My website!!

[Whaleboy]

Yes I would have to be drunk to argue that Linux is better in those respects, however, because I concede (most) of those points, I dont have the time.

Besides, I'm on my 5th glass of irish whiskey, I'm in a compromising mood!

[Asher]

[Az]

drinking alone is bad, Elijah.

[Whaleboy]

I know, but I had stuff in my room and it looked so lonely, so I thought I'd introduce it to my esophagus.

Anyways I'm off to see if there's any more "documentaries" on french sex on BBC 4, so adios for now!!

If anyone (particularly agathon, the philosophy god that you are), wants to continue a debate, either PM me or wait till I return!

[Agathon]

Originally posted by elijah

I wouldn't agree entirely, mainly because one can also think in terms of langauge.

But who is determining that rule? Is it not the individual, who is then of course subjective.

The speech community. If I use the word "dog" to mean "cat" then other English speakers aren't going to understand me. They will point out to me that, this is not how the word is used in our language. If I say, "A triangle is a four sided figure", they will also point out to me that I am using the word the wrong way.

Sorry, my lack of formal philosophical training is showing now, please can you explain that one? I cant blag my way by roughly interpreting this time

Let me put it this way: the relativist asks us, in English, to believe that it is possible for the same statement, "Snow is White", to be both true and false - although he really wants to claim more than that, he wants to replace the notions of "true" and "false" with "true for" and "false for".

But the objectivist wants to say that "Snow is white" means what it does because that proposition is true if, and only if, snow is actually white. That's how "Snow is white" means snow is white and why "Schnee ist weiss" means the same as "Snow is White". Truth is related to meaning.

Now if the relativist is right, then there are no objective truth conditions: in this case, there is no fact of the matter as to whether snow is white or not. Hence, if that's right, it isn't clear what the relativist's belief that snow is white (or that it isn't) is about. This is because the relativist has asked us, in English, to understand a proposition when it is disconnected from its truth conditions.

The relativist could say, well "Snow is white" means whatever I say it means. In other words "Snow is white" has meaning for me. But then, how is anyone else supposed to understand the language? And more importantly, how is the relativist supposed to know that he is using it correctly? And, what do the terms in the language refer to?

If the relativist wants to say that language is public, that is, meaning is shared understanding, then because of the connection between meaning and truth he will be forced to say "Snow is white" can be both true and false at the same time. This means that it really doesn't have what we would call truth conditions. But he doesn't have meaning either because truth conditions are a determinant of meaning. Our statements bear a relation to the world because that's what they're about. A world makes meaning (i.e. making claims about it - employing propositions with truth conditions) possible.

So he might say, well propositions have no relation to the world at all. The condition of their truth is just believing them - they are somehow self referential. But then that destroys any notion of falsity since everything that is believed is true. The notion of belief is supposed to open up the gap between what we think and the way the world actually is. But for the relativist of this sort, there is no distinction.

So what if we admit this? Well it seems that the relativist still needs some criterion of correctness for his use of words, so that he doesn't become inconsistent in his beliefs - e.g. believing that both triangles and squares having four sides is "true for him". What notion of consistency is available to him.

Well, the relativist might say, "My private language is being used correctly if I think it is being used correctly". This isn't good enough, because everyone knows they are sometimes inconsistent and make mistakes. But with relativism there are no mistakes every interpretation is correct. In other words there is no notion of correctness, since seeming to be right and being right are the same thing.

What the relativist needs to do is find some notion of consistency. In other words a way of determining whether words are used consistently in his private language. But what is available? Nothing, other than the way in which he is currently using the words. Can he check back in his memory to see whether he is using them right? No. Because memory is fallible and he may be wrong. But wait! Whatever way he currently thinks they were used is "true for him" so that doesn't matter anyway. So there is no such thing as inconsistency because all possible interpretations are consistent. That makes a mockery of the notion of meaning and of logic, since logical consistency goes out the window in a similar way.

So no real notion of consistency, meaning, truth or rationality is available to the relativist. And no language either, since language requires real norms of use.

In the case of snow, the position "snow is white" or "snow is black" is equally valid, but if you are viewing it in the context of "what is the colour of snow", with the obvious wildcard of the truth, then the position "snow is white" is more valid.

Why? What is the relativist talking about when he uses the word "snow"?

In cases like these, indeed all cases, (I say that absolutely only in the context of relativism), the actual position and the context to which it is applied are separate entities. In objectivity, its the difference between n+1 dimensions (in context) and n dimensions (out of context).

