if nothing of these is absolute, then what grounds them? One answer: their absolute presuppositions - their unarticulated, unexplicated fundamental axioms. These are both absolute and not absolute (but never relative). Absolute in that they are both cornerstone and keystone of any belief system, not absolute in that they evolve as cultures and systems evolve. — tim wood

As I said in a previous post, here is a possible answer to the question "what grounds them?

[1] Provide a secure place for children
[2] Support families
[3] Protect weaker people from stronger ones
[4] Provide for the well-being of members of the group
[5] Promote the stability of the group
[6] Protect members of the group from hazards from outside — T Clark

Yeah, to even get at the concept of a unit that can be counted you need to learn to conceptualize things in a particular way. So it's basically noting a supposed uniformity a la "if you play the game of conceptualizing things this way, then you conceptualize things this way." — Terrapin Station

I think "play the game" is a little tendentious. There is uniformity, but we have no idea why. Maybe it's cultural, maybe linguistic, maybe it's hard-wired, maybe something else. Maybe evolution nailed it, and maybe it fucked us over. Maybe it's optional, maybe it's not. Maybe Davidson is right, and the very idea of competing conceptual schemes is incoherent. I don't think the dismissive description you give here quite captures the range of issues at stake.

I think "play the game" is a little tendentious. There is uniformity, but we have no idea why. Maybe it's cultural, maybe linguistic, maybe it's hard-wired, maybe something else. Maybe evolution nailed it, and maybe it fucked us over. Maybe it's optional, maybe it's not. Maybe Davidson is right, and the very idea of competing conceptual schemes is incoherent. I don't think the dismissive description you give here quite captures the range of issues at stake. — Srap Tasmaner

I like the phrase "play the game" in this context and I don't see it as dismissive. I don't think "we have no idea why." We have too many ideas why, as you have listed. The way I see it, humans are hard wired to see patterns. We can't help telling stories. Math is one of our stories. Physics, religion, democracy, absolutism, relativism. Another way to say the same thing is that we play games. I acknowledge I have spent a lot of time thinking about this issue and I still have work to do.

I think if your approach to philosophy is such that there is nothing especially odd about mathematics, then you're doing it wrong.

I think if your approach to philosophy is such that there is nothing especially odd about mathematics, then you're doing it wrong. — Srap Tasmaner

I know you are, but what am I? Or - Oh yeah!? Or something like that

Okay, that was funny. Thanks for keeping your sense of humor.

Anyway, I have already given, in this thread, a reason or two to think math is quite different. There are more, but I guess that should wait for another thread.

I think "play the game" is a little tendentious. There is uniformity, but we have no idea why. Maybe it's cultural, maybe linguistic, maybe it's hard-wired, maybe something else. Maybe evolution nailed it, and maybe it fucked us over. Maybe it's optional, maybe it's not. Maybe Davidson is right, and the very idea of competing conceptual schemes is incoherent. I don't think the dismissive description you give here quite captures the range of issues at stake. — Srap Tasmaner

The thing is that it's trivially clear that people can conceptualize it in a different way. Again, people (students mainly, because of the social circumstances) do disagree with conventional mathematics, all the way back to the beginnings of arithmetic The degree of widespread agreement about it is typically overstated.

I’m with this post trying to better understand what the relativists actually uphold in regard to facticity.

… First, a current event: USA has recently pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement, internationally leaving it in the sole company of Syria and Nicaragua (but Nicaragua is not part of the agreement due the agreement’s not going far enough to protect against global warming; so, imo, it’s a false positive).

Q1 (regarding concrete facts of the recent past): Is the facticity of just stated current event being right (i.e., correct) dependent on how people feel about it so being and their beliefs—such that the stated current event ceases in being a fact were individuals (and cohorts composed of these individuals) to not believe that this current event actually occurred?

