Often in debates, whenever the words “nothing is absolute” is brought up, some absolutists would respond with the following argument:

“Claiming that “nothing is absolute” means at least “nothing is absolute” is accepted to  be absolutely true, which causes a contradiction, hence “nothing is absolute” can never be logically claimed.

My first impression to this argument is that “wow, what a neat argument.” But I wasn’t thoroughly convinced, because it sounded to me like abusing fine details. This didn’t make sense to me. How can a mere logical technicality decide a question as meaningful as this? After some logical scrutiny, it turned out this argument was a cop-out. It’s circular reasoning since it already assumes logic to be something absolute. I will now present a counterargument that says “you cannot use Logic to dismiss the claim that “nothing is absolute.”

First, let’s establish two logical points:

  1. [LP1] To refute a point, you cannot assume the opposite because doing so would be circular reasoning.
    (e.g. You cannot disprove the existence of God by first assuming that he doesn’t exist.)
  2. [LP2] To refute a point, you must arrive at the conclusion that it is absolutely false. Weaker conclusions (i.e. it might be false, it is not absolutely false, etc…) does not make the statement logically false.

I think mostly everybody will accept these two points. They’re common sense in logical arguments. Now I will present my argument:

  1. Suppose any logical argument that tries to disprove the claim that “nothing is absolute.”
  2. Logic itself can either be absolute or not absolute
  3. Suppose logic is absolute. Then in using logic, you are assuming “logic is an absolute” which also implies “something is absolute.” The assumption leads to the opposite of “nothing is absolute.” Hence by [LP1], logic cannot dismiss the claim that “nothing is absolute” if logic is assumed to be absolute.
  4. Suppose logic is not absolute. Then by corollary, any conclusion obtained through logic is also not an absolute. By [LP2], you cannot logically dismiss a claim as being false if the conclusion is not absolutely certain. Therefore, logic cannot dismiss the claim that “nothing is absolute” if logic is assumed to not be absolute.
  5. Points 3. and 4. encompasses all possible arguments. Therefore, logic cannot dismiss the claim that “nothing is absolute.

However, one side effect of this is that although logic cannot disprove that “nothing is absolute,” it cannot prove it either. So we have no way of answering such a question with a good degree of certainty. However, we should realize that logic is just a tool that we created by making sense of physical laws that apparently define the world we see. We value logic for its consistency when applied to common, everyday situations, not for its truth. Logic is never meant to work for all questions. The validity of either the absolutist and the relativist viewpoints cannot be judged by logic. This doesn’t necessarily mean both are equally preferable, however, since the latter is often much more practical and brings happier results.