What does this have to do with it?

But does that necessarily make it senseless. It is considered to be true and false at the same time, but for only different contexts.

But how is the relativist to determine this? For example, if the relativist thinks that "Snow is white" is both true and false, either he's using the expression in two different ways to mean two different things, or he's roughly in the position of someone trying to think that black is white.

The position "I am good looking" may be true for me, but I have to consider it to be false for my girlfriend point of view (all hypothetical of course ). That is because both positions are equally valid, but the two different contexts make them respectively true and false.

But these are aesthetic contexts. Relativism can be true for these, it just can't be the case for every single kind of utterance.

If you refer to out of context, then validity is equal and irrelevant, as quantifiably, it is 0.

Validity is a relationship between propositions. For example

p->q
p
-------
q

Is a valid argument because the premises cannot be true and the conclusion false. I don't understand what you mean by the term.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Asher

It'd make my life easier, because I wouldn't have to deal with people like you in the tech threads.

Or I wouldn't have to deal with people who managed to go through an entire logic course without understanding why the liar paradox is a problem for understanding language and the notion of meaning.


Back later, elijah.

[Whaleboy]

Or I wouldn't have to deal with people who managed to go through an entire logic course

I never went to a logic course

[Whaleboy]

The relativist could say, well "Snow is white" means whatever I say it means. In other words "Snow is white" has meaning for me. But then, how is anyone else supposed to understand the language?

Each argument or position is based on a given set of assumptions, part of understanding language is that one shares those assumptions with other people. If I use the term "dog" to mean what most people would term a "cat", then I am not sharing those assumptions, simplistically, I am in a different context to the others. Of course in this case, such things as ones own personal idiolect are still communicable to others, but only to a point.

Furthermore, I am arguing that there can be objectives, which is why I am neither an objectivist (in the traditional sense) nor a subjectivist, but you know my arguments for that reason (psuedo objectivity, objectivity in a given context, but out of that context it is subjective). Thus relativism only works if there are such psuedo-objective truth conditions, which is somewhat ironic.

And, what do the terms in the language refer to?

Whatever is defined as langauge by the independent context of ones shared cultural assumptions (with the person understanding and speaking the terms associated with that language).

notions of "true" and "false" with "true for" and "false for".

But that is absolutely the case. If you take the position "snow is white" against "snow is black" and the judge snow to be white, as I have said, measuring it against the wildcard of "what colour snow actually is", or similar. However, "snow is white" only applies to the samples of snow, and the given context to which it is applied. It is not impossible to have black snow.

The view generated, that snow IS white is still not an objective position because although it has been validated by the tests applied, the resultant concurrence merely falls in with the subjective, in effect, more people agree with it, or it is applicable to more contexts, but that does nothing to reduce its validity out of context. I believe I wrote in the essay "in the absense of a context to judge, all is equally valid".

But the objectivist wants to say that "Snow is white" means what it does because that proposition is true if, and only if, snow is actually white.

position... snow is white (n dimensions) + (psuedo-objective) context... snow is actually white = snow is white per that context.

If I am to understand your position, am I correct in saying that the position "snow is white" is taking into account the fact that snow is white, and so the said position becomes more valid because it is true in the context of the colour of snow, and it becomes more valid.

If that is the case, then is it not the case that by analysing that position even in the context for which it was intended, then you are still linking the position with its context. My argument is that (as hard as it is, often with physical phenomenon like the colour of snow) that the two are essentially independent and you could find contexts and positions, where swapped, would give equal and opposite results, in which case you have something of an empass as far as objectivists are concerned. The notion of whether or not it is physically possible again is largely irrelevant here, as that is another context, another wildcard.

truth conditions
truth conditions are a determinant of meaning

True to infinity? True in context perhaps, thus meaning in context. Any thoughts?

Our statements bear a relation to the world because that's what they're about

Remove the world. I'll explain when I go into dimensional analysis bit...

But then that destroys any notion of falsity since everything that is believed is true

Yep!!
Falsity, truth, validity, fallacy etc etc, are all when out of context, equal and irrelevant. For example, say you have seven men of three generations. In the non-context of seven men, they are all equal. However, if you tell them that one is the grandfather, two are his sons, and each son has two sons of his own, then you are applying them in a context of a family tree, with the old man at the top and the kids at the bottom (its abstract but since when did I care about reality?).