Q2 (regarding predicted facts concerning the future): In relation to global warming, is the appraised factuality of its occurrence right (i.e., correct) in manners fully dependent upon what people believe and feel—such that, for one example, global warming would reach lethal levels for humanity (and a good number of other species) if unchecked only were all people of the world to believe and feel that it will? [Therefore: don’t believe in human caused global warming and global warming will cease to be a factual aspect of the world you inhabit.]

Q3 (regarding abstract generalities concerning factuality obtained via a hypothetical): If an ostrich were to place its head in a hole in the ground upon seeing a lion attacking, would the danger to the ostrich then vanish and thereby rescue the ostrich from being harmed?

Q4: If any of the aforementioned questions are answered with a “no”, how does the relativist justify the answer of “no” without relying upon some absolute? … such as that of objective reality, i.e. a reality that occurs regardless of the beliefs and feeling of individuals (and cohorts comprised of these)?

people (students mainly, because of the social circumstances) do disagree with conventional mathematics, all the way back to the beginnings of arithmetic — Terrapin Station

If you think that 2 + 2 might be equal to 5 rather than 4, then you have not yet learned what these symbols mean.

Some of your wording is confusing to me, but in a nutshell:

It's important for understanding my views that one understand the distinction between true/false (or truth-value) and fact. I follow the very noncontroversial analytic philosophy view that truth-value is a property of propositions, and truth-value is distinct from facts, which are states of affairs ("in the world"). What I think that amounts to on the truth end, exactly, is fairly idiosyncratic and controversial, but my view of truth and the distinction between truth and fact stem from that very standard analysis.

So truth, on my idiosyncratic view, is a judgment that individuals make about the relation of a proposition to other things. Thus, whether a particular proposition about about the Paris Climate Agreement is true or false depends on an individual's judgment. Truth is relative to individuals. (I can get into why I believe that's the case in more detail if we need to, but I want to refrain from making my reply too long.)

This is a very different matter than talking about facts re the Paris Climate Agreement. Remember, facts are states of affairs, not propositions about states of affairs, or properties of those propositions, or judgments about those propositions.

Facts are still relative on my view. They're relative to other states of affairs, which is ultimately a way of saying that from different reference points or reference frames in the sense of physics for the latter, a given state of affairs will have different properties. So, for a simple example, from a reference frame moving at the speed of light, any "happenings" at the Paris Climate Agreement were effectively frozen in time.

If you think that 2 + 2 might be equal to 5 rather than 4, then you have not yet learned what these symbols mean. — Srap Tasmaner

Being stern about one's one view isn't actually an argument. That people are stern in that manner is one of the reasons that disagreements wind up socialized out of mathematics, however, especially when we're talking about people progressing into more advanced mathematics.

I'll grant it was poorly worded. Sometimes we are uncertain until we have carried out the calculation.

So I'll say it this way: if you think you can prove that 2 + 2 = 5, and that 2 + 2 ≠ 4, then you don't yet understand the meaning of these symbols. It may be as simple as mixing up "4" and "5."

Proofs are simply relative to the formal systems we set up. A proof in system x is simply a matter of a conclusion incorrigibly following in system x, per the definitions, inference rules, etc. that we've set up as system x.

Thank you for your own views, TS.

If you are upholding that facts are not relative to feelings and beliefs, but to themselves, how do you establish this to be the state of affairs—i.e., the fact of the matter—without also affirming that this appraisal is itself relative to your own beliefs and feelings?

[emphasis provided because that is the missing link I don't yet understand]

If you are upholding that facts are not relative to feelings and beliefs, but to themselves, how do you establish this to be the state of affairs—i.e., the fact of the matter—without also affirming that this appraisal is itself relative to your own beliefs and feelings? — javra

"Establish this to be the state of affairs--i.e., the fact of the matter" sounds like you're instead saying "Determine whether the proposition 'Facts are not relative to feelings and beliefs' is true." Would you agree with that? I just want to clarify this before explaining more.

