A criticism which can possibly be levelled against “relativism” is that, by denying that there are any universal bases for the evaluation of culturally-based accounts of the world, it allows for the dehumanisation of cultures that do not share whatever the commentator considers to be “fundamental” values.
The logic is quite simple: if the accounts given by differing cultures are incommensurate, then it is possible to argue that another culture is entirely “alien” (in the full sense of the world). As it is entirely alien, we cannot apply universalist notions (such as the respect due to each human being *as a human being* - which is, of course, a product of western liberalism). Thus, it is entirely possible to pass from “they’re not the same as us” to “they are not human”, as the definition of what is and is not “human” is culturally determined (and therefore a *relative*, rather than an *absolute* quality).
The counter-arguments relativists would give to this usually betray the non-relativist foundations of their thought.
Tristan
It depends very much on the "relativist" (in other words, it's relative).
Many would, I think, denounce the notion of *universal laws*, even in purely scientific disciplines; the more reasonable would probably argue that such *laws* are relative to the discipline in question, and that when applied to "the world", they model physical regularities at such and such a level, but do not capture the *whole picture* of what's actually 'going on' in the world (for example, a purely physical examination of La Joconde would only describe certain pigments arranged in a certain way; it wouldn't capture "that Mona Lisa smile").
This, as I say, is what we could call "reasonable" relativism, and I think that both you and I could accept it; I would go so far as subscribing to it, with the provisos I expressed in The Other Place.
It is quite evident that, for example, a Minkowski space is *no more* than a geometric projection that could possibly correspond to (or rather "approximate") locally-flat regions of spacetime; it would be extremly naïve to claim that it was a faithful description of the "actual nature of space and time". This is - in part at least - because it allows no understanding of the phenomenal experience on which the notion of time itself is based.
Despite speculation I might have indulged in elsewhere, we should bear in mind that there is no evident relation between the 'physical' nature of spacetime and that which we *experience* as space and time. Who knows, perhaps there *is* a fundamental difference in kind between the mental and the physical - but this is a conclusion I for one would be loath to draw.
But, to return to relativism: we should applaud the moderate relativism that reminds us that our models are relative to a theory, and that our theories are not *faithful descriptions of the world*; this objection provides a salutary response to naïve scientific realism.
However, other relativists might take the stronger view that our scientific "laws" are *unjustified*. Certain positions are dictated by moral considerations - certain feminist interpretations come to mind; indeed, all those interpretations which claim that scientific "laws" are an expression of white, male, Eurocentric dominance base their claim on the argument of non-justifiability. Furthermore, it's impossible to reply to them that such an argument is logically unsound, as logic is also considered to be an expression of white male Eurocentric dominance. There is no possibility, or point, in arguing with such a view, as it is evidently pseudophilosophical (which its defenders would probably not refute, as they have little interest in what is classically understood by "philosophy" in the Western tradition).
The argument against logocentrism (in the restricted sense of "centred on logic") is at the root of another form of relativism, but one that is motivated by aesthetic rather than ethical considerations. This view is typified by, but not limited to, the Romantic tradition and by all those who would claim a serious role for the irrational. Whether the irrational is seen as escaping "scientific" description, or as controverting entirely the "scientific" view, once again depends on the relativist.
Certain thinkers influenced by what one could call "New Age" beliefs would also espouse a certain relativism, thigh this is perhaps more a question of eclecticism.
Anyway, all this while awaiting the input of our own relativist (who evidently hasn't noticed the thread yet).
since it's a bit late, i'll just read the first post by david, of course i'll be back. i think that saying that 'for my culture, these people are not human' is less damning a statement than 'it is an objective truth that these people are not human'. how can you be sure that such an objective truth will never surface in your realist framework?
i think if you're an anti-realist about scientific laws then all sorts of possibilities open themselves up to you. though of course you can go one step further and be a social constructivist and dismiss the whole debate of realism/antirealism. i'm not sure i applaud the bundling of irrationality with relativism. one can subscribe to a local rationality and be a relativist, they just recognise the local character of their rationality. as regards feminist epistemology, there's also much in it. one is the empiricism of Longino, i think it's called constructive empiricism. she just admits the role of values as constitutive of scientific enquiry. the rape manual stuff, not that many people talk about it nowadays (Sandra Harding likened Newton's and Bacon's works as rape manuals because they were using the metaphor of Nature as a woman whose secrets need to be teased out.)
