Then what I said would be neither subjective nor objective. How would you define my post if it doesn't fall into a subjective, or objective category?

A common term for "the same for everyone" is "universal." "Uniform" would be another option.

"Varied" is a common term for the opposite of "universal."

i agree. This example of yours is the problem with saying there is no objective truth. As i said before objective truth can be very hard to obtain but i believe it is paramount that we except that absolute truth exists.

A common term for "the same for everyone" is "universal." "Uniform" would be another option.

"Varied" is a common term for the opposite of "universal." — Terrapin Station

Cool. So if something were universal, would that make it true?

Cool. So if something were universal, would that make it true? — Harry Hindu

No. That has nothing at all to do with what makes something true.

So would you say that it is objectively true, or subjectively true, that we disagree?
If we both agree that we disagree, then are we both acknowledging the truth?
If we don't agree that we disagree, who is the one that is being true?

So would you say that it is objectively true, or subjectively true, that we disagree? — Harry Hindu

"Objectively true" is a category error. Truth is a property of propositions. Namely, a relational property. That relational property is a matter of making a judgment about the connection between a proposition and something else. Judgments do not occur extramentally. (And neither does meaning, which is a precondition for making the judgments in question.)

That relational property is a matter of making a judgment about the connection between a proposition and something else. — Terrapin Station

What is that "something else" other that some state-of-affairs that exists, which could be what is going on in your mind right now?

In claiming what you are thinking, are you not making a truth claim? If not, then why should anyone believe anything you type?

Depends on the truth theory an individual uses. For me, it's some state of affairs, since I use correspondence theory. If someone uses coherence theory, it's going to be the body of other propositions that they assign "T" to. If someone uses consensus theory, it's going to be the body of other propositions that there's a consensus to assign "T" to, etc.

And the body of other propositions is just another state-of-affairs.

People could try to interpret all of the truth theories as other truth theories instead. I don't think that matters for anything. We can just go with how the person in question thinks about it.

We can just go with how the person in question thinks about it. — Terrapin Station

Which is just another state-of-affairs that we can talk about and would either be true or false based on the relationship of accuracy between the claim and the actual state-of-affairs.

Which is just another state-of-affairs that we can talk about and would either be true or false based on the relationship of accuracy between the claim and the actual state-of-affairs. — Harry Hindu

"the relationship of accuracy"-- which can only obtain as a judgment that an individual makes about it.

"the relationship of accuracy"-- which can only obtain as a judgment that an individual makes about it. — Terrapin Station

Isn't this why science has something called experimentation and peer review - to eliminate the subjective skewing of what just one individual claims to be the "truth".

Truth is a property of propositions. Namely, a relational property. That relational property is a matter of making a judgment about the connection between a proposition and something else. — Terrapin Station

Exactly. Truth, as a property of propositions, is a property of coherence and consistency, and lacking any logical fallacies. For some proposition to be true, it must be consistent, meaning other people will arrive at the same conclusion given all the possible evidence.

Isn't this why science has something called experimentation and peer review - to eliminate the subjective skewing of what just one individual claims to be the truth. — Harry Hindu

If so, it's a completely futile effort. It's impossible to eliminate the need for someone to make a judgment about the relationship between propositions and other things.

You could have lots of someones making judgments, but that doesn't give any more weight to anything. Believing that it does is called the argumentum ad populum fallacy.

Exactly. Truth, as a property of propositions, is a property of coherence and consistency — Harry Hindu

Which requires that someone assign meanings, assess those meanings, assess the relationships of those meanings to other things, etc.

Again, no one is saying anything about how universal or common anything is when they talk about objective/subjective. Those terms don't refer to commonality/universality versus their opposites.

Any time someone makes a claim about some state-of-affairs that is the same for everyone - like the claim that there is no objective truth - then that is an objective truth claim. The claim defeats itself. — Harry Hindu

Would adding the caveat of 'there is no objective truth, except for this statement' be non-contradictory?

Which statement are you referring to, and what do you mean by 'believe in the veracity of'?

This thread, at least so far, is in English.

Someone who thinks otherwise is, as we say in the trade, wrong. That is, they have a false belief.

"This thread is in English" is true.

There, a plain use of true without the need for absolute, subjective or objective.

i'm the one who wrote

the claim that absolute truth is impossible is itself a contestable claim rather than unchallengeable — curiousnewbie

.

Let's see if we can flesh out a little the thinking of those who are truth relativists. Let me throw out a hypothetical approach in this vein. Let's say that in my experience of the world and myself, I've discovered that anything I observe or imagine or think or see other people observe has a curious habit of constantly changing its meaning in subtle ways every moment . If i read or repeat the word 'cat' over and over, each time, each moment it has a slightly different semantic sense than the previous. And the same effect occurs when I perceive an object in my environment. I conclude form this that I have discovered something that others haven't noticed, but is there for them also. they just don't see it because it is a subtle effect.
So I then form an explanation of objective truth that goes like this:people believe that there is such a thing as an object that has a certain permanence to it, that can be pointed to or referred back to as the same over time. People believe that self-identity, self-persistence, self-permanence are features of our world. We can find such attributes in the physical world, in our language concepts, in our memory, etc.
But I believe that we only think that such attributes as self-persistence, self-identity over time and permanence are what we are experiencing. I surmise that what we are really experiencing is phenomena that , as I said before, are subtly shifting their semantic meaning every moment of time. So we just assume meaning permanence, self-identity,etc where there is instead very tiny shifts and transformations in the semantic sense of object, percepts, concepts. In practical terms this isn't a big deal. We can understand each other, point to what for the most part is the same reality, and agree on our empirical descriptions and physical laws.

