relativists

Relativists are philosophers who defend relativism, the view that the truth of statements, the correctness of beliefs, or the validity of values depends on a given framework or context rather than existing independently of it. Relativism is not a single doctrine but a family of positions, with debates about what is relative and to what.

The main strands include epistemic or cognitive relativism, which holds that truth or knowledge claims are true relative to a particular framework, culture, language, or individual perspective; moral or ethical relativism, which holds that moral judgments derive their validity from social norms or personal frameworks; and cultural relativism, an anthropological stance urging understanding of beliefs and practices within their own cultural system, often used to resist ethnocentrism. Aesthetic relativism is the view that judgments of beauty depend on taste or cultural standards. Some writers treat normative relativism as the claim that normative judgments cannot be objectively standardized.

Historically, relativist ideas appear in ancient thought with Protagoras's remark that “man is the measure,” and gained prominence in anthropology (Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict) and in philosophy during the 20th century. Proponents argue that relativism respects diversity and explains cross-cultural disagreement, while critics contend it undermines objective truth, complicates moral critique, and faces self-referral challenges. Defenders often reply that relativism can preserve objectivity within domains rather than globally, promoting context-sensitive discourse without surrendering reasoned evaluation.