• IP060903
    57
    I am new here and I may have minimal knowledge but I will deliver what I know. The question of whether truth is objective or subjective may depend on the theory of truth. Let us take two particular theories of truth, correspondence and coherence theory. If we take the correspondence theory of truth, then truth is by definition objective, as it is what is in concordance with the objective world. If we take coherence theory or coherentism, that truth is simply what is concordant or what coheres with a set of beliefs or propositions, then truth is subjective. As it is not based upon the objective world rather the personal beliefs of people. Though the set of propositions by which a truth coheres at least includes the beliefs of all people, it would still be a collective subjective belief, thus making truth subjective.

    I personally believe in the correspondence theory of truth, as we have the undeniable facts of conscious experience to supply our truths. My objections to the coherence theory of truth is that truth becomes rather circular. Let us assume there is a proposition X, according to coherence the standard of truth would be for X to cohere with some set of beliefs Y. However how do we prove the truth of that set of belief Y? Then it seems it just comes in a circle. Correspondence would instead ground a particular belief as self evident truth which does not require any further justification as it is completely obvious. Furthermore coherence theory seems to ignore that we have conscious experience and we can at least form some objective correspondent truth from our conscious experience.

    The bottom line is, whether truth is objective or subjective depends on your theory of truth and your definition of truth. Though I personally believe that all truth should be objective.
  • Banno
    24.8k


    The problem with coherence theory is, as you say, that it fails to distinguish what we believe from what is true.

    The problem with correspondence theory is that it doesn't tell us what that correspondence consists in. It's not that it's wrong, so much as that it is not helpful.

    Consider the deflationary theory, if you will. It seems that the two statements "I had eggs for breakfast" and "it is true that I had eggs for breakfast" will each be true only if the other is also true. Nothing, then, is added by "It is true that...". Truth is redundant.

    Perhaps truth is over rated.
  • Banno
    24.8k
    If something is true for me...Maya

    That's what we in the trade call having a belief. It's not the same as being true.
  • Banno
    24.8k
    It is both pleasing and surprising to see a Trump supporter become interested in truth...
  • IP060903
    57

    The problem with correspondence theory is that it doesn't tell us what that correspondence consists in.Banno

    It seems that the correspondence can simply consist in correspondence with conscious experience. This is the simplest view of the matter, in my opinion. If we define truth as any proposition concordant with objective reality, and that we only access this "reality" through conscious experience, then it is logical to say that that the correspondence consists in conscious experience.

    Nothing, then, is added by "It is true that...". Truth is redundant.Banno

    If we consider the statement, "I had eggs for breakfast," it merely states that I indeed had eggs for breakfast. The statement of "It is true that I had eggs for breakfast simply describes that the statement of "I had eggs for breakfast" is concordant with our conscious experience of objective reality. Without an emphasis on the correspondence, how are we to know if the statement "I had eggs for breakfast" actually does happen. If I in actuality had rice for breakfast, then I say, "I had eggs for breakfast", what then do you think is happening there in absence of truth?

    Perhaps truth is over rated.Banno

    What would be the substitute for truth then in general dialogue and discussion? Is it facts or just direct reality?
  • Banno
    24.8k
    It seems that the correspondence can simply consist in correspondence with conscious experience.IP060903

    Well, that's curious. The correspondence theory is usually that a statement will be true if it corresponds to the facts.

    But I see problems here that might need addressing. Sometimes what we experience is not what is the case. We misunderstand or are mistaken, or perhaps we hallucinate.

    If what is true is what we consciously experience, then wouldn't our hallucinations be true?

