"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

[koganbot]

You are off for the weekend and shortly after you get back I will be off for a week, but rereading this I had an insight as to why you thought you were answering my question while I thought that you were dodging at least some of it.

The question starts with Esoteric Philosophical Point: "That's a rather esoteric philosophical point I've made, that you can't get beyond the axiom to a set of facts that are 'independent' of the axiom and that therefore can be used to test the axiom.... My question, therefore, is why do people think that the esoteric philosophical point is a big deal?"

And what my eyes were straining but failing to see in your responses was where the point in question was the source of the potential for institutional instability that you seemed to be taking for granted.

Maybe it would help if I rephrased the question:

Why does point A (Esoteric Philosophical Point that I stated above) appear to have consequences B, C, and D rather than consequences P, Q, and R or, as one might expect, no consequences at all?

And your response wasn't making sense to me, since you seemed to assume, without giving any reason, that point A would have a particular effect: "given the pragmatics of departmental structure, any attempt to banish philosophy from its upper level role is going to seem to like the introduction of a revolutionary barbarian chaos."

So now I'll ask the question again, more specifically: How does Esoteric Philosophical Point A ("you can't get beyond the axiom to a set of facts that are 'independent' of the axiom and that therefore can be used to test the axiom") result in an attempt to banish philosophy from its upper level role?

And it seems to me that YOU have jumped to consequence B: "nothing is decided yet" or "everything is still at issue." Whereas very the question I'm asking is why is the Esoteric Philosophical Point seen to have this consequence, that nothing is decided yet and everything is still at issue? You seem to assume that this is written into point A, but it's not. Point A has no opinion as to what's been decided and what hasn't been. (And what does have to do one way or another with the status of philosophy?)