A truth value is absolute and binary, either true or false and nothing in between. Whatever we believe the truth value of a proposition to be, doesn’t change its real truth value (which we will never know with absolute certainty).

The proposition: “Hauptmann murdered the Lindbergh baby” has one truth value that has existed since the event happened (or didn’t) and will exist for all eternity. It is either true or false and that will never change. Investigators can continue to debate and change their theories about which truth value is the correct one, but it will remain (although unknown to us). Hauptmann did it, or he didn’t, and that is not dependent on the degree of our certainty.

Everything referring to the past has a truth value, but that doesn’t mean we know it or that we don’t change our mind about it.

Proposition with no reference has no truth value. For example: “The king of France is bald.”

Everything referring to the future has no truth value, (but that doesn’t mean we can’t make qualified guesses about the future based on information from the past.)

However, a potential has a truth value since it doesn’t really make a prediction about the future but only refers to something existing in the past/present. This seed has nasturtium as its potential and not a tree. “This seed has the potential to become nasturtium” has truth value T. That potential exists now and could be confirmed through a microscope.
“This seed will become nasturtium” has no truth value. It’s not possible to make a prediction since a lot of seed normally gets discarded and becomes nothing.

Probability of course has to do with predicting the future and I assume quantum physicists use complicated mathematical formulas to reach varying degrees of certainty. Complete certainty is never possible because you can never take into account all particles that may enter into your universe. Therefore, what will be is not included in what is when considered as facts. Everything that will be is present as potential, of course, but that has no meaning in terms of facts and truth in any conceivable sense for human beings. This is not cultural or conventional; it has to do with our animal condition inside time and space. Only the past (which includes “the present”) has a truth value and it is absolutely and objectively either true or false: What has happened, has happened; it can’t be changed or whether it is known to us or not, is irrelevant: It is the existing absolute objective truth.

Potentiality doesn’t figure into this scheme since in principle anything is potentially possible. It is only relevant when potentiality is understood as a definite present condition; as for example when all the genetic data about the plant that might come into existence is currently present in the seed, (but the prediction about what the plant might later look like has no truth value since anything could interfere with its development)

If I were to give out prizes for best posts you and Congau would get prizes. The two of you have maintained the discussion, while others dropped in long enough to criticize me and left without contributing to the discussion — Athena

Thank you, Athena. I was worried that we were messing up your thread since we have gone way off the original topic.

As I mentioned, this idea is based on an intuitive understanding of quantum mechanics, which necessitates interaction for all our essential perceptions of the world. — Possibility

Where have you mentioned that before? If anything, quantum physics increases the notion of objectivity. There are no minds in quantum physics, no difference between thinking things and any other thing.

About the difference between fact and truth: A fact is anything that could be scientifically proven if science put it to a test. That doesn’t mean objective truth of course since science can be wrong. There is no such thing as proof in the absolute sense, but we have conventionally decided that things we can observe and deduce as certain within the laws of nature are facts. That’s what any shopkeeper means by “fact” even if he doesn’t express it in those words.
(I once heard a tv evangelist say: “It’s a fact that Jesus is the son of God.” That sentence is nonsensical whatever you believe, but it makes sense if a believer uses the word “truth” in such an instance.)

if you believe that objectivity is about what can be deduced from all possible perspectives — Possibility

I didn’t actually intend to convey an idea about how we arrive at conclusions about the true identity of objects. I just suggested that the expression “view from nowhere” plays into the hands of subjectivists who can retort that such a thing is inconceivable. I now realize that any mention of “view” in connection with objectivity is misleading.

truth as fact consists of interacting potential information — Possibility

Where is that idea of yours actually coming from? How can that be a clarification of a common word we already thought we knew when not even a dictionary is suggesting anything like it? If it is your intention to introduce an epistemological understanding that necessitates interaction for all our essential perceptions of the world, so be it. Then we can discuss if this epistemology is plausible, but stretching mere words will not get you there. Most people who have learned the word “fact” would think they knew a fact when observing any disconnected occurrence alone in the wilderness. In philosophy I’m not in the habit of calling the masses as my witness, but when it comes to the mere meaning of a simple word, it has no other definitions than what the speakers of a language collectively think it means.

it is only a fact IFF a tree does actually fall in the forest. — Possibility

Your distinction between fact and truth (and there is a distinction) is covered by the dictionary phrase “that actually exists”. That tree making a sound in the forest is only a fact if it actually exists. A generally law (a true one) “if x then y” may be true regardless of the actual existence of x, but it doesn’t express a fact since it doesn’t refer to an existing thing. However, if you find a fallen tree in the forest you may deduce that it is a fact that it made a noise when it fell.

‘objectivity’ as a ‘view from nowhere’ — Possibility

“The view from nowhere” may not be very meaningful as a concept and I can see why subjectivists may want to attack it. Maybe it would be more helpful to talk about the view from anywhere referring to a truth that can be deduced from whatever perspective. We look at an object from all sides and thereby get an objective idea of what its totally looks like even though it can never be immediately observed.

