@Isaac

That a certain state of affairs is represented by a certain statements - English or otherwise - seems to me to have no bearing on it's being objective or subjective.

It is subjective if it presents a propositional attitude.

What would happen if neuroscience advanced to such a degree that we could measure tastes (say, some area of the brain lights up in response to what we call 'liking' vanilla). If a person sincerely thought they did not like vanilla, but these future neuroscientists had a look and confirmed they did indeed like vanilla, would their sincere statement of preference be true still. Would that make the judgment of the neuroscientists false? — Isaac

The knowledge obtained from such a test would count as an objectively verified truth about a test subject's experience of taste. Yet the measurement, in no way, gives any subjective truth concerning the test subject's subjectivity. Even if the particular test subject's actual tasting and ensuing enjoyment were directly accessible to an outside spectator, the test subject's subjectivity is immediately negated when it is appropriated subjectively by the spectator.

That's not the point at all.

Is it true that the word 'cat' refers to members of the feline genus? Is it true that the word 'book' refers to some bound together pages? Is it true that the word apple refers to the fruit of the Malus sylvestris tree?

If these things are true, then what measure are we using to determine that?

Is it simply that the words are evidently used that way (if so how would we distinguish a mistake from a creative use of a term in poetry)? Is it because the dictionary says it is so (if so, how do we account for new word uses)? Etc etc... Im not going to rewrite Wittgenstein here, you get the point.

So if it is 'true' that words mean what they do, it must be true only on account of the fact that a community of language users believes they do, and thus your distinction between truth and belief is not entirely accurate.

That's not the point at all. — Isaac

What's not the point at all?

Is it simply that the words are evidently used that way — Isaac

Is it simply that the words are used that way.

Is it simply that the words are used that way. — Banno

So if I started using the word 'cat' to mean 'a flat surface for writing on' it would become 'true' that 'cat' means 'a flat surface for writing on'? Because a word is used that way, does not seem to be at all sufficient to account for its meaning.

Ask Wittgenstein. Get enough people to play along, and it will become a language game.

So, correcting myself, your contention is not (as I previously understood) that truth is decided by plebiscite, but that meaning is?

If we consider two subjects, and they are sitting in the same room, they indeed share a common or public experience, from which we can possibly draw some objective facts. Yet the individual subjects as such are private entities - they can never be shared in common, nor can they ever express the truth of their subjective existence.

But how does anyone tell if it is stated sincerely. — Isaac

Why would this matter? There must be any number of things we don't know for which there is an objective fact of the matter?

If a person sincerely thought they did not like vanilla, but these future neuroscientists had a look and confirmed they did indeed like vanilla, would their sincere statement of preference be true still. — Isaac

I'm assuming this person has in fact tasted vanilla before declaring a dislike. In this case one would have to ask how the neuroscientists corroborated their view that that a particular brain state represented a liking for vanilla (when the person sincerely reports a dislike).

In other words, is it possible that a sane and competent English user could sincerely report a dislike of vanilla but be mistaken? I don't see how.

So, correcting myself, your contention is not (as I previously understood) that truth is decided by plebiscite, but that meaning is? — Banno

My contention, to lay it out as clearly as possible, is that we can only be said to hold a belief which is not true if 'true' refers to some state of affairs other than our individual beliefs.

Sometimes , in the case of meaning, that external state of affairs is simply a collection of lots of beliefs, meaning that truth and belief (in the wider sense) are not necessarily separate, only so in the individual sense.

Why would this matter? There must be any number of things we don't know for which there is an objective fact of the matter? — ChrisH

It matters because you're defining truth with it, and yet you do not know it. Truth is a word we use, if it only refers to that which we cannot know it would be pretty useless.

You said a statement of preference "if stated sincerely, is objectively true", but if 'sincerely' is something which can be doubted, then it is just a truth apt account. Which means you have said "if {objectively true}, is objectively true", a tautology.

To avoid the tautology, "stated sincerely" must mean something other than 'is a true account of'. I'm asking what it could mean that would not make your statements trivially tautologous.

is it possible that a sane and competent English user could sincerely report a dislike of vanilla but be mistaken? I don't see how. — ChrisH

If someone used to dislike vanilla, but now likes it, presumably at some point their situation changed. Unless that change happens exactly contemperaneously with the first direct experience of it, then it is possible for someone to claim not to like vanilla but have a brain state exactly identical to that of liking vanilla.

