obvious commonsense clarity to this picture. Does the relativist have any such intuitively graspable three-term notion of correspondence, one that as easily gets to an intuitive "first base" of understanding? It's not clear to me that he has. The hard thing to grasp, it seems to me, is just how the conceptual scheme, the W, fits in. One obvious way is that any P will employ the categories and concepts of a W but I don't see how this helps distinguish the relativist's views for even the absolutist will say that of course any P employs some W but, that done, and P's sense established, the truth or falsity of that P is a two-place matter of correspondence of P and reality. Either reality is, or it is not, such that P corresponds to it.20 If it is not, the problem might well be that the W employed by P is the culprit, that the world just does not contain the kinds of thing postulated by W (and assumed by P) and thus P, assuming W, won't correspond to it. But to admit this is merely to note one source of non-correspondence of P and the world21 and constitutes no stimulus for conceiving of truth/falsity as some sort of peculiar three-term relation.
Relativism retains its interest for a good many meta-scientists and Jack Meiland's 1977 remark that 'our age is an age of relativism'1 seems, in meta-scientific circles at least, to apply still. Relativism is, however, better thought of as a shifting collection of theses of dubious clarity and unclear inter-relationships than as a single thesis pure and simple2 and my concern is what follows is primarily with just one thesis of this collection - that statements (in particular, scientific statements) are (crudely speaking) capable only of relative truth. The thesis3 of relative truth has been called 'the Achilles' heel of relativism'4 and, in some versions at least, has been criticised from Plato on.5 Part of the difficulty has been to state the thesis in a way that, as Meiland puts it, does not include the notion of absolute truth6. Some years ago, Meiland offered an explication of relative truth that he thought held promise in this regard but, in a recent book, Harvey Siegel subjects Meiland's suggestion to refined versions of some standard criticisms and judges that promise not to be fulfilled7. In what follows, I wish to attempt to develop Meiland's idea further, such that it yields a viable concept of relative truth that is not open to standard criticisms. The key clauses in Meiland's paper are the following:
But if this involvement of W won't suffice, what is the contribution of W to a three-term correspondence? It's not obvious. If I'm right in the above, then it is a legitimate challenge to Meiland to say that there is more of a problem for the relativist than the absolutist in providing a way of understanding his suggestion about truth, even admitting it to be embryonic.
Also, if we have both a two and a three-term relation of correspondence, what warrants us in deeming both to be sub-varieties of a more general notion? What, if you like, are the similarity and difference relationships of the three notions?
I think that something can be done in answering these challenges that is plausibly construable as relativistic and also seems a development of Meiland's ideas.
As I've said, I favour the third relatum being something like a conceptual scheme but even without exhaustive treatment of the hydra-like multitude of issues and controversies that emerge when one explores the suggestion, something more has to be said to clarify matters before it can be judged that the idea is at least a "starter". Even so, and donning a Meilandian cloak of humility, I acknowledge that what what follows is incomplete and problematic; it is, however, promising, and may be the most that an aspiring truth relativist can have, at least within the context of some sort of correspondence conception of truth. Perhaps it is an error for relativists to so restrict themselves and some sort of coherence account is more promising; but that is another story.22
As a related point, another assumption is some sort of common sense ontological realism, a commitment to there being just one world "out there". Anti-realist, solipsist/idealist, "many world" ontological pluralist23 (et c.) theories are ruled out, however much more promising they might superficially seem as a context within which to advance truth relativistic proposals.
Furthermore, I take what Swoyer24 calls 'strong relativism', in which some statement might be true-relative-to one conceptual scheme and false-relative-to another, to be a hopeless cause25. Rather, the task will be to develop some other, weaker, version of relativism.
I take it also that construing the third relatum as a framework of belief or a substantive theory about reality has intractable difficulties26 and, controversially, I shall operate with the assumption that a distinction can be made between a conceptual scheme in terms of which one might make statements about reality and the content of those statements themselves. Different, indeed contradictory, statements about what reality is like might be made in terms of the same conceptual scheme.
