Hi Platt, Richard et. al
'Absolute' is one of those horribly overused words whose meaning becomes confused and
often incorrectly used. According to my Concise Oxford Dictionary, the meaning of absolute
in philosophical terms is:
1) "a value, standard, etc., which is objective and universally valid, not subjective or relative"
and/or
2) "that which can exist without being related to anything else"
Perhaps we should clarify exacly what it is that we mean and in what sense we are using the
term.
Anyway, some thoughts:
"There are no absolutes" implies that there is a logical inconsistency in the sentence and on
the face of it this seems reasonable. Alternatively, as Richard states there is no LOGICAL
reason why a rule needs to include itself but as we're in the mood for being logical let's
examine the idea 'absolute'.
If something is universally and unconditionally valid then how do we know this to be a fact and
not some vague and frivolous ideal. It may be so by definition (a batchelor is an unmarried
man) or or trivially so (a = a), but in any serious sense of the word - and I assume that this is
what the argument is about - surely we would need universal and unconditional knowledge in
order to know whether something is universally and unconditionally valid. In other words to
know if X is absolute we need absolute knowledge of X, additionally we would need absolute
knowledge of anything affecting X and anything affecting anything affecting X etc..
Considering that we are mere mortals and our knowledge is limited to that which our senses
filter and that which we may ponder our knowledge is pretty limited. So to make a statement
that something is absolute is itself NOT LOGICAL. We do not and cannot know in any way
other than trivially that X is absolute.
We can feel certain or we can be sure or we can completely and utterly convinced but
absolute knowledge is beyond us and similarly, therefore, knowledge of the absolute.
What we are left with is a statement something like:
In cases which are not trivial or defined it is incorrect to state that any position is absolute as
insufficient knowledge is available to make this statement valid.
So I may state that I am absolutely certain that standing in front of a truck moving at 100mph
is going to result in my death or jumping off the Empire State Building similarly so but I am, in
fact, misusing the term absolute.
Even a statement about death being absolute needs to be qualified.
Horse
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