You've offered an interesting topic for discussion.

I immediately focus on one aspect, because I see it as an imperative to decent discussions of many issues...and that aspect is the word "belief."

For the most part, in casual conversation, "I believe..." may mean a variety of things...none of which are significant. "I believe I'll go to a movie" "I believe I left the door unlocked" "I believe Shogun was a better book than King Rat....are various casual uses that are not especially significant.

"I believe in democracy" is a shortcut way of saying, "I prefer a democratic political environment to a totalitarian one."

When used in a discussion about the unknown qualities of existence or reality, however, "I believe..." most often is a way of disguising a guess.

I believe there are no gods...is a way of disguising, "It is my guess that no gods exist."

I believe at least one god exists...is a way of disguising, "It is my guess that at least one god exists."

The "I believe IN..." format almost always is a disguised guess...when used in a discussion of the unknowns I mentioned.

(The "guess" often is just an "opinion.")

Just sayin'.

May not impact on your discussion objective, but it is my opinion that it is worth mentioning.

I immediately focus on one aspect, because I see it as an imperative to decent discussions of many issues... — Frank A.

Very true, we have digressed from a metaphysical question into epistemoloy.

It matters because you're defining truth with it, and yet you do not know it. Truth is a word we use, if it only refers to that which we cannot know it would be pretty useless. — Isaac

I take your point. I think my use of "sincerely" was unnecessary. The point I was trying to make was that statements of preference refer to objective states of affairs and can, in principle (advanced neuroscience), be evaluated as true or false.

If someone used to dislike vanilla, but now likes it, presumably at some point their situation changed. Unless that change happens exactly contemperaneously with the first direct experience of it, then it is possible for someone to claim not to like vanilla but have a brain state exactly identical to that of liking vanilla. — Isaac

I don't think this represents a mistake. When one reports a food preference, it's understood that this represents their latest experience of that food.How could it be anything else? (EDIT: I should make it clear the the above is specifically in the context of using someone's preferences to calibrate a neuroscientist's preference detection machine)

My contention, to lay it out as clearly as possible, is that we can only be said to hold a belief which is not true if 'true' refers to some state of affairs other than our individual beliefs. — Isaac

I agree.

Sometimes, in the case of meaning, that external state of affairs is simply a collection of lots of beliefs, meaning that truth and belief (in the wider sense) are not necessarily separate, only so in the individual sense. — Isaac

Thanks for the clarification. Institutional facts. An interesting point.

I'd analyse this in a different way.

Allow me to modify the example, so that we don't get hung up on our difference regarding meaning: money has value only because of our collective belief that it has value.

SO, that this piece of paper is worth ten dollars, is true because of our belief. Hence, the argument goes, belief and truth are not necessarily seperate.

Looking closer, the statement "this paper is worth $10" is true if and only if we believe that it is worth $10.

Worth further thought.

It isn't clear a priori what the object of a belief could be, other than the immanent and immediate stimuli that provoked the expression of the belief.

If someone looks at dark clouds in the sky and says "it is about to rain", the object of the belief is on any scientific explication of subject's stimulus-response, nothing more than the presence of dark clouds in combination with the subject's mental state, making the belief a necessarily true statement concerning only the present. A contradiction of a belief by a future course of events is then a contradiction obtained via post-hoc revision of linguistic convention.

If someone looks at dark clouds in the sky and says "it is about to rain", the object of the belief is on any scientific explication of subject's stimulus-response, nothing more than the presence of dark clouds in combination with the subject's mental state, making the belief a necessarily true statement concerning only the present. — sime

If someone looked at an equation on a blackboard, and said ‘that’s wrong’, is that a matter that can be explained in terms of stimulus and response?

If someone looked at an equation on a blackboard, and said ‘that’s wrong’, is that a matter that can be explained in terms of stimulus and response? — Wayfarer

If all stimuli impacting upon the individual accounted for, both external to and within the individual, then I am at a loss to know whatever else "that's wrong" could refer to.