Further, though I have adopted the expression 'conceptual scheme' and the 'scheme' part of that suggests some sort of interlinked web of ideas, or an integrated network of concepts in terms of which to make claims about the world, I wish to remain neutral as to whether such semantic holism or a more semantically fragmented discretism ought be endorsed.
Barring something I shall come to, I shall also make no assumptions about what reality is like (except that there's only one universe). I shall talk of the stuff of the universe and 'stuff' is meant as possibly including gods, hobgoblins, non-corporeal minds, realms of abstract entities (like numbers or propositions) and so on.
Moreover, to avoid collapsing truth and mere belief, any account will have to allow that there might be truths that no-one believes and that some things believed (even widely believed) might be false27.
Finally, if it is to be a three place relation, our neo-Meilandian conception of relative truth must have three genuinely distinct relata28.
So, given all of this, can a viable concept of relative truth be offered? Perhaps, though it might be boring.
In explication of Meiland's idea of a general notion of correspondence with two-place (absolute truth) and three-place (relative truth) sub varieties, consider the following.
First, the general notion, what I shall call: 'The generic concept of truth" (GCT)29.
GCT: 'P is true (simpliciter)' means 'the world is such that it is as P portrays it to be'.
And the corresponding concept of falsehood30 is simply that it is not as P portrays.
Relativism retains its interest for a good many meta-scientists and Jack Meiland's 1977 remark that 'our age is an age of relativism'1 seems, in meta-scientific circles at least, to apply still. Relativism is, however, better thought of as a shifting collection of theses of dubious clarity and unclear inter-relationships than as a single thesis pure and simple2 and my concern is what follows is primarily with just one thesis of this collection - that statements (in particular, scientific statements) are (crudely speaking) capable only of relative truth. The thesis3 of relative truth has been called 'the Achilles' heel of relativism'4 and, in some versions at least, has been criticised from Plato on.5 Part of the difficulty has been to state the thesis in a way that, as Meiland puts it, does not include the notion of absolute truth6. Some years ago, Meiland offered an explication of relative truth that he thought held promise in this regard but, in a recent book, Harvey Siegel subjects Meiland's suggestion to refined versions of some standard criticisms and judges that promise not to be fulfilled7. In what follows, I wish to attempt to develop Meiland's idea further, such that it yields a viable concept of relative truth that is not open to standard criticisms. The key clauses in Meiland's paper are the following:
This is just a version of the usual vague correspondence theory's intuition of true statments corresponding to the facts or to the way things are. It is vague, yes, but all participants in this particular dispute consider the usual difficulties in spelling out a tighter formulation to be just that, difficulties, not catastrophic objections to the core conception. Also it is more the task of the more specific varieties to cash out this general conception.
In explication of the notions of absolute truth and relative truth, consider the following.
I take it that part of the positive idea31 of truth that absolutists have is that there just is a way that the world is, that it just has structures and features and its bits stand in relations and so forth and it is this natural patterning of the world's stuff that, if we're lucky, we might, in part, capture with a true statement .
So far, this is pretty close to a simple (though still vague) expansion of the generic notion so let me select a little. A distinction can be drawn between two sorts of categorisation of the stuff of the universe. In the first, the categorisation might capture a natural kind, in which nature is, as it is sometimes put, "carved at the joints". Whatever the difficulties for the notion of a natural kind32, I take it that the core intuition is clear, the stuff of the universe falls naturally into kinds and these categories are thus, in some sense, reified and not merely imposed upon the universe as some sort of useful artefactual classification of ours. Natural kind terms (should there be any, as opposed to putative natural kind terms) and conventional classification terms differ, then, in the ontological status of the categories of stuff they correspond to. And, of course, putative natural kind terms might fail to be natural kind terms yet succeed in referring to stuff which forms a conventional class33.
A statement (such as many would conceive of some statements of science to be) which, for example, purports to pick out natural kinds and contend that they stand in some relationship seems able to be true/false in a clear-cut world matching way. Either the world is such that it contains those kinds and they stand in that relationship or it is not. This seems a two place correspondence notion. And I shall employ it in the crafting of a concept of absolute truth (CAT).
CAT: 'P is absolutely-true' means 'the world is such that its stuff forms kinds as P portrays and is otherwise as P states'.