The notion of belief is supposed to open up the gap between what we think and the way the world actually is. But for the relativist of this sort, there is no distinction

Indeed, which I think is a consequence of relativism.

e.g. believing that both triangles and squares having four sides is "true for him"

Whooaa slow down there monsieur velocitie! The whole idea of my argument is that triangles may be 3-sided and squares 4-sided *for him*, but relativism merely makes him recognise that it may not be the case for others, and when discussing in his own context, his view is "correct", whereas in others it may not be. Someone comes along and says "right, we're going to test this view against the truth", and he is again applying a tainted context. The danger with this argument is that people get too caught up in reality, whereas that is irrelevant to this "first step" condition, whereas reality would be another stair up etc etc.

A more concise example of what I believe you to be saying is the example in physics of the speed of light. Any remotely competant physicist will tell you that the speed of light in a vacuum is 3*10^8 metres per second (thats about london to new york in 0.01 seconds). I *could* come up and say that the speed of light is 15 metres per second. Who is correct? Most reasonable people will assume that we are in the context of reality and choose the former figure. However, is that not still a context? Does it necessarily have to be in a context?

To illustrate that, consider a hypothetical parallel universe where the proposition "the speed of light is 15m/s" is true for that universe. You have two speeds of light, both being true for each universe. Remove the context, the environment, the "tainted courtrooms" of the two universes. What is left? Two positions, no means of judging, equal validity.

"My private language is being used correctly if I think it is being used correctly"

What the relativist would mean by that is "My private langauge is being used correctly within the context of my own idiolect, and if others have different languages then they are as valid for them as mine is for me, but when people wish to interact, a shared assumption has to be found, otherwise the differences will degenerate into a simple conflict between two positions, or in this case a misunderstanding." Of course imo this is largely irrelevant to the actual positions being purported by the respective languages, one could appear to be a complete falsity to the other, whereas it is true for one. The other might even be "reality", but that does not force the issue of one being inherently more valid than another.

What the relativist needs to do is find some notion of consistency

A shared cultural/historical/moral/lingual assumption with which he can classify himself as being in the same context as the people with whom he is communicating. Consistency is not constant.

So no real notion of consistency, meaning, truth or rationality is available to the relativist. And no language either, since language requires real norms of use

I commend you on the skillfull use of the word "real", however I would recommend replacing it with "universal" (which in the light of a previous analogy should be considered in the familial sense).

Why? What is the relativist talking about when he uses the word "snow"?

Snow! The relativist isnt applying his proposition.

What does this have to do with it?

When I was doing astrophysics (and before the realisation that I was crap at it... all those stats ), I found an interpretation of a method of solving problems. Briefly (I'll upload a quick essay on it soon), consider the problem 1+1=2. In that case, you are adding the two, and going from the hypothetical dimension of single numbers to that of multiple numbers, in which 1 and 1 become 2. In physics, its a way of solving the problem of infinities in the universe, for example quantum singularities may appear to have infinite gravity to us, but we live in 4 spatial dimensions. View it in 5-dimensions and the view becomes very different.

Consider a flat sheet of rubber that represents the Einsteinian notion of space-time. You place a cricket ball (representing the sun) on the mat. It creates an indentation (the curvature of space time by a mass). You halve the diameter, keep the mass constant and the pressure on the mat will increase, thus deepening the indentation (this represents gravitational collapse synonamous with a black hole formation). If you keep doing that, eventually you will reach a point where the mat cant take the strain, and breaks, the ball dropping through a hole in the middle. Imagine if your realm of existence was that mat. Your view would be not unlike ours when a black hole forms, the hole would appear to be infinite because its scope goes beyond that which you can perceive. We can see what happened because we have extra dimensions than they do, its obvious what happened. Hence, transdimensional theory .

I apply it here because its a good way of expressing the problem. One view, out of context not judged, for example, "snow is white". No way of judging or qualifying that, its n-dimensional. You place it in a context where itll be judged, adding another dimension so n+1. I won't explain all, but look at the way I put it in my "objectivity" essay, with the cheesy diagram .

But how is the relativist to determine this? For example, if the relativist thinks that "Snow is white" is both true and false, either he's using the expression in two different ways to mean two different things, or he's roughly in the position of someone trying to think that black is white.

Not at all, picture a family tree. One persons block is red, another is green. The person in the red block knows he is red, but recognises that the other is green, so red and green are equally valid with regards to both positions, both people, but in terms of HIS block, red is king! (dont tell Fez I said that )

Just because something may be true for a case of n+1, does not make it the case with n+2 dimensions, in which case, one reverts back to n.