Proofs are simply relative to the formal systems we set up. A proof in system x is simply a matter of a conclusion incorrigibly following in system x, per the definitions, inference rules, etc. that we've set up as system x. — Terrapin Station

Would you grant that this is a somewhat different way of establishing the truth of a proposition than obtains in, say, physics, history, politics, bar-room linguistics, etc.?

(Btw, my intention earlier was to be succinct, not "stern." I'm just an average joe, not a member of some cult.)

Funny, I’m not a correspondence theorist of truth only on grounds that for me truth is (pithily expressed) “fidelity to that which is objective reality" (hence making sense of semantics such as "the arrows aim was true" and "staying true to oneself"). Takes a lot for me to justify this position, and this isn’t the place for me to try; still, the point of this being: though I’m not a correspondence theorist of truth, to me the notions presented by correspondence theory become one necessary form that truth takes … this via fidelity to objective reality.

This off the beaten path view, however, requires that there be a state of affairs (physical, metaphysical, or both) that is absolute, i.e. not relative--namely, that of objective reality.

To avoid this whole notion of what truth is and what it stands in relation to (never mind the issue of objective reality), I intentionally first used the words “right (i.e., correct)” in my first post in this thread. Likewise with my last given question: I asked for means of justification for the addressed state of affairs—and not whether or not the state of affairs addressed was true.

So, no, I disagree with your interpretation of my latest question (in part due to our likely different, and slightly contradicting, understandings of truth—with your understanding likely not affirming anything non-relative to which truths stand in relation).

Instead, my latest question can better be interpreted as asking how one justifies facticity without reliance upon a notion of something absolute (with "absolute" here interpreted as "something not relative that nevertheless is regardless of beliefs and feelings").

[… But all this should be taken in the context of my first post on this thread to which you first replied. More succinctly expressing its contents: if facticity too is dependent upon beliefs and feelings, then do particular facts cease to be when people (and/or ostriches) don’t believe in them?]

The degree of widespread agreement about it is typically overstated. — Terrapin Station

Should have addressed this before...

Can you name me one business, government, non-profit, in fact any institution of any kind anywhere in the world today that takes an "alternative view" of basic math. (I say "basic math" because few institutions are concerned with, say, axiomatic set theory.)

For comparison, there are, particularly with the rise of data science, lively and valuable debates within what we could loosely call the "statistics community" over the interpretation of Bayesian and frequentist statistics, and the value of different approaches to different problem domains. There is also the so-called "p-value crisis" in the social sciences. In none of these cases is there debate about the math side of things--everyone agrees on that--but about how it's applied and how the results are interpreted.

Would you grant that this is a somewhat different way of establishing the truth of a proposition than obtains in, say, physics, history, politics, bar-room linguistics, etc.? — Srap Tasmaner

Well, empirical claims are not provable. Proofs only work in formal systems we've set up, within the context of which a conclusion can not be wrong.

Instead, my latest question can better be interpreted as asking how one justifies facticity without reliance upon a notion of something absolute (with "absolute" here interpreted as "something not relative that nevertheless is regardless of beliefs and feelings"). — javra

Then I don't really understand the idea. Facts do not need any sort of justification. They're simply the way that things are. That doesn't mean they're not relative (part of the way that things are is relative--for example, properties are relative to reference "points" (spatio-temporal points)).

The only facts that hinge on beliefs, feelings, etc. are facts of beliefs, feelings, etc. For example, the fact that Joe is sad that the Miami Heat weren't in the playoffs this year.

Can you name me one business, government, non-profit, in fact any institution of any kind anywhere in the world today that takes an "alternative view" of basic math. (I say "basic math" because few institutions are concerned with, say, axiomatic set theory.) — Srap Tasmaner

Re "institutions," it's certainly not anything that I keep track of either way, so who knows?

But I'd guess that there aren't many institutions that even have a view (so to speak) of basic math, period. That, to me, implies a philosophical position, and Kentucky Fried Chicken, the National Park Service, etc. are not really in the business of having philosophical views on mathematics.

Not that this is relevant to the point I was making of course.

