There is a very basic—and very old—argument
against sweeping claims of relativism. What is surprising about the argument is
that so many very smart and intellectually sophisticated people (in my
experience at least) appear to be simply unaware of its existence. The argument goes
like this:
Ahmed: “There are no objective truths. All
truths are relative.”
Buhjah: “Is that claim objectively true?”
Ahmed: “?!*!#%%?”
Buhjah’s line of argument here is about as simple as it gets in philosophical argument. Ahmed has made a universal claim about the nature of propositions,
namely, that every single one of them cannot be objectively true. As a claim
with universal scope it will apply to every proposition uttered by Bujah, Cahthal and Dinesh. But it will also apply to every proposition that Ahmed himself asserts—including the very proposition that asserted
it. This gives rise to a reflexive paradox of the same form as the famously
invidious Liar Paradox.
Cahthal: “This statement is lie” (or ‘is false’,
or ‘is not true’)."
Despite its simplicity (and, dare I say,
obviousness), consideration of this basic relativist paradox is absent from an
enormous amount of works that one would think should consider it in real and
careful detail. Postmodernist discourse, especially in the social sciences, is
the most obvious example of breathtakingly swift arguments for universal relativism
that evince an extraordinary lack of awareness of the looming paradox. I often
find myself tempted to go through such books writing, ‘…and of course all that
I have said here applies also to everything I myself am saying…’ at the end of every
sentence.
But does Ahmed have a good response to
Buhjah’s question that can avoid the paradox? Let’s consider the first obvious
response. He might say:
YES!
On this footing, Ahmed amends his earlier claim. He replies: “Yes. I did indeed mean it as an objective truth—as a statement
about the way the world actually is, as a claim about the status of every
proposition ever asserted. But I see now that my initial claim requires modification. What I meant to say is that ‘there are no objective truths apart from this statement. All truths are relative apart from this one.”
This is of course a tremendous improvement,
and the reflexive paradox is avoided. But it is an improvement in another way
as well, for now Ahmed will have to give an account of how it is possible for
some sorts of propositions to be objectively true, and others not. What is
special about his proposition that makes it, alone, objectively true? Now Ahmed
must return to all the arguments he made and beliefs he has that seemed to him
to ratify his objectively true statement. Were those arguments and beliefs also
objectively true, or not? Do they contain within them reasons that justify his
exempting his assertion from its own scope? Or is his response to Buhjah here
merely an ad hoc adjustment, that fits poorly into all the reasons he gave for
the assertion in the first place?
For instance, if Ahmed liked to ask, “Who
are we to claim we know what is objectively true?” every time anyone put
forward an assertion, then he will have to think about what answer he has when
someone asks him that. Who is Ahmed to claim that he has a special window into
the one and only objective truth (namely, that all truths are relative apart
from this one)?
Or suppose Ahmed thought that even very common ‘truths’ about,
say, death and furniture could not be objectively true because they were socially
constructed. In response to the basic relativist paradox, Ahmed will have to
enquire as to whether his beliefs about the ‘society’ that apparently
constructs these beliefs are not equally incapable of objective truth. If the actual
existence of the furniture in the room is up for grabs, then the existence of
any ‘society’ capable of constructing beliefs is surely equally conjectural. And if
true claims about death cannot be made, then how can we get any understanding
of what ‘society’ is (for it must include all those people we otherwise thought
of as dead!)?
Answering these proliferating questions
about his own claims and beliefs might prove very difficult, and force Ahmed to
confront very difficult issues—such as giving an account of how it is possible
for any proposition to be objectively true—that he would really rather avoid. Chances
are, after all, that he became a relativist precisely because he didn’t think
good answers could be given to these types of questions.
So instead he might
choose the second obvious response:
NO! (Mark I)
On this footing, Ahmed says: “No. My assertion that all truths are relative is itself relative. It
has no special status and is, like every other claim, merely relative.”
But in taking this route Ahmed does not avoid the paradox,
he merely tries to distract attention away from its application. His response
is, effectively, to say that his belief fits (along with everyone else’s) into
a larger view of the world where all propositions are incapable of objective
truth. For that reason he is no more or less capable of objective truth than
anyone else.
But take another look at the larger worldview that Ahmed posited
as the justifying basis for his claim: it
is itself relativist. In other words, Ahmed is saying: ‘Presuming my
assertion about the world is in fact objectively true as a larger matter, then
I can find a place for my statement in that world at a level where it is
relatively true. My belief about the world is relativistically true only because in point of fact it is objectively true.’ Ahmed’s response merely reasserts the paradox, even as it
tries to distance itself from it.
NO! (Mark II)
There is, however, another version of the 'No' response Ahmed could use where he might better hope to avoid the paradox by avoiding the implicit assertion of the larger objective truth of his worldview. He might say: "No. My assertion was not meant to be objectively true. It is only relativistically true, that is, true to my own views and/or my own community."
Buhjah might respond: "But is this new proposition about your view being only relativistically true itself objectively true, or only relativistically true?" The paradox looms once more.
But Buhjah might adopt a different line of argument, rather than pursuing the next iteration of the same paradox. For she might say to Ahmed: "So if your claim about 'all truths being relative' is itself only relative, then it does not seek to make a pronouncement on whether it is really (objectively) the case that truths are relative. It is therefore consistent with what you have said that some claims are really, objectively true." In other words, Ahmed adopting this response may be conceding too much for his own liking; for it now turns out that his assertion about truths being relative is consistent with (and therefore no argument against) Buhjah's many assertions about things in the world that are objectively true.
Conclusion
None of this is to say that lots of
important relativist claims are necessarily false. (Note also that the paradox
only arises as applied to relativism about truth and knowledge; someone can be
a moral relativist without any problems from this paradox.) It might turn out
that claims about death and furniture are the sorts of things that must all be
relative, while grand metaphysical claims about the nature of truth are the
sorts of things that can be capable of objective truth. It’s worth mentioning that this is almost the reverse of what Nietzsche thought to be the case; he
thought ‘little truths’ were possible, but grand schemes such as Kant’s were
more a reflection of their creators than of the way the world actually is. For what it's worth, I myself have some sympathies in this direction.
The basic relativist paradox should not be
seen, therefore, as a smack-down destroyer of all relativist positions and
arguments. Rather, its proper place is to promote reflection on the type of
relativism under question, and its scope. Sophisticated relativist positions
are possible—and what makes them sophisticated is precisely that they have developed
resources for avoiding the basic relativist paradox.