There is a limit to how useful it is to change the definition of common words in order to name concepts you feel are not properly labeled. It’s bound to be confusing when your opponent doesn’t realize that you are not using a word in its normal sense.
The dictionary (dictionary.com) says that “fact” means “something that actually exists; reality; truth” and that’s how I have understood it all along.
When you say: “a fact cannot be completely independent of perception, and therefore cannot be objective”, you are rejecting the dictionary definition since you have already acknowledged that truth is objective. “Fact” equals “truth”, says the dictionary and if you insist that fact/truth is dependent on perception, our very faulty perception, it can obviously not be objective.

I must ask you the old question: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
The sound was there, sound waves were emitted, that is the truth, that is a fact, as certain as any fact in the world can be.

So what is the real point you’re trying to make? That the way we process information and draw conclusions about the world around us is relative to our perception in a social context? I guess I can accept that.

So: “Peter will break his leg in 2021” is not potentially knowable even for you. That is because there’s probably nothing in the present state of the world that would indicate that that will happen to Peter next year.
The statement “The oil price will be low in 2021” is potentially knowable since there exists something at present that might indicate that that will be the case.
Have I understood you correctly?

If I have understood you correctly, we have reached this far by clarifying definitions, and like I said, I’m willing to accept any of your definitions (whether or not they agree with my previous definitions or the ones you would find in a dictionary). Definitions are not important in themselves, but only to ensure that we are talking about the same thing.

The important thing is: What does it say about reality?
My basic claim at the start of this discussion was that reality consists of objective facts (truths) that are completely independent of how anyone perceives them and that I maintain. If someone is able or unable to use information fruitfully to make accurate predictions about the future or to realize connections between present and past objects, that may say something about different kinds of facts or at least our psychological relationship to them, but it doesn’t change the facts. The facts are the same whether or not anyone perceives them or use them.

Can I take this as an agreement that what you refer to as ‘truth value’ is a binary true/false? If so, then at no point can we objectively know this ‘truth value’ in a statement, even when it’s in the past. — Possibility

Yes, truth value is a binary true or false.
Like I’ve said several times, we can’t literally know anything. However, things that belong to the past are at least theoretically knowable, whereas future objects are not.
“Peter broke his leg in 2019.” That statement has a truth value; it is knowable.
“Peter will break his leg in 2021.” No truth value; not knowable.

You agreed that facts are potential information — Possibility

When I agreed that facts are potential information, I thought we were using another definition of “potential”. (I took it to mean “knowable”.) Now that you have defined it as “the capacity to develop, achieve or succeed”, I can no longer agree. (I don’t care how you define it as long as your definition is clear to me so that I can use the same one.)
If facts were potential information in your sense, it would mean they were sufficient for drawing conclusions about future events, but they are not. They don’t have the ability to succeed since more facts will always be needed to achieve greater certainty about the future. They therefore don’t have a truth value.
The statement “Peter’s shifty look means he will attack me” has no truth value, is neither true nor false, even when we can look at it in retrospect knowing that he did or did not attack me.

At this point, I am unable to determine the ‘truth value’ of a particular statement of fact or event (that he will attack me tomorrow), but I can relate what potential information I do have to an objective view of truth without needing to collapse it first into a specific four-dimensional event — Possibility

At no point can you determine the truth value of potential information. (I now use your definition, which of course is as good as any chosen definition although it was not at all what I had in mind.) The truth value (the binary true or false) will only appear when the potential has been fulfilled, at which point it is not potential anymore.

No statement about future events has any truth value, but all that concern past events have one. No matter how much potential information you have and how much you can imagine, a truth value can never be achieved, in other words you can never know what will happen in the future (even just a few seconds into the future).
(I’m here using the normal loose understanding of “know” which assumes that knowledge is possible. When we say “I knew it would happen”, we don’t mean it literary, but when we say “I know it happened”, we do.)

I can relate what potential information I do have to an objective view of truth without needing to collapse it first into a specific four-dimensional event — Possibility

How can you call this an objective view of the truth? Any prediction is guessing, and guessing, if anything, is subjective.
Language and common experiences are of course collective items but it would be a rather artificial stretch to call them objective.

What are the four dimensions?

I’d like to be clear about what you mean by “potential” in potential information. (It seems to me you are giving it a double meaning, but I may be wrong.)

One sense would be information that is totally inaccessible but still theoretically knowable, like the location of a grain of sand on the planet Pluto in the year 1843.

The second sense is potential as in not yet determinable.
I observe Peter’s shifty look and conclude that he will attack me tomorrow. Potential information = the truth value has not been realized yet, it belongs to the future.

If you mean the first sense, I agree that potential information is objective truth, but not if you mean the second sense since information about the future does not exist now. (Unless you include the possibility of supernatural clairvoyance, which you haven’t mentioned.) Indications about what might happen in the future does not objectively count as truth about the future. Oil prices have been falling lately and that seems to indicate that oil will be cheap next week. Strong indication, sure, but the truth value of next week’s cheap oil is in no way to be found inside the statement about recent oil prices. Even if the prediction for next week comes true and the causal connection between the two events is obvious, the two pieces of information would not be identical even in hindsight.