What, exactly, is a "realist framework", and who is the "you" who has one?
If it could be "shown objectively" that a certain group (accountants, for example) were not human, then we would "have" to accept that accountants were not human - this is inherent in the sense of "objective". But HOW would one "show objectively" some thing? What can we use as a yardstick of "objectivity"?
If your argument is against the notion of "objectively true statements about 'reality'", then it's a bit of a straw man.
I wonder what impact this type of thinking has for International Human Rights?
~"But HOW would one "show objectively" some thing? What can we use as a yardstick of "objectivity"?"~
Again, I think the 'truth' is in the details...and by how many people can AGREE on those *details* irrespective of the eventual bigger picture truth or result those details produce. But I think this applies more to objectivity in science.
Philo objectivity would perhaps be the full acceptance of opposition an critical discussion, i.e. the *intentions* of each framework of objectivity differ.
Science attempts to explain the detail - solves problems (focus is on producing a definite answer); Philo is engaged in perpetual problem solving (focus is on the question to fundamentals that may never produce definitive answers).
The problem is, classic philo can no longer be credibly applied 'on its own' to producing or valuing relative/absolute truths - purely because the 'truths' and 'knowledge' of science have radically changed since Einstein... objectivity [or plausability] has changed within the focus of philo because Science has changed our contents and understanding of 'knowledge'. So Science ITSELF plays a 'yardstick' role in the search for relative/universal truths.
What exactly is "anti-realism" in this case? The strong hypothesis that scientific accounts bear no relation to 'reality', or the weaker hypothesis that "scientific laws" are *approximations* of underlying regularities, rather than *true accounts of the nature of 'reality'*?
If it's the latter case, then once again it's surely a bit of a straw man - after all, who actually believes that there are (= "there exist") such things as 'Laws"? That would be a very Platonist point of view...
As for the various "authors", it strikes me that they lack intellectual subtlety. But then isn't that exactly the reason for seriously advancing straw man arguments - that one has misunderstood or misrepresented the views of one's apparent opponents?
***
There is, I think, an interesting side-discussion on the relation to "history" (this remark was prompted by your allusion to Harding, who seems by the way particularly dim-witted)... the anaytic tradition has often been accused of a disregard, even a contempt, for history; yet disregarding the historicocultural aspects of - for example - Newton's language allows us to seperate the chaff of what is *no longer* relevant from the wheat of what is *still* relevant (and I agree that this relevance is a matter of culture - we're human; EVERYTHING is a matter of culture).
A more serious accusation one could level against Newton is "magical thinking"; one needs only cite the motivation of his alchemical investigations - and Leibniz is, in his own way, equally guilty of magical thinking (has there even been such stuff as monadology?). Yet we can quite easily make the distinction - what matters is the success of the account (Newton's "laws"), not the sociocultural context of the person who formulates the account.
The ultrafeminist argument is founded on an argumentum ad personam (an abusive ad hominem). That Newton - who was probably as queer as a clockwork orange - should characterise Nature as a woman is entirely a product of the general intellectual culture of his day. We can indeed find the culturally-determined elements objectionable (or - as I'd hold as a good pragmatist - "counter-productive"), but they have no relevance to the success of the account.
Once again, a serious objection (the ultrafeminist objection is spurious and pseudophilosophical) could be levelled against Newton's hypostasis of "Nature" - and THIS is an inherent assumption underlying the notion of "Science".
This last point is, I believe, at the very heart of the matter under consideration (if you'll allow me to pontificate). The notion that there is some unified and knowable entity which corresponds to "Nature" is a fundamental assumption of"Natural Philosophy", and has been largely inherited as part of the mindset of "Science" (if not of individual sciences). Yet the notion is inherited from earlier philsophical and theological reflection; there is no a priori reason to believe that the world is a 'unified entity'. One might well prefer, for aesthetic or epistemicological reasons, a unifying account - but one should also accept the implications of such an account (that any description we give is thereby *partial*) - and indeed, I've used this as an argument against the realist notion that spacetime is *constituted* of points.
***
We need, perhaps, to define what we understand by "relativism". Speaking personally, I'd refuse the umbrella labael "relativist" for my own philosophy, yet I'm a nominalist in ontology and an intuitionist in mathematics... perhaps my non-relativism ("arelativism" would perhaps be the better term) depends on my metaphysical acceptance of some unified 'reality' which corresponds in some way to our experiences, observations, and accounts?
