Is all truth relative to culture and social environment?

We often hear it said that all truth is relative to culture and social environment. In thinking about this claim, I find it helpful to distinguish two interpretations. The first says, "All truth is relative to culture and social environment. We must accept that we are part of a certain culture and social environment. Things too foreign cannot be seriously entertained." The second interpretation says, "All truth is relative to culture and social environment. We must expose ourselves to a variety of cultures and social environments by reading books from a wide variety of times and places. This will allow us to correct for the bias we have for our own." The first kind of relativist accepts our limitation to our own time and place, even celebrates it. The second sort acknowledges relativism only to go on to combat it.

The greatest philosophers are relativists of the second kind. They ask us to take the questions posed by thinkers of the past seriously, and not sanguinely suppose we have answered them. They aspire to be cosmopolitan and untimely, to transcend the merely personal ties, to cultivate a pathos of distance from hour own place and time in order to understand it.