Relativism: Does Truth Depend on the Question?

“That’s true for you, but not for me.”

We hear this response often enough that it can begin to sound self-evident. If two people see things differently, perhaps truth really is relative.

But that raises a more difficult question:

What exactly does it mean for something to be true?

More than 2,400 years ago, the Greek philosopher Protagoras offered one of the most famous formulations of the problem:

“Man is the measure.”

The idea, broadly understood, is that things are in some sense as they appear to each person. What seems cold to one person may seem warm to another. What seems beautiful to one person may seem ordinary to another. If our experience of the world differs, perhaps truth differs with it.

That idea has had an enormous influence on the philosophical problem of relativism.

But perhaps the question is more complicated than “Whose truth is correct?”

Perhaps we first have to ask what kind of claim we are making.

What Exactly Is Being Claimed?

Consider three statements about a cold day:

“The thermometer reads 30 degrees.”

“30 degrees feels cold to me.”

“30 degrees is too cold to be outside.”

They sound similar, but they are not making the same kind of claim.

The first is a claim about a measurable physical condition.

The second is a claim about a person's experience.

The third is a judgment about what is tolerable or desirable.

The thermometer can tell us the temperature. It cannot tell us whether that temperature feels cold to a particular person or whether going outside in it is worth doing.

But that does not mean all three statements are equally relative.

Suppose I say, “I feel cold.”

There is something subjective about the experience. Someone else may not feel cold at the same temperature.

But there can still be an objective fact about my subjective experience: either I am feeling cold or I am not.

The fact that an experience belongs to a particular person does not automatically make the truth about that experience relative.

This distinction becomes important when we begin talking about relativism.

The Problem With “Everything Is Relative”

Relativism is not a single philosophical doctrine. Philosophers have defended more limited forms of relativism concerning morality, knowledge, culture, language, and other subjects.

The strongest version makes a much broader claim: truth itself is always relative to some person, culture, perspective, or framework.

That creates a difficult problem.

If someone says, “Everything is relative,” we can ask:

Is that statement itself relative?

If it is an absolute truth, then at least one truth is not relative.

If it is only true from one particular perspective, then someone else could consistently say that it is false from theirs.

That does not by itself settle every form of relativism. A limited claim such as “some moral judgments depend upon cultural standards” is different from the claim that there is no truth independent of perspective.

But it does expose a problem with treating all truth as relative.

The question is not simply whether people disagree.

The question is whether disagreement changes what is true.

But What Is the Alternative?

It would be easy to respond by moving to the opposite extreme.

If truth is not entirely relative, perhaps everything must be objectively true or false in exactly the same way.

But our experience does not seem to work that way either.

Consider beauty.

One person may find a particular painting beautiful. Another may find it dull. Their disagreement does not necessarily mean that one of them has made a factual error that could be settled with a measuring instrument.

Or consider the question:

“Is this the right thing to do?”

That is not the same kind of question as:

“What temperature is it?”

We should be careful, however, not to confuse “not measurable by a thermometer” with “there is no truth involved.”

Different kinds of questions may require different methods of inquiry without requiring different standards of truth.

A thermometer is appropriate for temperature.

Evidence and observation are appropriate for many questions about the physical world.

Reason, argument, experience, and attention to consequences may be relevant to moral questions.

Interpretation and judgment may be involved in questions of beauty.

The method changes because the question changes.

That does not necessarily mean truth itself changes.

Relative Experience Does Not Mean Relative Reality

Imagine two people watching a sunset.

One sees deep red. The other sees more orange. One finds it beautiful. The other is unimpressed.

Their experiences are different.

But it would be a mistake to conclude from this that there is no reality outside their experiences.

The sun has not become two different suns because two people see it differently.

The important distinction is between reality and our experience of reality.

We encounter the world from particular perspectives. Our senses are limited. Our knowledge is incomplete. Our expectations influence what we notice. Our emotions can affect our judgments.

None of this proves that reality itself is relative.

It demonstrates something different:

We can be mistaken about reality.

