Saving Relativism from Its Saviour

In his paper “A Consistent Relativism” (Mind, 106, pp. 33–52), Steven D. Hales proposes a “logic of relativism” (p. 33) with the help of which he wishes to “illuminate the self-refutation charge” (ibid.) against relativism, and which he hopes will “provide a framework in which relativists can consistently promote their. . . views” (pp. 33– 34). Hales purports to show that relativism is indeed selfrefuting, according to his treatment of relativism “as a kind of modality” (p. 39). He also proposes a “more modest” and “new-and-improved” (p. 37) relativism, which is not in this way self-refuting, and promotes his logic as a neutral battleground for relativists and absolutists, within which both views are consistent, but neither is logically necessary so that each has to be earned “through honest toil” (p. 38 and p. 39). Hales adopts the pose of the saviour of relativism, who kindly offers a logic in which a modest relativism is consistent. But within Hales’ logic of relativism, the self-refutation objection turns out better than it ever really was. I will to show that (I) the self-refutation argument as first presented and supported by Hales is fallacious, that (II) the semantic principle he later introduces into his logic (in the last paragraph of the appendix) in order to make “principle