This is where we differ. You seem to think that we discard this uncertain information as irrelevant prior to determining our actions, — Possibility

No, I haven’t really been talking about our actions at all. Our actions are irrelevant to existing objective truths, but I have never said that the opposite is the case. What we think is the objective truth certainly influences our actions. We act from the best of our judgment concerning what exists using any hint of information we deem relevant. If I imagine that Peter harbors negative thoughts about me that will change my behavior towards him, and since I live in a society, I have a lot more potential information to take into account than the lonely savage needs to consider. Granted.
But whatever we do, it will not change the truths that already exists or existed. Yesterday at noon Peter had positive or negative thoughts about me and nothing I do can change that now. How he will feel tomorrow is not the issue here because that is not an existing truth.

Objective truth exists. We don’t know it, but we keep guessing and those guesses result in action and thereby creation of new objective truths. But the truths that existed in the first place can never be changed simply because the past cannot be changed. Our actions (and thoughts) cannot change existing truths. The glass exists at noon. I can break it at one second after noon, but it is still true that it existed at noon.

This I disagree with. That Peter had a thought yesterday at noon may be a fact, but the contents of that thought is potential information. There is no actuality to a thought except the event of thinking. You even said yourself that Peter may be just as uncertain about his thoughts as anyone else. — Possibility

All facts are potential information. There are just degrees of feelings of certainty coming from more or less convincing evidence. Peter’s thought at noon will probably never be revealed, but it’s not impossible. Maybe there exists a voice recording of a speech he made at the time or maybe some god will reveal his thoughts to you in a dream. What is actual information for you, the existence of the computer you think you are looking at right now for example, is just supported by stronger evidence. Close your eyes and you no longer have any information that the computer is there; it’s just potential information.

Again, my point is not to argue for skepticism, on the contrary, all facts are absolutely existent regardless of our information about them. Our thoughts cannot alter facts that are already there, that existed before we started thinking about them.

Our thoughts and assumptions about the world (including what we imagine other people to be thinking about) certainly influence our actions and thereby we produce new facts, but that is all in the future. What we perceive or imagine about existing facts is directed at the past (even if it’s a fraction of a second into the past) and our thinking about those facts just can’t change them. We are right or wrong in an absolute sense (even though we will never know which).

I have never denied that we approach facts/truths in different ways depending on our circumstances. We value different kinds of information according to what strikes us as useful or just interesting and our actions are determined by what information we have or imagine we have. What we think others think is one piece of information (very often false) that we process and act upon.

But all this doesn’t change the facts that are already there, that have already been produced. What Peter thought about yesterday at noon, not to mention on this date last year, is an absolute fact, now forgotten and inaccessible but if you still try to guess what it was, that guess will have a definite truth value (true, false, partly true). Your thinking about Peter’s past thinking will not change it in any way. A fact remains a fact and truth is absolute.

The future holds facts not yet produced, so of course we can change what will come, and human contact, including guesses about their past thinking, does indeed play a role in our production of new facts. But the facts that are already produced are unalterable and therefore “out there”. (That is even true about my own thinking whatever I think about it now.)

Consciousness and meaning (what people take something to mean) are also objective information that exists even though it is difficult or impossible to access it. No one knows what Peter is thinking right now and he himself may be confused about the meaning of his thoughts, but they are there and could theoretically be known, for example if telepathy were possible (Is that what you mean by potential information?) His thoughts are just more truths, more pieces of information about items existing in the world. If that is what you mean, we are in agreement, but I definitely object to any suggestion of Peter’s thoughts affecting truths that are foreign to them. His actions, yes, certainly, but not his mere thoughts.

Conventions are shared meaning, I grant you that. They are not foreign to thought but identical to collective thought. Word have their meaning because enough people think they have that meaning, and when enough people change their mind about words, their meaning will change too. Culture, being collective habits, is also dependent on thought or shared meaning. But as objects of study, ideas are objective facts, and the student of ideas cannot change their meaning without making a mistake.

Different people, different cultural circumstances, different material circumstances etc. make a difference for how knowledge is approached or what kind of knowledge is valued, but it doesn’t affect the truth. The truth is there whether or not anyone knows it/believes it to be true. In different environments people will approach different truths, or value different truths. The savage is oblivious to rare stamp collections and the city dweller doesn’t care about rabbit tracks, but both the stamps and the tracks represent facts – are truths.

The practical mind values certainty, but the curious mind is attracted to uncertainty. Both types are probably represented both among “savages” and civilized people, but even if you are right that the lonely savage is overwhelmingly practical, it only reveals his approach to learning and says nothing about what there is to be learned – that is, truth.

The diversity of human culture and ideology reflects the perceived potential of humanity’s interaction with the universe. To exclude this information from how we interact with the world is to limit the accuracy of our predictions, including its uncertainty — Possibility

All information is truth and of course nothing should be a priori excluded. Truths about human interactions, that is social science, anthropology etc. are certainly important objects of study for the reasons you mention as well as others.