And the corresponding notion of absolute falsehood is that the world is such that its kinds are not as P portrays or is not otherwise as P states it to be.
In contrast, consider statements which do not purport to pick out natural kinds but just conventional classes and, again, say, contend that those classes stand in some relationship. Such a statement does not seem to be capable of truth/falsity in quite so clearcut a world matching way because, although the world stuff so classified is there to be matched, the classifications are not or not in the same ontological sense. The status of the third element, the conceptual scheme, is different; it is, so to speak, more autonomous of the nature or the world than a natural kind categorisation. It is not, however, totally autonomous in that the world might resist being classified in some ways (e.g. 'Phlogiston') even if they are understood as mere conventional classification.
My suggestion is that this distinction between kinds and classes be drawn upon to craft a notion of relative truth.
Accordingly, I offer, as a three-place relation between a statement, the world and the conventional conceptual scheme associated with the statement, the following concept of relative truth (C.R.T.):
CRT: 'P is true-relative-to its associated conventional conceptual scheme' means 'the world is such that its stuff is able to be conventionally classified as P portrays and is otherwise as P portrays'.34
The corresponding notion of relative falsehood is that the world is such that its conventional classifiability is not as portrayed or is otherwise not as P portrays.
Having outlined these three concepts (GCT, CAT and CRT) some discussion and clarification is in order before I employ them to frame a substantive relativist thesis about truth.
First, note that (almost) any participant in the dispute would accept that some of the ways in which we categorise the universe are mere artefactual classifications. Moreover, on pain of fussing verbally to no great point, almost any participant might, however grudgingly, go along with the concept of relative truth and thus accept that some statements are but true/false relative to their associated conventional conceptual schemes.
Second, note that for a conceptual scheme to be associated with a statement is not for that statement to be thereby committed to the applicability of any particular one of those concepts. Just how big a scheme is associated with any given statement is, as I have indicated, not a matter that I see any present point in pursuing, however, I ought make explicit that I take it as axiomatic that the presence of any concept in the conceptual scheme automatically entails the presence of the complement or negation of that concept. This is not of great importance when considering statements of the form: 'A's are B's' but it becomes more significant when we think of disputes between statements of that sort and 'A's are not B's' or 'no A's exist'. For such statements to be such that, say, it can be coherently claimed that 'A's are B's' and 'no A's exist' are contraries, their truth/falsity have to be relativised to the same conceptual scheme, though clearly the former statement holds that the classification 'A' is applicable and the latter does not. So, in short, a distinction is to be drawn between the ontological commitments of a statement (which might include that some conceptual classification concept has application, that the stuff of the world is such that it can be so classified) and the conceptual scheme associated with the statement. Thus, 'A's exist' and 'no A's exist' share an associated conceptual scheme containing at least the pair A/not-A, though they differ in ontological commitment.
What, then, might be a subtantive thesis of relative truth which incorporates such a concept of relative truth? I shall state an extreme thesis and then examine it to see if it suffers the usual problems of viability. So, consider the thesis of radical truth relativism (Th.RTR).
Th.RTR: 'All true35 statements are truths-relative-to the conceptual scheme of conventional classifications associated with the statement in question'.
On the view I'm exploring, the motivation for saying this would be an ontological thesis, that no natural kinds exist but only conventional or artefactual classifications.
The traditional challenge to relativistic theses about truth has been to query the status of the thesis itself. If it is not itself but relatively true, then it refutes itself by constituting its own counterexample.36 If, on the other hand, a thesis of relative truth is taken to speak of itself, then, in virtue of being, at best, but relatively true, it might seem to parochialise its interest, to render itself irrelevant to those for whom relative truth is relativised to another conceptual scheme.
