Truth Units vs. Relativism
Does everyone ultimately have their own truth?
In a comment on my article “Truth Units” a key question was raised in a comment by Steven Gambardella: “I liked this article [but] I still do not understand how you’d avoid relativism though, given [your] central tenet that a person only believes what their experience permits them to believe.” As mentioned at the end of “Truth Units” I want to field questions and critiques — in follow-up articles if called for, this article being the first.
What is relativism?
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article “Relativism”:
“Relativism, roughly put, is the view that truth and falsity, right and wrong, standards of reasoning… are products of differing conventions and frameworks of assessment and that their authority is confined to the context giving rise to them… Relativists insist… if something is only relatively so, then there can be no framework-independent vantage point from which the matter of whether the thing in question is so can be established. Relativism has been, in its various guises, both one of the most popular and most reviled philosophical doctrines of our time. Defenders [of relativism] see it as a harbinger of tolerance and the only ethical and epistemic stance worthy of the open-minded and tolerant.”
The “Truth Units” article leans toward relativism to focus on the open-minded, tolerant side of truth units. The opposite of relativism might be called “judgmentalism.” Its worst excesses are convictions based on dogma, prejudice, bias, closed-mindedness, etc. Truth units has its “judgmental” side too.
Beyond relativism and judgmentalism
Truth units encompasses relativism and judgmentalism. The beliefs of relativism and judgmentalism are both truth units — truth units being conclusions based on experience, which includes perceptions, thoughts and feelings.
For some, relativism and judgmentalism are each truths on a pedestal — in other words, ideologies. Relativists and judgmentalists tend to exalt the authority of their respective beliefs. In contrast, from a truth units perspective, there are times to be relativistic and times to be judgmental. The relativistic spin on truth units is: people should be quick to understand, and slow to judge — the more you understand, the better your judgment.
The judgmental spin on truth units is more complicated. Truth units are fundamentally a prescription for addressing key aspects of the human condition, which can be expressed in biological or existentialist terms. Truth units are a framework for answering the questions “what is happening? and what should I do about it?”
Judgments and verdicts
When these questions are posed — which is almost constantly in life, consciously or unconsciously — your answer to each question is the “verdict” part of a truth unit. A verdict is a judgment. These verdicts build up over life to create your world view. They can eventually build up into the extremes of relativism and judgmentalism. Or they can build up into pragmatism — a case-by-case approach to things, without resorting to ideologies or dogmas.
Pragmatism as a formal philosophy was developed by Charles Sanders Peirce in the 1870s. Bertrand Russell wrote “beyond doubt [Peirce] was one of the most original minds of the later nineteenth century and certainly the greatest American thinker ever.” Karl Popper said Peirce was “one of the greatest philosophers of all times.”
Peirce phrased his theory of truth as:
“The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate is what we mean by the truth.”
The phrase “by all” implies a society — even if it is only two people.
Agreements and society
The whole idea of society is people cooperating to improve their lives. Cooperation requires agreements. All of us believe this to some extent, based on our experiences of agreements making (or not making) society better in one aspect or another.
Some of these agreements are conscious (like laws), some “unconscious” (such as language, logic and arithmetic). We don’t think about them as agreements, we think of them as just part of the landscape. But if we didn’t agree on how to use language, logic and arithmetic, society would precipitously fall apart.
If you say “we don’t completely agree” you’re right of course. The extent to which we don’t agree is commensurate with the division with the divisions in society.
Threaded through our truth units is our decisions — verdicts — to be part of society, rather than living alone in the wilderness. Our experience is, to be part of society, we need to accept (to a major extent) its agreements. The existential question “what is happening? and what should I do about it?” becomes:
What agreements am I being asked to adhere to? and should I adhere to them?”
Our world is broken in part because we disagree so fiercely on the answers to these questions, on micro (individual situations) and macro (summary principles) levels.
Relativism and judgmentalism are two responses to social disagreements. Relativism says we don’t need to agree. Judgmentalism says we must agree. Relativism then (rightly) asks:
“What are we to agree to? And who decides what we are to agree to?”
Let’s go back to Sanders’ “the opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate is what we mean by the truth.”
Pragmatism and science
Sanders spent more of his life as a scientist than a philosopher. Scientists themselves fiercely disagree on many things. Yet historically we have seen incredible scientific progress over the centuries (progress in scientific achievement, less so progress in human benefit).
In The Knowledge Machine, philosopher of science Michael Strevens expands on Peirce’s idea of truth in his observations about the scientific method:
“Something interesting happens as science closes in on the last theory standing. As evidence accumulates… differences in opinions become less extreme. Consensus emerges… There is not complete agreement, but there is ever less disagreement.”
Recalling high school math, Strevens is describing an asymptotic curve of exponential decay. It keeps getting closer to zero, but never gets there.
The curve is a series of judgments over time. By following the scientific method — “investigating” as Peirce says — judgments are tested in experiments, and the data is analyzed. This analysis results in discarded judgments, revised judgments and new judgments.
Making progress
Over time, the end result is near-total agreement. Despite the horrors and downsides of science, we “endorse” the agreement to believe in and use science and the scientific method when we use smartphones, microwave food and get on airliners.
What if we were capable of applying the pragmatic scientific method to our social divisions? One could argue the “American experiment” is (or at least was) such an attempt — an attempt to get everyone to sign up for the agreement that:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
The forces of relativism and judgmentalism make progress toward agreement fitful. Progress, like science, requires open-mindedness and judgments.
We have to be open-minded, but we also have to make judgments — specifically pragmatic judgments. From a truth units perspective, this means looking to our experiences for our answers, rather than looking to ideologies like relativism and judgmentalism. In this sense, truth units are pragmatic.
In conclusion
Every time someone takes a position in society — for or against agreement — our test wants to include “does this position agree with what we have learned so far in our journey along the curve trying to make society work?” Truth units asks this question. Relativism does not.
The answer to this question is sometimes “yes” sometimes “no” sometimes “we don’t know.” Without making judgments every time this question comes up, society will not provide the benefits we want from it.
As these judgments converge on consensus, the pragmatic value of considering “outlier” positions diminishes, like it does in science.
Relativism says “there can be no framework-independent vantage point from which the matter of whether the thing in question is [true or false] can be established.”
To the contrary, things in a society have a framework in which to be judged — the framework of social benefit. Our collective experiences establish this framework. Applying this framework pragmatically — rather than ideologically — should trend on an asymptotic curve toward agreement, toward social benefit.
Thank you for reading. Please comment! Your questions and critiques are appreciated.
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