Are the irrelevancies something other than that which informs potential action?

the greatest problem is thinking there is a real problem to begin with. — Merkwurdichliebe

Well said. This is how I take my Heidgenstein. The old masters did deal with genuine life problems, though, I would say. So your critique applies to a certain kind of obsessive digression that happens when folks get lost in dictating an ideal language.

[reply="Terrapin Station;298744"
Of course ! Languaging, like any other form of behavior can operate like a bodily habit (as in circling thoughts ), or merely for attention seeking

So then there is something else other than that which informs potential action.

Facts about subjectivity are only subjective in the sense that they're facts about subjectivity. They're still objective in the sense that they're a fact. After all, subjects are just one kind of object: one with consciousness.

You're thinking of "fact" as something like "true statement." (Otherwise saying "facts about" would make no sense.)

If we use "fact" in the "state of affairs" sense, there can be subjective facts, in that its an ontological property of the fact that it's subjective.

Facts about subjectivity are only subjective in the sense that they're facts about subjectivity. They're still objective in the sense that they're a fact. After all, subjects are just one kind of object: one with consciousness. — luckswallowsall

I think I understand and agree. It is (roughly) true or false that Gary was thinking about pizza at a particular moment.

It's not merely my subjective opinion that it objectively the case that you very probably didn't spend the past 15 minutes visualizing Abraham Lincon bouncing around on a pink space hopper.

To quote from Wikipedia: "[John] Searle has argued that critics like Daniel Dennett, who (he claims) insist that discussing subjectivity is unscientific because science presupposes objectivity, are making a category error. Perhaps the goal of science is to establish and validate statements which are epistemically objective, (i.e., whose truth can be discovered and evaluated by any interested party), but are not necessarily ontologically objective.

Searle calls any value judgment epistemically subjective. Thus, "McKinley is prettier than Everest" is "epistemically subjective", whereas "McKinley is higher than Everest" is "epistemically objective." In other words, the latter statement is evaluable (in fact, falsifiable) by an understood ('background') criterion for mountain height, like 'the summit is so many meters above sea level'. No such criteria exist for prettiness.

Beyond this distinction, Searle thinks there are certain phenomena (including all conscious experiences) that are ontologically subjective, i.e. can only exist as subjective experience. For example, although it might be subjective or objective in the epistemic sense, a doctor's note that a patient suffers from back pain is an ontologically objective claim: it counts as a medical diagnosis only because the existence of back pain is "an objective fact of medical science". The pain itself, however, is ontologically subjective: it is only experienced by the person having it.

Searle goes on to affirm that "where consciousness is concerned, the existence of the appearance is the reality". His view that the epistemic and ontological senses of objective/subjective are cleanly separable is crucial to his self-proclaimed biological naturalism, because it allows epistemically objective judgements like "That object is a pocket calculator" to pick out agent-relative features of objects, and such features are, on his terms, ontologically subjective (unlike, say, "That object is made mostly of plastic")."

I don't see how that contradicts anything I said. In fact, it seems to bolster my point: that there can be epistemically objective facts about ontological subjectivity.

Plus, I don't see how true statements don't refer to states of affairs.

that there can be epistemically objective facts about ontological subjectivity. — luckswallowsall

"Epistemically objective" is an oxymoron. Knowledge can't be objective. Knowledge is necessarily mental.

"Epistemically objective" is an oxymoron. Knowledge can't be objective. Knowledge is necessarily mental. — Vessuvius

It seems that you are misusing the word "oxymoron".

Knowledge has to be objective otherwise it's mere belief.

Scientific facts and mathematical truths are examples of things that can be objectively known.

Knowlege is indeed necessarily mental ... but it's also necessarily objective.

Knowledge requires a combination of ontological subjectivity and epistemic objectivity.

An irrational fool has the ontological subjectivity but lacks the epistemic objectivity.

A rational robot has the epistemic objectivity but lacks the ontological subjectivity.

Your mistake is due to thinking that if something is ontologically subjective then it also has to be epistemically subjective. That's an equivocation on your part.

Well I think I agree with all of that, and it was a pleasure to read.

