"(More or less) wrong" is a category error when it comes to opinions. So if we realize that, we're neither saying that "no one's opinion is more or less wrong" or "no one's opinion is NOT more or less wrong." "More or less wrong" has nothing to do, either way, with opinions. — Terrapin Station
Not opinions re preferences, etc. There is another sense of "opinion" where we just use it to refer to someone's view--"Professor Smith's opinion of the chemical composition of Jupiter's atmosphere." That's not the sense of "opinion" we were talking about. — Terrapin Station
The problem is that things like "objective knowledge," so that the knowledge itself has as one of its properties that it is objective, are really category errors (knowledge, by definition, can't have the property of being objective), so you can't have a "kind-of objectivity" when it comes to something like knowledge. — Terrapin Station
Ok, well it depends on what counts as opinion. If an opinion is ill informed, I would say its a degree more wring than an informed one. — DingoJones
I just wanted you to say where you thought it was located, wherever it happens to be. "In its attributes"--"x is better than y" IS an attribute, right? So it's located in the object's shape in your view? You're saying that the overall shape has a property of "x is better than y"? Would that be a property that we could detect via a machine somehow? Like say that an alien civilzation found a hammer, and could put it in a machine that reads all of the hammer's properties. So in addition to its chemical composition, its tensile strength, etc., the machine would report its "x is better than y" properties somehow? — Terrapin Station
I think what is often meant by 'objective' is certain and authoritative. — macrosoft
How could an opinion itself, in the relevant sense, be "ill-informed"? We're not talking about information that's not itself an opinion, we're talking about the opinion. — Terrapin Station
Yes, the machine would be telling you, via the properties of the hammer, what the hammer is good for. Thats besides mt point thiugh, as I started with it depends on the goal. The correct way to lay it out is to find properties that match your needs to a goal. It doesnt matter if you agree that a hammer is the best tool for nails, it just matters that the hammer is better than the dead fish. Once you admit that, then the rest of what im saying follows. — DingoJones
The way I use the terms is simply that "subjective" is mind-dependent, or in other words, we're talking about mental phenomena when we talk about the subjective, and "objective" is mind-independent--we're talking about something that isn't mental phenomena. — Terrapin Station
And then "authoritative"--there, we're probably just talking about a social phenomenon. People who are considered, due to social conventions, biases, and all sorts of things, to be experts more or less. — Terrapin Station
I generally agree, except that I find that mind-independence and intersubjectivity sort of blur together. Why? For the usual reasons. We can't compare our cognition of the object to the object itself, so we largely edit our understanding of the 'real' versus the 'merely imaginary' by the consequences of our actions (what happens to us physically and socially.) IMV, this is issue is difficult if not impossible to 'clean up,' given 'meaning holism.' We can't hold the meanings of the words we need to use sufficiently fixed. Even if we could, the results of our reasoning are therefore results about stipulated and limited interpretations of words/concepts. As soon as we present our 'results,' they are understood in terms of the usual blurrier use-meanings of the terms. — macrosoft
You'd say that something in the object itself (or relations or whatever) amounts to that. Well, what? What you've suggested so far is that it's in the shape somehow. So how would that be the case that it's in the shape that it's better to put nails in faster, for the object not to fall apart, etc.? — Terrapin Station
Why are you acting as though you do not understand why a hammer is good for hitting nails as opposed to a dead fish? — DingoJones
Quick definition: The belief that an objective value/knowledge/morality is non existent — khaled
I'm not "acting that way." It's not objectively good. It's not objectively better to see what you're hitting than to not see it, for example. That's rather a preference that people have
LIkewise, it's not objectively better to have more striking power, etc..
Having more striking power is only a preference that people have. — Terrapin Station
well I find it hard to accept you do not understand the mind independent utility of a hammer for hitting nails. — DingoJones
It is certainly better to have better striking power if you need something with striking power. — DingoJones
I mean, which is better for hammering in nails, the hammer or the dead fish? — DingoJones
The hammer and the dead fish themselves do not answer this. Again, objectively, it's not better to have one set of properties than another, for any properties. Objectively, it's not better to have what you desire rather than what you do not desire.
