Relative Speaking Summary

The commentary article “Relative Speaking” by Simon Blackburn discusses the nature of plagiarism and primarily argues that current broad definition of plargiarsim should be narrowed down or confined to literal copying, by which way, realizes its own social value. To develop his thesis, Blackburn first describes how a meeting held by different religious representatives can be turned into a farce under the influence of absolutism. Then he presents a debate about the validity of banning “fox hunting” where relativism fails to end controversy but creating distractions. Finally, Blackburn ends this article with a conclusion which states that relativism can expand literature and history to include more previously unnoticed alternatives, which is

In the introduction, Blackburn constructs a clear antithesis between absolutism and relativism, and illustrates their focuses with colloquial words like “bullshitting” and “fetish”. Although this way of expressing ideas is kind of rude, it makes audiences easily understand the ongoing conflict between these two ideas and intrigue them to read more. The rest of the article continues such fun style of writing until the part where the author begins to point out the problems within the prevalent idea, relativism. The author’s reasoning against relativism starts with an imaginary debate where pros and cons are discussing the validity of banning fox hunting. Then the author introduces a relativist, Rosie, who tells the pros and cons that “The truth you are holding is relative; what you believe is true may not be true for the other.” Since this point, the author’s reasoning begins to become intense. First, he argues that what Rosie suggests doesn’t contribute to the debate because with or without her intervention, the debate will remain controversial. Then he digs deeper by suggesting that Rosie may want to emphasize toleration is essential yet such claim is actually absolute, which contradicts the relativist value that Rosie believes. Finally, Blackburn states that in order to avoid such paradox, Rosie may assert that “You have your truth; I have mine”, yet it still doesn’t contribute anything to the

As previously mentioned, this article can be understood by common people with absolutely no philosophy background. For a long time, philosophy has been considered as somewhat horrifying because of its abstract and intangible contents. Some philosopher’s papers are even perceived as “code books” by the public. Yet after reading this article, most readers could understand why relativism is kind of problematic in the reality, and some of them may feel philosopher attracted therefore learning more about this field or even devoting themselves into philosophic studies. That is called popularization. Is popularization of philosophy good or bad? The question can only be answered by time. Yet, for the field of philosophy, popularization is better than letting this field disappear during the advancement of human civilization because of its unapproachable