I confess to considerable uncertainty as to the direction that a truth-relativist might be advised to go here. I have, in the past37, argued that perhaps a relativist is unwise to express his thesis too unrestrictedly and ought restrict it to statements made about the stuff of the universe, to, what I called then, object-linguistic claims. Theses of relativism about truth (including a suitably toned down or less sweeping version of Th.RTR) would thus be not included in their own remarks because metalinguistic. This might seem to be a particularly apt move in the case of the present version of relativsm about truth, for the concept of relative truth upon which it was built itself had its genesis in an ontological thesis about kinds. The focus seemed to be on statements about the stuff of the universe, not on meta-statements about these. I now have qualms about the usefulness of this object-statement/meta-statement distinction in this context. Say that our "watered down" thesis of relative truth about object-linguistic statements went something like:
TH. O-L TR: 'All true object-linguistic statements are truths-relative-to the conceptual scheme of conventional classifications associated with the statement in question.'
Though, on the face of it, TH. O-L TR manages to avoid self-reference and thus self-refutation via providing its own counter-example, I am not at all sure that this stands up to deeper examination. After all, the ploy's success depends a lot on what statements are and on what classification concepts are.
I have no wish to pursue the chapter and verse of this as a topic in its own right, for whatever the details of a satisfactory analysis might turn out to be is beside our present purpose; for that purpose, suffice it to say there seem to be three types of possible theory. First, a statement might be taken to be some, perhaps quite complex, social/behavioural phenomenon. Second, it might be held to be something in the head of a cognitive agent (or in those of some community of such agents) or, perhaps, in some non-corporeal mind(s). Third, statements might be held to be denizens of some abstract realm (to be propositions).
If I'm right, and any theory of what statements are fall into one or other of these categories, then it is not at all clear to me that it is inappropriate to ask whether statements form natural kinds or are but conventionally classified.
Consider the first ontological thesis about statements, that they are some sort of social/behavioural phenomena. Whatever this amounts to on various theory-variants, statements would seem to plausibly be phenomena of the stuff of the universe in some way or other38. Similarly for brains. Non-corporeal minds and their goings-on might seem more difficult to accommodate but I don't see why. Presumably minds are part (albeit a "ghostly" part) of the stuff of the universe39 and thus, as much as matters of brain or social/behavioural practices, fair game for questions about the ontological status of categorisations of their goings-on. Finally, should there be an abstract realm of statements (of propositions, I suppose) as has, on occasion, been suggested, then it, too, is either a part of the universe, however queer a part, or, if some other realm, or "universe" why wouldn't just the same questions be raised about the status of such abstract stuff's categorisations as would be in the case of more common or garden stuff?
In short, the crucial issue is that of the ontological status of categorisations and it doesn't seem of significance, in this context, to draw a distinction between statements employing concepts carving up stuff of a straightforward sort and meta-statements about such statements.
But, if this is so, then the hope that I and others have had of avoiding relativism's prospect of self-refutation by restricting its domain of application as in Th.O-LTR is misguided.
So, if one reverts to Th.RTR, if true, is it absolutely true or true relative to its associated conceptual scheme of conventional classifications? Obviously this is dependent upon whether the categorisation concepts associated with that thesis pick out natural kinds or not. But look at the thesis, what are the associated concepts?
An obvious list would include 'statement' 'true statement', 'conceptual scheme', 'conventional classification' et c. plus, in conceptual contrast role, such things as 'natural kind'. It's hard to see why one ought deem the reference any of these to form a natural kind, not even 'natural kind'. Even if one did not share our relativist's ontological conventionalism and thought there to be natural kinds(say gold, water et c.) though that would mean that 'gold' et c. picked out stuff that formed a natural kind, it wouldn't mean that what 'natural kind' picked out (the kind: gold, the kind: water et c.) themselves formed a natural kind.
My judgement here might be wrong but all of this seems to point to Th.RTR being, if true, true-relative-to its associated conceptual scheme rather than absolutely true. Certainly it would seem that this is how the relativist would be inclined to view her thesis. Such merely relative truth for Th.RTR does not seem problematic to me.
Note, first, that the denial of Th.RTR employs the same associated conceptual scheme.That is, the absolutist is not , on the above account, being distinguished from the relativist in virtue of employing a different conceptual scheme; rather, she employs the same scheme to make different substantive claims.Thus the absolutist's claim that some true statements42 are absolutely true would, as this terminology has been set up above, be judged by the relativist to be false relative to that claim's associated scheme. And, odd though it might seem to those forgetful of the above definitions, the absolutist should, contrarily, conceive of his claim as but relatively true. This does not detract from its (putative) truth status but just reflects the plausible status of the claim's associated categorisation notions as but artefactual.
