Posted by alexandra_k on March 11, 2005, at 20:24:08
In reply to Re: Everything is relative, posted by Damos on March 10, 2005, at 15:54:26
> > Statements that make claims (assertions) about the world like: 'There is a chair in this room on Monday the 23rd of January 2005' might be the sorts of things that are not relative.
> But if I did not directly experience the existance of the chair in that room on Monday the 23rd of January 2005, the truth of this statement is only relative.
Suppose we specify a particular time and place. You say 'there was at least one chair in the room then' I say 'no there was not'. Do you think it is fair to say that one of us was right and the other was wrong - whether or not either of us were in the room? What I am getting at here is the idea that we make claims about the world and those claims can be true or false independently of whether we know whether they are true or false. Some things are uncontroversially true like 'you can buy coffee from starbucks' and 2+2=4. I am wondering if statements of ethics are true or false in a similar way or not. So when I say 'abortion is wrong' my statement is either true or false - and some people are just wrong in their opinion. Whether we can ever find out the fact of the matter is a seperate question from their actually being a fact of the matter. Some facts may be inaccessible to us.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:468601
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050305/msgs/469858.html