This is philosophy bites with me Nigel Warburton and me David Edmonds.

Philosophy bites is unfunded. Please help us keep it going by subscribing or donating at W.W.

Philosophy Bites.com or you can become a patron at Patreon.

Fred believes philosophy bites is esoteric and pretentious twaddle.

Theona believes philosophy Bites is the greatest podcast ever produced.

Could they both be right?

Could the truth about the quality of philosophy Bites be relative?

Tim Williamson is the Wiccan Professor of... the quality of philosophy bites be relative.

Tim Williamson is the Wiccombe Professor of Logic at Oxford University.

Tim Williamson, welcome to philosophy bites.

Thank you.

The topic we're going to focus on is the appeal of relativism. Let's just begin by getting clear what relativism is

The relativist is someone who doesn't want to say I'm right and you're wrong who thinks that everybody has their own

point of view that point of view is right from its point of view but not from a different

one and that there's no bottom line below that about who's really right and who's really wrong.

So the relativeist is somebody who thinks there's no such thing as absolute truth.

Yes.

In lots of context that isn't absurd, but in some it is. If somebody says to me the

holocaust didn't happen. You believe that it did? I believe that it didn't. It's just like

you like pistachio flavored ice cream. I like lemon I just think they're absurd there's no common ground to even beginning discussion

I mean we know that it can be hard or impossible to change some people's mind but that doesn't show that they're not wrong.

That may be their problem rather than ours or it's our problem too if they start acting on some crazy view that they have.

...