We definitely depend on statements that attempt to mediate the subject into objective understanding. But this mediation is indirectly related to the subject's actual existence. So with the mediation we lose the essence of subjectivity by making it something objective. — Merkwurdichliebe

@frank, @TheWillowOfDarkness - is this waffle for you?

It is for me. Another example of language gone astray.


"The subject" - the individual? Merkwurdichliebe?

"objective understanding" - so now we add objective understanding to the objective world, without setting out what we are doing.

"actual existence" - as opposed to existence per se?

"the essence of subjectivity" - what subjectivity is in every possible world? What else?

"making it something objective" - we can make the subjective, objective?

I can't follow this.

So I have a subjective world (my world) and you have yours (your world). Where we agree, we call that the objective world. — frank

Not exactly, I wouldn't call "where you and I agree" the objective world, that would just be the parts where our subjective worlds are similar. I don't claim that there is such a thing as an objective world, however many make that claim, and I say that this objective world they refer to is a subjective world they agree on.

But what's up with agreement? Do we agree on portions of worlds? Or do we agree on statements? — frank

Well, for instance, if it is night, do you believe the Sun is traveling below the horizon or do you have no belief on that? If you believe it, your subjective world that you have constructed would have the Sun traveling below the horizon while you're not perceiving it, and someone with the same belief would have a similar subjective world in that aspect.

I said that saying the tree exists independently of us when we do not perceive it is a belief. — leo

Is saying @frank exists independently of us when we do not read his threads no more than a belief?

Poor Frank.

Actually that is reigned in language. Read it again

How could you ever know that you agree, as opposed to appearing to agree...?

After all, all you have is your perceptions of agreement... — Banno

Sure, there are perceptions of agreement.

You may have noticed throughout your life that you uncovered beliefs you hadn't realized you had, and that you may have replaced with different beliefs. You may have noticed also that depending on what you believe, your world appears different (for instance your world is much different depending on whether you believe in an afterlife or whether you believe you cease experiencing anything when you die, whether you believe animals have feelings and consciousness or whether you believe only humans do, whether you believe things exist independently when you don't see them or not, ...).

So if your beliefs interact with the world you see, and it's not easy to uncover your own beliefs, then it's safe to say that you believe you agree.

It's rather disingenuous to insist that if someone does not agree with you then they have misread your posts. — Banno

You may have noticed throughout your life that you uncovered beliefs you hadn't realized you had, and that you may have replaced with different beliefs. You may have noticed also that depending on what you believe, your world appears different (for instance your world is much different depending on whether you believe in an afterlife or whether you believe you cease experiencing anything when you die, whether you believe animals have feelings and consciousness or whether you believe only humans do, whether you believe things exist independently when you don't see them or not, ...). — leo

This harks nicely back to the early discussion with @Isaac regarding direction of fit.

But again, this is not a thread about such things. The best you can do here is to serve as an example for those who are discussing subjectivity and objectivity.

Having said that, experience tells me that this thread is about to go sideways.

SO come on, Leo - let me goad you into a debate!

I didn't mean to imply you misread the post, I merely meant to urge you to appropriate the reigned in language directly in your existence as a subject

I can follow it.

We are subjective entities who make statements to report to objective things. Our statements are, however, states of our own existence and out talk about existing things.

Thus, our statements lose the subjective character of only being us or about ourselves. They talk about things outside. Things which are true (or not) regardless of our belief.

OK.

I still do not understand what you said.

Thanks.

So presumably a subjective entity is one that has subjective experiences - feelings and such.

What are the objective things to which we report? Other people?

I'm not sure the comment was addressing those issues.

It just seemed to be commenting on how our statements lose subjective character because we talk about things outside ourselves.

But again, this is not a thread about such things. The best you can do here is to serve as an example for those who are discussing subjectivity and objectivity. — Banno

It was a direct reply to your remark that there is appearance of agreement, you're the one initiating tangents.

You can say that "this text is written in English" is an "objective truth" if you want (as per your OP), yet people who are blind won't agree with you, people who don't speak english won't agree with you, people who are not able to recognize symbols won't agree with you, if everyone else who speaks english dies no one would agree with you, and if you become amnesiac you may not agree with you anymore. So much for objective truth.