The reason one thing is better than another is because of your preferences, what you desire. The judgment is always subjective. The idea of it being objective is incoherent. — Terrapin Station
It's not objectively better to have what you desire. "It's better to have what you desire" is a subjective preference. — Terrapin Station
It's not that I don't understand it. It's that you're wrong. And I'll keep trying to explain to you why you're wrong until you understand it. — Terrapin Station
You mean to tell me that you cannot determine which thing is better at hammering nails, a hammer or a dead fish? Not without conceding my points you can’t...so you are refusing. — DingoJones
Thats not what I said. — DingoJones
Thats very generous of you, but I will pass. — DingoJones
Okay, but I think it's worth me continuing. — Terrapin Station
I don’t think it is, Unfortunately ive reached my limit on how much more I can break it down. (Not meant to be snide)
I understand what you are saying, but I think my own points are not getting through. Wrong, incoherent...if I have failed so miserably at expressing my view here then Im happy to just move on. There is some semantics at play and clarity we could pursue but I feel like the effort to reward ratio is fairly low. — DingoJones
Lol, the lack of understanding is yours, entirely. I was just trying to politely withdraw because I despise wasting my time. If you can’t understand the simple point im making, only a tedious workload of explaining would suffice to enlighten you to what you would already know if you were actually listening, but you aren't. You are talking. Fair enough. Ill stop wasting my breath. — DingoJones
The belief that an objective value/knowledge/morality is non existent
— khaled
That there's no objective value, knowledge or morality (or many other things) seems as obvious to me as anything can seem obvious. — Terrapin Station
But this forgets how and why we started using 'black' in the first place. Similarly, a 'true' or 'perfect' objectivity that doesn't actually exists has little to do with how and why people tend to use 'objective,' except as an exaggeration for a particular purpose, which might in retrospect seem to be a silly purpose. — macrosoft
You might say that you are just imposing your will with sophistry that knows itself to be sophistry, but that sacrifices the persuasive force that you need in the first place — macrosoft
While you may find a few 'metaphysical prigs' who also take the 'purely' objective seriously — macrosoft
In my view, your position makes the most sense as an exaggeration that understands itself as an exaggeration, as an ultimately reasonable skepticism spiced with click-bait. — macrosoft
Second paragraph: When we accept that values are relative, good and evil become undefinable and thus morality becomes an empty concept — Tzeentch
Third paragraph: I could just as easily point towards all the morals and values the world's religions have in common, and have had in common for thousands of years — Tzeentch
First paragraph: My point was that you are making claims of something you (and I aswell) are completely ignorant and you are dismissing the claims of those who have dedicated their lives to the subject. This is unreasonable. — Tzeentch
Secondly, I am unsure which claims of mine you are referring to. I am not claiming the existence of objective value. I am questioning your position on the matter. If you must know, I believe there are good arguments for either side and given our ignorance on the matter I choose the only position reasonable: I don't know. — Tzeentch
Fourth paragraph: A theist who doubts the existence of a deity is not a theist, but an agnostic. So is an atheist who doubts the non-existence of deity, regardless of what they might label themselves as. Nihilism makes a claim, and it doesn't say anything about doubt. — Tzeentch
You said you had a retort but you seem to agree with me lol. I am aware it is clickbait but that was just to get people to start talking. It's the kind of clickbait where it's not REALLY a lie but kind of a half lie. I agree with everything you wrote except I think you are massively underestimating the number of people that are "Metaphysical prigs" as you put it. I'd even say most people ACT as metaphysical prigs at least. — khaled
Nihilism tells one to doubt literally all values. — khaled
Ask a Pyrenean skeptic "Is knowledge possible" and he would say "I don't know". That doesn't make him "not a skeptic" it makes him a hardcore skeptic actually. — khaled
What about the value of doubting? — macrosoft
If it presents itself as a kind of truth about knowledge, then it trips over its own claims. — macrosoft
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