Natasha
That the greatest number agree on some thing doesn't make that "thing" any the less a matter of 'opinion' rather than 'fact'.
Working in the (rapidly sinking) world of Big Business you should be particularly aware of, and sensitive to, this.
hmm i have a really short attention span. so i'll focus on a few things. the first is the characterization of anti-realism by david. one does indeed have to go with the first choice, since the second choice is not anti-realist but realist, since it admits of certain regularities, call them laws if you wish. so an anti-realist about laws is one who says that there are no laws, and an anti-realist about electrons is one that says there's no such entities as electrons. my introduction of the terms in the discussion was with a view to asking if there is a mind-independent world and facts of the matter about this world. maybe we should go into a discussion about what is a fact. (for example i wouldn't differentiate a fact from a widely-held belief, but i would at the same time hold that a person may know p (a fact), another 'not p' and they may both be rational and with no fault. ie there's no fact of the matter whether p. now as regards the following, i'll have to ask for clarifications: "That the greatest number agree on some thing doesn't make that 'thing' any less a matter of 'opinion' rather than ''fact'." are you saying that the existence of David Hirst is a matter of opinion? if you are, then how can you not admit of being a relativist (and a pretty radical one as well?)
as regards to the people who believe in laws. i'd think that there's a great many of them. some examples may be found in here, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/laws-of-nature/, there's bound to be some names of realists about laws in there-if you want i can give you names from my department. anyway. as regards Newton, you seem to rely a lot on 'the success of the account'. what do you mean by that? predictions? and is this success objective? as regards objectivity, i'd say that a good starting point is 'mind-independence'.
"There are no laws" is a very sweeping statement, and covers everything from conventionalism to strong anti-realism. I don't believe "there are laws" in the sense that, apart from spacetime and/or it contents, there is ALSO EITHER the "laws" that determine how it proceeds through time (note the presentist assumption underlying this) OR some kind of 'form' grafted onto the 'substance'. The term "regularity" is distinct from "law" in that (1) it allows for *kinds* of phenomena (though my nominalism is such that I find even the notion of "kind" suspect) and (2) it does not imply that the "existence" of the phenomena depends on the "law".
"i wouldn't differentiate a fact from a widely-held belief"
a "widely-held belief" is an *opinion*; a "fact" is - supposedly - something corresponding to a true proposition.
It would be an error NOT to differentiate them, even if you were to argue that we cannot EFFECTIVELY distinguish a so-described "fact" from an "opinion" (and that all our knowledge is 'opinion' rather than 'fact'). Whether you consider the distinction to be motivated is another matter from the distinction itself
To be a mite more technical: it would perhaps be more correct to define "facts" as "true propositions concerning states of affairs", as a fact is a *propositional entity*. Nevertheless, the most superficial examination shows that propositions appearing in expressions with the form "it is a that p" retain their extensionality :
1. It is a fact that Venus is Hesperus
2. Hesperus is Phosphoros
3. It is a fact that Venus is Phosphoros
(1…3) follow logically; indeed, we could ask whether "it is a fact that" should not be eliminated.
If, however, we replace "it is a fact that" with "It is widely believed that", we get
4. It is widely believed that Venus is Hesperus
5. Hesperus is Phosphoros
6. It is widely believed that Venus is Phosphoros
This might seem to make sense if we limit "widely believed" to a specific universe ("academic philosophers", perhaps). But it's logically no different from:
7. Haris believes that Venus is Hesperus
8. Hesperus is Phosphoros
9. Haris believes that Venus is Phosphoros
- and, as we know, (9) does NOT follow from (7) and (8).
So, whether we believe that there actually *are* facts or not, we should still distinguish logically between facts as "extensional entities" and beliefs as "intensional entities".
