Me, too. It really is very simple, but philosophers tend to muddy the waters with their use of language.I've been struck by the lack of clarity in several recent discussions revolving around subjectivity, objectivity, truth and belief. — Banno
Right. In other words, subjective statements are value statements. They associate some notion of "good" and "bad", or "right" and "wrong" to some aspect of the world. Subjective statements are similar to a category error in that a person associates the feeling with the object - as if it were an objective feature of that object that everyone would agree with.Certain statements are labeled subjective because they set out an individuals taste or feelings. In contrast, other statements are called objective, as they do not set out an individual's taste, feelings or opinions. — Banno
Is it not a fact that Banno prefers vanilla ice to chocolate, regardless how anyone feels about that, including Banno? Is that not an attribute of Banno?Banno prefers vanilla ice to chocolate — Banno
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
Can you say "the cat is on the mat" in first person? (or, yes, any person) — Banno
that belief and truth are not the same. One can believe stuff that is not true, as well as disbelieve stuff that is true. Believing something does not imply that it is true, and being true does not imply being believed. I mention this because it is a simple, but ubiquitous error, and may well underpin other problems. — Banno
Can something objectively subjectively be the case? — StreetlightX
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
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. — Terrapin Station
It's quite deeper than that. The majority may believe that some specific thing is going to happen at some point in time, and to them it would be truth. If they end up agreeing later on that what they predicted would happen didn't happen, they would agree that their belief was false, and they would adopt another common belief as a result, a different truth. The only thing that made their old truth not truth, is that they replaced it with another one. Had they kept the old one, their old belief would still be truth. — leo
Chalmers is famous for hoping that one day we'll have a theory of consciousness that would allow us to predict the experience of a bee. — frank
What if we interpret an engineer's words as being necessarily correct whatever he says and whatever happens as a consequence of his words? In other words, we understand an engineer's words in the same way we understand a photograph generated by a camera, that is to say idiosyncratically as a snapshot of the time and place the words were uttered. — sime
You see what you call a cat on what you call a mat, how does that make it not a subjective statement? Other people might disagree that what they see is a cat or a mat. You would only consider it an objective fact if people agree with you. But if you consider it an objective fact even if people don't agree with you then you consider your subjective experience to be what determines objectivity or truth, if you see something you see it as objective fact or truth even if other people don't see it. — leo
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. — Merkwurdichliebe
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
Banno
5k
↪Frank Apisa
Sure. Worth noting.
What I find of value in considering such things is the difference between a proposition and the belief in a proposition. In logicians parlance, belief ranges over propositions.
SO "The cat is on the mat" and "It is true that the cat is on the mat" are each only true if the other is true.
In contrast, "The cat is on the mat" and "I believe that the cat is on the mat" are quite autonomous. Each can be true or false, independently of the other.
This point seems lost in so much of what is said in these forums. — Banno
It is not a fact of the world that 'cat' means what it does, it is merely a fact of collective belief. — Isaac
What is it that is not shared? Tell me. Say it. What exactly is it that is inexpressible?
And of course you cannot. It is, after all, inexpressible. — Banno
Before commencing the main argument, it may be worth pointing out that belief and truth are not the same. One can believe stuff that is not true, as well as disbelieve stuff that is true. Believing something does not imply that it is true, and being true does not imply being believed. I mention this because it is a simple, but ubiquitous error, and may well underpin other problems. — Banno
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. — leo
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. — Isaac
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. — Terrapin Station
Those linguistic conventions are presumably shared expressions of our belief. And here I am trying to use your terms.
Are you suggesting that we cannot have a conversation in which we both talk about the same thing?
Because I know that's wrong. — 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. — Terrapin Station
"Subjective" refers to mental phenomena per se. "Objective" things obtain independently of mental phenomena. — Terrapin Station
"Truth" isn't the same thing as "fact" or "state of affairs." Truth is a property of propositions. — Terrapin Station
"Propositions" is a bit too fuzzy for my taste. I prefer 'statement', because it is comparatively simple to set out what a statement is using grammatical rules, A proposition is supposedly what "it is raining" has in common with "es regnet"; saying it is the meaning derives from that. That woks to some extent, but one ought not let it run off. Better to think in terms of use than in terms of meaning.Propositions are the meanings of statements. — Terrapin Station
Sure, but that does not mean they are not contentious.All three previous sentences are standard in analytic philosophy. — Terrapin Station
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. — Terrapin Station
What I find of value in considering such things is the difference between a proposition and the belief in a proposition. In logicians parlance, belief ranges over propositions.
SO "The cat is on the mat" and "It is true that the cat is on the mat" are each only true if the other is true.
In contrast, "The cat is on the mat" and "I believe that the cat is on the mat" are quite autonomous. Each can be true or false, independently of the other.
This point seems lost in so much of what is said in these forums. — Banno
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