So would I then be able to say that objective truth does not exist? Well, first of all, I could agree with Heidegger and say that truth for me is just the way that each new moment of time unveils a slightly new semantic meaning for me. Truth is just the unveiling of new experience, not its matching up to a standard. So there is truth, but what about objectivity? So does objectivity exist? AlI I can say is that every moment I have to test myself, ask myself the question again. Do I this moment experience a thing that persists identically, be it a concept, a percept, a law of nature, a norm of any kind? IF each time I ask the question the answer is still no, then I can say that as far as I can tell, this moment, for me and apparently for everyone else that I've observed or thought about, reality doesn't sit still even for a moment, such as to allow persisting semantic self-identity or the self-persistence of any object.

I can say that when someone claim's that objective truth exist, they are absolutely right. Every moment there is a truth about the meaning of an object. And every moment that meaning changes very slightly, for everyone that I've observed. So I would want to rephrase that question to: 'does the objective truth about anything stay exactly the same for more than a single moment? What about my claim that objective truth never stays the same for more than a moment? Is this an objective claim? Well, it is me saying, at this moment and from my recollection, I do not now nor ever remember having an experience of self-identity or self-persistence of anything, physical , conceptual or otherwise. But others are welcome to keep asking me the question. I can tell them that I have a theory about why others believe they are seeing objective truth as stable, and that it is possible to miss the instability of reality without it in any way jeopardizing one's ability to do formal logic or science.

So , based on this argument, the relativist isn't really stating a negative claim(objecivity does NOT exist) so much as a positive one, that they are seeing something beyond, within, underneath, overflowing what those who believe in the semantic stability of objects(logical, perceptual, conceptual) arew seeing. Their claim should be: 'objectivty exists, but does a lot more interesting things than the objectivist is able to see). They are seeing dynamism where others are seeing only stasis. Is this dynamism 'objective'? Is it a theory, a principle? It is certainly a general claim. But , and here's the most important point, its not an objective claim as long as it doesn't turn 'radical dynamism ' into a stable object. It has to be modest in its claim. It has to say simply that each moment the question must be asked anew, because the very nature of radical dynamism is that there is no horizon beyond the current moment for any assertion. I can say that I anticipate that the next moment I will generally believe something very similar to what I am now asserting, because in my experience so far the world not only changes every moment but preserves a certain overall stability in its ongoing transformations. Each new moment is not a profound semantic break with the previous but only a very subtle one.
This is a post-objective claim, requiring a different method of test.

To test the claim of radical changeability in all objects of experience for everyone is to do two things:
1) it is to try to teach a believer in stable objectivity to see the underlying movement in supposedly static experience. How do you convince someone to see more than they see? Either they see it or they don't. Meanwhile, as relativist, you can leave them to their objectivism, knowing that it works for them, and isn't 'wrong' or 'untrue', just incomplete.
2)The believer in radical relativism must every moment of experience test their own perception(make it contestable) to see if this dynamism continues to appear very moment, everywhere for them.

You could have lots of someones making judgments, but that doesn't give any more weight to anything. Believing that it does is called the argumentum ad populum fallacy. — Terrapin Station

That's strange that you interpreted my post in that way, when I never implied that.

Would adding the caveat of 'there is no objective truth, except for this statement' be non-contradictory? — curiousnewbie

How would you know that that is the only truth? It seems to me that in order to make that claim, there would be other true knowledge that you could point to that helped you arrive at the conclusion you are making now.

This thread, at least so far, is in English.

Someone who thinks otherwise is, as we say in the trade, wrong. That is, they have a false belief.

"This thread is in English" is true.

There, a plain use of true without the need for absolute, subjective or objective. — Banno

I can accept this because I consider "subjective truth" a contradiction (subjectivity is an incomplete or skewed notion of the truth), and "objective truth" a redundancy.

When one uses the term, "truth" they mean the way things are, or some state-of-affairs, for everyone. When someone claims that the apple is red, then the apple reflects a particular wavelength of EM energy. How we see it can differ because of the structure of our eyes can differ (color-blindness, etc.), but the apple will still be reflecting the same wavelength. When we claim that the apple is red, are we making a truth claim about the apple only, or about the apple AND our minds?

That's strange that you interpreted my post in that way, when I never implied that — Harry Hindu

What's strange is that I'd have to explain to you how to read: S writes x. R responds to S with y. Not every sentence in y is necessarily going to be an interpretation of x by R. R can do many other things in y besides present an interpretation of x.