In similar vein, focusing upon that core ontological issue is interesting. The relativist would subscribe to and hold to be true-relative-to its associated conceptual scheme, the statement:
Th.CC: 'No natural kinds exist, only conventional classifications of the stuff of the universe are possible.'
The absolutist would subscribe to and hold to be true, the statement:
Th.NK: 'Natural kinds exist'.
It's clear that the relativist's view of Th.NK is that it's relatively false but, again, even an advocate of Th.NK playing by the relativist's terminological rules and tying conceptions of relative and absolute truth to the ontological status of the associated scheme of categorisations, should deem Th.NK to be but relatively true.
I fail to see any of this as problematic. What is important for the absolutist, I would have thought, is the status of at least some statements about the world, notably some of those made by science, not the status of any old statement about the world; and that the thesis of absolutism itself is but relatively true (at best) while it might be a disturbing thought on other, more radical, conceptions of relative truth (ones that are, for instance, more open than CRT to the accusation that they collapse the belief/truth distinction) does not seem disturbing as relative truth is here construed.
I take it, then, that CRT and the thesis Th.RTR employing it are not incoherent or self-refuting, that Th.RTR is best thought of as included in its own scope and is thus (at best) true-relative-to its associated conceptual scheme. In short, the notion "gets off the ground"; but is it worth fighting for?41
I think so, but a lot depends on whether or not incommensurable conceptual schemes can exist. I have already remarked that different statements, indeed contradictory statements, might, on the above picture, have identical associated conceptual schemes. (Moreover I take it that the point can be not just about statements but about frameworks of belief or scientific theories). What happens, though, when the associated conceptual scheme differs from one statement to another? It seems to me to depend upon the depth or seriousness of the difference. It might well be that, although the pattern of categories in the conceptual scheme associated with one statement is not superficially semantically isomorphic (so to speak) with that associated with the other, each has the conceptual resources to be inter-translatable with the other. Should this be so, then, though the statements' associated conceptual schemes might be at first glance different, that difference will not impede the two statements being able to stand in logical relations with one another.
If all (or all possible) conceptual schemes associated with statements that (in some sense I will leave unclarified) seem to bear on the same objective phenomena were thus inter-translatable then this notion of relativism would be very minimal indeed. Its hope of being of some interest, though minimal, lies in the possibility that some such possible conceptual schemes are not inter-translatable. Should this be so, in effect, should it be the case that radically different conceptual schemes in terms of which to carve up the universe were possible and, indeed, not "rejected by" the universe, then minimal though CRT might be, I take it that Th.RTR would capture a lot of what relativists have intuitively grasped for. It might not satisfy all of the subjectivist yearnings that seem, on occasion, to manifest themselves in relativist tracts but then, if nothing coherent can capture such relativism, perhaps relativists ought be satisfied that something seems salvageable; a sound fig leaf is preferable to a self-destroying overcoat!42
NOTES
1 Meiland (1977, p. 568).
2 A number of people have noted this, see: Nola (1988, Introduction, pp. 1-36), Hollis & Lukes (1982, Introduction, pp. 1-20), Newton-Smith (1981 & 1982) & Davson-Galle, (1988).
3 Or family of theses. Varieties of varieties of relativism about truth on different parameters are possible but will mostly be ignored here. See Swoyer (1982), Davson-Galle (1988) & Meiland (1977).
4 By Swoyer (1982, p. 84).
5 Though Socrates' main target was truth relativised to an individual cognitive agent, which won't concern us here.
6 Meiland (1977, p. 571).
7 Siegel (1987, pp. 10-18). This first appeared in Siegel (1986).
8 Meiland (1977, p. 571); I remarked in my 1988 paper that 'the only apparent hope for relativism about truth (within a correspondence theory was) the three term relation suggestion of Meiland's' (p.61). I also remarked that the suggestion had not been explored and that to do this 'would be a paper in itself' (p.58). This is an attempt at that paper.