[I do love a bit of pedantry, don't you? I can't understand why The Sun should make such a fuss about it…]
***
Of course, you're quite right in saying that we cannot make any ultimate EFFECTIVE distinction between what is fact " fact" and what is "opinion"; but this is the fundamental question both of epistemology and metaphysics. The epistemological question depends on the metaphysical question: if there IS a mind-independent reality, then our language might well be a product of, and provide clues about, that reality. However, our language can only provide clues to a mind-independent reality if there IS a mind-independent reality… At some point, we have to triangulate between sensory impressions, observation sentences, and beliefs. Nonetheless, certain accounts do seem to "carve the world at the joints", while others do not.
dear david, i'm a bit surprised by your propositions 2,5 and 8. don't you need some clarifications whether you mean 'It is a fact that Hesperus is Phosphorus'or something to that effect? this applies especially to 5, which i think could be transformed into something valid, in the sense of
4. It is widely believed that Venus is Hesperus
5. It is widely believed that Hesperus is Phosphoros
6. It is widely believed that Venus is Phosphoros
the crucial premises are exactly the ones that you confound-you're supposed to explain the facticity or otherwise of those sentences.
also i disagree with your conclusion (rather than argument) that it would be an error not to differentiate between a widely-held belief and an opinion. my point is exactly that a true proposition (for a certain community) is just a belief shared by that community, and that there's nothing more to truth. i suppose according to me, anything more that you impose to 'truth' smacks of realist assumptions.
Haris - I merely distinguished the formal from the epistemological questions.
I agree entirely that assent to the *contents* of "Hesperus is Phosphoros" calls on the assenter's belief that Hesperus is effectively Phosphoros.. However, in the formal demonstration, it is *no more than* a 'true proposition' (note that your comment concerned "facts", not "truth") which sets the general context for demonstrating the extensionality of "it is a fact that" when compared to the intensionality of "it is a widely-held belief that".
The argument against belief is that we cannot derive logically from "X believes that p" and "p = q" that "X believes that q", however many individuals comprise X, UNLESS we modify our logic.
The argument is evidently interim, as your next move is - of course - to criticise the notion of "truth". I've just posted my reply.
Yes, Natasha, it makes it less "true". And yes, Haris "David Hirst exists" is a matter of *opinion* - what irrefutable *proof* do you have? I could argue that I have irrefutable proof because I *am* David Hirst, but there's always Descartes' Demon...
Philosophy is built on sand; this is perhaps the hardest lesson for those who are attracted to it because they seek "answers" (God, this sounds like the "lies-to-children" scenario)... however much we might want to do a Doctor Johnson and claim the reality of the sensible world by the *fact* of sensing.
"Truth" is an instrument or tool; not something enshrined in "reality" (the Platonist error). Yet the instrument is defined in such a way as to distinguish 'truth' from 'opinion' (the Socratic apport). We can hold to the definition as a norm by which we can evaluate a given statement, yet not hold that there is some "thing" (either Form or Relation) which is 'Truth'.
Truth is, as Haris will certainly agree, a normative process. But we should be careful of confusing "normative" with "relative". Truth is perhaps a norm by which we evaluate statements, but BY THAT NORM a statement is either true or false and tertium non datur (it is by definition independent of *belief*). We can adopt traditional, intuitionist, or multivalent logics; but our choice constrains what we can allow as "true'", "false", "probable" etc.
One would have to construct a logic to allow for opinion – not difficult in itself. The basic axioms would be derived from:
(i) For any statement S, S is T in L iff for any set P of speakers of L, the cardinal of the subset A of speakers who would assent to S is greater than the cardinal of the subset B of speakers who would dissent from S.
With the additional proviso that for any set C greater than and including P, (i) holds over all the members of C, etc. You can work the details out for yourself if you've got half an hour, but you can see that certain statements would be undecidable, so it'd certainly be multivalent. It would also imply that if you're alone with two fascists, the fascists' statements about the world are true.
In other words, we've described the logical bases of the metaphysics of Orwell's 1984. The entire intellectual edifice of Ingsoc springs from (i)…
so what about this norm then, is it up for grabs or is it grounded on something? if it's up for grabs (ie a matter of agreement itself) then i suppose that's enough for me. now as regards your logic, i agree with the principle, and i don't really see it as problematic that such a logic would allow for 1984. after all, 1984 was a fiction, and the belief in objective realities may be partly to blame for things such as eugenics or the waste of billions of euros into CERN. and maybe other evils too.
That's the big question, isn't it? Does the norm apply because we hold it to apply, or is there something in the world that founds the norm?
you're asking me? i support the first part, but then that makes me a relativist (the title of Kusch's book is 'knowledge by agreement'- i think it addresses exactly this question)
I'm not just asking you, I'm also stating a problem for which there is no "ultimate resolution". As I said, I'd hold that there is a general correction of our language by empirical experience, and that this militates for the view that there is a mind-independent world. That's the best I can say.