The role of the observer is crucial here and though perhaps not helpful to the original post there is no easy answer. In the quantum world the observer determines the state of the cat ( shrodinger) or in the penrose diosi view gravity determines the collapse of the wave function not any observer...in historical theory postmodernists cannot disentangle the subject from the object either linguistically or in epistemological terms or as an individual actor incapable of indpendent access to the "past" it is far from clear on what foundations any truth might stand...

In the quantum world the observer determines the state of the cat ( shrodinger) or in the penrose diosi view gravity determines the collapse of the wave function not any observer...in historical theory postmodernists cannot disentangle the subject from the object either linguistically or in epistemological terms or as an individual actor incapable of indpendent access to the "past" it is far from clear on what foundations any truth might stand... — Edmund

Was not your explanation of these theories true, or are you giving us the wrong explanation of these theories? Is it true that these theories exist and that Schrodinger and Penrose really existed and had these ideas in their heads?

When one uses the term, "truth" they mean the way things are, or some state-of-affairs, for everyone. — Harry Hindu

And how do they go about discovering this then? If, in order to declare something is "true", one must first check if it is that way for everyone, that's going to severely curcumscribe it's use in day-to-day conversation.

When one uses the term, "truth" they mean the way things are, or some state-of-affairs, for everyone. — Harry Hindu

I didn't notice that claim until now, but I have no idea why he'd think the above. I certainly don't agree with it.

First, when I use the term "truth," I'm referring to a property of propositions, and that's a standard thing to refer to in analytic philosophy. My analysis of it (which isn't standard) is that the property in question is the result of an individual judgment.

Aside from that, though, sticking strictly to states of affairs, I'm a relativist (or more precisely a perspectivalist for this issue), and I wouldn't say that states of affairs are the same for every reference point.

First, when I use the term "truth," I'm referring to a property of propositions, and that's a standard thing to refer to in analytic philosophy. My analysis of it (which isn't standard) is that the property in question is the result of an individual judgment. — Terrapin Station

Are you saying that this property isnt the same for everyone. If I commit a logical fallacy as part of some claim that I make, how is that property not the same for everyone? If you call me out on "my" fallacy, then do you expect me to agree with you? Why or why not?

Aside from that, though, sticking strictly to states of affairs, I'm a relativist (or more precisely a perspectivalist for this issue), and I wouldn't say that states of affairs are the same for every reference point. — Terrapin Station

Which states of affairs are you talking about - the apple, or your perception of the apple? The apple is some state of affairs at any moment independent of any observer. An observer can have a different perspective because of their different location in space-time and different sensory organs, but the fact that there is something there for any observer to respond to must mean something.

The same can be said for Schrodingers cat. The state of being alive or dead can be in a state of flux, but the fact that there is a cat, and not some other species, or the fact that there is something in either a dead or alive state means that there must be constants in the world that we can perceive and agree on.

So we're really just talking about different effects as the result of different causes. Your perception is different than mine because of our physical differences. The apple isnt different. Our perceptions are because our perceptions are different effects, or states of affairs. Different causes lead to different effects, even if one of the causes is constant (the apple).

The apple is its own state of affairs that is a result of different causes, but the causes had to occur prior to our perception of it, as the apple is part of the cause of our perception of it. Your sensory organs are also part of this causal chain the leads to the effect of your perception. No apple or no sensory organs means no perception of an apple.

And how do they go about discovering this then? If, in order to declare something is "true", one must first check if it is that way for everyone, that's going to severely curcumscribe it's use in day-to-day conversation. — Isaac

Take Terrapin's example. Are true propositions true for everyone?

Somebody that didn't believe in objective truth would not believe that, and hence would be liberated from a potential contradiction.

Of course they would also need to say "I don't believe in objective truth" rather than the "There is no objective truth" that you suggested, as the latter sounds like a statement that is intended to be taken as objective truth. But provided their position is the former and not the latter, there is no apparent contradiction. — andrewk

The Relativist would immediately run into the objection that when he says "I don't believe in truth", he means to state something which is true - namely, that he does not have a certain belief. He cannot then say "I don't believe in truth", but must instead say something like "I don't believe that I don't believe in truth", but this will only face the same objection. I am not sure that there is any way out of this tangle for the Relativist. He cannot state his thesis, even with the lemma "I don't believe", without seeming to claim something to be true.

Perhaps his best option is simply to refuse to talk about truth all together, although any time he says anything, it will be natural to understand him as claiming something to be true, and hard to understand what else he might be doing. There isn't a contradiction there, but it certainly is hard to understand what the idea of Relativism is meant to be.

PA

Are you saying that this property isnt the same for everyone. — Harry Hindu

Correct.

If I commit a logical fallacy as part of some claim that I make, how is that property not the same for everyone? — Harry Hindu

Aren't we no longer talking about truth there? In other words, it seems like you're suddenly changing the topic to "Is there anything that's the same for everyone?"

Which states of affairs are you talking about - the apple, or your perception of the apple? The apple is some state of affairs at any moment independent of any observer. An observer can have a different perspective because of their different location in space-time and different sensory organs, but the fact that there is something there for any observer to respond to must mean something. — Harry Hindu

This, too. Is the topic changing to "must x mean something?" Let's keep focus and talk about one thing at a time.