Knowledge has to be objective otherwise it's mere belief. — luckswallowsall

And indeed, knowledge in the propositional sense, rather than the "how-to" or "knowledge-by-acquaintance" senses, is belief. It's a particular sort of belief--justified, true belief, but of course, that's a type of belief.

Knowlege is indeed necessarily mental ... but it's also necessarily objective. — luckswallowsall

"Mental" is the opposite of "objective." Hence why "objective knowledge" is an oxymoron.

Objectivity refers to a public balance upon which impressions are weighed. Yet I only possess impressions of a public balance.

That's simply another way of effectively saying, "We're going to consider argumentum ad populums 'objective.'"

That's simply another way of effectively saying, "We're going to consider argumentum ad populums 'objective.'" — Terrapin Station

Not necessarily; Only that the objective-subjective distinction has no objective justification on pain of infinite regress. I am still nevertheless prepared to accuse the public of subjectivity.

What would be an "objective justification" in general?

What would be an "objective justification" in general? — Terrapin Station

I think Quine's web of belief provides a reasonable picture of the broad notion objectivity in terms of epistemic acceptability; the objectivity of a proposition being it's degree of coherence with respect to the rest of one's existing belief system.

The definition of objectivity in terms of a particular witness of a fact is a mistake. Simply put, a proposition is called 'objective' if one is willing to accept it.

Say what? You're defining "objective" as "whatever one is willing to accept"?

g0d
86
the greatest problem is thinking there is a real problem to begin with.
— Merkwurdichliebe

Well said. This is how I take my Heidgenstein. The old masters did deal with genuine life problems, though, I would say. So your critique applies to a certain kind of obsessive digression that happens when folks get lost in dictating an ideal language. — g0d

If you go back and read the context... Merk missed the point with the comment. There is definitely a problem when people attempt to use the subject/object(subjective/objective) dichotomy as a means to account for everything. Banno finds it useful in certain situations. Those who attempt to do too much with it find themselves in an impossible situation. They cannot take account for that which consists of both, and is thus neither. Folk who do that create their own problems... those problems are the bottle.

There is definitely a problem when people attempt to use the subject/object(subjective/objective) dichotomy as a means to account for everything. Banno finds it useful in certain situations. Those who attempt to do too much with it find themselves in an impossible situation. They cannot take account for that which consists of both, and is thus neither. Folk who do that create their own problems... those problems are the bottle. — creativesoul

Well I think I agree with you. To me the subject/object distinction indeed breaks down. But I even embrace naive realism as the mundane pre-philosophy from which we start and never actually leave.
I like OLP too. We never forget how to use subject and object talk in the real world, and we do it well.

It's when we try to do pseudo-math with essences that we get in hopeless tangles. Meaning is more like a fluid that flows through both words and actions simultaneously.

Do you not think/believe that there are many self-perpetuated problems, all of which are a result of people becoming bewitched by certain language use? Frameworks are language use. Dichotomies are a part of all frameworks. Some dichotomies are used - historically - as a means for doing something that they are inherently incapable of doing. — creativesoul

I agree with this earlier statement too.

Banno wants to continue/limit it's use, for/in/to some contexts I suppose, but I find it fatally flawed in such a way that it's use loses all explanatory value. It is inadequate for taking account of the attribution of meaning, the presupposition of correspondence to what's happened, and thought/belief formation itself. — creativesoul

I am interested in the related themes of truth as correspondence and truth as disclosure. To check that a proposition is true, we have to look at the world and see the already disclosed entity as that proposition described it. When we talk about potatoes, we can just use our sense organs, etc. (along with an understanding of the world that operates noiselessly and makes the proposition intelligible.)

But if I talk about other objects, like the correspondence theory of truth, I am disclosing them as I describe them.Or some of my statements intend to reveal them. It's only after entities are disclosed or revealed that we can have truth as correspondence.

This stuff is in Heidegger I think, but it stands or falls on its own merits. I don't want to pretend to have thought this up myself.

Knowledge has to be objective otherwise it's mere belief. — luckswallowsall

I like to use the typical definition of 'objective' as (roughly) unbiased.

