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Of Relativists and Other Fabled Creatures It is sometimes said that ours is the Post-modern age, and this is often taken to mean that civilization has outgrown the benighted notion that there is such a thing as truth. Visit a major university campus (and stray far enough from the science buildings) and the relativists may be seen grazing in “immence herds,” as Meriwether Lewis might have put it. Eavesdrop in the campus coffee house (the one closest to the Religious Studies department) and you may pick up snippets of conversation confirming the identity of the species. “But truth is merely a social construct, tethered to our linguistic practices,” insists one. “All metanarratives are transparent attempts at political domination and oppression and must be deconstructed!” exclaims another, heatedly. Yet a third suggests that “truth is whatever our colleagues will allow us to get away with saying.” In such a context, to suggest that any religious belief or worldview is simply *true* is, as one author has put it, about as welcome as a temperance sermon in a local tavern. To claim that the practices of some foreign culture are immoral is like showing up at a black tie affair wearing a tank top and boxers. But despite appearances, I suggest that the relativist, like the unicorn and the griffin and the honest car salesman, is a mythological creature. As with fairies and poltergeists and UFOs, there are many rumors of his existence, but never has there been a confirmed sighting. There is, quite simply, no such thing as a relativist. One reason, of course, for his non-existence is the utter lack of any natural habitat. Shangri-La fails to be listed in any travel brochures and, similarly, relativism fails to make the list of plausible but competing philosophical positions. At least Shangri-La, though non-existent, *might* have been an actual place. It was at least a *logical* possibility. Hilton’s travelers discovered a hidden land full of wonders, but square circles were not counted among them. To invite one’s readers to imagine the truth of relativism, however, is to expect them to conceive the inconceivable. Relativism is false and necessarily so. It is one of those obliging views in philosophy that make their own refutation a simple matter. The argument for this conclusion is familiar. Our would-be relativist tells us that all truth claims are relative to the perspective from which they are made. We are thus instructed that the bald assertion, “God exists” must be qualified. We must not say, “God exists,” for this is an illegitimate “metanarrative.” Rather, we should say, “God exists for Christians,” leaving it open also to say, “God does not exist for Buddhists.” Once we have learned this simple lesson, it might occur to ask our instructor how things go for relativism itself. May we say, simply, “Truth is relative”? Or is this, too, an illegtimate metanarrative? Must we qualify it as above and say “Truth is relative for relativists”? Neither option will do. Unqualified, the statement “Truth is relative” is self-refuting. It is hoist with its own petard, as Shakespeare might say. It has all of the coherence of “This statement is false.” For, unqualified, it urges its own truth in a decidedly non-relative sense, independent of any one perspective. But things hardly go any better if our relativist attempts consistency by adding the qualification. For now he is telling us merely that truth is relative “for relativists,” and this is to be understood in just the way that we are to understand “God exists for theists.” The latter is consistent with also saying “God does not exist for Buddhists,” and so, our qualified version of relativism is also consistent with “Truth is not relative for non-relativists.” It appears that our relativist was not telling us anything about the real nature of truth after all. He was actually describing his own conceptual framework and thought processes. Indeed, this qualified version of relativism does not even compete with going theories of truth. For a correspondence theorist to be informed that, on the contrary, truth is relative for relativists is like “refuting,” Just War Theory with the observation, “I don’t much like movies about gladiators.” It may be true, but it is trivial. But what, after all, can it *mean* to say that God exists "for Christians"? Does anyone seriously think that the actual, ontological presence of the Maker of heaven and earth is conjured by the act of believing? Who made whom? And if somehow this is what we *are* asked to believe, then how do we reconcile this with the observation that God does *not* exist "for Buddhists"? Does God both exist and not exist? Surely, no one is suggesting such a thing (are they?). All that the qualification can coherently mean is that, whereas Christians believe in God, Buddhists do not. There is certainly nothing incoherent about this. Nor is there anything *newsworthy* about it; tell us something we don't already know. Shall we understand “Relativism is true for relativists” in the same way? Is it simply telling us what relativists believe, just as the other assertions inform us of the respective beliefs of Christians and Buddhists? Unfortunately for our relativist, it *cannot* be understood in this way. To believe something just is to believe that it is true. If I believe that God exists then I take the proposition “God exists” to be true. And so if our relativist believes that truth is relative, he believes that the proposition “Truth is relative” is true. But here is his problem. In what sense are we to understand the “is true” clause? We are back to our earlier dilemma. Either it is to be understood in the unqualified, non-relative sense, in which case the belief is self-refuting, or we may attempt consistency once more and qualify it. We wind up with this cumbersome construction: Relativists believe that “truth is relative” is true *for relativists*. But, just as above, this *for relativists* clause must itself be a reference to a belief that relativists hold. So it gets even worse: Relativists believe that relativists believe that truth is relative. Since we’ve learned that to believe something is to believe that it is true, we can see that this becomes Relativists believe that relativists believe that “truth is relative” is true. As you can see, we have got ourselves into a vicious circle from which there is no escape. Not, at least, without abandoning relativism altogether. The “is true” clause cannot be translated away. It is like trying to throw away a boomerang: it keeps coming back. Here’s the upshot: not only is it impossible that relativism is actually true, but it is equally impossible that anyone can consistently believe that it is. And this is because the idea of belief itself is inextricably tied to that of truth. Again, to believe is to take something to be true, and true in the good, old-fashioned sense of the word. To be a relativist is to believe that truth is relative, and, as we have just seen, this is an impossible belief. What follows, then, is that, despite appearances, there is no such thing as a relativist! muddle's blog | login to post comments
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