Marsha: For the sake of "taking words seriously' please present an exact definition of 'relativism' as you are using it.
dmb answered in a nutshell: Relativism is the view that truth is relative to the culture or the individual, that there is no way to say that one truth is better than another. Marsha: By the way, dmb, your definition is begging the question, as it assumes the answer to the question being posed: that there is no way to say that one truth is better than another. __ On Nov 20, 2011, at 2:12 PM, david buchanan wrote: > > Hey Mark" > "Relativism" is a dirty word. Like "solipsism", it is a term of abuse used by > philosophers against their enemies. Anyone who willingly wears those labels > is either very brave or very foolish. > In the MOQ, truth is provisional and plural. The MOQ rejects ideas like > objective truth, absolute truth, fixed and eternal truth, or any kind of > single exclusive truth but the relativist thinks there is no truth as such, > at least not about anything human, about anything beyond the physical facts. > What's "true" is just whatever we agree upon from within our own > ethno-centric perspective, from within our own intersubjective space. This is > exactly why Sam Harris and lots of other people think that Richard Rorty is a > relativist, for example. This is why Pirsig thinks Boas was a relativists, > for another example. > "Pluralism" is a much better word for the pragmatic theory of truth. James > has been misinterpreted as pushing relativism since the day he first > published, especially among the positivists and the absolutists, but James > himself considered such charges to be "impudent slander" and fought hard to > explain that the pragmatic truth is "wedged and controlled" like no other. > Marsha's fondness for relativism can only be maintained by ignoring Pirsig's > conspicuously negative comments about relativism (and the role it plays in > undermining truth, morality and intellectual level values). Pirsig saw > Plato's charge against the Sophists as vicious slander and he denies it quite > emphatically. This occurs at the philosophical and dramatic climax of the > story. Getting rid of relativism is one of the central points in taking on > both Platonism and SOM. > > She thinks the intellectual level can't escape from SOM and she thinks the > MOQ is a form of relativism. I think that's profoundly wrong. It makes the > MOQ into it's own worst enemy. ___ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