Can't knowledge be a belief? What if my opinion is relatively unbiased? Because I think critically, etc. Maybe I stick to quantified measurements and so on. And then some beliefs are more highly regarded than others? As in I listen to the physicists about physics and not the homeless guy. Even it's possible that the professor is wrong and the bum is right.

Scientific facts and mathematical truths are examples of things that can be objectively known.

Knowlege is indeed necessarily mental ... but it's also necessarily objective.

Knowledge requires a combination of ontological subjectivity and epistemic objectivity.

An irrational fool has the ontological subjectivity but lacks the epistemic objectivity.

A rational robot has the epistemic objectivity but lacks the ontological subjectivity.

Your mistake is due to thinking that if something is ontologically subjective then it also has to be epistemically subjective. That's an equivocation on your part. — luckswallowsall

Basically I agree with you here. But I do think subjective and objective are about the perspective. A highly subjective statement would be biased or personal in a way that reduces its trustworthiness or utility to those who aren't like the particular person involved. Think of a witness who loathes or loves the defendant. An objective statement is more likely to come from someone who is not involved emotionally with the subject matter itself. Some people even pride themselves precisely on being unbiased. They are biased toward unbiasedness.

I agree by the way that we can make objective statements about what someone is feeling. We can give better or worse reports depending on the presence or absence of bias. We can't check in some sense, but feeling as a public entity is disclosed through tears, laughter, gesture, expression, etc. Even if we can't be sure, we trust some people more than others (which is to say they are objective.)

Say what? You're defining "objective" as "whatever one is willing to accept"? — Terrapin Station

Yes, I am tempted to think that such notions are non-cognitive expressions of one's epistemic disposition ,-although the more general world "truth" sounds more fitting for what i had in mind, rather than objectivity. The difference being that objectivity stresses a perspective-invariant truth.

For example, if one were to say "Tinned tomatoes taste horrible", a person might accuse one of being subjective in failing to recognize their personal predilection. But if one were merely to say " tinned tomatoes taste horrible for me", there wouldn't normally be any objection.

So let's suppose that all sentences of the form "X has property Y", are formally understood to be an abbreviation for " X has property Y, for me". With respect to this new interpretation of language, is there still a notion of objectivity that is distinct from the notion of truth? And isn't truth now understood to be the mere expression of epistemic acceptance?

Your virtuosity at instigation mirrors my own, and I supremely respect that. :cool: :up:

If "'objective' is 'whatever one is willing to accept'" then how does that do any of the work that people usually want to do with the notion of objectivity?

There is definitely a problem when people attempt to use the subject/object(subjective/objective) dichotomy as a means to account for everything. Banno finds it useful in certain situations. Those who attempt to do too much with it find themselves in an impossible situation. They cannot take account for that which consists of both, and is thus neither. Folk who do that create their own problems... those problems are the bottle.
— creativesoul

Well I think I agree with you. To me the subject/object distinction indeed breaks down. But I even embrace naive realism as the mundane pre-philosophy from which we start and never actually leave.
I like OLP too. We never forget how to use subject and object talk in the real world, and we do it well. — g0d

I think naive realism is a name that carries along with it far too much philosophical baggage.

It's when we try to do pseudo-math with essences that we get in hopeless tangles. — g0d

I have no idea what this means.

Meaning is more like a fluid that flows through both words and actions simultaneously. — g0d

The phrase/simile "like a fluid that flows through" romanticizes meaning.

Actually, both words and actions can be part of a meaningful correlation.

I am interested in the related themes of truth as correspondence and truth as disclosure. To check that a proposition is true, we have to look at the world and see the already disclosed entity as that proposition described it. — g0d

Witt and Heiddy both realized that there was much more to meaning than what meets the eye. Unfortunately, neither of them had a good enough grasp upon human thought/belief and how it grows it's complexity. Heiddy's take completely missed the most rudimentary forms, while attempting to draw a line between pre and post reflective thought/belief. Witt was too focused upon all the different ways we attribute meaning to notice his mistaken of following convention(epistemology) with regard to belief and it's content.

They both had their own bottle.

