Posted: Feb 12, 2012 6:20 pm
Grimstad wrote:You lost me at "Truth is Relative".
Just to clarify a little: I'm not saying truths do not exist, nor am I saying that all propositions have an equal truth value.
Furthermore, I'm just starting to try and make sense of my 'relativism'. My starting point is that I don't need to posit the existence of absolute truths, nor search for them. At this juncture, I'm not saying much new: I don't think any scientist would claim that science has access to ultimate or absolute truth: every scientific proposition is temporary/contingent.
Either way, anyway, (even though I welcome criticism of my position on relativism) the main question I'm asking here is: given someone that assumes he doesn't possess nor have access to absolute truths, how does he rationally justify his debunking of others ideas.
I think from this position one can say 'religion is false from my reference frame' (even though 'from my reference frame' is usually left tacit for practical purposes), or 'from the reference frame of a scientific worldview', but not that 'religion is absolutely false' (as I used to say). And when confronting someone that claims to have access to absolute truths that justify the claim that his religion is 'absolutely true', one needs to be wary of making equally forcible counter-arguments.
Thanks everyone for taking the time to offer thought-provoking answers so far. I think I had a (subconscious?) false assumption: that 'relativism entails or concludes in not caring about what others say'. It does mean however taking whatever someone says with a grain of salt, especially when said someone claims to possess absolute truths: 'I don't think anyone has absolute truths, so I think what he's saying might be true from his reference frame, but not necessarily from any of the other innumerable reference frames'.