But these are aesthetic contexts. Relativism can be true for these, it just can't be the case for every single kind of utterance

But the artistic nature of aesthetics, or at least how they are viewed philosophically, is in essence how all views are, its just that with aesthetics, its always been the case the judging such things has always been problematic at best, self-defeating at worst.

To use your definition of validity, if I take the proposition "snow is white" and the reality proposition of "snow IS white", the former becomes valid for the context of the latter proposition. Remove the context, validity doesnt exist, thus it is zero, thus all are equally valid in n dimensions.

p->q
p
-------
q

That is n+1 dimensions. In n dimensions, one just has p and q. No analysis, no context, no judgement, no evaluation. In the human context, the most you'll get is debate.

I can say therefore that in the absense of pseudo-objective judgement, for example Gulf War II was an example of absolutist argument, and thus a fallacy as far as relativism is concerned, as both were equally valid subjectives.

[Whaleboy]

Originally posted by elijah


I never went to a logic course

Does it show?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Or I wouldn't have to deal with people who managed to go through an entire logic course without understanding why the liar paradox is a problem for understanding language and the notion of meaning.

Or perhaps they understand it perfectly well, but Philosopher Professor Primadonas get off by exaggerating the usefulness, or even the profoundness, of such a simple and basic statement. Maybe you look at it as job security.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by elijah

Each argument or position is based on a given set of assumptions, part of understanding language is that one shares those assumptions with other people.

Yes, language is holistic. It also happens that there is no such thing as an untranslatable language. There's nothing peculiar to relativism in asserting this.

If I use the term "dog" to mean what most people would term a "cat", then I am not sharing those assumptions, simplistically, I am in a different context to the others.

No. You are making a mistake. "Dog" means dog. It doesn't mean you are in a different context. It means you swapped the phonemes.

Of course in this case, such things as ones own personal idiolect are still communicable to others, but only to a point.

Like what?

Furthermore, I am arguing that there can be objectives, which is why I am neither an objectivist (in the traditional sense) nor a subjectivist, but you know my arguments for that reason (psuedo objectivity, objectivity in a given context, but out of that context it is subjective). Thus relativism only works if there are such psuedo-objective truth conditions, which is somewhat ironic.

You need to specify what a "context" is. Of course if belief and meaning are holistic, then this means the other beliefs that must be held true in order to allow us to make particular claims. But this doesn't entail that we must believe in conceptual schemes.

Whatever is defined as langauge by the independent context of ones shared cultural assumptions (with the person understanding and speaking the terms associated with that language).

Language isn't properly understood as something we define, it is something we do. In the large part it is the giving of and asking for reasons to and of others.

So called "cultural assumptions" aren't really that fundamental. The beliefs we share with others are basic things, like the belief in medium sized physical objects. Cultural assumptions are way down the track.

But that is absolutely the case. If you take the position "snow is white" against "snow is black" and the judge snow to be white, as I have said, measuring it against the wildcard of "what colour snow actually is", or similar. However, "snow is white" only applies to the samples of snow, and the given context to which it is applied. It is not impossible to have black snow.

In what way is the nature of snow dependent on my way of thinking about it?

"Snow is white" has a universal quantifier. It applies to all and only snow. That's what the proposition means. It isn't necessarily true that all snow is white, it simply happens to be true.

The view generated, that snow IS white is still not an objective position because although it has been validated by the tests applied, the resultant concurrence merely falls in with the subjective, in effect, more people agree with it, or it is applicable to more contexts, but that does nothing to reduce its validity out of context. I believe I wrote in the essay "in the absense of a context to judge, all is equally valid".

But there is never an absence of a context of beliefs and reasons so it is not the case.

position... snow is white (n dimensions) + (psuedo-objective) context... snow is actually white = snow is white per that context.

All this n dimensions thing sounds fishy to me.

If I am to understand your position, am I correct in saying that the position "snow is white" is taking into account the fact that snow is white, and so the said position becomes more valid because it is true in the context of the colour of snow, and it becomes more valid.

It isn't more or less "valid" it is simply true if snow is white and false if it isn't.

If that is the case, then is it not the case that by analysing that position even in the context for which it was intended, then you are still linking the position with its context. My argument is that (as hard as it is, often with physical phenomenon like the colour of snow) that the two are essentially independent and you could find contexts and positions, where swapped, would give equal and opposite results, in which case you have something of an empass as far as objectivists are concerned. The notion of whether or not it is physically possible again is largely irrelevant here, as that is another context, another wildcard.