It is only by linguistic convention that the shared expressions of our beliefs are said to refer to the same object, and our conventions fools us into thinking that "right" and "wrong" have deep epistemological significance.

The point I was trying to make was that statements of preference refer to objective states of affairs and can, in principle (advanced neuroscience), be evaluated as true or false. — ChrisH

Yes, we are agreed on that. I think I would go as far as to say this renders subjective truth meaningless, in that it would only ever refer to a category of truths for which there could not possibly be an objective equivalent and thus the distinction is irrelevant to the truth value.

When one reports a food preference, it's understood that this represents their latest experience of that food.How could it be anything else? — ChrisH

Well, it could be else, but I take your point. A person could still be mistaken though. What if a person states that "I don't like vanilla" recalling their last experience, and their friend says "No, you do. Don't you remember that vanilla cake I made you which you liked". A response might be "ah yes, I was mistaken".

SO, that this piece of paper is worth ten dollars, is true because of our belief. Hence, the argument goes, belief and truth are not necessarily seperate. — Banno

Yes, that's a much clearer example. I was going to focus on mathematics, but the reality there is contentious, so I ditched that as an example. Money works really well.

It is only by linguistic convention that the shared expressions of our beliefs are said to refer to the same object, and our conventions fools us into thinking that "right" and "wrong" have deep epistemological significance. — sime

It might have practical significance. What if the equation in question controls a piece of machinery, and getting it wrong means the machinery fails? Rocket fails to launch, bridge collapses, patient dies. That kind of thing. I think I would be correct in saying that it then becomes a matter of objective fact.

It might have practical significance. What if the equation in question controls a piece of machinery, and getting it wrong means the machinery fails? Rocket fails to launch, bridge collapses, patient dies. That kind of thing. I think I would be correct in saying that it then becomes a matter of objective fact. — Wayfarer

It becomes a matter of objective fact if people agree that the rocket fails to launch, or that the bridge collapses, or that the patient dies, it is the agreement that leads us to view it as objective fact, as truth. Without the agreement, there is only your subjective experience against that of others.

If you see something that others can't see, you would say it's right there how can't you see it! And if you insist and others disagree with you they would start calling you delusional, unable to make the difference between objective fact and subjective imagination, but all that's really going on is that others don't agree with what you see.

Now I agree that there are a lot of things most people approximately agree on, but we view them as objective fact, as truth, only because we agree on them.

I think I would go as far as to say this renders subjective truth meaningless, in that it would only ever refer to a category of truths for which there could not possibly be an objective equivalent and thus the distinction is irrelevant to the truth value. — Isaac

I'm afraid I'm not sure I follow what you're saying here.

It seems to me that it makes sense to say that claims such 'as anchovies are disgusting' and 'abortion is immoral' are subjectively true/false (dependent on individual perspective) because they're not explicitly statements of personal preference and neither do they reference external facts of evaluation (they're not extramental as Terrapin Station would say).

What if a person states that "I don't like vanilla" recalling their last experience, and their friend says "No, you do. Don't you remember that vanilla cake I made you which you liked". A response might be "ah yes, I was mistaken". — Isaac

Sure, that's why added the later edit making it clear that I was talking specifically about a neuroscience lab context.

"Subjective" refers to mental phenomena per se. "Objective" things obtain independently of mental phenomena. The distinction isn't limited to the like/dislike sense of "opinion" or limited to feelings/emotions per se, or limited to propositional attitudes. There are a lot of mental phenomena other than opinions in that sense, feelings/emotions and propositional attitudes.

"Truth" isn't the same thing as "fact" or "state of affairs." Truth is a property of propositions. Propositions are the meanings of statements. All three previous sentences are standard in analytic philosophy. (Which of course doesn't have to amount to anything, but a lot of people here are very concerned with consensus standards, so those folks can't consistently ignore something that's a widespread standard in the field we're supposedly dealing with.)

More controversially, meaning isn't objective. Meaning is a mental phenomenon. So propositions aren't objective. And as an upshot of this, the truth relation isn't objective, either. There are no truths that aren't believed, but truth isn't coextensive with belief--many beliefs have nothing to do with the truth relation.

