(May 29, 2016 at 7:14 am)robvalue Wrote: It appears to be a contradiction in terms, so that the answer "yes" is paradoxical.
If we answer "yes", we have an absolute truth; but then the claim itself is that truth is relative and not absolute. So the statement cannot be true. It's like the Liar paradox.
This doesn't say anything much about absolute or relative truth, other than their incompatibility within statements.
I do see where you're going, you're saying "it's not absolutely true that truth is relative". But if truth is relative, absolute truth is a meaningless concept and so is irrelevant. Truth could also be some sort of mixture of the two.
Ok, regarding the Liar paradox, perhaps the statement cannot be true because you cannot assert being a consistent liar without contradicting yourself. So, similarly, why is it not the case that one cannot assert truth is consistently relative without contradicting oneself.
And to comment on your second-to-last sentence: "if truth is relative, then absolute truth is meaningless and irrelevant". To be honest, though, I'm still having a really difficult time seeing how this isn't asserting some absolute truth.
How are you looking at truth?
For a while, I've been thinking, perhaps truth isn't a singular thing, but something that we have an infinite amount of, some of them absolute, some relative.
