ABSTRACT
In most contexts of ordinary language, it is possible to accept life on a pragmatic basis, upon utilitarian considerations. One can use the weight of these contexts to argue that the remaining contexts are "mythical". Moreover, a life according to utilitarian rules may seem to make a man into an instrument of society. There are four experiences of the human person that seem especially important in the quest for one's own identity. These are the experiences of the activities of awareness, insight, reflective judgment and the drive to understand. A certain kind of relativism inheres, therefore, in the human situation. But it is not a relativism that ends in solipsism; it is the relativism of intelligent subjects in a community of reasonable discourse. Moreover, those who are faithful to understanding share a community of life, however diverse their actual conceptions, points of view, and criteria of the real.