I'd say that the "logic of opinion" would apply to Kusch's view. How would he allow for the shifts in "truth" dependent on the number of speakers interrogated? Would he postulate some mystical "it is generally held that" which operates even in situations where no-one present actually believes what is "generally held"?
The metaphysical implications are even more interesting. Did the circulation of the blood come into being when it became widely believed that the blood circulated? Did biological cells come into being when Hooke's microscope became generalised? Did the fundamental nature of the world change when the four-element theory was overturned?
In a very real sense, we can answer "yes" to these questions - but it's rather the truthBEARER that "came into existence", not the truthMAKER. When we say "the Earth orbits the Sun", we should bear in mind that "Earth" and "Sun" are truthebearers relative to the verb "orbits", which describes a certain process in which the terms "Earth" and "Sun" have a different sense from the terms in pre-theoretical language - while the term "Earth" in Genesis refers to the same general entity as the term "Earth" in the orbital model, the theory in which it figures generalises from the local, Euclidian, aspect of the planet. If a certain cosmology holds that the Sun which warms us and gives us light at day is the same entity which sets each night in a muddy pool, then it refers to the Sun that is also the Sun of our planetary model; yet the cosmology in question doesn't hold that "a mass of hydrogen and helium one million three hundred thousand times more voluminous than the Earth" sets in a muddy well. The Sun as truthbearer in "the Earth orbits the Sun" is not the Sun which is the truthbearer in the cosmology in question.
What is the status of this pre-Galilean cosmology? Well, if it claims that the Sun which warms us etc. sets in a muddy well, then it must show us the well if we're to consider it as a rival for our more complex, but more successful, cosmology. The Galilean model corrects the local theory, and thereby gives the terms a sense that they cannot have in the earlier theory (this is, of course, the intuition from which Kuhn worked).
i think my answer would have to be that talk of truth-bearers and truth-makers is itself incoherent, and then i'd go on to talk abou meaning finitism. you'd probably suspect by now that i'm making the linguistic turn towards the later wittgenstein. so yeah, if all we have is the words, and these words don't have stable (in time) extensions, then it follows (i suppose) that the circulation of blood came into being when a big enough community of people decided that it did (and it only came into being for them, until they convinced-in a manner wrought with conventions about what counts as a convincing argument which was purely contingent) and then convinced many other people.
The problem is that if you have nothing but words, what impels change in belief? Why should people suddenly start talking about the circulation of the blood, for example?
let's take religion, your favourite example. why do people update religious beliefs? (for example in the synods) is it because there's changes in the religious phenomena?
The updating of religious beliefs is usually due to social pressures - what social pressure caused us to abandon phlogiston?
We'd need to compare an "upadated religious belief" with an "updated physical belief"... got any good examples?
sex of the angels down to social pressures? filioque down to social pressures? the doctrine of the trinity or the various sects in the first centuries of christianity down to social pressures? seems hard to believe. on the other hand, priestley's general social activity and beliefs? that looks more like a case of a victim of politics than the religious stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Priestley
maybe an example of updated religious belief is the belief that 'the account that god made man out of earth is a metaphorical one (rather than a literal one)'. an updated physical belief may be 'an organism does not pass to its offsprings characteristics it has acquired during its lifetime'. (Lamarckianism)
Are you seriously suggesting that politics is *not* a purely social phenomenon? The Trinity was certainly a compromise solution.
I’m using “social” in the wider sense of “depending on groups of humans and their culture”, as opposed to “solipsist”
***
The Lamarckian account foundered by it lesser explanatory powers when compared with the Darwinian view, and by the impossibility of determining a mechanism for the transmission of acquired characteristics (the Darwinian view is coherent with the genetic account).
From what I can understand of your view, this has nothing to do with the nature of the world, but is rather a matter of – what? Are you perhaps suggesting that the defenders of the Darwinian account – or rather, that the modern defenders of the “evolutionary synthesis” - are simply “more persuasive”?