The way we go about facts (truths) doesn’t change the facts, but it does create new facts (facts about our behavior).


Are we interfering with the women's issues here? Maybe it would be a good idea to switch thread.

Truth, for you, cannot include doubt or uncertainty in any way. — Possibility

Truth is what is. It neither includes nor excludes anything else. The computer is either on my desk or it is not there, regardless of how I feel about it. I believe it’s there or I don’t, neither attitude changes the whereabouts of the computer.

As for uncertainty, strictly speaking I must be uncertain about everything, including the existence of the computer that I perceive so clearly with my eyes and my fingertips at this very moment. I’m not a skeptic, I believe very strongly that my computer exists, but I can’t know it.

I agree that the difference between knowing and believing is culturally conditioned. It wouldn’t surprise me if there are languages that have one common word for “know” and “believe”. If we were to construct a philosophically pure language there certainly would be only one word for both notions and the current distinction could be expressed with a qualifier indicating the level of uncertainty (I believe/know with very little uncertainty. vs. I believe/know with considerable uncertainty)

If we remove this culturally arbitrary distinction, we are on par with our lonely savage. If you doubt that, you might as well think that psychology can’t be practiced cross-culturally and theorize about cultural differences being more important than our common human race.

Sure, from our perspective, each of these is different, but to the ‘lonely savage’ there is no distinction between these thoughts and the notion of objective truth. What he predicts is what he imagines, and what he imagines is what he believes, and what he believes is never in dispute. — Possibility

He would lack the words to describe each sentiment, but I fail to see why he, as a human being and subject to human psychology, would not go through the same process as any social and civilized man. He would carefully examine the tracks and reach a definite conclusion (he would feel sure, the way we feel when we say “I know”) or he would tilt in one direction (not sure, but probably a rabbit, we say “I believe”).

He knows what it means to imagine (not the word but the notion). He has dreams at night that he knows are not real, and sometimes he imagines being able to fly like a bird, knowing full well he could never do it.

Surely the informational differences between the experiences relating an expression of ‘observing’ truth and one of ‘feeling’ truth matters more than their similarities? — Possibility

We neither observe nor feel the truth. We observe something and feel something, and it may or may not be the truth (we may be hallucinating or just not seeing as clearly as we think).

I observe there is a computer on my table, and I feel it is there; what’s the difference? In certain contexts, one word is more appropriate than the other depending on what aspect I wish to stress, or I prefer one word for stylistic reasons, but essentially they are the same. “Observing” refers to the visual faculty while “feeling” could relate to any of the five sense, including the visual.

Someone who lives totally isolated has no way of relating the potential information they perceive in relation to alternative perspectives, so they, too, would make no distinction between their beliefs, predictions or imagination and ‘objective truth’. — Possibility

The lonely savage might believe a rabbit has gnawed on a branch (not sure, it could also be a hare), and predict that his trap will catch the rabbit (he has logically placed it close to rabbit food). He imagines how he will go about catching the rabbit (but know it hasn’t been caught yet) and he recognizes a rabbit whenever he sees one (objective truth).

There is no ‘common denominator’ of truth - conceptually, I think you’re heading in the entirely wrong direction. This seems like the the kind of careless reductionism that religious apologetics thrives on, and that philosophy and science have sought to prevent. — Possibility

Philosophy and science are about the search for general laws. Unscientific observation is about particulars, whereas science strives to understand general similarities. Quantum physics is the ultimate reductionist understanding of nature and therefore, in a sense the most scientific of all sciences.

In philosophy, metaphysics is the most philosophical branch asking the most reductionist question: What is being? (ignoring the distinctions between a vast range of beings). Reductionism is essential to all higher understanding since cutting away irrelevant differences is the only way to grasp the principle of anything.

The way I understand it, there are no objective facts ‘out there’ that ‘enter’ the mind at a spatio-temporal location — Possibility

How can you call truth objective if it’s not out there as items of potential knowledge, or as what may be called “facts” for short? (As potential knowledge or facts I also include for example moral question even though we can never know that our answer is right. It’s sufficient that there is a right answer.)


You are welcome to take this enjoyable discussion to another thread. Just make sure you tag me.

We certainly gain knowledge in different ways (or more accurately we gain strong belief); by seeing, calculating and understanding, sure, but again, that is merely a pedagogical description, that is, a more detailed elaboration of how the epistemological process works. We can literally see simple facts while other facts require more learning, but for the sake of economy, and for the purpose of this discussion (which I thought was about the nature of (objective) truth), we might as well use a common word since what is here essential is the same.

There are facts out there and when they enter our mind, we may call it seeing, perceiving, understanding, learning, observing, experiencing, sensing, feeling, grasping, getting, catching, sharing and any number of words we may feel adequately captures what is going on in any particular instance, but the common denominator is still about something “entering the mind”.

