Absolutism

The term Absolutism may refer to philosophical stances which promote notions of absolute truth, involving contentions that in particular realms of thought, all statements in that domain are either absolutely true or absolutely false; in ethical philosophy such can include forms of moral absolutism, asserting that there are absolute standards against which moral questions can be judged, and that certain actions are either good or evil, regardless of the context of the act, or graded absolutism, the view that a moral absolute, like "Do not kill," can be greater or lesser than another moral absolute, like "Do not lie." In social theories it can refer to autocracy (also known as "political absolutism"), involving political theories which argue that one person should hold all power, thus including systems of absolute monarchy, forms of government where the monarch has the power to rule their land freely, with no laws or legally organized direct opposition in force, and enlightened absolutism, the policies of absolute rulers who were influenced by the Enlightenment of eighteenth and early nineteenth century Europe. It can also indicate ideas of absolute space, in theories holding that space exists absolutely, in contrast to relationalism, which holds that space exists only as relations between objects, as well as to the absolute idealism of ontologically monistic philosophies, such as that attributed to Hegel in his accounts of how being is ultimately comprehensible as an all-inclusive whole. In rational and political contexts, many absolutist assumptions and stances are vigorously opposed by those of relativism and assessments and arguments of absurdism and anarchism which can involve implicit or explicit acceptance of both absolute and relative aspects of Reality or values within it.

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