When students are first introduced to the ancient Greeks'
conception concerning how human animals differ from non-human
animals, the concept of the power of the intellect presents
difficulties. Many of these undoubtedly trace their origins to
the culture in which students have grown up, smitten by the
allure of relativism, that is, an awful lot of people believe
that truth does not exist. In the place of permanent and
unchanging verities, many students believe "truth" is entirely
dependent upon how individuals and groups perceive, remember,
imagine, and feel about physical entities. If there is any
truth, they believe it must be material. In this way,
contemporary culture and many students are correct because much
of what people posit today as "truth" is, as Plato rightly noted
in the Meno, nothing more than "wrong opinion tied down."
Relativism didn't trouble the ancients, however. In fact,
ancient philosophers were united across the generations in the
effort to grasp truth and to understand what that means