"Relativism: So What?": So What?

[koganbot]

I keep telling myself I'm going to write a series of lj posts called "Relativism: So What?" but I keep putting off beginning this. I think a major reason for my block is that, though I can lay out the "intellectual" issues surrounding "relativism," my true goal is to get at "what are people's underlying reasons for thinking there's an issue here?" or to put it better, "people wouldn't bring up the issue of 'relativism' if they didn't think they were taking care of something by doing so, so how do I get them to think and talk about what it is that they think they need to take care of?" A subsidiary question might be, "Frank Kogan thinks he's taking care of something when he tries to get people to think and talk about what they think they're trying to take care of when they raise the issue of 'relativism,' so what is it that Frank Kogan thinks he's trying to take care of when he does this?"

Anyhow, four questions:
(1) What do you mean by "relativism," when you use the word (assuming you use the word)?
(2) Does the issue of relativism matter to you? If so, why does it matter?
(3) What do you think other people mean when they use the word "relativism"?
(4) What do you think they think is at stake?

Don't let your answers by overconstrained by the questions. I want to hear your ideas before giving mine.

By the way, someone on my flist (though I'm not on his) used the term the other day, clearly believed that "relativism" was a potent force in the world.

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

yikes the quotemarks in my (3) are breakdancin every whichway aren't they

3: by "relativists", some people seem to mean "those guys who are too complacently or vaingloriously superior, and/or cowardly, to take a stand on what they believe" or "those guys who argue that the other guy may have a point" even when the "other guy" is some kind of crusading n4zi or similar

(bah i hate trying to characterise bad arguments -- it always feels like i'm loading the dice or letting them off the hook)

[koganbot]

Well, your characterization feels pretty accurate, except it's really more an answer to (4) rather than (3). Which is to say that the person who espouses it may think he knows who he means by "relativists," but doesn't really know what he means by "relativism." Certainly you don't have to be a relativist to think that someone else might have a point. So the question would be, what is the relationship between a (supposed) doctrine - "relativism" - and thinking that other people may have a point. And what is the doctrine? (But getting such a fellow to answer...)