RELATIVISM. - A term that indicates not a specific doctrine or system, but an attitude common to various thinkers, according to which every value is such only insofar as it is relative to something else (v. RELATION): that is, it denies the existence of an absolute (v.) which, having its value not in something else, is in a position to ground the value of other things.
If the Absolute is denied as the foundation of the constant value of beings, relativism is introduced by virtue of variability. This is the case with what may be called metaphysical relativism or relationalism, according to which the value of the real is conditioned by the spatiotemporal dimension (Heraclitus, Bergson [v.]), or by the relations that must be established among beings in order for them to be constituted in their being as "things" and in their knowability (Herbart [v.]). Every doctrine that conceives reality dialectically may also be considered of this type, whether idealistically (Hegel [v.]) or materialistically (Marx [v.]).
On the basis and presupposition of the variability of the real, epistemological relativism may follow, according to which there is no absolute knowledge, and knowledge holds only relatively to the subject and at the moment in which it is effected. Thus it is clear that the perpetual flowing of the Heraclitean river is the father of Protagoras' "man is the measure of all things." In modern thought, Kantian criticism could also be understood as epistemological relativism, though in a moderate sense, insofar as the subjective a priori element is posited precisely as the universal condition of the objectivity of knowing. In Hamilton, knowledge is relative insofar as it does not attain reality in itself, but only phenomena or modes, and these are in relation to our faculties and are presented as modifications of our faculties themselves (Lectures on metaphysics and logic, London 1859, pp. 148 ff.).
A consequence of the subjectivity and relativity of knowing is the denial of science as an absolute and objective interpretation of the real: thus the empiriocriticism of Mach (v.), Avenarius (v.) and Poincaré (v.), and the contingentism of Boutroux (v.), by whom the exclusively economic-practical value of the sciences is affirmed. A. Einstein also arrives at a relativistic conception of scientific knowledge, for whom, given the non-existence of a system of coordinates that could by itself put us in relation with reality, every point of view on nature, different from the other possible ones, is nevertheless equivalent to each of them. On the other hand, Einstein hoped to preserve the invariability of physical laws within the various systems and not to have to renounce the causal connections among phenomena. But quantum mechanics, with Heisenberg, declared it impossible to determine simultaneously the velocity and position of a particle without provoking alterations (v. PHYSICAL INDETERMINISM). Science is therefore limited to probability (v.). H. Vaihinger (v.) also starts from the presupposition of a natural reality, affirmed beyond thought and therefore ungraspable, for whom thinking is nothing other than a regulated erring, since thought is a biological function that facilitates action, dictating norms as if reality conformed to the function we form of it: the categories of truth and falsity must be replaced by those of utility and harmfulness. If natural reality, because of its variability, escapes objective knowledge, human reality escapes it all the more: hence follows a historical relativism, which is distinguished from ancient skepticism by the latter's anti-historical and ahistorical character. Once truth and science are posited as historical and human constructions, it follows that they have value as long as the states of mind and interests for whose satisfaction they were constructed endure (O. Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, Munich 1918): beneath the infinite succession of cultural forms is hidden, genetically and teleologically unknown and unforeseeable, the flowing of life. From these premises it may further be concluded that an objective historiography is impossible (on this point cf. M. Mandelbaum: The problem of historical knowledge, New York 1938, pp. 17-37 and 190-202).
In a religious sense, relativism can be seen as a consequence of agnosticism; religious relativism presents itself with the "dilettantish" program of excluding the religious problem, affirming the impossibility of unifying the multiplicity of life's aspects.
The abandonment of the deduction of ethics from metaphysics leads to an ethical relativism, according to which it is impossible to possess an absolute criterion of morality, which is structured, as in the case of Locke (v.), in conformity with civil law, religious law, or the opinion of society. A very widespread form of relativism is pragmatism (v.), which "puts in place of the utilitarian ethics of success a logic of success. The incontestable fact that the effort toward truth is connected with the motives of its practical utility must be transformed into the logical determination that truth is nothing other than the utility of the representation." (cf. G. Windelband, Storia della filosofia, Italian trans., II, Palermo 1938, p. 367, note).
In Italy, relativism (like skepticism) developed in polemic with transcendental idealism. A significant figure of Italian relativism is A. Aliotta.
Positively, relativism constitutes a contribution to highlighting the insufficiency of individuals (related, hence limited and conditioned). In the history of thought, therefore, no one has denied a moderate relativism; and it must indeed be affirmed that, outside of God, everything, in a certain sense, is relative. The most generic and simple formulation of relativism arises from the factual observation of the existence of dissenting judgments and opinions; its theoretical systematization consists in the claim to extend itself to declaring such a situation de jure and universally. But already this defining of itself represents a surpassing of it: in fact, the definition assumes an absolute value, on pain of contradiction, and it is on this principle, moreover, that relativism itself is founded.
If, then, relativism posits itself as the affirmation of the ever-further judgability of every category of judgment, its position could be valid only in the case that the relativity of sensible knowledge, from which relativism starts, were extensible to every other form of knowledge: but the mere fact that it is possible to think the same truth infinitely many times and in the same way (e.g., 7 + 5 = 12) is a clear demonstration of the contrary. Judgment and intellectual knowledge in general therefore contain within the absoluteness of their form and their principles the surpassing of relativism (v. CONCEPT; KNOWLEDGE; JUDGMENT; NECESSITY; SKEPTICISM).