9 Ibid., p. 572
10 Ibid., p. 574.
11 Ibid., p. 574.
12 Siegel, (1987, pp. 13-14).
13 Ibid., p. 14.
14 Meiland (1977, p. 573).
15 Ibid., pp. 573-574.
16 Ibid., p. 580.
17 Ibid., p. 580.
18 Siegel's discussion (on p. 17) comes later in his chapter than his purported establishment of the collapse of Meiland's putative three-term relation into a two-term one. Siegel does address relativising truth to conceptual schemes, frameworks of belief and so forth in the second chapter of his book (pp. 32-44). Regrettably, though, the variant of conceptual scheme relativism considered here is not discussed. Siegel is more concerned with epistemological relativism than truth relativism (and in my view blurs them too much in his discussion) and with notions of conceptual scheme rather more closely related to a substantial framework of belief than here discussed.
19 To use Siegel's turn of phrase, see p. 17.
20 For simplicity's sake, I speak here in an implausibly sharp-edged bivalent way.
21 Which will make P (absolutely) false or, maybe, neither true nor false if one is a Strawsonian about failed reference.
22 As I briefly mentioned in my (1988) and have pursued in my (1993).
23 For some consideration of this radical path of taking seriously some writers' talk of theorists living in different worlds, see Davson-Galle (1988, pp. 59-62).
24 See Swoyer (1982, p. 92).
25 Concerning this, a sequenced discussion occurs in Newton-Smith (1981, pp. 34 ff.); White (1986); Davson-Galle (1988); White (1989); and Davson-Galle (1989b). The situation is even worse for the view that it is impossible for there to be statements whose truth is invariant from conceptual scheme to conceptual scheme (a view I once called 'the thesis of radical truth variance' - see Galle, 1983, p. 495).
26 See Edwards (1990). Edwards accepts and tries to work within Davidson's rejection (in Davidson, 1973,-1974) of a conceptual scheme/substantive content distinction. Like Swoyer (1982, pp. 99) my tendency is to dismiss Davidson's views as overly verificationist.
27 Here I borrow from Swoyer (1982, p. 96).
28 Here I borrow from Siegel (1987, p. 12).
29 Actually, there are difficulties associated with the concept of logical truth but I take them to be neutral to the present dispute and shall bypass them.
30 I shall avoid issues arising out of the dispute between Strawson and Russell about failed reference.
31 As opposed to the negative characterisation of their position that is constituted by their objections to relativism.
32 And I take these to be considerable.
33 A possible example is the pre-modern (and whale including) term: 'fish'. It is also worth noting that a putatively artefactual categorisation term might manage to pick out a natural kind.
34 Though it shares a rejection of natural kinds with it, I take such conventionalism to involve a distinct notion of truth to that associated with Putnam's internal realism. Putnam's notion is a form of coherence theory. See for instance, Putnam (1981, pp. 49-74). Further, though sharing with Goodman a rejection of natural kinds, the conventionalism sketched above seems, on some extreme "versions" of Goodman's views anyway, less radical. See Goodman (1978); good critical commentaries of Goodman are Siegel (1984) and Scheffler (1980).
35 In the GCT sense.
36 It seems to me that the charge of 'self-refutation is too lightly bandied about; see Davson-Galle (1989b & 1990), also see a nice exchange between Meiland (1980) and Edward Beach (1984). Siegel's various writings are collected in Siegel (1987).
37 Davson-Galle (1991).
38 Perhaps this seems objectionably reductionist but I think that a closer look will show that it isn't reductionist at all.
39 I made this an explicit assumption earlier and don't see how relativists wishing to run a language stratification line like that in my 1991 paper could expect challenging it to help their case.
40 Meaning, remember, just GCT.
41 The phrase is Nelson Goodman's (1978, p. 20). An issue not addressed in this paper is that of fighting for relativism. Shorn of its terminological proposals, the main substantive thesis is Th.CC. I have held that this thesis can, without awkwardness be held to be but relatively true. An issue not here pursued is whether it can be argued for in a way of interest to someone initially not sharing it. See Siegel (1987, p. 44) on such problems.
