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RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 58 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE , a philosophic See also:

term which was much used by the philosophers of the See also:middle of the 19th See also:century, and has since fallen largely into disuse. It deserves explanation, however, not only because it has occupied so large a space in the writings of some See also:great See also:British thinkers, but also because the See also:main question for which it stands is still See also:matter of eager debate. We get at the meaning of the term most easily by considering what it is that " relativity " is opposed to. " Relativity " of knowledge is opposed to absoluteness or positiveness of knowledge. Now there are two senses in which knowledge may claim to be See also:absolute. The knower may say, " I know this absolutely," or he may say, "I know this absolutely." With the emphasis upon the " know " he asserts that his know-ledge of the matter in question cannot be affected by anything whatever. " I know absolutely that two and two are four " makes an assertion about the knower's intellectual See also:state: he is convinced that his certain knowledge of the result of adding two to two is See also:independent of any other piece of knowledge.

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