No such presupposition is made. Intrinsic notions/definitions aren't necessarily denied, merely acknowledged as murky; not able to be fully apprehended by our limited human faculties. So, what every (non-crackpot) philosopher in the Western tradition has pretty much been on board with, from Plato onwards. Nobody, besides those who fancy themselves prophets/mystics (i.e. crackpots), believe they can rank everything and anything in some all-encompassing manner.
What you call "crackpot" philosophers have always been the true philosophers, whether eastern or western. The "western tradition" (by which we mean from Descartes to present. Greek and Christian philosophers don't count, because their outlook was always grounded in either gnosis or theology) you speak of is where the true crackpots can be found, and i think the insanity of modern civilization reflects this. And while one may argue that this tradition begun with Aristotle, the fact of the matter is that Aristotle himself was not in fact a rationalist, not in the modern sense of the word (the Greek word for reason always carrying the double meaning of reason and intellect). In this sense, St. Thomas was far more Aristotelian than most western philosophers of their Renaissance and onward (despite their claim of the having restored true Hellenic philosophy, which in fact they have not).
As for Plato, his outlook was very much realist, and he did in fact rank everything in an all-encompassing manner, starting with the One (I.E., the Absolute). The fact he relied on a rationalistic language doesn't mean his philosophy didn't posses a more "mystical" (or intellectual rather) side to it. In fact, if anything his philosophy is actually an exploration of the limits of reason, with a view of opening up towards an higher form of knowledge when those limits are shown to be insurmountable. He exhausts all possibilities in a given argument until one is left with no option but to open himself to gnosis, or simply accept the fact rational philosophy is a waste of time and that "truth" can never be discovered. In my case, i usually like to start where Plato leaves off and leave those who desire a rationalistic explanation up to dry, to their ever ending chagrin (and my shameless amusement).
At any rate, your fallacy is to dictate that, since the "tao that can be named is not the real tao", I.E., that which is universal can not be expressed in particular terms (the mother of ten thousand things, I.E., relativity), one can never attain to the nature of said universals, under the rubric that there is no other way of attaining knowledge outside of strictly rational means. This may appear not be relativist in principle but is relativistic for all intended purposes. Any other method is automatically dismissed as some type of "mysticism" or another (mind you that gnosis has nothing to do with mysticism, the first being intellectual, the latter being sentimental).
Not really. Two works or two people can be great in extremely divergent ways, and defy ranking schemes, yet that doesn't render the idea of greatness meaningless. Do we really want, or need, to determine whether or not high sculpture is superior/inferior to the best classical composers? Pit Bergman against Brahms or Augustine against Tolstoy in a "WHICH IS BETTER AND WHY? DISCUSS!" pissing contest?
Realizing our epistemic limitations and abandoning attempts at "perfect objectivity" seems pretty reasonable to me.
It seems reasonable to you because you are a rationalist, precisely. You seem to be equating our "epistemic limitations" with an intellectual limitation plain and simple. But prey tell, by what means then do we even determine "greatness"? Beethoven and Britney Spears, which is better and why? Dickscuss! "Perfect objectivity" is a nonsensical expression anyway, for something is either objective or not. There are no degrees.
Now, and this is particularly pertinent to the present discussion, we can in fact rank even geniuses against one another according to the limitations of their art (imagine then videogames), relative that they may be in the scheme of human creativity and possibility for greatness. Thus, Dante is greater than Milton not because his genius was superior, but because medieval culture was superior to the culture of the Enlightenment. There is a meaning to the poetry of Dante the surface of which Milton doesn't even begin to scratch (by comparison, one of the things that make Shakespeare so great is that he was more of a man of the middle ages despite being raised in the world of the Renaissance). In fact, sacred art properly so called is superior to profane art whether it involves "talent" or not. A medieval icon is superior to a Renaissance painting by sheer fact that the icon is based on intellectual criteria first and foremost, as opposed to mere virtuosity. In this respect, the icon can still be superior even if the painter was not a genius, as long as he follows the principles of the form without deviation, where as profane art is essentially worthless BUT for genius. In fact, and this is something that profane people cannot wrap their head around, witness the disdain Renaissance artists had for medieval works, when the art form itself encapsulates the essence of transcendence there is no need of individual genius (albeit individual genius can always enrich the art). Thus, the form of the art actually influences the outcome regardless of the talents of a given artist. The proof of this is modern art, which not even genius was able to redeem.
Only when categories/criteria are specified in the extreme.
No, this is a completely arbitrary exception. You cannot argue that categories and criteria cannot be specified in
principle and then back down when your intelligence tells you that this cannot possibly be the case given the absurdities that can arise from it, like the idea of Britney Spears being as "great" as Beethoven.
I laid a bit of a trap here, with SS2 and Quake 3.
I knew you would devalue a (highly) competitive multiplayer shooter while overvaluing a well-made, but very simplistic single-player shooter focused on atmosphere. While I like SS2, it's terribly lacking in a lot of ways. Poor hitboxes (those spiders), simplistic enemy design, level design that completely shits the bed after you leave the Von Braun, etc. The character-building elements don't really add a huge amount of depth and nothing in it particularly challenges the player all that much. Good game, but clearly doesn't stand head and shoulders over everything else in the broad genre of "shooter" or even broader category of "game".
Whereas Quake 3 has all of the depth that comes with a competitive, balanced metagame. Players have to learn proper use of all of their abilities, because opposing players are far more dangerous than a bunch of Pnky Demons and Imps, albeit with cool fluff. Map and powerup control are fundamental to winning matches and a lot of thought clearly went into some maps. Compare to SS2, where simple exploratory techniques are all that is required of the player to experience all the content and find all the stuffies&thingies.
So, yeah, a bit of an argumentative trap that shows that it isn't that easy to define what is better or more complex. I mean, you seem to have made a bit of a mistake, and you've got the power of Genius™ on your side.
My objection to this ties to my discourse regarding the superiority of medieval art. System Shock 2 is superior to Quake 3 not because it gets everything right, but precisely because what it sets out to do is of greater import, and accomplishes it to a sufficient degree. Complexity is a bit of a meaningless buzzword since it doesn't cover everything, though it is often useful to get the basic point across. And i think in a way it is significant that Quake 3 is more perfectly made than System Shock 2, precisely because its scope is more limited, and ID software had less elements to mess up (not to mention probably more money and better resources, but that's besides the point).
What's the point? You clearly cannot see value in an entire swath of games/mechanics and then justify your perspective with a lot of over-intellectualizing and epithets of "RELATIVIST!" when someone disagrees with you.
Here come's the fallacies again. Just because i consider one particular gaming form as superior to another it doesn't mean i cannot see the value of the latter. And second, to argue that one cannot determine whether a given form is superior to another 'cause "apple and oranges trololo" IS relativistic. What exactly do you want me to do here, come up with new words to express the same concept just to avoid repetition?
Maybe I'm reading wrong, but I'm starting to not feel as though you're speaking with people in this thread, but speaking at them.
That's because i know what the argument is about at heart. There is no point for me to shift through a particular rationalization, pin point logical consistencies and see if i can poke holes to a particular sentence, when the very foundation of the argument runs against the principles of my own arguments. For me to accept the premise of a relativist argument just to engage with the content of the argument itself would be to automatically condemn myself to defeat.
No, I merely used the actual definition...
But not the actual meaning.