***
Why should the account that "God made man out of earth" have been abandoned – or rather, what pressures led to the abandonment of a literal understanding? It surely can’t be the realisation that man isn’t made of “earth”, as your position disallows such arguments (there is no “fact of the matter”, just opinion – but why should that opinion change?)
all i'm suggesting is that large (or maybe even all) parts of science are subject to the same social phenomena that other activities are subject to.
so ok, i'd restrict the lamarckian account to before the rediscovery of mendel's discovery then.
i'd say it's a matter of social (in your sense of depending on groups of humans and their culture) dynamics. and yes. i'd say that at this point, and by what we accept as legitimate evidence (which could change in time, we may decide to pay attention to other things) and legitimate methods of scientific argumentation, the darwinians are simply 'more persuasive'.
contrary opinions exist all the time, since there's no fact of the matter. which opinion prevails is a matter of historical accident.
i suppose i have to admit that for them it's science, and if they manage to convince me then i could agree with them and regard it as science too :)
Dear Sid,
i don't understand. the world goes by without me being convinced by many things. quantum mechanics for example.
of course it's not the world that needs me, it's me who probably needs the world :)
i suppose there's many things i don't understand about gaia. that's not to indicate something about the hypothesis, i suppose it's something to do with me being the retard. so anyway. for a start i'm wondering what notion of organism they are using in order to claim that the earth is a single organism. also i'm wondering what the predictive tests are in such a case. but the latter i suppose is a methodological point that's better discussed elsewhere.
I think these latter comments show one of the weaknesses of relativism: where does one draw the line? Does one have to take into account EVERY belief (rubbish like "Gaia" included)? I note that your remarks on Gaia are founded on *scientific* coherence...
The trouble is, Haris, that while you adopt relativism for entirely noble reasons (and in this I feel you're perhaps a better philosopher than I), you're also giving *arguments* to the obscurantists - those who don't seek a "widening of debate", but rather an argument against the rationalist view of the world which discounts their lucubrations as pseudoscience or pseudophilosophy. They'll take advantage of the position you propose, but their objective is to stifle debate and impose their particular view of the world.
Certain people (I name no names) might argue that I also seek to "stifle debate" by rejecting (for example) naive realism and the pseudophilosophical positions that spring from it, or by denouncing supernaturalism and "magical thinking". But this isn't a question of "stifling" debate - it's rather a matter of clearing out dead wood. There are no philosophically sound arguments *for* naive realism; as for supernaturalism, this depends on an a priori belief that there is a "supernatural" dimension to the world - a belief which can indeed be defended (I do wish Mike Liccione would join in here), but which doesn't depend on empirical evidence.
We should, of course, be talking about "evidence" and "justification for belief"...
thanks for the compliments all round, though the written record so far says that i'm not a good philosopher.
anyway. last night i had to wear the vest of a holocaust-denier. and also say why i don't hate turks when they've taken over 37% of my country's land. but i don't like to hate.
of course there's the danger that you've flagged up. but i'm a pessimist about history anyway. these things get abused. but an interesting point that fuller bangs on about and i saw in my graduation ceremony (the mere word should send shudders down your spine, david) was the religious grounding of the whole thing. and the supplication for the degree. which to me says that realism may historically have the same roots as religion. so the two maybe considered as leaps of faith that stand and fall together. now as regards the twilight zone, i don't know what that is and how it relates to physics. and dear sid, if you want to talk about conceptual problems of QM, then all you have to look at is the postulates, especially the last two ones. so i'll be glad to shaft modern physics in the absence of serious reasons not to.
Haris - I've never been in any doubt about the "leap of faith" required in passing from methodological to metaphysical naturalism - it's one thing to conduct an investigation from the POV that *only* physical cause and effect should be taken into account - it's quite another to postulate that "physical cause and effect" are ALL THERE IS...
There is certainly a relation between monotheism and reductionism.
***
To indulge in a little one-upmanship - I might not be a relativist, but I DO think that talk of "cause and effect" is a form of *magical thinking*...
It does indeed - though large numbers of commentators seem to overlook it. It's reinforced by eternalism, of course...
he left the seminar quite early today. is that the contrary of presentism?
Yep - "absenteeism" is a well-known (but little discussed) belief about time among academic philosophers
hmm ok-don't want to get in a discussion of that, especially since it would stray from the topic.
Oh come on, you're a relativist - and that's the ultimate non sequitur...
what do you mean? being a relativist doesn't mean you have to discuss time all the time, no?
That, dear chap, is because you're well on the way to becoming an academic philosopher yourself!
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