It seems to me that it makes sense to say that claims such 'as anchovies are disgusting' and 'abortion is immoral' are subjectively true/false (dependent on individual perspective) because they're not explicitly statements of personal preference and neither do they reference external facts of evaluation — ChrisH

I think this is a classic example of a philosophical problem which dissolves when one looks closely at the language. If one say "anchovies are disgusting" I don't think they are making a claim about anchovies at all, they're making a claim about their state of mind, it just sounds like they're making a claim about anchovies because the words are arranged in a similar manner to "anchovies are fish". But look closely at the role such claims actually play in life, they play the role of a claim about preference, and since we have no external cause of meaning other than the role expressions play, we have no cause to think it means anything other.

So "anchovies are disgusting" is just as much an objective claim as "anchovies are fish" because "anchovies are disgusting" means "I don't like anchovies".

"abortion is immoral" is more complicated because there may be implicit in that the proposition that there are external moral codes, but even so, if you look at the job the expression does, it's still really saying "according to my moral code, abortion is immoral", which is an objective claim.

That this text is written in English is not dependent on my own taste or feelings. Hence it is an objective truth. — Banno

Truth there can't have the property of being objective because the relation in question only obtains via an evaluation that an individual makes, based on how they assign meanings to the words/sentence in question, relative to what they're making the judgment with respect to--that is, a judgment about that meaning and its relationship to something else. Those are mental events, and hence on the definition of subjective as mental phenomena, we're talking about a subjective property, not an objective property.

Do you insist that every sentence has an implied perspective? — Banno

I insist that every sentence is authored, and every author has perspective, so every sentence must have perspective.

Knowledge from no perspective is incoherent. Am I wrong here? I ask not to be stubborn, but only to see if your language analysis really makes metaphysical analysis superfluous.

A decontextualized sentence, read only by looking at the words would have no clear perspective. Nothing is implied related to the statement "the cat is on the mat" in terms of intent or meaning until we look upon the author, as only people have intents or perspectives, but no useful sentence is not authored by a person.

Here's a simple test you might use to check if some fact is objective or subjective. Ask if it can be said in the first person.

"Banno prefers vanilla ice to chocolate"; "This text is in English." — Banno

The simple test is whether we're talking about mental phenomena or not.

Re your test, we can just say, "Banno conceptualizes this text as English" or "Banno parses this text as English."

When we focus on whether something is a mental phenomenon, the text isn't, and we can simply point out that certain sets of marks are to be labeled "English," where we could fairly easily get a computer to detect what sorts of marks we have, etc.

Do you insist that every sentence has an implied perspective? — Banno

Every proposition has a mental perspective because propositions are meanings and meaning is a mental phenomenon.

To understand why I say that truth is subjective, one needs to understand how I define the subjective/objective distinction, and then understand my analysis of truth, which is based initially on standard notions of what truth is in analytic philosophy, and then understand my more controversial ontological analysis with respect to those standard analytic philosophy notions. A lot of people on the board aren't going to bother with all of that, because unfortunately we're often just not that interested in understanding others' views as their views--or "simply for the sake of understanding their views."

It becomes a matter of objective fact if people agree that the rocket fails to launch, or that the bridge collapses, or that the patient dies, it is the agreement that leads us to view it as objective fact, as truth. — leo

The problem with this is that there's a name for it: it's the argumentum ad populum fallacy.

The only thing that's the case due to agreement is the fact that there was an agreement.

Further to this:

Is it simply that the words are used that way. — Banno

Words are used all sorts of ways, by all sorts of people. There might be an individual who uses "cat" to only refer to what most of us call "dogs," for example. Saying that the most common way to use a term is somehow "true" (or correct, etc.) by virtue of that fact is the argumentum ad populum fallacy.

People will constantly try to squeeze their conformist leanings in the back door when we're talking about this stuff, but that's all it is. When you realize that's all it is, you need to be constantly on guard about them trying to sneak that stuff in. It's never a fact that one should jump off of a bridge just because everyone else is. It's only a fact that everyone else is jumping off the bridge. That doesn't determine what you should or should not do.