Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

6THE RESPONSE TOPHENOMENALISM ANDRELATIVISM(Book IV. 5–6)1How phenomenalism and relativism present achallenge to <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s defence of the principle of noncontradictionconceived as a metaphysical principleIn book IV, chapters 5–6, <strong>Aristotle</strong> considers and responds to the following two views:and:(PHEN) Anything that appears thus and so to someone, andanything that someone believes to be thus and so, is thus and so (i.e.all appearances and all beliefs are true);(REL) Anything that appears thus and so to someone, and anythingthat someone believes to be thus and so, is thus and so for him (i.e.all appearances and all beliefs are true relative to the one who has them).We may call the first view ‘phenomenalism’ and the second ‘relativism’. Bythese terms we will mean just these views. (In the next section we will seethat <strong>Aristotle</strong> distinguishes precisely these two views—regardless of howthey are labelled.) This must not be confused with a wider use of theseterms, for today they are obviously used in a variety of ways. In particular,we must be careful to bear in mind that phenomenalism, as this view ischaracterized by <strong>Aristotle</strong> here (in IV. 5–6), is the view that all appearances(phainomena) and all beliefs are true. This must not be confused with a morefamiliar modern use of the term ‘phenomenalism’, to mean that all