Anthony Magnabosco explores strategies for addressing relativistic views of truth in Street Epistemology, highlighting the importance of clarifying whether truth is viewed as subjective or objective to foster meaningful dialogues.

30 August 2017

By Anthony Magnabosco

Having conducted hundreds of talks with people over the years using Street Epistemology, I'm increasingly encountering individuals who view truth in relativistic terms. If you want to be effective at Street Epistemology (SE), I believe you are going to need to know how to address relativism. This blog post will define the issue, include examples to highlight the problem, and offer suggestions to overcome this challenge. You will find little point in discussing someone's deeply-held belief until you first clear this hurdle.

When engaging with people in Street Epistemology-based conversations about their deeply-held beliefs, we usually tend to make a few assumptions. One of the biggest we often make is that our conversation partner thinks the word truth is synonymous with an objective fact and they will agree one should strive to believe true things.

Unless we specifically test for this, however, we may not discover the disconnect until we are minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even years along in the dialogue. As more people are beginning to converse with each other using Street Epistemology, stories about hitting this mammoth roadblock are surfacing regularly in the various SE discussion communities.

Why Should a Street Epistemologist Care?

If you are remotely interested in having productive dialogues with individuals using Street Epistemology or some other method, one should be extremely concerned when people think truth is subjective. It’s crucial that we assess how our interlocutor views the concept of truth.

It’s inefficient to engage with a person about their deeply-held belief if they think truth is subjective. One might even say that ensuring a person sees that truth is objective is the Street Epistemologist’s most important task; no additional progress can be made until you overcome this perception.

People are motivated to behave in certain ways because of the beliefs they hold. From choosing who to vote for to deciding to launch an attack with unimaginable destruction, the actions we take must be based on objective truth and not subjective realities.

Critical tools in the Street Epistemologist’s arsenal for imparting doubt, like John W. Loftus’ Outsider Test for Faith, for example, are rendered virtually impotent when a person holds a relativistic view of truth.

Subjective and Objective Truth

Roughly speaking, something is objectively true regardless of a person’s opinion, bias, desire, hope, wishes, feelings, or preference. Objective truth is the same for everyone regardless of their physical location, age, time zone, prejudices, culture, upbringing, or experiences.

Something is subjectively true when one bases their conclusions on personal preferences and experiences via their human senses. Subjective truth is relative, can vary from person to person, is nearly indistinguishable from opinion, and is heavily influenced by society, education, biases, desires, emotions, and other factors.

Encountering people who hold this relativistic outlook seems increasingly common in my experience and might be fueled by a strong desire to appear tolerant of other people’s views. Or perhaps simply defaulting to “everyone is right” is an easy way to avoid the uncomfortable feelings that go hand-in-hand with addressing a belief that might not be entirely accurate.

Common Phrases to Watch For

Whether you prefer to conduct a test to assess a person’s perception of truth using one of the examples provided earlier, or you wish to wait until the topic comes up naturally, there are phrases to listen for that could be an indication that your conversation partner views truth as a subjective opinion.

• “Anyone can believe anything and make it true…”
• “Everyone’s entitled to believe what they want…”
• “For me…”
• “If it makes someone happy…”
• “If it’s true for them…”
• “It’s my truth…”
• “Truth is what you make it…”

What if Your Interlocutor Doesn’t Value Truth?

Street Epistemologists need to be prepared for people who may say that they don’t care if they are believing in something that is true or not. It was a real shocker the first time I heard this from someone, so here is a little advice to prepare you for this real possibility.

First, make sure that you have accurately assessed how they are viewing the word “truth.” Conducting a “truth test” early on in a conversation can help clarify this. You can also experiment with simple examples, like a talk about armadillo reproduction or using a box of candy for a quick test.

Finally, share those situations where you have encountered relativistic thinking with others in the various Street Epistemology communities and discuss which approaches you found effective or where you encountered a surprising new roadblock. Only by addressing these truth challenges head-on will we be able to overcome this potentially frustrating roadblock before we can advance to examining the epistemology behind a person’s claim.