When we talk about potatoes, we can just use our sense organs, etc. (along with an understanding of the world that operates noiselessly and makes the proposition intelligible.) But if I talk about other objects, like the correspondence theory of truth, I am disclosing them as I describe them. Or some of my statements intend to reveal them. It's only after entities are disclosed or revealed that we can have truth as correspondence. — g0d

I'm not sure what the "but" is doing here. It's used as if you think that there's a remarkable difference between talking about potatoes and talking about truth, but the difference you see in unclear to me.

When I say "just use our X", I mean that our X is all that's needed, and as such the parenthetical bit in the above quote contradicts what immediately precedes it. We use our senses and language to talk about everything from potatoes to what sorts of things can be true and what makes them so.

I think naive realism is a name that carries along with it far too much philosophical baggage. — creativesoul

Fair enough. But...

In philosophy of mind, naïve realism, also known as direct realism, common sense realism or perceptual realism, is the idea that the senses provide us with direct awareness of objects as they really are. Objects obey the laws of physics and retain all their properties whether or not there is anyone to observe them.[1] They are composed of matter, occupy space and have properties, such as size, shape, texture, smell, taste and colour, that are usually perceived correctly. — Wiki

I think it's also called 'common sense realism' for a reason. I don't usually experience my car or my bed as a projection of my mind. I think both will obey certain 'laws' or exhibit certain regularities. I think both will survive me. Someone can inherit either. I think old trees in the park were there before I was born.

If I read Kant, however, I can explore all the complexities and difficulties that are hidden in the common sense I mostly take for granted.

It's when we try to do pseudo-math with essences that we get in hopeless tangles.
— g0d

I have no idea what this means. — creativesoul

'Pseudo-math with essences' means having a primitive theory of meaning and using it to do armchair science or traditional metaphysics. In short, I mean 'language on holiday,' though this phrase can itself be understood crudely and slavishly.

Heiddy's take completely missed the most rudimentary forms, while attempting to draw a line between pre and post reflective thought/belief. Witt was too focused upon all the different ways we attribute meaning to notice his mistaken of following convention(epistemology) with regard to belief and it's content.

They both had their own bottle. — creativesoul

For me both at their best got it pretty much right. I especially like Ontology: Hermeneutics of Facticity (early H) and On Certainty (late W.)

At the same time, both were just people with their own quirks and prejudices. So for me neither is the least bit of an authority. I just learned from both of them.

I'm not sure what the "but" is doing here. It's used as if you think that there's a remarkable difference between talking about potatoes and talking about truth, but the difference you see in unclear to me. — creativesoul

It's a murky issue. If I claim there is a sack of potatoes in the cabinet, I can check by looking. If I claim that truth is correspondence or that metaphysics is language on holiday, things are far more complicated.

If the potatoes we can check for are themselves understood as mere representations of potatoes-in-themselves, we are in trouble. Because it's hard to specify what the hell we mean by potatoes-in-themselves. It can't be atoms, since those are also mere representations.

For me the 'phenomenon' of world, a structure of assertion, is perhaps what Kant was trying to get at. But it's perhaps impossible to do 'world' justice in 'word-math.' And although it fascinates me, it's not of great practical importance. Still, I think this part of Heidgenstein is illuminating.

BTW, I recommend Groundless Grounds as a great book on 'Heidgenstein.' Lee Braver fuses the insights of both thinkers on the 'groundless ground.'

Here's a brief review of the book: https://rauli.cbs.dk/index.php/foucault-studies/article/viewFile/4671/5104

Are all things either objective or subjective?

No. This distinction may be sufficient for everyday use. But when we want to explain a cultural phenomenon, this dichotomy is too simplistic, because cultural entities are socially constructed, they are neither objective nor subjective, but someting in between.

An *objective* phenomenon exists independently of human consciousness and human beliefs (be it an individual or the whole of humanity). Example: Measles is caused by a virus, tuberculosis is caused by bacteria. These are facts, representations of a reality "out there", whether we believe or know this reality or not.

The *subjective* is something that exists depending on the consciousness and beliefs of an individual. My political opinion, my personal tastes, my memories... all these "things" are subjective, they depend on a subject, in this case it is "me". If I think that "Life of Brian" is the funniest movie ever, so be it, nobody can prove my wrong.

