Is everything relative? Then that claim must be relative too
The oldest objection to relativism is a trap: if all truth is relative, is that statement itself relative or absolute? Either answer seems to sink it. Yet the objection only bites against the most extreme versions, and milder forms of relativism shape how anthropologists study cultures to this day.
Relativism is a family of views that deny absolute objectivity in some area and say judgements there depend on a perspective or context. Moral relativism concerns differing ethical verdicts across people and cultures. Epistemic relativism holds that standards of justification and rationality are local rather than universal. Alethic relativism goes furthest, claiming that truth itself is always relative to a framework such as a language or culture. Linguistic relativism, a different idea, says the structure of a language shapes how its speakers perceive.
Anthropology offers a practical version. Methodological relativism asks researchers to set aside their own cultural assumptions to understand beliefs in context and avoid judging others by home standards. It underlies the distinction between emic accounts, framed in terms meaningful to insiders, and etic accounts, framed in neutral terms an outside scientist can apply across cultures. Anthropologists mostly practise descriptive relativism, recording how groups differ without ranking them, while philosophers argue over normative relativism, the claim that views are only right or wrong within a framework. Descriptive claims are themselves challenged by research into human universals.
Critics have more than the self-refutation argument. Hilary Putnam noted that if truth is nothing beyond what someone believes, nobody could ever think themselves mistaken, erasing the line between truth and belief. In a celebrated 1974 essay, Donald Davidson attacked the notion that communities could carve up the world in untranslatable ways, arguing that translation between people is always possible in principle. Richard Dawkins warned against cultural relativism that treats scientific truth as just one kind among many.
The Belgian philosopher of science Maarten Boudry argues that almost nobody lives as a consistent relativist. Self-described relativists are indignant when falsely accused, laugh at flat-earthers, and trust physics when they board a plane. He calls this occasional relativism: a slogan picked up when convenient and dropped when it matters.
Source: Relativism
