The Ancient Problem of Relativism
There is a frightfully subtle presumption in the modern air that mankind is on some sort of inevitable progression, always getting “better” as science always gets “better.” No one seems to know what “best” is, and how there can be a better without a best is beyond me. But what concerns me here is the presumption among ordinary people that relativism is some sort of new idea, as though without advanced methods of communication and diversity in the educational systems and so on, we would have been too stuck in our ways to have realized it. The truth is relativism is a very old idea, as a matter of fact it is one of the oldest ideas we know anyone ever came up with; it stretches back to ancient Greece. Perhaps the only thing that is recent about relativism is that has taken until now to be defended by “educated people.” Among the many approaches to debunk relativism, there is the Augustinian approach; like all those who really think, Augustine uses reason to prove the existence of objective truth as being greater than the human mind. It comes down to this: man cannot be the measure of the truth any more than he can be the reason two plus two equals four.
Augustine describes a “truth which is more excellent than our minds [we can] make judgments about it, not according to it.” He explains that we can make judgments about corporeal things, but not truths which are greater than us. For instance, we can say that an apple ought to be big and juicy. We may also say that an apple ought to be small and sour; it all depends on what we want. I imagine we could even say that today's apple is tomorrow's orange if we were masters at genetic engineering; but if someone were to say that his one apple ought to be six, he would quickly find himself burying either the idea or the apple (or alternatively himself, I suppose). There are things that are less excellent than our minds such as an apple, and there are things that are more excellent than our minds such as the simple preposition that more is not equivalent to less.
St. Augustine holds that “One immutable truth, common to all who know, exists, and is more excellent than the minds that know it.” He shows this through the undeniable truth that numbers add up to sums not because we say they do, but because they do. Augustine says “that objects change when we perceive them with our bodily senses do not become part of the nature of our senses and so are common to us, since they are not changed or turned into our own, as it were, private property.” Numbers are not things in the world, as it were, that can be changed by a simple control of matter by mind. For instance a cat is not on the mat because I say it is on the mat, but if it were not true that the cat were on the mat, and I put the cat on the mat, I could then say it is true that the cat is on the mat. But numbers cannot be moved around in the same way cats can. I cannot put five after two plus two equals, and then say that it is true that two plus two equals five.
If it were true that man was the measure of his own truth, then it must also be up to him what the truth in numbers is. If a banker were to suddenly find that one is the same as four, he would either become poor, or incarcerated. It is nonsense to say that a man is his own measure of what truth is; it is disproved merely by the existence of arithmetic. It is likewise nonsense to say that the truth is something that can be personal, in the sense that one man’s reason is different from another man’s reason. Augustine says the “truth of numbers […] are unchangeable and true and common to all rational beings.” If the truth of number were one man’s private possession, then their reason may not correspond with another man’s reason, and this problem, I hope, has already been sufficiently illustrated by the above man who I assume is in jail or out on the streets by now. It is simply common sense to say that judgments are made “according to the inner rules of truth which we perceive in common. But no one makes judgments about the rules themselves.” We cannot say that in a perfect world two plus two would equal seven; if we worked toward that end, we would all need straightjackets by day four, and I suppose we would need to be strapped down if we refused to rest by day seven.
The problem of relativism backs up to the problem that it is simply inconsistent with reason. It cannot hold up in a bank, and it cannot hold up in mathematics. This resurgence of relativism is simply just another old problem with an old solution. It almost seems as if people think that if there is an underlying truth of the cosmos, then it is so unimportant that it makes no difference what anybody says about it; it is quite a shot to the head. The real problem is that there is some sort of prejudice against thought, because thought will always involve argument, and argument gets in the way of my pleasure. God help us all.
Augustine, St. On Free Choice of the Will. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1964.