Then I don't really understand the idea. Facts do not need any sort of justification. They're simply the way that things are. That doesn't mean they're not relative (part of the way that things are is relative--for example, properties are relative to reference "points" (spatio-temporal points)). — Terrapin Station

Yet this eludes the very issue that I’m raising.

“Facts are simply the way that things are” means what in your own perspective? Is ‘the way that things are’ non-relative to beliefs and feelings (hence absolute as previously defined by me: “something not relative that nevertheless is regardless of beliefs and feelings”) or is it relative to beliefs and feelings (and thereby malleable by beliefs and feelings)?

The only facts that hinge on beliefs, feelings, etc. are facts of beliefs, feelings, etc. For example, the fact that Joe is sad that the Miami Heat weren't in the playoffs this year. — Terrapin Station

I myself don’t follow this. If, for example, it is a fact that Joe is sad (at time A, for greater clarity), then Joe being sad at time A is a state of affairs that ‘simply is the way it is’ regardless of what anyone might believe or feel about it … including what Joe might self-delude himself into believing (and remembering) at a subsequent time B.

... In which case, facts about beliefs, feelings, etc., are not malleable by beliefs, feelings, etc. (Assuming I'm interpreting this last quote correctly.)

Hey, my last post of the day. But I am curious to better understand your own position.

I'm in another part of the relativistic wood from ts.

I think that the facticity of Usa's withdrawal from the Paris accord is related to some powerful peoples beliefs. Michael Bloomberg for instance has already said that the Usa through its cities and citizenry will meet its Paris obligations. So we might arrive at a point where the de facto position is different from the official one. But generally, facts are established by good practice, as demonstrated by the steps Facebook has taken to employ fact-checkers to diminish or identify as fake fake news. The disbelief of most biologists, for instance, in the factuality of certain reported findings would convince me. Reports by newspapers of record that the usa has quit the Paris accord convince me of the formal position.

Your remarks about predictions for the future, i didn't understand. There can't be facts about future anthropogenic global warming. I think most scientists think it's likely to be true, and that on the precautionary principle the best bet is to assume they're right.

Nihilism (I define here): the belief and attitude that ultimately nothing matters, nothing has any ultimate or absolute value or significance. — tim wood

Hi. I would stress ultimate here. A nihilist perhaps reasons (1) that he will die and (2) the human species will become extinct. My personal death argues that all value is temporary. I act now in terms of a finite future, which is to say in terms of hopes and fears that do not extend indefinitely into the future. I may fantasize that I can contribute to science, art, or philosophy for instance in a way that gives me a sort of immortality. I can "crystallize" my personality in some work that will survive me. I "upload" my best self or spiritual fingerprint by adding this work (which hopefully is truly great and maintained in the minds of those who survive me), and I can enjoy this notion while still alive. I can comfort myself that death will not be as absolute as it might otherwise be. But (2) or the eventual extinction the species threatens even this comfort. It seems that even Newton, Shakespeare, and Plato will be erased --will become as if they had never been. From this perspective everything is radically temporary. Nothing is ultimately meaningful. Everything is finally empty or rather emptied or erased. To me this is both terrible and beautiful. This realization (or rather belief/myth) creates a "space" outside of everything finite. Life becomes a vivid dream. The only absolute is the impossibility of any other absolute.

“Facts are simply the way that things are” means what in your own perspective? Is ‘the way that things are’ non-relative to beliefs and feelings (hence absolute as previously defined by me: — javra

The simplified answer is yes, facts are not relative to feelings or beliefs. If you call that "absolute" okay, but I don't know why we'd take "relative" to only refer to being relative to beliefs, feelings, etc. The word "relative" certainly doesn't conventionally imply that.

I myself don’t follow this. If, for example, it is a fact that Joe is sad (at time A, for greater clarity), then Joe being sad at time A is a state of affairs that ‘simply is the way it is’ regardless of what anyone might believe or feel about it … including what Joe might self-delude himself into believing (and remembering) at a subsequent time B.