You'll need an argument to show that meaning is independent of truth for sentences that make claims (excluding expressive utterances, etc.). This would seem to be pretty hard since the test for understanding a sentence is a practical matter - being able to tell when it holds and when it doesn't.

True to infinity? True in context perhaps, thus meaning in context. Any thoughts?

Just true as in corresponds with the facts.

Remove the world. I'll explain when I go into dimensional analysis bit...

Why bother with it.

Falsity, truth, validity, fallacy etc etc, are all when out of context, equal and irrelevant. For example, say you have seven men of three generations. In the non-context of seven men, they are all equal.

In the absence of any context, they are nothing, not even a set.

However, if you tell them that one is the grandfather, two are his sons, and each son has two sons of his own, then you are applying them in a context of a family tree, with the old man at the top and the kids at the bottom (its abstract but since when did I care about reality?).

So? Father-of is a relational term we use for a certain relation between entities. This relation holds independently of the means we use to describe it.

Indeed, which I think is a consequence of relativism.

Which shows that it's a crazy theory.

Whooaa slow down there monsieur velocitie! The whole idea of my argument is that triangles may be 3-sided and squares 4-sided *for him*, but relativism merely makes him recognise that it may not be the case for others, and when discussing in his own context, his view is "correct", whereas in others it may not be.

I'm not saying that his view is correct for him, but that it is unintelligble. If you ignore the obvious sophistical response of saying he's just changed the meaning of the term "triangle", then it isn't clear what the object of his thought is.

Someone comes along and says "right, we're going to test this view against the truth", and he is again applying a tainted context.

We do this all the time. So what? What's tainted about it?

A more concise example of what I believe you to be saying is the example in physics of the speed of light. Any remotely competant physicist will tell you that the speed of light in a vacuum is 3*10^8 metres per second (thats about london to new york in 0.01 seconds). I *could* come up and say that the speed of light is 15 metres per second. Who is correct?

The physicist.

Most reasonable people will assume that we are in the context of reality and choose the former figure. However, is that not still a context? Does it necessarily have to be in a context?

Reality is not "a context" it is the only context.

To illustrate that, consider a hypothetical parallel universe where the proposition "the speed of light is 15m/s" is true for that universe. You have two speeds of light, both being true for each universe. Remove the context, the environment, the "tainted courtrooms" of the two universes. What is left? Two positions, no means of judging, equal validity.

This embodies a confusion between two types of proposition: necessary and contingent.

It is necessarily true that all triangles have three sides because being three sided is an essential property of a triangle. It's also necessarily true that you are the same as yourself and different from others. It could not have been otherwise. This can be cashed out in different ways but the most popular for the first is to say that "Triangles have three sides" is a tautology because of the meanings of the words involved.

However, the speed of light is a contingent matter. It could be imagined to be otherwise. Unfortunately one cannot imagine four sided triangles.

What the relativist would mean by that is "My private langauge is being used correctly within the context of my own idiolect, and if others have different languages then they are as valid for them as mine is for me, but when people wish to interact, a shared assumption has to be found, otherwise the differences will degenerate into a simple conflict between two positions, or in this case a misunderstanding." Of course imo this is largely irrelevant to the actual positions being purported by the respective languages, one could appear to be a complete falsity to the other, whereas it is true for one. The other might even be "reality", but that does not force the issue of one being inherently more valid than another.

This ignores the point that a private language has no norms. Whatever is going to seem right will be right and then the question of rightness won't even arise. The notion of correctness is essential to rationality since rationality is essentially normative - it provides us standards by which to judge our inferences.

A shared cultural/historical/moral/lingual assumption with which he can classify himself as being in the same context as the people with whom he is communicating. Consistency is not constant.

Consistency, at the basic level I am talking about is merely not transparently claiming the same proposition to be true and false at the same time.

I commend you on the skillfull use of the word "real", however I would recommend replacing it with "universal" (which in the light of a previous analogy should be considered in the familial sense).

Fine, it doesn't alter the point.

Snow! The relativist isnt applying his proposition.

But relativists are trying to talk to us and get us to understand their thesis. It doesn't matter what proposition is in question anyway.