42 The "fig leaf" metaphor is borrowed from Michael Devitt (1984, p. 15) who uses it of a minimalist realism. Curiously the minimal (in some ways, though not in scope) relativism discussed above has assumed "fig-leaf realism"! I am aware that my proposal has various unaddressed difficulties, this is , however, a paper, not a book, and at least it seems worth further exploration by any relativistically inclined philosopher who wishes to nonetheless have the world play some sort of truth making role.
43 For their comments on various versions of the above,I am indebted to Jack Meiland, Kathy Bohsted, Howard Sankey, Edgar Sleinis, Harvey Siegel and those present at it's presentions at the 1991 conference of The Australasian Association of Philosophy andthe 1992 conference of The Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science. Hopefully the paper's present appearance will add to this list!
REFERENCES
Beach, E.: 1984, 'The Paradox of Cognitive Relativism, Revisited: A Reply to Jack W. Meiland,' Metaphilosophy, 15, 157-171.
Davidson, D.: 1973, 'On the very idea of a conceptual scheme', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association, 1973-74, pp. 5-20.
Davson-Galle, P.: 1988 'Relativism about Truth', Metascience, 6, 54-62.
Davson-Galle, P.: 1989a, 'Truth and White "Lies" - A Frank Response', Metascience, 7, 6-7.
Davson-Galle, P.: 1989b, 'The Strong Programme and Reflexive Incoherence', Metascience, 7, 99-100.
Davson-Galle, P.: 1991, 'Can Relativism About Truth Avoid Self-refutation?', Metaphilosophy, 22,Nos. 1&2, pp.175-178.
Davson-Galle, P.: 1993, 'Young & Old Arguments about Global Anti-Realist Relativism', Indian Philosophical Quarterly, XX, No.4, (forthcoming).
Devitt, M.: 1984, Realism and Truth, Blackwell, Oxford.
Edwards, S.: 1990, Relativism, Conceptual Schemes and Categorial Frameworks, Avebury, Aldershot.
Galle, P.: 1983, 'On Kordig's Paradox Objection to Radical Meaning Variance Theories', Philosophy of Science, 50, 444-497.
Goodman, N.: 1978, Ways of Worldmaking, Harvester Press, Sussex.
Hollis, M. and Lukes, S. (eds.): 1982, Rationality and Relativism, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Meiland, J.: 1977, 'Concepts of Relative Truth', The Monist, 60, 568-582.
Meiland, J.: 1980, 'On the Paradox of Cognitive Relativism', Metaphilosophy, 11, 115-126.
Meiland, J. and Krausz, M. (eds.): 1982, Relativism: Cognitive and Moral, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame.
Newton-Smith, W.: 1981, The Rationality of Science, Routledge and Kegan Paul, Boston, London and Henley.
Newton-Smith, W.: 1982, 'Relativism and the Possibility of Interpretation' in M. Hollis and S. Lukes, (eds.), Rationality and Relativism, 106-122.
Nola, R. (ed.): 1988, Relativism and Realism in Science, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
Putnam, H.: 1981, Reason, Truth And History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Scheffler, I,: 1980, 'The Wonderful Worlds of Goodman', Synthese, 45, 201-209.
Siegel, H.: 1984, 'Goodmanian Relativism', The Monist, 67, 359-375.
Siegel, H.: 1986, 'Relativism, Truth and Incoherence', Synthese 68, 225-259.
Siegel, H.: 1987, Relativism Refuted: A Critique of Contemporary Epistemological Relativism, Reidel, Dordrecht.
Swoyer, C., 1982: 'True for', in J. Meiland and M. Krausz (eds.), Relativism: Cognitive and Moral, 84-108.
White, F., 1986: 'On a Proposed Refutation of Relativism', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 64, 331-334.
White, F., 1989: 'Comments on Relativism and Truth', Metascience, 7, 2-5.
_________________________________________________________________________
Peter Davson-Galle Phone:(003) 243287 or +61 03 243287
Department of Education Fax: (003) 243048 or +61 03 243048
University of Tasmania at Launceston E-mail: P.DavsonGalle@educ.utas.edu.au
PO box 1214 Launceston
Tasmania 7250 Australia
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