Someone suggested to me, in a conversational debate of absolutism vs subjectivity, that there are, and can be no absolutes.
I’m baffled by this.
There are no absolutes: this is an absolute statement.
Then we can say There is only one absolute (namely that there are no others) but in this scenario there is a necessary TWO absolutes, so this also disproves itself by transforming into There is only one absolute: There are no others.
This, which may just be a glitch in our language, holds true if you use anywhere from zero to the number before infinity (whichever that one happens to be).
To my mind this means that EVERYTHING IS ABSOLUTE can be the only true statement. I’m probably missing something here, but this debate always sort of aggravated me, so by all means, help me lay it rest.
I’ve very recently been given occasion to rethink the notion of Absolute (again(again(again)…)))), and, as you seem to have as well, apparently can’t think of such as referring to anything but (a)“thing(s)”. [see Heidegger’s Being (no, wait, cross that out!)]
What, as a thing, would constitute the attributes of an absolute?
Etymologically it appears to refer to something on the order of detached purity {detached from what, pure of what?}, which would seem to make ascribing particular aspects to such rather difficult. The inverse of your above-mentioned reductio would seem to apply: each attribute would portend impurity, such that “nothing” would become the best descriptor of absolute. At least then Nihilism and Absolutism might kiss and make up, though.
In any event, if we cannot describe an absolute (other than via your statement-based notion, which is not what we typically tend to want absolutes to be), then surely we have no grounds upon which to say they exist (or, for that matter, don’t).
It is a leap from what you were saying to “everything is absolute”. It does not follow. Iow…non sequitor. Unless of course you are talking about the “word” everything…depending on your definition of absolute. The word does pretty much absolutely cover it.
Haha.
Everything as a whole being absolute, means that there are no absolutes distinct from the whole…so…the absolute would have to be both immanent and transcendent…(all non-absolutes deriving their being from the absolute) if it is a “being” and not just a “sentence”. So it definitely wouldn’t amount to pantheism or monism.
Don’t quote me on that. Just blowing a few minutes, which are now gone.
Sometimes the purpose of negating statements is: not to arrive at a comfortable understanding. But we are interpreting what we are hearing so we can get something out of it, some understanding. Yet, we fail to understand on certain levels and there is no other instrument besides thinking to help us. Once one thoroughly realizes this there may be what is construed to be clarity, but that is not absolute clarity.
There are not an infinite number of absolutes, only one infinite absolute–there can only be one “being” (logos) to which all absolutes correspond, or there is no absolute.
Keep in mind–the negative of an absolute is not another absolute…just the other side of the same coin. You can’t say anything negative w/o also saying something positive on its flip-side.
We can say positive things about the absolute. For example–it is Golden Rule love (treat the Other as self).
Is this “absolute statement” qualifies as (one of the) “absolutes” in question?
Although they may share something common, I’d say that it’s not the same thing and you get confused because you are mixing different things.
Also, what you are doing is trying to apply the perspective of the statement on the statement itself. Unless the perspective is applicable to other perspectives, you can be trying to measure/evaluate something the method isn’t designed/meant for.
So, I’d suggest verifying what is the original statement (and the perspective within) is meant for, in the particular context of your conversation.
I guess “There are no absolutes” may mean that someone has an interest or desire for something absolute (in the sense of “absolute so-and -so”) and yet found nothing that satisfy the required standard the person has set.
Now, I do agree that the statement can be seen as the “absolute statement”.
However, this particular absoluteness of the statement is probably limited and possibly pretty specific in the sense of logical thinking or something similar that it wouldn’t satisfy the aspiration and resulting requirement in the original statement. If so, there is no contradiction. It was more about the lack of precision, so to say.
Again, I think it’s better to verify what the person really meant (if s/he is aware) the the statement. You can also verify what you think of “absolute” to see the differences and similarities.
I had similar confusion when I was young.
What I desired at that time, relating to absolute, was the absolute certainty, I guess. And it was probably absolute in both logical and emotional (or in intuition, if you prefer).
But I started to understand the nature of logic or thinking/reasoning or evaluation to be relative, “relative” in the sense evaluations are about something, first, and then compared to something else. So it is relative to the observer, ourselves, and also relative to the something subject matter is evaluated against.
Since the notion of “absolute” (for me, at that time) required that it must be free of any dependency, the relative nature of our thought and any evaluation meant they cannot be “absolute”.
When, I thought/concluded more or less intuitively that “Absolutely, there is no absolute”, I thought it was self contradicting.
But in more explicit form, I was thinking (and implying, subconsciously) something like: “There is no absolute evaluation of logical form, and it’s a logically absolute/ultimate view”
And these two “absolutes” are a bit different. “Absolute evaluation” is an imaginary evaluation that has no dependency. It’s about limitless, in a way.
But in “logically absolute view”, “absolute” is indicating the maximum in the given limits (of logic).
So, negating “limitless absolute” in “limited absolute manner” isn’t a contradiction, in this case, in retrospect.
