(June 2, 2016 at 7:46 pm)IATIA Wrote:(May 29, 2016 at 7:11 am)Irrational Wrote: To those where who believe truth is relative:
When someone throws at you the question "Is it the absolute truth that truth is relative?", how do you respond to that? I have read some attempts on other sites but they seem too complicated for me to understand their point. So explain to me like I'm five, what is unreasonable about the question itself?
The question is in error. I would present it differently. "Is it an absolute fact that truth is relative?" Facts do not change, but truths are both subjective and relative. I cannot conceive of an objective or absolute truth.
As the original question is worded, the response should be that there are no absolute truths, because truths are relative.
A fact can change a truth, but a truth cannot change a fact.
According to Aristotle, “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false; while to say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true.” Aristotle laid out the condition for when something is true and did not try to define "truth".
Truth is a property of a sentence or proposition. "The book is on the table" is true only if there is a book and a table and the books relationship to the table is that it sits upon it. The statement is not true if any of these conditions do not exist.
Perhaps the problem is using the term truth as a synonym for belief. It is not.
So, no, a fact cannot change the truth of a statement. If a new fact changes our understanding of a statement, the original statement was never true. Truth is neither subjective nor relative.