I don't think most people care about objective truth the way you define it. It is objective truth to you that the color of this text is black, yet if you were blind it would not be objective truth to you that the color of this text is black, but supposedly you would go on lecturing people about the difference between subjective and objective truth.

"The subject" - the individual? Merkwurdichliebe? — Banno

who? Me

"objective understanding" - so now we add objective understanding to the objective world, without setting out what we are doing. — Banno

I understand what I have set out to do. I don't apologize for my intentions being hidden.

Besides, it would be lame philosophy to precede everything we said with a preface that sets out what we are doing. It's probably why ordinary language philosophy looks like a dog chasing his tail and getting nowhere.

"actual existence" - as opposed to existence per se? — Banno

Yes, existence as a concept, like when its talked about.

"the essence of subjectivity" - what subjectivity is in every possible world? What else? — Banno

No subjectivity occupies every world. But every subject is, in essence, a complete world in itself

"making it something objective" - we can make the subjective, objective? — Banno

No, and any objective relation to subjectivity is indirect.

I'm trying to help you understand.

I think you'll find we agree more than you know

I've been reading and writing philosophy for quite a while. Show me something new, and I will be grateful.

For now, you look to be yet another idealist.

Me too. I think everyone here would be grateful if any one were to posit something new in these forums. I'm pretty sure I'm not the man for that job.

And, I wouldn't consider myself an idealist, especially since I despise speculative system building. Maybe an existentialist or nihilist

I'm trying to help you understand. — Merkwurdichliebe

So since the OP here is mine, perhaps we might proceed by your putting into your own terms what you think I have claimed in the OP?

Perhaps it will help me to understand you.

I will, standby...

An objective point of view is like a map or a schematic. The viewer seems to be stationed outside if the world that's being observed.

A subjective viewpoint has the viewer positioned centrally in the world. We all know what that's like. Stop thinking and look: that's the doorway to subjectivity. — frank

You could say that the first is the assumed stance of naturalism, which assumes the perspective of the subject, attempting to arrive at as objective a view as possible, through eliminating everything other than what can be quantified (subject of Thomas Nagel's book The View from Nowhere.)

The second is suggestive of phenomenology, which takes into account the ultimately subjective nature of existence, but tries to do so in a way which doesn't fall into mere subjectivity.

I think all the problems start with the phrase that I bolded in the dictionary definition of 'objective':

Objective: not dependent on the mind for existence; actual.
"a matter of objective fact"
synonyms: factual, actual, real, empirical, verifiable, existing, manifest
"the world of objective knowledge"

It's a can of worms. Take that out of the definition, and then there's nothing much to discuss.

.

You are here using "objective" in a way that differs from the one set out in the OP. — Banno

Yes. I don't think your use reflects how the term is commonly used.

"I prefer vanilla ice" is a subjective statement in accord with the use set out in the OP. It is true only if the speaker does have a certain preference.

But it is also a statement of fact. — Banno

Presumably "I have brown hair" is an objective statement in accord with the use set out in the OP (not a statement of taste, feelings or opinion). It is true only if the speaker does have brown hair.

You seem to be saying that statements of fact about the physical state of one's brain (one's brain state) are subjective, but statements about the physical state of one's hair (hair colour) are not subjective.

I just don't follow the rationale for this (what does it achieve?) and it certainly doesn't seem to reflect my experience of common usage.


.

Yawn. Objective just means reproducible under fixed conditions. Nothing more. The blather about mind and feelings and independence and perception and reality and truth and so on is just noise.

The sooner people realize objective and subjective do not form an antithetical pair, the better.

It is especially important, therefore, to keep an eye on their use in mundane contexts. — Banno

What is the grounds for such a mandate besides personal preference concerning how philosophy should be practiced? You even wrote that belief does not necessarily equate to truth. Show me how it is that regarding words in their mundane context yields any more truth or clarity than using them in an extraordinary context.

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.

So that I prefer vanilla to chocolate ice-cream is a subjective fact - or if you prefer, it is a subjective truth. It's truth is dependent on my own taste.