When I was doing astrophysics (and before the realisation that I was crap at it... all those stats ), I found an interpretation of a method of solving problems. Briefly (I'll upload a quick essay on it soon), consider the problem 1+1=2. In that case, you are adding the two, and going from the hypothetical dimension of single numbers to that of multiple numbers, in which 1 and 1 become 2. In physics, its a way of solving the problem of infinities in the universe, for example quantum singularities may appear to have infinite gravity to us, but we live in 4 spatial dimensions. View it in 5-dimensions and the view becomes very different.

Consider a flat sheet of rubber that represents the Einsteinian notion of space-time. You place a cricket ball (representing the sun) on the mat. It creates an indentation (the curvature of space time by a mass). You halve the diameter, keep the mass constant and the pressure on the mat will increase, thus deepening the indentation (this represents gravitational collapse synonamous with a black hole formation). If you keep doing that, eventually you will reach a point where the mat cant take the strain, and breaks, the ball dropping through a hole in the middle. Imagine if your realm of existence was that mat. Your view would be not unlike ours when a black hole forms, the hole would appear to be infinite because its scope goes beyond that which you can perceive. We can see what happened because we have extra dimensions than they do, its obvious what happened. Hence, transdimensional theory .

I don't see how this has any relevance to the philosophy of language or epistemology.

I apply it here because its a good way of expressing the problem. One view, out of context not judged, for example, "snow is white". No way of judging or qualifying that, its n-dimensional. You place it in a context where itll be judged, adding another dimension so n+1. I won't explain all, but look at the way I put it in my "objectivity" essay, with the cheesy diagram.

But no judgement, not even a "relativist" one occurs outside of a context.

Not at all, picture a family tree. One persons block is red, another is green. The person in the red block knows he is red, but recognises that the other is green, so red and green are equally valid with regards to both positions, both people, but in terms of HIS block, red is king! (dont tell Fez I said that )

I don't understand what this means.

Just because something may be true for a case of n+1, does not make it the case with n+2 dimensions, in which case, one reverts back to n.

You need to show just how this is supposed to apply to language and epistemology. It just sounds whacked out the way it is.

But the artistic nature of aesthetics, or at least how they are viewed philosophically, is in essence how all views are, its just that with aesthetics, its always been the case the judging such things has always been problematic at best, self-defeating at worst.

That is debatable.

To use your definition of validity, if I take the proposition "snow is white" and the reality proposition of "snow IS white", the former becomes valid for the context of the latter proposition. Remove the context, validity doesnt exist, thus it is zero, thus all are equally valid in n dimensions.

There isn't a "reality proposition" there is simply a fact.

That is n+1 dimensions. In n dimensions, one just has p and q. No analysis, no context, no judgement, no evaluation. In the human context, the most you'll get is debate.

And agreement most of the time. We only focus on disagreements because they cause trouble.

In any case, here is the killer. It is impossible to understand another person unless one shares the vast majority of their beliefs. Fortunately, it is also the case that there is no such thing as an untranslatable language. Thus relativism is false.

The reason for this is that since an utterance only makes sense in a context (i.e. holism is true). This means that when we meet another person who doesn't speak our language we have to guess what their utterances mean. In order to get started we have to use our own beliefs as context (along with the environment). So do they. So each of us has to take our own belief set as largely true.

Now imagine that there is an omniscient being (there doesn't have to be one - only the logical possibility that one could exist - there doesn't seem to be a logical barrier to a being knowing everything). The omniscient being needs to interpret like everyone else. All he has is our particular utterances and the environment. He needs to supply beliefs for the context of interpreting us, so he supplies his. Of course his are all true and since a large collection of shared belief is required for interpretation most of ours must be. Hence scepticism and relativism are defeated.

Read Davidson's "Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge" for the background to this argument. If it sounds like a trick, it is because most people don't understand how belief and meaning work in interpretation.

I can say therefore that in the absense of pseudo-objective judgement, for example Gulf War II was an example of absolutist argument, and thus a fallacy as far as relativism is concerned, as both were equally valid subjectives.

But this has nothing to do with relativism per se. If you want to make a case for total relativism you have to make it for simple cases as well - so it is better to stick to them.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
No. You are making a mistake. "Dog" means dog.

No, Dog is a proper noun (Name), while dog is simply a noun.

"Dog" != "dog".

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Asher

No, Dog is a proper noun (Name), while dog is simply a noun.

"Dog" != "dog".

Fascist. (proper name or noun?)

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Fascist. (proper name or noun?)

All of the above.

[Immortal Wombat]

and adjective