I don't much like either, as I suppose every right-thinking person doesn't. But how simple or difficult is it to conclusively refute them? — tim wood

Pretty simple, actually, for they are self-refuting. The claim that all truth is relative is itself asserted absolutely. The claim that nothing has any meaning or value, if true, must itself have no meaning or value. — Thorongil

I am not aware of any relativists who trouble to claim that all truth is relative. — tim wood

Further I do not know what truth is. Do you? — tim wood

With respect to relativism itself, it's not whether this is true or that false, but rather the assertion that I'm right (in my beliefs and attitudes, and of course my actions), or that my position is justified (and yours isn't even part the discussion). So the first hurdle to get over, or trap to avoid, is that the refutation of relativism/nihilism is not just a clever - if irrelevant - logic game. — tim wood

rendering even his claim both meaningless and valueless, he likely would say, "Amen, buy me a beer!" — tim wood

I define relativism, here, as simply the attitude and belief that your views cannot bind me (except perhaps as supported by irresistible force), because I have my own that I hold are at least as valid. — tim wood

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

I don't much like either, as I suppose every right-thinking person doesn't. — tim wood

But how simple or difficult is it to conclusively refute them? By conclusive refutation I understand an argument in the presence of which we may judge any relativist or nihilist as simply vicious, and act accordingly — tim wood

Paul Boghossian — jkop

Further I do not know what truth is. Do you? If you think you do, please say here what you think truth is. — timw

Ignorance of the truth does not entail its nonexistence. — thorongil

I'm not seeing any great difference between asserting that something is true and asserting that one is right. "It is true that I am typing on a keyboard" and "I'm right that I'm typing on a keyboard" are making precisely the same truth claim. — thorongil

Uh, what? I don't see any flaw you've identified here.

Consider a claim such as "it is illegal for two women to marry". It's true in some places and false in others. As such, the truth of "it is illegal for two women to marry" is relative. Does it then follow that there is no fact of the matter? Of course not. In some places it really is illegal, and in some places it really isn't. — michael

First of all, refutation deals with demonstrating that a statement, theory, or belief is incorrect. Why would that lead to judging a relativist or nihilist as vicious? Incorrect is not the same as vicious. And what exactly does "act accordingly" mean in this context?

Has philosophy ever conclusively refuted anything? It certainly can't deal with nihilism and relativism because these philosophies deal not with matters of fact, but with matters of human value. Nihilism seems goofy to me. I think it is unequivocally at odds with human nature. Relativism, on the other hand, I would almost say is self-evident, unless an omnipotent and omniscient god is assumed. — t clark

I don't much like either [nihilism or relativism] as I suppose every right-thinking person doesn't. But how simple or difficult is it to conclusively refute them? — tim wood

And indeed in informal usage it is taken as such, just as you have described. However, the sentence itself is inadequately qualified and absent the missing qualifications is actually meaningless with respect to the missing qualifications. What are the missing qualifications? For starters, just those you provide in your description; viz, that it's legal in some places and not in others. — tim wood

Add the qualification and you get propositions that are true (or false) and are not relative at all.

when a person rejects the notion of being true to the facts and turns instead to an ideal of being true to their own substantial and determinate nature, then according to Frankfurt this sincerity is bullshit. — Petter Naessan

If relativism holds, then you and I are both right (because each of us claims to be, QED). Anyone is right who claims to be right. If everyone is right, no one is. The notion of right loses its substance — tim wood

I define relativism, here, as simply the attitude and belief that your views cannot bind me (except perhaps as supported by irresistible force), because I have my own that I hold are at least as valid. (An example, if any reader here needs one: you hold that all persons have equal standing, with equal justice for all, while I, on the other hand, believe that subjugation and exploitation of inferior persons - the many - for the benefit of the few - me - is right, correct, and appropriate.)

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

If relativism holds, then you and I are both right (because each of us claims to be, QED). — tim wood

The claim that all truth is relative is itself asserted absolutely. — Thorongil

Further I do not know what truth is. Do you? If you think you do, please say here what you think truth is. — tim wood

Your argument against nihilism suffers worse flaws. If the nihilist's claim that nothing has any meaning or value is true, rendering even his claim both meaningless and valueless, he likely would say, "Amen, buy me a beer!" — tim wood

It seems pretty outrageous, but the consequence of not having any refutation for relativism is that nothing is wrong, except as we say it is, and have the power to impose what we say. — tim wood

The cry 'it's all relative!" would stand as absolute defense against any charge.

‘P’ is true for S iff S judges ‘P’ to have relation R to either S’s phenomenal P, and/or S’s stock of previously adjudged true propositions, depending on the relation R. Relation R is whatever truth theory relation S feels is the appropriate one(s)—correspondence, coherence, consensus, pragmatic, etc.

So in other words, what it is for some proposition, 'P' (quotation marks denoting the proposition literally as a sentence), to be true to some individual, some S, is for the proposition to have the relation R to S's phenomenal P (their phenomenal perception etc. of some state of affairs) or their stock of previously adjudged true propositions, in S's judgment. — terrapin station

The general etymology seems to be related to "faith, faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty; veracity, quality of being true; pledge, covenant," from Germanic abstract noun *treuwitho, from Proto-Germanic treuwaz "having or characterized by good faith". A solid oak would be something like a metaphor for someone who is trustworthy.

Not that etymology is some magic key, just that it shows something like the genealogy of a concept, and in this case it's related to trustworthiness Truth is that which you can rely on.

Which is exactly how it is, more or less. You can still be betrayed by a loyal friend, for any number of reasons, but generally loyal friends are loyal friends, and you can rely on them, lean on them. Likewise, at an epistemological level, we know we are fallible, we can sometimes be mistaken when we were ever so sure; but we also know that lots of things about which we are ever so sure are reliable.

This is obviously also related to the pragmatic insight: truth is a guide to action. Propositions set up in us expectations as to how the world is likely to behave in response to our actions. These are our "beliefs" (again, "belief" is etymologically related to faith too).

But I think it's important to note that our beliefs are not knowledge as such, knowledge as such is the picture painted for us by the words, which we can believe or not - these propositions we secondarily call "beliefs" too, but that's been the source of a lot of confusion in philosophy.

The primary sense is all about trust in expectations, which are set up by propositions which are then only secondarily called "beliefs." But if you take that reification seriously, then you have the futile search for things "in the head" ("in the mind") that have a similar structure to the structure of propositions.

We do have things in the head, but they're expectations that are triggered by the propositions, which are objective artifacts in the world (which is why the things going on in the head can vary from person to person and time to time, while the propositional structure that triggers them is invariant, and depends on objective rules, standing social habits, etc.). — gurugeorge

And nothing is illegal, except as the legislature says it is, and has the power to impose what it says.

Is this outrageous, or is it common sense? — michael

And if you read your post closely, you've said almost nothing about truth. — tim wood

Is it then, the view of the several relativists here that, notwithstanding their private views, cannibalism, genocide, exposing infants, slavery, pedophilia (for a selection) are all ok? — tim wood

but the consequence of not having any refutation for relativism is that nothing is wrong, except as we say it is, and have the power to impose what we say.

But is there no commonality among otherwise healthy people that itself puts the lie to relativism?

the refutation of these two (or three, including skepticism) lies in persuasive and well-reasoned argument,