1. Notion and forms. In the tradition of philosophical thought, knowledge is described as the coming together of the knower and the known (“in cognitione cognoscens et cognitum in actu sunt [fiunt] idem”). The truth brought about (“actuated”) in this act is due both to the known object (in the widest sense) and to the knowing subject (“quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur”). If the subjectivity of knowledge is isolated and made dominant, and truth determined only by the knower, the various forms of relativism ensue.

Metaphysical relativism would be the denial of any …