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

This is only one perspective on the subject-object. I don't dispute it, but I don't think it's the only perspective, nor the best, especially in regard to philosophical inquiry. I don't think you've done a sufficient job of showing that this is the superior perspective concerning subject-object.

don't allow the notions of subjectivity and objectivity to take on any more significance.

in particular, don't pretend that there are either only subjective facts, or that there are only objective facts. — Banno

Again, you havent shown why. Perhaps this reduced level of significance will lead us up and down various garden paths of an even more convoluted nature.

If you would sufficiently demonstrate the truth of your claims, I might be more willing to agree.

If some truth can be said in the first person, it's likely to be a subjective fact. — Banno

I disagree. Suppose I say: 'I am human.' The "I" represents the existing subject as an object, and "am human" is an objective property of an object.

"I" is the subject, grammatically speaking. But, espistemologically speaking, "I am human" is entirely an objective statement, regardless if it's true or false, or if a single individual spoke it. The "I" is the objectification of something that is not objective (i.e. subjectivity), mediating it into a concept instead of an immediate reality. The confusion lies the fact that, objectively speaking, communication is direct, yet subjectivity can only be indirectly communicated, so it becomes tempting to regard the concept and the reality as identical.

Yawn. Objective just means reproducible under fixed conditions. Nothing more. The blather about mind and feelings and independence and perception and reality and truth and so on is just noise. — StreetlightX

True, and I like making noise

The sooner people realize objective and subjective do not form an antithetical pair, the better. — StreetlightX

Could you please elaborate?

You could say that the first is the assumed stance of naturalism, which assumes the perspective of the subject, attempting to arrive at as objective a view as possible, through eliminating everything other than what can be quantified (subject of Thomas Nagel's book The View from Nowhere.)

The second is suggestive of phenomenology, which takes into account the ultimately subjective nature of existence, but tries to do so in a way which doesn't fall into mere subjectivity. — Wayfarer

Excellent distinction.

Personally, I prefer experimentinting with the phenomenological approach in order to find out how far we can fall into subjectivity. But that is nothing new, just postmodern nonsense. And since the overwhelming majority of participants on this board appear to be analytical philosophers and phenomenologists, I have taken it upon myself to challenge these positions, if as nothing more than philosophical exercise

Could you please elaborate? — Merkwurdichliebe

Well if objective just means reproducible under fixed conditions, does the opposite of that mean ‘subjective’? No. Some conditions simply cannot be fixed, as with, say, large-scale economies or large-scale societies, in which reproducibility is hard, if not impossible to come by. Yet the latter two are far from what anyone might call ‘subjective’ phenomena (and if they do, they’re twisting language).

So not-objective does not mean ‘subjective’; the latter is not the natural anti-paring of the former. And as for ‘subjective' - frankly, nobody knows what ‘subjective’ means. It’s one of those weasel words that people like to throw about, and it has zero conceptual consistency whatsoever. It has connotations of ‘from a first-person POV’, and it's used loosely in that manner, but it’s mostly useless as a philosophical term of art. Everytime someone uses the word ‘subjective’ in a philosophical context, the default assumption ought to be that they have no idea what they are talking about, unless they prove otherwise.

So subjective and objective are not a pair. To speak about them as such is like speaking about apples and emotions as though they were a pair. But they don't even share a similar grammar. But people are ticked by a nice bit of poetic resonance. And also because fuck Kant.

Thanks

Well if objective just means reproducible under fixed conditions, does the opposite of that mean ‘subjective’?  — StreetlightX

No.

Yet, if we consider subjectivity to be immediacy, then it follows that it is impossible for it to be either a product or a fixed state. If subject-object are not opposites, they are at least qualitatively opposed and conceptually incompatible.

Some conditions simply cannot be fixed, as with, say, large-scale economies or large-scale societies, in which reproducibility is hard, if not impossible to come by. — StreetlightX

All that is necessary for it to be objective is the possibility.

It has connotations of ‘from a first-person POV’, and it used loosely in that manner, but it’s most useless as a philosophical term of art. Everytime someone uses the word ‘subjective’, the default assumption ought to be that they have no idea what they are talking about, unless they prove otherwise. — StreetlightX

Very good.

So it seems you are using subjective here to mean something different. What? — Banno

If I had to put my finger on it, I would guess "fallible".