“What is involved here is not relativism in the subjective sense but rather relationism: one can indeed determine truth or falsity, but truth is ultimately verifiable in complex ways, not in any simple way.”
About This Quote
Relativism is too easy, almost naïve. A relative truth does not mean there is no truth; it means there are different angles (or relationships) to truths. These relationships are made further complex because the angles and relationships we gauge on to certain truths with are truths in historical motion.
More from Walter Ong
“Written words are residue. Oral tradition has no such residue or deposit… Though words are…”
“It is perfectly true that neither you nor I can hope to set up a program for activity…”
“The articulate remains always embedded in the inarticulate.”
“Science itself is always incomplete articulation.”