Someone who lived totally isolated would be excluded from sharing, blind people are excluded from seeing and infants are excluded from logical deductions, but some facts enter the minds of all three groups, which means they have access to some truth and as such it resembles any possible approach to truth.

Truth, like any other concept, can be divided into different kinds and categories, but it is indeed one concept and has a common denominator.

You are just cramming positively charged words into your idea of democracy. Reason, science and prosperity are not necessarily associated with democracy. The age of enlightenment (reason) occurred simultaneously with the age of absolutism. The Soviets were excellent scientists. China has seen great increase in prosperity while democratic India remains desperately poor.
Democracy simply means majority rule and nothing more.

if my current belief about the shape of the Earth is correct, I now possess the truth.
— Congau
You do know that’s just an expression, don’t you? — Possibility

Of course, and that’s how I, and I suppose most people, define the expression “possessing the truth” and I wonder why you would feel compelled to define it differently.

simply telling people their belief is ‘false’ is not enough, and only encourages their ignorance. — Possibility

Again you are presenting this notion of “shared meaning” as a pedagogical device, and I have no problem with that. It’s only problematic if you look at it as an ingredient of truth itself. Whether or not anyone actually believes that the earth is flat is irrelevant for how we explain its roundness.

Many philosophers’ writings show evidence of development in beliefs throughout their career, resulting in a necessary distinction between ‘early’ and ‘late’ philosophies that we can often struggle to reconcile. — Possibility

There is the example of the late Wittgenstein who became a fierce opponent of the early Wittgenstein, but there are many more examples of the opposite. Berkeley and Hume wrote their major work as young men and then spent the rest of their lives defending it. For most there is of course a development but the fundamentals remain the same.

I believe the Earth is round. I’m quite convinced by the evidence I’ve seen, but I don’t know it. I know nothing and I would change my belief if some hitherto hidden evidence were to prove that the Earth is flat. However, if my current belief about the shape of the Earth is correct, I now possess the truth.

I’m not an astronomer, though, and my insight into the structure of planets is scanty. I can’t explain in detail why the Earth couldn’t be triangular and exactly why it has its particular form. Scientists who can do that certainly grasp the truth better than I do.

At this level of uncertainty, I don’t find it helpful to assert that an entire belief is false, — Possibility

If I am right about the Earth being round, anyone who thinks it is flat, has an entirely false belief.
What good does it do to make sophist twists and turns and suggest that from certain viewpoints the Earth may be validly called flat? In their experience, which is difference to mine, it appears flat. What (on earth!) would I achieve by sharing their experience?

It doesn’t really matter what a philosopher believes. What matters is the truth itself — Possibility

Absolutely!

The expressed beliefs of a philosopher are bound to change in the course of doing philosophy. If they don’t, then he’s probably stopped doing philosophy, — Possibility

That’s no prerequisite. Most philosophers probably keep their fundamental beliefs throughout their career. What is bound to change is their grasp of it. X was believed to be true from the very beginning, but in the course of doing philosophy a fuller explanation of why X is true was achieved.

Ok, let me offer an interpretation of what you are saying that would make it sound more palatable to me:
Suppose you possessed the truth about a certain phenomenon. You had a very strong belief that you were right, but of course you didn’t know it. None of us knows anything, but in this case your belief happened to be true. Still, your belief, though true, would not be perfect and every time you learned about other people’s false belief on the subject and interacted with them, you would expand your understanding of it and get a firmer grasp of the truth.
Just hitting upon the truth has little value for a philosopher if the belief rests on a weak foundation and by “sharing meaning” you can strengthen it.
Do you accept my interpretation?

Thank you,

I think democracy is an imitation of the gods. The gods and goddesses evolved from ruling with brute force to ruling with reason. They argued until they had a consensus on the best reasoning. — Athena

Democracy may be a practical form of government that protects against tyranny, but reasonable? No, it isn’t. It’s an eternal compromise which makes decisions based on formal procedures rather than systematic logic hatched by a unified mind.
There’s no consensus on the best reasoning. All actors still think their original reasoning was best, but they can’t get it all, so they have to be content with a part of it.

It’s a step away from certainty, sure, but not objectivity. — Possibility

I see. If your notion of “shared meaning” is only intended as a pedagogical device, I entirely agree. Sure, we should look around for all possible perspectives and it is certainly instructive to learn how different people see the same things differently. In fact, we should even go further than that and not end our inquiry by only paying attention to views that are actually held by someone. We should strain our imagination and be open for any conceivable perspective. Most of them would be outlandish, but a few may happen to contain some truth even though no one has yet captured it in thought.

That’s why I don’t quite understand your use of the word “shared” in “shared meaning”. A perspective may be interesting even if it’s not shared by anyone. Fictional characters who have been raised by wolves or monkeys for example, offer an intriguing viewpoint and do feel free to come up with any tale of your own. We absolutely shouldn’t let our mind stiffen to the degree that we can only imagine our own narrow perspective.

But our “open-mindedness” should not be expanded to a point where we think we see multiple truths, and that’s where I think modern popular philosophy has gone astray.

