RELATIVISM. – A term indicating not a specific doctrine or system, but an attitude common to various thinkers, by which it is affirmed that every value is such only insofar as it is relative to something else (v. RELATION): that is, the existence of an absolute (v.) is denied, one which, having its value not from above, is in a position to found the value of others.
If the Absolute is denied as the foundation of the constant value of entities, relativism is introduced in the function of variability. This is the case with what may be called metaphysical relativism or relationism, whereby the value of the real is conditioned by the spatio-temporal dimension (Heraclitus, Bergson [v.]), or by the relations that must be established between entities so that they may constitute themselves in their being as “things” and in their knowability (Hurbert [v.]). One may consider as of this type every doctrine that conceives reality dialectically, whether idealistically (Hegel [v.]) or materialistically (Marx [v.]).
On the basis of this presupposition of the variability of the real, there may derive gnoseological relativism, whereby there exists no absolute knowledge, and knowledge is valid only relative to the subject and in the moment in which it is effected. Thus it is clear that the perennial flux of Heraclitus’ river is the father of Protagoras’ man as the measure of all things. In modern thought, Kantian criticism might also be understood as gnoseological relativism, albeit in a moderate sense, insofar as the a priori subjective 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: MARCHE (v.), Avenarius (v.), and Poincaré (v.), Boutroux (v.), by which the exclusively economic-practical value of the sciences is affirmed. A relativistic conception of scientific knowledge is also reached by A. Einstein, for whom, given the non-existence of a system of coordinates that could alone put us in relation with reality, every point of view on nature, different from others possible, 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 causal connections between phenomena. But quantum mechanics, with Heisenberg, declared it impossible to determine simultaneously the speed and position of a particle without causing alterations (v. PHYSICAL INDETERMINISM). Science is thus limited to probability (v.). Still proceeding from the presupposition of a natural reality, affirmed beyond thought and therefore ungraspable, H. VAIHINGER, HANS (v.) holds that thinking is nothing other than regulated wandering, since thought is a biological function that facilitates action, dictating norms as if reality conformed to the fiction we form of it: the categories of truth and falsity must be replaced by those of utility and harmfulness.
If natural reality, by reason of its variability, eludes objective knowledge, human reality eludes it all the more: hence there follows historical relativism, which is distinguished from ancient skepticism by the antihistorical and ahistorical character of the latter. Once truth and science are posited as historical and human constructions, it follows that they have value only so 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 there hides, genetically and teleologically unknown and unforeseeable, the flux of life. From these premises it may further be concluded that objective historiography is impossible (for this point cf. M. Mandelbaum: The Problem of Historical Knowledge, New York 1938, pp. 17-37 and 190-202).
In a religious sense, relativism may 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 aspects of life.
The abandonment of the deduction of ethics from metaphysics leads to ethical relativism, whereby it is not possible to possess an absolute criterion of morality, which is structured, LOCKE, JOHN (v.), in conformity with civil law, religious law, or the opinion of society. A very widespread form of relativism is pragmatism (v.), which “places in the stead of the utilitarian ethics of success a logic of success. The incontestable fact that the striving for truth is connected with motives of its practical utility must be transformed into the logical determination that truth is nothing other than the utility of representation” (cf. W. Windelband, History of Philosophy, trans. it., 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.
Relativism, positively considered, constitutes a contribution to highlighting the insufficiency of individuals (related, therefore limited and conditioned). In the history of thought, therefore, no one has denied a moderate relativism; indeed, it must 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 this situation to declare it, by right and universally. But even this defining of it represents a surpassing of it: for the definition assumes an absolute value, to the penalty of contradiction, on whose principle, moreover, relativism itself is founded.
If then relativism posits itself as an affirmation of the ever further judging of every category of judgment, its position could be valid only in the case that the relativity of sensible knowledge, from which relativism proceeds, is extendable to every other form of knowledge: but the very 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 to the contrary. Judgment and intellectual knowledge in general thus contain, in the absoluteness of their form and of their principles, the surpassing of relativism. (v. CONCEPT; KNOWLEDGE; JUDGMENT; NECESSITY; SKEpticism).