UCT lecture to focus on significance of disagreement

"On the one hand it seems irrational simply to stick with your own view, regardless," professor Weiss said. "But should every person easily give up on their view, this would quickly degenerate into an intolerable situation in which no enquirer holds any view about matters of controversy. I suggest one way of threading a path between these extremes and end by trying to use the account to understand aspects of academic life and, in particular, of disciplinary authority."

Truth is relative

Weiss added: "This is because many people think it is possible to have faultless disagreements; disagreement where neither party is at fault. Examples are judgements about taste. One person may judge a joke to be funny; another may judge it not to be so. Each seems to disagree with the other, yet it seems neither need be at fault. One way of explaining the phenomenon is to think of truth as relative. While it is true from the point of view of the one sense of humour that the joke is funny, it is not true from the point of view of the other sense of humour. My research argues that the relative notion of truth fails to explain the phenomenon because it can't support an adequate notion of disagreement; instead we need to think of these cases as cases where truth gives out."

Before joining the University of Cape Town in 2003, he held a lectureship in philosophy at the University of Wales in Lampeter.