I think philosophy is the search for truth, which is a universally shared meaning in how all of reality interrelates. — Possibility

What exactly does that signify? The meaning of a hammer is a tool for driving nails. A few people perceive it as a weapon and then there is this one weirdo who uses it as the handle of his toothbrush. What would you make of that? How would that information in anyway be meaningful?

Or do you prefer to pursue the meaning of philosophically higher concepts? Then, what is the meaning of God? You look at the meaning for most people, for a few people and just for a handful, and then what? Maybe the concept should mean something that no one has ever understood? What do you get from this universal comparison of perspective other than a useful exercise for eliminating false views and find the one that’s closest to what you can subscribe to? What do you need this sharing for? It’s a step away from objectivity, isn’t it?

how we as humans construct reality is relative — Possibility

We don’t construct reality. Reality is. Our interpretation of it is of course relative to our perspective, but some perspectives are more likely to yield a more accurate interpretation than others. The perspective of the bird is probably more realistic than that of the frog (metaphorically speaking) and a philosopher should rather imitate the former.

The title of the thread invites everyone to think about how history may have gone differently if women always the powerful voices they have today. Would we have had the same violent history and conclude that we war because it is our nature to war? — Athena

Were great warrior queens like Elizabeth !, Maria Theresa and Catherine the Great any less violent than their male counterparts at their time? Was Thatcher known for her pacifism? Do you see any tendency today that countries with female rulers are more peaceful? The dynamics of history are driven forward by human nature, and in that perspective the difference between male and female is probably negligible.

The aim of philosophy is to approach a shared meaning in how all of reality interrelates — Possibility

No, I would deny that that’s the aim of philosophy. What if we were all delusional? What if only one person had a reasonable understanding of reality- I would rather listen to him than the shared hallucinations of everyone else.
Don’t you think philosophy is the search for truth? Or do you think truth is subjective? (Sorry, this goes beyond the subject of this thread.)

Even if you take the psychological approach to philosophy, as in existentialism or phenomenology, the aim is to understand how we as humans construct reality, not how particular humans, like the ones I happen to have a discussion with at the moment, shape their reality.
I can learn more about psychology (and also philosophy where the two branches of knowledge overlap) if I know who I’m talking to. I can improve my understanding of the difference between male and female psychology but that doesn’t give me more insight into the subject at hand.

I don’t know who you are, where you come from, what your background is, and for the purpose of this discussion, I don’t care.
I don’t think having your personal information in any way would aid me in realizing the merits of your argument.

But sure, this information would be useful for another branch of knowledge, namely psychology. Learning how people may think and which possible perspectives exist is certainly useful for understanding how we as humans reach our conclusions. It hopefully also teaches me to look into my own thinking, making me more aware of how my limited perspective risks pulling me in the wrong direction.

Modern philosophers, other than the ancient masters, typically stress that there can be no view from nowhere. Fair enough, there can’t be, but that is only a limitation of our human condition. We are always prejudiced by what we have learned before and that habitually makes us jump to conclusions without a thorough investigation. It is an unattainable goal to rid ourselves of all bias, but we can surely do better every time we try, and that is what doing philosophy is all about: The attempt to always look at the world afresh.

It’s commonplace for those who have ‘put aside’ (ie. ignored) their emotions in an argument to expect others to do the same — Possibility

Whether or not we really expect others to have put their emotions aside in an argument, we should act as if we expected it. If we don’t do that, we don’t treat them with enough respect. It is disrespectful to respond to an argument by saying: You obviously talk like that because you are a woman, or because of your childhood experience, or because you have a different nationality than me etc. Even though people’s background and values most certainly influence their thinking, we should treat their arguments for what they are or attempt to be, namely a rational and logical construction. I highly suspect that your Christian upbringing has influenced your anti-abortion stance, but I shouldn’t dismiss you by suggesting that you are only arguing in this way because you are a Christian. I should evaluate your arguments for what they are, no matter who you are; they are valid or invalid depending on their logic only.

So when our positions differ, we’re often unaware of the value structures that motivate that difference, and the discussion eventually deteriorates as a result of ignorance, isolation and exclusion. — Possibility

That has to do with an unwillingness to consider arguments that sound too strange and foreign. Sure, it might help to remind ourselves that our opponent has a different background and is not necessarily crazy, but after this reminder of tolerance we should move on to consider their ideas as objectively as possible.

you cannot reason without emotion. In order to even attempt to reason, you must care to do so, but you have reasons to care about reasoning. — Artemis

Sure, we can’t put aside our emotions in the sense that they are our driving force for making the argument. I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t somehow feel that the question was interesting. My reason and conviction will affect my emotions and stimulate me to pursue the argument. But in this process, I must be careful not to be carried away with emotions, not letting them obscure my reasoning arguing from feeling instead of logic. Of course, in public debate we see that all the time and all of us are probably guilty of slipping into it now and then, but we should definitely strive to avoid it.