    I remember having eggs for breakfast. Did I dream it? Did I have eggs yesterday, rice this morning, and misremember? In these cases, it's not my experience that decides the truth of "I had eggs for breakfast". It's whether I indeed did have eggs.
  • IP060903
    57
    The correspondence theory is usually that a statement will be true if it corresponds to the facts.Banno

    This is true but we only acquire the facts through conscious experience and the rigorous interpretation of these conscious experiences. As such I stand that the correspondence consists in experience which is the supply of facts.
    If what is true is what we consciously experience, then wouldn't our hallucinations be true?Banno

    I understand your point, so while all truths originate from conscious experience, we can not say that not all experience is true or is the case. Though we may be mistaken in our interpretation of the experience, it is a truth that we do experience whatever it is, even if it is a hallucination. In respond to the case of hallucination, then perhaps a consensus of conscious experience is what constitutes as truth. After all I did not specify whether the conscious experience is individual experience or the totality of experience.

    it's not my experience that decides the truth of "I had eggs for breakfast". It's whether I indeed did have eggs.Banno

    This is true, our experience does not determine the truth, but it informs us in regards to the truth. The truth is determined realistically by reality itself, but epistemically (our knowledge of the truth) truth is determined by our experience of it.
  • Banno
    24.8k
    a consensus of conscious experience is what constitutes as truth.IP060903
    But of course you could only know there was such a consensus via your own conscious experience...

    Take care lest you find yourself permanently up the garden path of phenomenology.

    This is true, our experience does not determine the truth, but it informs us in regards to the truth.IP060903

    Then, as so often happens, you have stoped talking about what is true, restricting yourself to what you believe.
  • IP060903
    57
    But of course you could only know there was such a consensus via your own conscious experience...Banno
    This is true.

    Take care lest you find yourself permanently up the garden path of phenomenology.Banno
    What's wrong with phenomenology?

    Then, as so often happens, you have stoped talking about what is true, restricting yourself to what you believe.Banno
    What do you mean by this? Which part which I spoke of that is no longer related to the truth, rather a restriction to my own belief?
  • Banno
    24.8k
    What do you mean by this?IP060903

    If what is true is what you think you have perceived, then how is what is true distinct from what you choose to believe? Is there then to be no link between what is true and reality?
  • IP060903
    57

    It would seem that if what is true is directly connected with what is real, then we can not say that truth is based on what we believe. Of course truth is always about what is real, then there is a link between what is real and what is true. For what is real (what actually is the case) is what is true, it is the definition of truth. Then the problem here is about whether we can acquire what is true or not. For all we have is our conscious experience and our rationality to classify and evaluate such experiences. Then our beliefs may only approximate truth, or may the belief be truth itself? If a belief is in full alignment with reality, can we say that our belief is the truth? Yet of course it implies the prior belief that our belief can be in full alignment with reality. In the end all we have is our conscious experience and the truth that we indeed experience regardless of the contents of that experience. Truth is acquired through conscious experience, which is our sole gateway to reality, but the truth is already there within reality itself.
  • Banno
    24.8k


    Neat.

    Be aware of Stove's Gem. It is the argument that, since we only have access to our experiences, we cannot have access to the truth. Stove called this the worst argument in the world. It has different forms, and is surprisingly common.
  • IP060903
    57

    I have a question, how would we classify a belief, or any belief at all to be true?
  • Banno
    24.8k
    Are you asking how we justify our beliefs?
  • Yellow Horse
    116
    If we take the correspondence theory of truth, then truth is by definition objective, as it is what is in concordance with the objective world. If we take coherence theory or coherentism, that truth is simply what is concordant or what coheres with a set of beliefs or propositions, then truth is subjective.IP060903

    I think it's best to let objective be a nice synonym of unbiased.

    If we are objective journalists, then we will stick to the the facts. What are facts? I think they are like sentences we'd all agree on if we were there at the happening. 'Matthew punched Mark.'

    Then an interpretation would be linguistic icing on the fact. 'Matthew punched Mark because he's upset about his mother's cancer.' This is a possibly controversial statement that builds on something less controversial.

    How would we argue for such an interpretation? We'd presumably weave some facts together so that they cohere and make that interpretation more plausible. "Matthew just came from the hospital, and I heard Mark make a cancer joke close enough for Matthew to hear him." Or something can go wrong: "Wait a minute! I know Jack, and he would never joke about cancer like that."

