Relativist Quotes & Sayings

The absolutist takes himself to read nature in her very own language, but the relativist insists that nature does not speak, and we hear only what we have elected to hear. — Simon Blackburn

Cognition is not fighting, but once someone knows a lot, he will have much to fight for, so much that he will be called a relativist because of it. — Karel Capek

The absolutist takes himself to speak to the ages, with the tongue of angels, but the relativist hears only one version among others, the subjectivity of the here and now. — Simon Blackburn

The disappearance of the heroic ideal is always accompanied by the growth of commercialism. There is a cause-and-effect relationship here, for the man of commerce is by the nature of things a relativist; his mind is constantly on the fluctuating values of the marketplace, and there is no surer way to fail than to dogmatize and moralize about things. — Richard M. Weaver

The hero can never be a relativist. — Richard M. Weaver

In a sense, this is so obvious that it seems silly to have to say it. But given the commonly accepted views on morality - from the biblical tenet: "Judge not that ye be not judged" to the relativist mantra: "Who are you to judge?" - not only does it have to be mentioned; it has to be stressed. Judging people rationally and treating them accordingly is a requirement of human life. While — Craig Biddle

The skeptical relativist attempt to mandate a naked public square is undemocratic. It is also a danger to democracy. — Henry Hyde

Whether you believe in Jesus, Buddha, the Beatles, crystals, mother earth, or anything else that takes your interest, all are held to be on the same footing; all have equal validity for the relativist. — John C. Lennox

I hate relativism . I hate relativism more than I hate anything else, excepting, maybe, fiberglass powerboats ... surely, surely , no one but a relativist would drive a fiberglass powerboat. — Jerry Fodor

Show me a cultural relativist at 30,000 feet and I'll show you a hypocrite ... If you are flying to an international congress of anthropologists or literary critics, the reason you will probably get there - the reason you don't plummet into a ploughed field - is that a lot of Western scientifically trained engineers have got their sum right. — Richard Dawkins

If the relativist claims that, since all reasoning is embodied in a particular social context, no claim to know the truth can be sustained, one has to ask for the basis on which this claim is made. It is, after all, a claim to know something about reality - namely that reality is unknowable. — Lesslie Newbigin

The gospel addresses our greatest need and brings change and transformation to every area of life. Let's look at just a few of the ways that the gospel changes us. Discouragement and depression. When a person is depressed, the moralist says, "You are breaking the rules. Repent." On the other hand, the relativist says, "You just need to love and accept yourself." Absent the gospel, the moralist will work on behavior, and the relativist will work on the emotions - and only superficialities will be addressed instead of the heart. Assuming the depression has no physiological base, the gospel will lead us to examine ourselves and say, "Something in my life has become more important than God - a pseudo-savior, a form of works-righteousness." The gospel leads us to embrace repentance, not to merely set our will against superficialities. — Timothy J. Keller

Faith? Haven't any. I'm not a nihilist or a relativist. I don't believe in anything but change. I'm a Heraclitean - you can't step in the same river twice. — Philip Johnson

No one is a consistent moral relativist. — Nancy Pearcey

The notion that someone who does not hold your views holds the reciprocal of them, or simply hasn't got any, has, whatever its comforts for those afraid reality is going to go away unless we believe very hard in it, not conduced to much in the way of clarity in the anti-relativist discussion, but merely to far too many people spending far too much time describing at length what it is they do not maintain than seems in any way profitable. — Clifford Geertz

Let us say in passing that since (philosophical) remedies are often worse than the malady, our age, in order to be cured of the Plato sickness, has swallowed such doses of a relativist, vaguely skeptical, lightly spiritualist and insipidly moralist medicine, that it is in the process of gently dying, in the small bed of its supposed democratic comfort. — Alain Badiou

Most relativists believe that relativism is absolutely true and that everyone should be a relativist. Therin lies the self-destructive nature of relativism. The relativist stands on the pinnacle of an absolute truth and wants to relativize everything else. — Norman Geisler

The absolutist lays down the law, but the relativist hears only roaring and bawling. Or, when the relativist voice, as it is heard from philosophers such as Nietzsche or James, itself starts to grate and sounds shrill, as it often does, and when the relativist then offers concessions, the absolutist hears only insincerity. The war of words can often turn into a dialogue of the deaf, and this too if part of its power to arouse outrage and fury. — Simon Blackburn

I'm such a chronic relativist, I can't hold down a strong opinion about many things long enough. — Hugh Grant

There is an obvious disconnect between someone's claim to be relativist and his own moral judgments, including his judgment that people ought to be relativist. — Vern Sheridan Poythress

It is impossible for a Christian to be a relativist. — Jacques Maritain

The absolutist trumpets his plain vision; the relativist sees only someone who is unaware of his own spectacles. — Simon Blackburn

A relativist is an individual who doesn't know the difference between an adjective and an adverb. — Bill Gaede

Paradox is a pointer telling you to look beyond it. If paradoxes bother you, that betrays your deep desire for absolutes. The relativist treats a paradox merely as interesting, perhaps amusing or even, dreadful thought, educational. — Frank Herbert

The only consistent response for a relativist is, "Pushing morality is wrong for me, but that's just my personal opinion, and has nothing to do with you. Please ignore me. — Gregory Koukl

No One Is a Relativist at the Bank — John Piper

I am certainly not an intellectual relativist, nor a moral relativist. — Edward Tufte

Later scientific theories are better than earlier ones for solving puzzles in the often quite different environments to which they are applied. That is not a relativist's position, and it displays the sense in which I am a convinced believer in scientific progress. — Thomas Kuhn

The absolutist parades his good solid grounding in observation, reason, objectivity, truth and fact; the relativist sees only fetishes. — Simon Blackburn

The Anarchists' uncompromising rejection of the State, the subject of Marxian sneers for its "absolutist" and "Utopian" character, makes much better sense in the present era than the Marxist relativist and historical approach. The pacifists also seem to be more realistic than the Marxist both in their understanding of modern war and also in their attempts to do something about it ... — Dwight Macdonald

If morality is always relative to one's own society, then you, coming from your society, have your moral standards and I, coming from my society, have mine. It follows that when I criticize your moral standards, I am simply expressing the morality of my society, but it also follows that when you condemn me for criticizing the moral standards of your society, you are simply expressing the morality of your society. There is, on this view, no way of moving outside the morality of one's own society and expressing a transcultural or objective moral judgment about anything, including respect for the cultures of different peoples. Hence if we happen to live in a culture that honors those who subdue other societies and suppress their cultures, then that is our morality, and the relativist can offer no cogent reason why we should not simply get on with it. — Peter Singer