Relative Truths Flashcards
The relativist impulse is by and large a noble one. It is opposed to the ownership of truth by one, usually privileged group; it is also opposed to the crowding out of alternative perspectives; the simplification of complex reality.
The panoply of legitimate perspectives should not lead to the fragmentation of truth. Rather we should bring as many of these perspectives together as possible to create a fuller vision of reality.
Some relativists argue that there are no bare facts, only interpretations of facts, mediated through culture. Some argue that nothing is true, period; it is only true for certain people, in certain contexts, or in certain senses. Truth can be relative to cultures, sub-cultures, epochs, ethnic groups, senses, genders, social classes, and ultimately the individual. Truth has become personalized, with the individual sovereign over their own interpretation of reality.
In philosophy, ideas concerning relativism are used to question established versions of the truth and power structures in careful, thoughtful ways that invite rich conversations. In popular culture, the relativist card is often played as a conversation stopper: your truth is yours and mine is mine and that’s the end of the story. There are genuine insights behind the relativist impulse and none ends up threatening the idea that truth stands independently of what you or I think about it.
Different analytic frameworks will generate different truths. Those truths will not contradict each other. Once we choose a final analytic framework, the answer is determined by the facts, and there is no ambiguity with truth.
There is more than one way to describe the world, more than one way of assigning values and importance to things. There is no one objective truth but there are objective truths, real truths about relative truths.
Objective truth does not always have sharp edges. Sometimes the truth is that something is ambiguous or indeterminate.
It is a mistake when we confuse different perspectives on the truth with fundamental disagreements about what is actually true. To deny that a perspective captures the whole truth is not to deny that it captures some of it.
There are no alternative facts, just additional facts that might also be relevant to an argument, however there are alternative perspectives that can generate alternative truths for those different perspectives.