    Note that a fact is just language. We can speculate about the relationship (if any) between language and non-linguistic world stuff (if such stuff even makes sense.) If we do so, I imagine we'll weave facts together in order to try get an interpretation taken as a new fact.

    We can also speculate endlessly about just what language is.

    Also, I wouldn't call language simply objective or subjective. We call individual statements more or less biased. On the fact-interpretation continuum, facts are objective while contentious interpretations are subjective.

    I claim no originality. Some of the thinkers I like attribute at least a green version of this view to Kant. It can be summed up as the epistemological primary of facts (and therefore of uncontroversial language, as opposed to world-stuff or mind-stuff that we are tempted to use instead.)

    "The world is all that is the case." Of course we are always still deciding what is still the case, so we might say that the world is a work-in-progress.
  • Wheatley
    2.3k
    I always thought people don't really know anything, because their ideas about the world could always be proven wrong, unless you've met every idea in the Universe that could ever possibly be created. So impossible to prove something to be objectively true/ true because possible ideas are infinite.Maya
    I approach this problem differently. I have this idea that "whatever goes up, must come down" (we call it 'gravity'). Suppose you came up to me and said, "you don't know that gravity exists." I throw up an apple, it goes up, and then goes down. I ask you if I just proved gravity exists. If you simply say "no," I will walk away and find someone more worthwhile to talk.
  • Yellow Horse
    116
    Truth is acquired through conscious experience, which is our sole gateway to reality, but the truth is already there within reality itself.IP060903

    That is a natural/common view, but leave it to philosophers to sniff out the problems with it.

    Somehow we are supposed to get from non-linguistic 'pure thought' to non-linguistic 'pure world.'

    The tunnel that gets us there is language.

    Yet truths are made of language. Justifying claims happens within language. Even the stuff that is not supposed to be language is made of language to the degree that we can talk about it (include it in our justifications.)

    So maybe an inherited picture is misleading us.

    Maybe language isn't a tunnel.

    Maybe ineffable mind-stuff and ineffable world-stuff can't function as explanations.

    But then of course they can't, they are ineffable.

    We argue from what we can agree on. We assent to certain simple propositions (facts).

    This hardly clears up all of the world's confusions, but maybe it at least brings in some fresh confusion.
    (Well not that fresh, really, but that's relative to one's exposure.)
  • Michael
    15.4k
    Taking subjective to mean "influenced by or based on personal beliefs or feelings", it's a simple matter to find such statements:

    Banno likes vanilla ice cream.
    Trump is a poor excuse for a president
    Being cold is unpleasant

    Each of these is based on personal beliefs or feelings. Each is true.

    Hence, there are subjective statements which are true.

    Hence, not all true statements are objective.
    Banno

    I don't think this is quite the right interpretation (at least with respect to "Banno likes vanilla ice cream"). It's not that the truth of a statement is subjective if its truth is determined by a personal belief or feeling, but that the truth of a statement is subjective if its truth is determined by each person's personal beliefs or feelings.

    Whether or not Banno likes vanilla ice cream does not depend on what I believe or feel. There is a single fact of the matter (what you believe and feel) that determines the truth of the statement. As such I would consider it an objective truth. "Banno likes vanilla ice cream" is either true for everyone or false for everyone.

    Whereas something like "vanilla ice cream is tasty" does not have some single fact of the matter. That statement is true for some people and false for others, depending on each person's own beliefs and feelings. As such I would consider it a subjective truth.
  • IP060903
    57

    Yes, that is indeed what I am asking.
  • Maya
    36

    How do you know it won’t go up?! You’d have to know EVERYTHING, for example that miracles don’t exist? I would let you say ‘I guess it will go up’, but I wouldn’t let you say you know because you don’t know everything??? Common sense is a good way of making good guesses, that’s what you’re using, your common sense, I.e. I’ve seen it go down a million times. You never know one day you might be surprised!
  • Wheatley
    2.3k
    You never know one day you might be surprised!Maya
    The same thing goes for lottery tickets.
  • David Mo
    960
    It's easier to talk about subjective-intersubjective than subjective-objective.

