On the relative unimportance of the relativity of truth
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I wonder how often the pronouncement that "It's all relative anyway" is accompanied by the knowledge of why exactly that is so. Perhaps utterance without precise understanding is somewhat apt within a relativist paradigm. In any case, it would certainly be apt to draw upon one philosophical tradition, which grounds beliefs on a particular theoretical basis, in order to explain and mitigate the notion that truth is relative. Hence, I want to look at structuralism and its take on the crisis of foundationalism.
The structuralist critique of foundationalism and the metaphysics of presence revolves around the arbitrariness of the link between the signifier and the signified. Essentially, it denies that inherent ideas or mental states accompany the utterance of words such as to supply the words with fixed and unmistakeable meanings. The arbitrary nature of the signifier/signified connection, however, does not imply that individuals simply decide what they mean when they say something. Meanings are decided, subject to perpetual change, through the relations of words with one another, governed by principles that constitute a language (by which I mean langue or a system of signification) and that are beyond the simple agency of individuals.
The implication is that truth claims are problematic insofar as the instability and arbitrariness of meaning make the communication of claims about objective or universal truths impossible—meanings and the truths they are supposed to convey do not necessarily translate from language to language or, depending on which philosopher you are reading, between communities that speak different languages based on the respective forms of life that characterise them. And if thought is a form of internal communication insofar as it is constructed linguistically, then it seems to follow that it is impossible to apprehend objective truths that must by nature correspond perfectly in the minds of all individuals.
Thus, there appears to be two aspects to the problem, one communicative and the other epistemological. In downplaying the practical implications of relativism, I will focus on the communicative aspect as it seems more directly applicable to our everyday lives. This seems, at any rate, appropriate in view of the linguistic orientation of the structuralist critique. Moreover, communication that is not crippled by relativism may help address the epistemological dimension to the problem, so it might be useful to deal with the communicative aspect first.
What indications are there that meanings are not hopelessly relative and mutually unintelligible when we communicate with each other? For one, there is the interesting fact that individuals who may be regarded as belonging to different communities are capable of being ‘on the same page’ while communicating to each other, even when they are making truth claims. This may be attributed on a broader level to experiences that are common to all human beings, which may, for example, make certain ethical propositions more or less universally acceptable. Even if we were to narrow down the scope of our analysis, we would find that shared experiences that constitute what is called ‘intersubjectivity’ do not permit us to neatly categorise people into distinct communities that draw on exclusive pools of meanings. We often share experiences with one another and thereby establish common grounds of shared meanings that cut across all divisions that traditionally delineate communities.
As part of our daily experience, communication in turn helps us find and perpetuate such common grounds. The act of communicating the structuralist critique of foundationalism itself presupposes shared meanings that are communicated in an effort to create a larger common ground with a potentially vast group of individuals from a range of different communities. Hence, intersubjectivity is arguably an inevitable outcome of communication.
This suggests that even if the epistemological side of the problem proves intractable, even if we can never really know whether objective truths exist, we can get by pretty well without being mutually unintelligible to an extent that cripples communication. And part of our process of getting by would undoubtedly involve having beliefs in ‘objective’ truths that we share with others who are able to empathise with the reasons for those beliefs.
Furthermore, communication can help us to come to know more about objective truths through processes of discourse, as theorists of communicative rationality might argue. In this sense, as I have mentioned earlier, the communicative aspect may be said to precede the epistemological.
Most importantly, however, the fact that we are able to communicate with a diverse range of individuals from different communities means that the relativity of truth, whether it is itself objectively true, is almost irrelevant to our daily practices in a modern liberal society. And in times when the notion of multiculturalism is under sustained attack, it reminds us that there is likely no water-tight philosophical reason for not being able to coexist and communicate with each other.
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