How to get post-modernists/relativists to stomache Absolute Truth??

[TimStr]

A big part of my social circles worldview is steeped with post-modernism. And this especially come to light when I talk about Truth to them.

Basically, their main argument is: All I have is a perspective, all other people have is a perspective. That means that there are only different perspectives out there and therefore, there is no absolute truth / absolute truth cannot be known. When asserting that there is such a thing as Absolute Truth they tend to fall into a pre-trans fallacy: "Oh, you're argumenting for Absolute Truth, therefore you are not acknowledging different perspectives. Another person has another perspective, ‘truth‘ can be entirely different." Essentially putting me into a (pre-)modernist camp while I am arguing from a post-postmodernist perspective. They try to discredit Absolute Truth based on relativism.

How would you argue against that? How to make them construct aware of their post-modernism?

And how would you actually open those peoples minds up to the possibility that absolute truth is out there?

I guess the only get them "convinced" is for them to have a direct experience of truth. But how can they even have that, when their worldview doen't hold such a thing possible?

[zurew]

You dont necessarily need to argue for it, you can just stay inside their frames and let them explain why they go with certain perspectives over other perspectives and then after that you can lay down your version and frame it as a perspective and then check if they would buy into it or not and if not ask them why not.

The only thing you need to establish is some hierarchy of perspectives (you dont need to necessarily establish that there is some kind of top to that hierarchy), and the case that certain perspectives are more inclusive and take more other perspectives into account. Perspectives dont necessarily need to be mutually exclusive, they can be inclusive.

You can also remind them that they already take it that certain truths are not perspective dependently true-  for instance, the claim that "all or most truths are perspective dependently true" cant be perspective  dependently true or if it is, well then you can ask them why they buy into that rather than into the negation of that claim (and then whatever process or epistemology they will describe or appeal to there, you can just use that as a ground to build your case on).

But I often times dont like these talks, because its unclear what they mean by perspective and most of the debate is dependent on clarifying that phrase and often times people have a hard time explicating what they even mean by it.

Edited 16 hours ago by zurew

[TimStr]

8 hours ago, zurew said:

the claim that "all or most truths are perspective dependently true" cant be perspective  dependently true or if it is, well then you can ask them why they buy into that rather than into the negation of that claim

Yeah, get it. So this seems to be the typical fallacy of the postmodern worldview. To put it in my own words:

Postmodernism claims, that everything is a relative perspective. Yet it holds this very claim as true / epistemically given and not a perspective. It misses, that relativity is just a relative perspective, too, and in that way overlooks the possibility of the absolute. 

8 hours ago, zurew said:

You dont necessarily need to argue for it, you can just stay inside their frames and let them explain why they go with certain perspectives

Yeah, thats what I usually do in most normal conversations. However. at times, I want to make an argument, that requires me to leave that frame and whenever I trie to do that, they usually discredit me arguing in some way with relativity.

Besides that, I also want to see this more clearly within my own mind, too.

[Hojo]

Just say its like a hivemind ,thats just the hivemind. The fog of war outside the hivemind dosent exist to the hivemind.

That they point towards others experiences its pointing toward the hivemind. Hes the hivemind saying there are other hiveminds and thats a contradiction.

Edited 3 hours ago by Hojo

[Basman]

Your essentially arguing against people who don't believe in universal truth. There are various arguments you could make for universal truth. 

There are hard limits to what you can imagine and it being true at the same time, which is proof of universal truth. Just because you can think it doesn't mean its true, like thinking your immune to bullets or that you can fly.

If truth doesn't exist then there are no such thing as lies, just different perspectives. To see that someone is lying you have to distinguish between truth and lies. What someone says and does. 

Murdering an innocent person is likely going to be seen as unfair, which implies the existence of universal felt experience, otherwise you can't argue that if is wrong to murder anyone. Any morals can't operate if not based on universal felt experiences, IE. truth. If it is all perspective, then there is no such thing as morality. Use this argument to discredit their social justice stuff and see how they react. 

Relativity doesn't occlude the existance of truth, but nuances it. For something to be relative it has to be constrasted by something absolute, like for example being alive. You can't be alive and hold the perspective that your actually dead, because you can't be dead or alive at the same time. You can only hold a relative perspective if you are alive. 

Blue isn't red, red isn't green, green isn't black, etc. The experience of red can only be red, not green or blue. Being blind or otherwise incapable of seeing red doesn't mean red doesn't exist. You just can't see it.