    A statement is intersubjective when it is shared by two or more people.
    When an intersubjective statement meets some specific conditions we call it objective because we think it is closer to an ideal of objectivity.

    It is a matter of denominations, because an entirely subjective truth cannot be called strictly "truth" and an absolutely objective truth is not possible.

    I am talking about statements of fact.
  • Yellow Horse
    116
    .
    But of course you could only know there was such a consensus via your own conscious experience...

    Take care lest you find yourself permanently up the garden path of phenomenology.
    Banno

    Bingo.

    Though I can imagine phenomenological facts.

    Husserl writes something, we look at it and say yeah, things are like that.

    All that seems to be needed is that we treat it as fact, call it fact.

    Is fundamentally different than looking at a clock and agreeing about the time?
  • Maya
    36

    Yes, maybe I do think life is a big game of chance! Thank you, that makes my viewpoint clearer to me.
  • Wheatley
    2.3k

    Great. You might also want to check out the Problem of Induction.
  • Harry Hindu
    5.1k
    Taking subjective to mean "influenced by or based on personal beliefs or feelings", it's a simple matter to find such statements:

    Banno likes vanilla ice cream.
    Trump is a poor excuse for a president
    Being cold is unpleasant

    Each of these is based on personal beliefs or feelings. Each is true.
    Banno
    You're so silly, Banno.

    Subjective, in the sense that the OP has supplied, is about using one's positive or negative emotional states to equate to true and false. How do you and everyone else feel about Banno liking vanilla ice cream? If I felt offended that Banno likes vanilla ice cream, does that make the statement, "Banno likes vanilla ice cream" false? No. Banno liking ice cream can be objectively observed and proven, not based on one's emotional state, but by the fact that Banno orders vanilla ice cream every time, or most of the time, and seems to enjoy it while eating it.

    The last two are actually subjective claims based on one's positive or negative emotions regarding the statement. Unless you precede the last two sentences with, "Banno feels that...", then you are projecting your own feelings onto the thing you are talking about, as if Trump really is a poor excuse for a president and being cold is unpleasant for everyone, but it obviously isn't. Many will disagree.

    The fact that we have emotional states is objective. We have emotional states regardless of our emotional state regarding whether or not we have emotional states. We can talk about them objectively, observe them objectively. It would only be an error if one projects their emotional state onto the object they are referring to, as if vanilla ice cream is good rather than your emotional state being good. Vanilla ice cream is neither good or bad until it interacts with someone's tastebuds.
  • David Mo
    960
    If we take the correspondence theory of truth, then truth is by definition objective, as it is what is in concordance with the objective world. If we take coherence theory or coherentism, that truth is simply what is concordant or what coheres with a set of beliefs or propositions, then truth is subjective.IP060903

    By mixing two different concepts you've really made a nice mess.

    According to correspondence theory of truth, something is true when it matches the facts. Something is false when it doesn't match.A proposition or subjective belief would be a form of falsehood in which the subject's point of view prevails over the pure description of the fact itself. In this theory true statements should be consistent. Inconsistent ones would be false by definition.
    In the theory of truth as coherence there is neither objective nor subjective. There are coherent and incoherent statements. A coherentist denies that it is possible to make the objective-subjective distinction.

    So the problem between the two theories is whether the "correspondentist" (sorry for the neo-barbarism) can make the subject-object distinction coherently. To avoid this problem some philosophers defend an intersubjectivist theory of truth, of which I have spoken a few comments ago.
  • IP060903
    57

    Thank you for your explanation. It seems I still have much to learn in regards to these subjects.
  • Banno
    24.8k
    I have a question, how would we classify a belief, or any belief at all to be true?IP060903
    Are you asking how we justify our beliefs?Banno
    Yes, that is indeed what I am asking.IP060903

    Notice that how we justify our beliefs is a different question to which statements are true?

    We justify our beliefs in all sorts of different ways.

    The statements that are true are the true ones. "p" is true iff p. That's pretty much all there is to say about them.
  • IP060903
    57

    I understand now, thank you.
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