| First-Year Students | Position 1 | Authorities know, and if we work hard, read every word, and learn right answers, all will be well. |
| Dualism modified | Transition | But what about those others I hear about? And different opinions? And uncertainties? Some of our own authorities disagree with each other or don’t seem to know, and some give us problems instead of answers. |
| Position 2 | True authorities must be right; the others are frauds. We remain right. Others must be different and wrong. Good authorities give us problems so we can learn to find the right answer by our own independent thought. |
| Transition | But even good authorities admit they don’t know all the answers yet! |
| Position 3 | Then some uncertainties and different opinions are real and legitimate temporarily, even for authorities. They’re working on them to get to the truth. |
| Transition | But there are so many things they don’t know the answers to! And they won’t for a long time. |
| Relativism discovered | Position 4a | Where authorities don’t know the right answers, everyone has a right to his or her own opinion; no one is wrong! |
| Transition | Then what right have they to grade us? About what? |
| Position 4b | In certain courses, authorities are not asking for the right answer. They want us to think about things in a certain way, supporting opinion with data. That’s what they grade us on. |
| Position 5 | Then all thinking must be like this, even for them. Everything is relative but not equally valid. You have to understand how each context works. Theories are not truth but metaphors to interpret data with. You have to think about your thinking. |
| Transition | But if everything is relative, am I relative, too? How can I know I’m making the right choice? |
| Position 6 | I see I’m going to have to make my own decisions in an uncertain world with no one to tell me I’m right. |
| Transition | I’m lost if I don’t. When I decide on my career (or marriage or values), everything will straighten out. |
| Commitments in relativism developed | Position 7 | Well, I’ve made my first commitment! |
| Transition | Why didn’t that settle everything? |
| Position 8 | I’ve made several commitments. I’ve got to balance them—how many, how deep? How certain, how tentative? |
| Transition | Things are getting contradictory. I can’t make logical sense out of life’s dilemmas. |
| Graduating Students | Position 9 | This is how life will be. I must be wholehearted while tentative, fight for my values yet respect others, believe my deepest values are right yet be ready to learn. I see that I shall be retracing this whole journey over and over—but, I hope, more wisely. |
| Sources: Perry, 1981, 1999. |