Hilde45, complicated indeed.
A little progress? From your article:
**** This incoherence charge is by far the most difficult problem facing the relativist. It is worth noting that attempts to overcome the problem by appealing to the notion of relative truth appear not to succeed. Many versions of relativism rely on such a notion, but it is very difficult to make sense of it. An assertion that a proposition is “true for me” (or “true for members of my culture”) is more readily understood as a claim concerning what I (or members of my culture, scheme, etc.) believe than it is as a claim ascribing to that proposition some special sort of truth. Constructing a conception of relative truth such that “p is relatively true” (or “p is true for S”, or “p is true for members of culture C”) amounts to something stronger than “S believes that p” (or “members of culture Cbelieve that p”), but weaker than “p is true (simpliciter)”, has proved to be quite difficult, and is arguably beyond the conceptual resources available to the relativist. (Siegel 2011: 203) ****
**** The suggestion … is that what is (by commonsense standards) the same situation can be described in many different ways, depending on how we use the words. The situation does not itself legislate how words like “object”, “entity”, and “exist” must be used. What is wrong with the notion of objects existing “independently” of conceptual schemes is that there are no standards for the use of even the logical notions apart from conceptual choices. (Putnam 1988: 114)****
A little progress? From your article:
**** This incoherence charge is by far the most difficult problem facing the relativist. It is worth noting that attempts to overcome the problem by appealing to the notion of relative truth appear not to succeed. Many versions of relativism rely on such a notion, but it is very difficult to make sense of it. An assertion that a proposition is “true for me” (or “true for members of my culture”) is more readily understood as a claim concerning what I (or members of my culture, scheme, etc.) believe than it is as a claim ascribing to that proposition some special sort of truth. Constructing a conception of relative truth such that “p is relatively true” (or “p is true for S”, or “p is true for members of culture C”) amounts to something stronger than “S believes that p” (or “members of culture Cbelieve that p”), but weaker than “p is true (simpliciter)”, has proved to be quite difficult, and is arguably beyond the conceptual resources available to the relativist. (Siegel 2011: 203) ****
**** The suggestion … is that what is (by commonsense standards) the same situation can be described in many different ways, depending on how we use the words. The situation does not itself legislate how words like “object”, “entity”, and “exist” must be used. What is wrong with the notion of objects existing “independently” of conceptual schemes is that there are no standards for the use of even the logical notions apart from conceptual choices. (Putnam 1988: 114)****