... In which case, facts about beliefs, feelings, etc., are not malleable by beliefs, feelings, etc. (Assuming I'm interpreting this last quote correctly.) — javra

The idea is simply that "facts in no way depend on feelings or beliefs" is false. Facts depend on feelings and beliefs when we're talking a out facts about feelings and beliefs. There's no fact that S believes that P if S doesn't believe that P. So in that sense, some facts depend on beliefs (and feelings, etc.)

Facts are claims made with great certitude from a relative perspective.

There is stuff out there but everyone sees it differently.

What people do is attempt to come to some consensus based upon common experiences and call it a fact. Thus if it looks like a duck, and whacks like a duck, it's a duck-but maybe not. Consensus tends to change over time as perspectives change.

It is hopeless attempting to establish facts in a continuously changing universe where perspectives are constantly changing. We do the best we can for practical purposes.

R G Collingwood's view of metaphysics was that it involved asking a series of questions of any philosopher. Whenever their work answers a question, you ask a deeper question of their work. Finally you reach some sort of bedrock: the answer that provokes no questions. These answers for him are that philosopher's metaphysics: their absolute presuppositions, rooted in their historical situation and their personal outlook. Oddly enough Collingwood held such a relativist view and yet remained a practising Anglican. — Mcdoodle

A super summary of Collingwood's central idea - not easy to do! But here's the question: is it really a relativist view? The quick answer is, "Sure. And the supporting argument is that history shows that fundamental beliefs change, meaning that whatever is taken as true really is culturally conditioned and could be something else."

Maybe it's a bit of a cop-out to not develop the idea here, but do you get a glimpse of how absolute presuppositions do condition a kind of a non-relative system. For example, as Collingwood makes clear, truth is not the measure of these presuppositions, so to ask if they're true simply is not an appropriate question.

And when on rare occasions cultures with differing fundamental beliefs collide, that has usually not given rise to a discussion, some much as a war to the death.

But my thoughts are with the tougher problem of reality, what reality is, how that works with absolute presuppositions, and what about reality is immune from relativism. I'm persuaded that reality (here undefined!) is immune, and perhaps the only proof is that it had better be!

What people do is attempt to come to some consensus based upon common experiences and call it a fact. Thus if it looks like a duck, and whacks like a duck, it's a duck-but maybe not. Consensus tends to change over time as perspectives change. — Rich

I've been going through a bunch of posts which ask what firm base relativists nail their facts to. I have my answer ready, but you've beaten me to the punch. It's consensus. Even if you believe there is some final, definitive, concrete ground of being, e.g. objective reality, which I don't, the only thing we have to work with on a day to day basis is agreement among them what knows. Consensus.

I've been going through a bunch of posts which ask what firm base relativists nail their facts to. I have my answer ready, but you've beaten me to the punch. It's consensus. Even if you believe there is some final, definitive, concrete ground of being, e.g. objective reality, which I don't, the only thing we have to work with on a day to day basis is agreement among them what knows. Consensus. — T Clark

Yes. I agree. There probably is something out there. Probably some wave patterns that the brain reconstructs as some sort of hologram. But everyone is perceiving it differently so there are disagreements and agreements. You and I may agree and disagree on this question but we attempt to reach a consensus. We may call this consensus a fact if we wish, if we agree to call it such.

But my thoughts are with the tougher problem of reality, what reality is, how that works with absolute presuppositions, and what about reality is immune from relativism. I'm persuaded that reality (here undefined!) is immune, and perhaps the only proof is that it had better be! — tim wood

Nothing in reality is immune from relativism unless you assume the existence of objective reality, which I don't. I think the concept of objective reality can be useful and productive in some situations. On the other hand, it can keep us from recognizing the extent to which human interactions influence our view of truth.

The thought that objective reality does not, might not, or need not exist is not a new or radical one. If its existence is a fixed absolute, then there is no need to continue this conversation.