Can We Be Wrong?

This may be the most important point in the entire discussion.

If objective truth exists, human beings do not have to possess it perfectly.

We can believe something sincerely and still be wrong.

People once held mistaken ideas about the size of the Earth, the causes of disease, the movement of the planets, and countless other things. The fact that people disagreed about these questions did not make the underlying reality relative.

Their beliefs changed.

Reality did not have to change with them.

This gives us a position between two extremes.

We do not have to believe that every truth is relative merely because human beings are fallible.

Nor do we have to believe that human beings are capable of knowing everything with certainty.

There can be an objective reality and imperfect human knowledge of it.

That combination is not a contradiction.

In fact, it may be one of the reasons intellectual humility is necessary.

What About Morality?

Moral questions make the problem considerably more difficult.

Different cultures have disagreed about marriage, punishment, authority, property, family obligations, violence, and the treatment of outsiders.

Does that prove that morality is entirely relative?

Not necessarily.

Disagreement tells us that people hold different moral beliefs. It does not, by itself, tell us whether one belief is true, whether several are defensible, or whether morality is ultimately objective.

At the same time, moral questions are rarely as simple as measuring the temperature.

Questions about justice, harm, responsibility, dignity, freedom, fairness, and human well-being involve competing considerations.

The circumstances can matter.

Intentions can matter.

Consequences can matter.

The rights and interests of different people can matter.

That complexity should not automatically be mistaken for relativism.

There is a difference between saying, “The answer depends on the circumstances,” and saying, “There is no answer beyond whatever anyone happens to believe.”

The first is a claim about context.

The second is a much stronger claim about truth itself.

So Does Truth Depend on the Question?

Perhaps this is where the original question becomes most useful.

Does truth depend upon the question?

Not necessarily.

But the question can determine what kind of answer we are looking for and what kind of evidence or reasoning is relevant.

If we ask:

“What is the temperature?”

we can measure it.

If we ask:

“What does this temperature feel like to me?”

we are asking about experience.

If we ask:

“Is this temperature comfortable?”

we are asking about a judgment.

If we ask:

“Is it morally right to expose someone to this temperature?”

we have entered an entirely different kind of inquiry.

The questions are different, and so are the methods we use to investigate them.

But different methods do not automatically produce different versions of truth.

The thermometer does not establish truth because temperature is objective while moral reasoning is inherently relative.

It establishes temperature because that is the kind of question a thermometer is designed to answer.

The more difficult questions require different tools.

The Value of the Relativist Question

This is where the idea of relativism may be most valuable.

It forces us to recognize that we never encounter the world from nowhere.

We have a perspective.

We have experiences.

We have assumptions.

We live within cultures and languages that influence how we understand things.

And we can be wrong.

Those are important reminders.

But recognizing the limits of our perspective does not require us to abandon the idea of truth.

In fact, it may encourage us to take truth more seriously.

If we know that our perspective is limited, then disagreement becomes an invitation to examine our assumptions rather than simply declaring the other person wrong.

The fact that someone sees the world differently does not prove that their view is correct.

But neither does it prove that ours is.

Perhaps the Question Comes First

The phrase “that’s true for you, but not for me” sounds tolerant.

Sometimes it is.

Sometimes it is simply a way of ending an argument without examining it.

Before accepting either response, perhaps we should ask a more fundamental question:

What kind of claim are we making?

Are we talking about a measurable fact?

A personal experience?

A matter of taste?

A moral judgment?

A conclusion based on incomplete evidence?

Or a claim about reality itself?

These are not interchangeable.

Protagoras challenged us by suggesting that the human being is the measure.

Perhaps the more useful response is not to dismiss that challenge, but to examine it carefully.

We are the ones asking the questions.

We are the ones interpreting the evidence.

We are the ones experiencing the world.

And we are capable of being wrong.

That does not necessarily make truth relative.

It may simply mean that the path toward truth is more complicated than the truth itself.

Perhaps truth does not depend upon the question.

Perhaps before we can determine what is true, we first have to understand what we are actually asking.