When we choose instead to exclude certain value information (eg. emotions), we reduce our perception of the situation, and therefore our capacity to relate our arguments back to reality without prediction error. — Possibility

Our feelings can give us the first information about an issue. I may just sense that something is wrong, but then I should employ my reason to investigate if my feelings were right. Of course, that first information was useful and necessary.

As for being banned. — Athena

In discussions like in this forum, we can observe how emotions are sometimes running high and feel the temperature of the debate. That often makes it more entertaining, which isn’t bad, but when it doesn’t connect back to logic and are just bursts of personal emotions it’s impossible to keep a serious debate going and that’s and understandable reason why some users might get banned.

I am intensely aware of how painfully difficult it is for me to participate in male dominated forums. I know I am thinking on a different level and that I am not conforming with the male idea of what is important — Athena

Women probably think differently from men, on one level and on average. They are likely to have different concerns about what is relevant and important in daily life – on average. But this shouldn’t matter when doing philosophy, and if it does, we should make and effort to minimize its importance.

They say women are more emotional. Well, men have emotions too, but that’s the part of our being we should put aside when constructing logical arguments, isn’t it? We shouldn’t be swayed by our emotions to jump to conclusions that just feel right.

Also, when trying to understand another person’s argument, it’s unfair to refer to that person’s psychology, life situation and gender to explain where the arguments are coming from. Treating people fairly means taking what they say seriously and don’t dismiss it as psychologically biased. However, that also means taking yourself seriously and don’t tell yourself that you are only saying what you are saying because you are a woman.

I have been banned enough times to know that it is a risk to go against male control of forums — Athena

Are you really saying you have been thrown out because you are a woman? Whether that is true or not you’ll have to prove that the rules that caused your expulsion were unfair or that you didn’t really break the rules. Only then can you claim that there was sexism involved.

Well, have a look at the decalogue - as everyone knows it lists some do's and don't's and it only takes a moment to notice the don't's outnumber the do's. If one then takes into consideration the fact that the decalogue is just a list of oughts which are basically corrective measures to be applied to the existing status quo, it becames patently clear that more bad things were being done than good things. I take this as evidence that we're, let's say, more devilish than divine in dispostion. — TheMadFool

Any conceivable moral rules would have to focus more on what people are not allowed to do. That would be true a priori, before knowing anything about human nature and how human beings actually interact in the world. The basis of all morality is ‘Don’t hurt people’, and that would be the case even in a society of angellike creatures who only occasionally did something wrong.

The do’s are always conditional. If you find yourself in such and such situations, you have to do this and that: If you have a child, you have to feed it. If your country is at war, you have to defend it.

The don’ts are basically unconditional: Don’t ever steal. Don’t lie.
If I know nothing about you, where you are and what you do, I would give you this general rule: ‘Don’t steal’, but I wouldn’t oblige you to give money to the poor if you are poor yourself.

Duty ethics (like the decalogue) is essentially about negative duties (the don’ts) and the positive duties (the dos) are secondary. It’s possible to be morally perfect with respect to the negative duties: you just refrain from acting, while the possible positive duties are unlimited in number and therefore can’t be fulfilled.

This would be the case whether human nature is good or bad.

We are not likely to achieve certain knowledge about ourselves (or about anything else for that matter), we can only hope that our belief is not too far from the truth.
— Congau
Why not? This strikes me as anti-psychologist. Is that what your getting at? — Shawn

Not at all, it is very psychologist. It is exactly the reason why people would need to see a therapist, to gain knowledge about themselves, and the fact that they may be willing to spend a lot of time and money in the process just proves how difficult it is.

Identity theorists, on the other hand, seem to think that people know themselves so thoroughly that they can just pick their identity and that will be what they really are. A person who identifies as Irish, is really Irish although he has never been to Ireland. That would be an instant of false consciousness.

Self-knowledge is hard work, and as for any difficult task, perfection is not possible.

There is no escaping the necessity that whatever one does it ultimately tracks back to our likes/dislikes. — TheMadFool

Sure, this extreme behaviorist assumption that we only do what we ultimately like doing, does have some truth to it. (Students like taking exams, since they like getting a degree, a job, money etc.) But if the liking is to be traced back to the ultimate goal of the action, how could you prove that we like evil more than anything? People do a lot of evil, but their final goal is rarely that bad, is it? A murderer kills to achieve something else, to get money for example, and that in itself is not evil. People use evil means to reach good or neutral ends.

Imagine you build a robot and program it to like green objects. If you were then to claim you gave the robot free will in order that it may "choose" to like green it wouldn't make sense right? Replace robot with humans and green with evil. — TheMadFool

The free will is not about what you choose to like but what you choose to do. In the case of robots that distinction would be blurred since a machine doesn’t have feelings and consequently it cannot “like” anything. We may perhaps say that a robot that moves towards green likes green, but that would be a figure of speech.

