No where in my post did I use the word relativism. Nowhere did I suggest the "laws" (that's just a word we use to describe a useful convention) of logic are just opinions or that every opinion is equally as valid as any other.
I'm sorry my post was so poorly written to imply I support relativism as you're describing it. I've been a programmer for over 20 years. Code either works or it doesn't. As with logic, there's no room for relativistic, subjective opinions when it comes to code that works and code that doesn't. I've also seen code break because the "laws" were broken due to something like a buffer overflow or some other hack which was previously undiscovered. This shows the "laws" really were just super useful conventions and sometimes those conventions need to be updated with a patch to the language.
There are many different forms of logic, used for different purposes at different times. Again, useful conventions. This is why epistemology is so critically important. If someone thinks tea-leave reading is just as valid an epistemology as logic, reason, evidence, skepticism, and the scientific method then we can demonstrate how poorly their method predicts future events and corresponds to our observed reality. All truth claims and epistemologies are not equally valid and we can demonstrate this using conventions which work without having to claim those conventions are the ultimate, supreme, unchanging Truth.
Thanks for responding! I still don't really understand what you meant though...if Truth is not unchanging, yet is not arbitrary, then what is it in your view?
I think big "T" Truth may not exist. I think what we call "truth" is something we've found to be such a reliable convention that it would take an amazing discovery to uproot it and change it. Our understanding of gravity, for example, is quite good in that we know what goes up must come down. That said, we still don't know if things such as a graviton exist or if gravity might be something we can manipulate in the future. If we make new discoveries which lead to things like a gravity gun where it could be manipulated at will then calling gravity a big "T" Truth would have been presumptuous and wrong.
I'm comfortable with this definition of truth:
When our understanding of facts and reality improve, then our concept of truth will improve along with it. That's why I don't see truth as unchanging as it only represents, at any given time, our current understanding of what "is".
Does that make sense?
That makes a bit more sense, but I'm still not really convinced of it...I like your definition of truth though!
But I got the feeling that, at the end there, you changed what you meant by it...by saying
The words "our current understanding of" seem to limit "in accordance with reality" in important ways.
I believe that we shouldn't look back on Newtonian physics and say, "Newtonian physics WAS true, but now it's not, because relativity and quantum stuffz", but instead we should say, "Newtonian physics HAS ALWAYS BEEN FALSE, but it was a useful approximation of the truth (which we still aren't sure of)."
In a more serious tone, I don't think we would be justified looking back on history and saying, "It WAS true that Jews are inferior, but now it's false"...I think we need to stand up against that and say, "It HAS ALWAYS BEEN true that all people are created equal!"
If the first case were true, then truth would be no justification for anything!
I would never say Newtonian physics was wrong. Within it's given category, it's still as useful and "true" today as it ever was. The problem is language and categorization.
Water is wet. Is a water molecule wet? A group of them? We have trouble understanding emergent properties but much of our reality is an emergent property of many smaller things.
If there's a way to perceive "reality" beyond what we "currently understand", what would that be? To me, that's logically impossible. As soon was have more information, our understanding would catch up to better form our perception of reality.