This is an essay on Relativism by Monica Ssenkoloto..... i certainly hope it will provide a bit of enlightenment on Relativism and how it impacts our perceptions.....

*********An Essay On Relativism

From the Enlightenment period onwards, the Western World has generally adopted the idea that logic and objective reasoning can be used to define human beings and the world in which they live. The heroes of the enlightenment, that is Newton, Locke, and Bacon, were those who were successful in rejecting the uncertainty of the natural world and replacing it with a "rational" world of science and definable phenomenon. These heroes follow in a tradition stemming from Aristotle, and later Descartes in which the thinking, rational mind is supreme. They lay the foundations for prototype of the modern, disengaged self, who supposedly rejects the subjective self in favor of the mechanistic one. It is therefore no surprise that the concept of cognitive relativism is one that boggles the modern intellect. Cognitive relativism rejects the quest for objective truth as not only being unfeasible but also irrelevant, and suggests that all behaviors are relative to individual conceptual schemes. In other words, one's personal history, level of development, assumptions and prior conditions all have a way of skewing how events are experienced and interpreted, thus making it impossible to judge objectively what is the truth and what is a form of deception. The belief that everything is relative is in direct opposition to cognitive objectivism, which purports the thesis that there is a mind-independent world or a "rational" world, as defined by enlightenment thinkers. A subsequent thesis follows which states that a claim is valid only if it corresponds to a fact that has already been proven to be true in the mind-independent world. This second thesis is commonly known as the Correspondence Theory of Truth. Cognitive relativism is a rejection of this theory, since a true relativist would argue that there is no such thing as a mind-independent world that serves as a standard for objective truth.

The rise in discourse about relativism is due mainly to Immanuel Kant's theories and their influence on contemporary philosophers. Kant argued that the world is mind-dependent and that our experiences as human beings are based on the concepts or "rules that govern the mind" that we develop in order to gain a better understanding of our world. This mind-dependent world that Kant describes, leads one to an extreme version of subjectivism in which each individual is in his or her own world perceptually, with no hope for any kind of unity of perceptions among these individuals. What we know and believe to be true is completely relative to how we perceive it. This seems highly problematic, upon further examination, because there must be some conceptual schemes that we share or how else would we survive? Kant does concede that there are some concepts that we all posses that must be inherent, which are reflected in the behavior of infants. Humans have innate beliefs in objects and objects created by cause and effect. While Kant's theories are the building blocks for cognitive relativism, he does not adequately explain the subjective elements that are present and that create a downside to his philosophy (Litch)

A relativistic stance can be adopted in situations where several interpretations of events are depicted, as is the case in Rashomon and Hilary and Jackie. Both movies show tangible illustrations of the premises that are at the core of cognitive relativism. In Rashomon, a series of events are retold from different perspectives with outcomes that are clearly distinct and leave no room for any possible reconcilement. There are numerous ways in which an audience can react to such disparities and one such possibility is to see this contradiction as a result of cognitive relativism. While we would generally have the tendency to ask ourselves who among the characters is telling the correct story, relativism invokes us to relinquish such desires, as horrifying as this may be. Cognitive relativists would argue that the character's individual conceptual schemes all interfere with how they recall events. In Hilary and Jackie, it is more evident that the differing conceptual schemes of the two sisters play a large role in how they perceive certain events. In several instances, we see how their varying conceptual schemes alter how they perceive significant events in their lives. While the there is no way of knowing the "correct" version of the retelling of events according to cognitive relativist, most viewers leave the film with a bias towards Hilary. She is Jackie's "ordinary" sister who has to deal with her sister's fame and high status. Here, I, along with many others, am revealing my failure as a cognitive relativist, since I have not let go of my need to decide what is the most "accurate" recollection of the two sister's lives. A true cognitive relativist disregards such needs and assumptions.

There are several different types of relativism, some strands of which have come to be more prominent than other manifetatiions. Truth relativism is a result of the rejection of the Correspondence Theory of Truth. While truth relativism does not deny the existence of a mind-independent world, it asserts that a statement can only be judged to be true or false in the context of a particular conceptual scheme. Perhaps this is why Jack Nicholaus warns Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men that he cannot handle the truth. Truth relativism argues that there is no such thing as objective truth, since the world is mind-dependent. However, Tom Cruise is a lawyer and his profession, as well as several others, is based upon getting individuals to distinguish between what is true and what is false. In murder cases, few victims are willing to throw their hands up and woefully lament on how the truth is relative. In relativism of rationality, how we justify something is based on our conceptual scheme and therefore, there is no universal way of determining what is a better form of rationale. Rationality is also based on certain situations, such as in the event of a movie, where we frequently practice a willing suspense of disbelief. We accept supernatural events as being in the realm of a fictional world and utilize a far different form of rationality than we do in the "real" world. Finally, there is relativism of logic, in which laws of logic are completely thrown out the window. For the relativist, they a social construct established solely out of our need for logic in the world. Relativism of logic is one of the most extreme forms of relativism.

The two major, current forms of relativism are modernist relativism and post-modern relativism. As already stated, the theories of Kant are prominent among modern relativists. Originating with Descartes, modernist relativism, which is also referred to as truth relativism, is partly described in the above paragraph. Thomas Kuhn and his beliefs about the philosophy of science also influence modern relativism. Going back to the enlightenment and the scientific revolution, the western world came to believe that scientific experimentation is the ultimate source in achieving a world of complete rationality. Kuhn turns this belief upside down by arguing that new theories are sometimes the result of the disregarding of old beliefs that no longer work. There is not much rationality in such deductions and Kuhn suggests something that is in contrast with how we generally view the scientific process. Science is commonly perceived to be an accumulation of facts over a period of time. According to Kuhn, conceptual schemes are altered in order to come up with new theories that line up with universal criteria that can be used in all conceptual schemes. Furthermore, individual scientists who operate under different conceptual schemes need a means of translating their research, when the switch is made from one scientist to the other.

Post-modern relativism is the most radical form of relativism, in which the world is a place of chaos and meaninglessness. Frederick Nietzsche was among the first to adopt relativism of rationality and to argue that language has a way of slanting our conceptual schemes. Post-modernists espouse moral relativism or the notion that objective moral standards no longer exist. Post-modernist would probably argue that "family values" and other hints at moral standards are merely a social construct. The rational human being does not exist, but rather is tainted by his emotions, beliefs and values. For the post-modernist, the line between value judgments and non-value judgments is so blurry that they reject such dichotomies. For example, in Hilary and Jackie one could make the following two statements:

S1: Hilary's sleeping with Kiffer may have indirectly hurt her other family members.

S2: Hilary's sleeping with Kiffer was morally wrong.

According to post-modernism, these two statements do not differ because there is no neutral or value free way of expressing a judgment. Both statements make a judgment about Hilary that overall are leaning towards negative assumptions about her behavior. Post-modernism leads us to deconstruction, which examines the implicit mistakes arising from the language that we use. Our language limits us. Post-modernism also emphasizes the value of all perspectives, since universal rationality does not exist. They scorn didacticism in art, since what is defined to be meaningful varies with each conceptual scheme. While the validation of all points of view is generally a good thing, post-modern relativism and cognitive relativism have some downsides. Suggesting that everybody is "right" can lead to the proliferation of ideas that are not beneficial to the society as a whole. It also does not pacify those who question the validity of cognitive relativism as a valid philosophical theory. However, if nothing else, cognitive relativism forces us to recognize that our individual conceptual schemes and ways of perceiving things play a larger role in our perceptions than we are likely to acknowledge. We are not quite the rational beings that we would like to think we are.
**************