But most cultural entities are are neither objective nor subjective: they are *inter-subjective*:
"The inter-subjective is something that exists within the communication network linking the subjective consciousness of many individuals. Inter-subjective phenomena are neither malevolent frauds nor insignificant charades. They exist in a different way from physical phenomena such as radioactivity, but their impact on the world may still be enormous. Many of history’s most important drivers are inter-subjective: law, money, gods, nations.
Similarly, the dollar, human rights and the United States of America exist in the shared imagination of billions, and no single individual can threaten their existence. If I alone were to stop believing in the dollar, in human rights, or in the United States, it wouldn’t much matter. These imagined orders are inter-subjective, so in order to change them we must simultaneously change the consciousness of billions of people, which is not easy." (from "Sapiens" by Yuval Noah Harari)

Take for example law or language (e.g. the meaning of words): It is obvious that they are not objective, because they depend on the minds of human beings. And they change, be it slowly and unintentionally, or per *fiat* (a legislative authority promulgates a new law or changes an existing law). But they are not "subjective" because a given subject cannot change them (unless we espouse the rather mystical idea that a whole society is a "subject"). From the point of view of individual subjects (the only kind of subjects that exist), laws or the meanings of words (or grammatical structures) are "quasi-objective", they exist "out there" and they continue to exist even if I stop believing in them, because they exist in the minds of thousands, maybe millions or billions of other people.

The realm of inter-subjective entities, or "imagined orders", as Harari calls them, is the sphere of cultural conflicts, because what is "objective" for group A is "subjective" for group B. Religions are the best examples for this kind of conflict. Countries are another example. Before a dedicated group of like-minded men created the United States of America, this "thing" did not exist. Their challenge was to convince enough other individuals of their belief. If they had failed and if the idea of an independent country called USA never had taken root in the minds of a critical mass of other men and women, the USA would not exist. But this idea did take root in the mind of billions of people (is there anyone who denies its existence?), and therefore its existence is *quasi-objective*; not *really* objective, because countries - unlike true facts - can cease to exist (Soviet Union, Yugoslavia...). Mostly these "imagined orders" do not simply vanish but are replaced by another imagined order (the Deutsche Mark ceased, but was replaced by the Euro)

The point is: the "essence" of a belief by thousands or millions is different from the "essence" of a personal thought that happens to be in my mind. I can have a moral intuition ("That poor beggar! I'll give him a euro" ), but that is different from a moral rule: "Thou shall give a tenth of your income to the poor!" Private thoughts and intuitions come and go, but moral rules can - and they did - stay and evolve: from fuzzy rules shared by a tribe, to a written law (e.g. in the codex of Hammurabi), to a full-blown Constitution which serves as a kind of OS for a whole society of 350 million individuals. It would be ridiculous to call a constitution "subjective", and if it is not, then the moral rule shared by a tribe of 300 is not either

Collectively shared ideas often evolve to form institutions (courts, governments, corporations, councils...) which in their turn can be studied as if they were just as objective as the moon or a virus (there is vast literature on Canon Law), whereas their "objectivity" derives entirely from the shared belief of thousands or millions of minds (the objectivity of the virus does not)

Therefore it would be a great progress if everybody acknowledged that the dichotomy objective/subjective is dangerously simplistic and cannot be applied to everything (to every thing), but that a lot of "things" we are talking, discussing, arguing, fighting about are neither nor, but *inter-subjective* or social.

Are all things either objective or subjective? — Matias

Yes. The two categories exhaust all existents.

That was simple. ;-)

Objective means something like : not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.

Subjective means something like: based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.

Must we stretch language and talk about 'objective entities' and 'subjective entities'?

I understand what people mean, I think, but it seems a little sloppy.

Are all things either objective or subjective? — Matias

Examining the standard definitions of these adjectives, I don't think this is the right question. I do think your post makes some good points.

Yes. The two categories exhaust all existents. — Terrapin Station

So you mean something like mental and physical, right? Even then, I don't think it's a clean distinction, however usual as a first approximation.