The robot couldn’t act contrary to its liking since for it the same thing is meant by action and affection, but for humans that is quite imaginable. They could have been made to like evil, but also so constructed that it was impossible to do evil. However hard the person tried to do the evil it loved so much he would be drawn away from it if he didn’t have a free will. Let’s say it was physically impossible to do evil or however you would imagine it. If that is the alternative, it makes sense to say that free will makes it possible for us to do evil, even if you think that it is our greatest desire anyway.

Free will makes it possible to do both evil and good and for that to happen it’s quite irrelevant what our natural inclinations might be.

When does identity consolidation occur? — Shawn

What do you mean by “identity consolidation”? If you mean personality consolidation, I would say it occurs at some point as a teenager. (Although it is of course never complete.)

“Identity”, however, is an intentionally blurry word, and it would be hard to say when something occurs that we don’t clearly define. Do you mean “identity” as in belongingness to a certain group (that is very often the meaning) in that case the identity would disappear if the group disappeared and it wouldn’t be possible to consolidate it.

Do you mean “When do we know who we are?”? Few people ever achieve a complete self-understanding and in any case to “Know Thyself” is a life-long struggle. We are not likely to achieve certain knowledge about ourselves (or about anything else for that matter), we can only hope that our belief is not too far from the truth.

There is a common misconception that we cannot be wrong about our own identity. It is presumably something we just choose the same way we choose what to wear. We simply put on a batch and that’s our readymade identity. That’s particularly common among teenagers, but we all make ourselves victims of this kind of superficial identity consolidation: It’s more important what we seem to be than what we are.

We “believe” when there is no definite proof available to us. In religion and philosophy there will always be a matter of belief. Proof (and knowledge in the absolute sense) is only available in the realm of physics, natural science, the physical world of facts.

“I believe it’s wrong to kill random people in the street.” “I know Paris is the capital of France.” Although I’m very convinced that random killing is wrong, it’s appropriate to use “believe” since I can only use rational argument to support my view but never offer anything that would qualify as a final proof. However, in the case of Paris you can go there and check for yourself or look it up in an encyclopedia, if you don’t believe me.

Now, some skeptics (and Trumpists) may retort that you can’t really know anything, even the most basic facts; the encyclopedia may be wrong, or you may be dreaming. Sure, but in order to live an communicate we just have to take the physical world for granted and assume that there are facts and evidence. Knowledge about the observable world is possible, but when we move into the world of ideas – ideologies, values, theories – only belief is possible no matter how reasonable those ideas are.

A need is something that is necessary in order to achieve something else. If staying alive is the only thing you aspire to achieve, all you need is food, water and possibly medication.

Why is shelter added to your list? It suggests that some comfort is also needed, but why stop at shelter? Once you have introduced an item that aims at more than mere survival, there is no end to what could possibly count as a need.

By the way, do you need to stay alive? That is already a prejudice. You certainly want to, but why call it a need in itself.

Needs are just relative to your aims. There are no absolute needs, and everything could be a potential need.
If you want X, you need Y. If you don’t want X, you don’t need Y.

Everybody wants happiness, and whatever might lead to happiness is needed. When a person says he needs something, he is actually saying that he believes this thing would lead to happiness. He needs money because he thinks money could buy something that would make him somewhat happy.
Now, he may be wrong in his believe that this thing would make him happy. Then you could tell him: No, you don’t really need that thing.

What is love? I would suggest that it is a strong feeling towards an object for which you only want what is good. If this definition is right, it would be impossible not to feel love for oneself since we can only want what is good for ourselves. Whatever you want, you want it because you think it will bring you satisfaction (or lack of dissatisfaction if you are suicidal). Also, the feeling towards yourself is necessarily strong because of the nearness or immediacy of your relationship with yourself.

It is sometimes argued that because it is not possible not to feel satisfaction whenever you succeed in doing something, all actions are essentially selfish. But even if that is so, there is clearly a difference between actions that at least look altruistic and plain asshole behavior. If there’s always selfishness anyway, the goal would be to train yourself to get this selfish feeling of satisfaction when you are doing something that looks unselfish. If you are able to feel satisfaction when helping others you are a better person than someone who only feels satisfaction when he himself is benefited. In other words, the natural self-love should be nurtured so that it is stimulated when loving others.

perhaps there are no truths in moral philosophy. — A Seagull

There definitely are truths in moral philosophy, and we all implicitly think there are, or else we wouldn’t argue so vehemently over moral issues. When I say I believe that capital punishment is wrong, I’m saying that I believe it’s the truth that capital punishment is wrong. Sure, I can’t refer to it as a fact that other people could simply check on to know if it’s true. It’s not the same as saying “I believe it’s true that Paris is the capital of France”, but there’s no reason to assign the notion of truth exclusively to plain facts. Facts can be checked by simply taking a look, but something can be true even if that’s not possible.

Suppose I have a box with a diamond in it. I can open the box and check, notice the diamond and exclaim “There’s a diamond in the box.” Now suppose the same box is locked and I can’t open it, but for some reason I believe there is a diamond in it. Suppose no one could open that box. Still, there is a diamond in it, isn’t there. It is not a fact anymore and no one knows for sure, but the diamond’s existence is the truth.