RE: Is subjectivity just a matter of context?
May 11, 2014 at 3:18 pm
(This post was last modified: May 11, 2014 at 3:20 pm by Coffee Jesus.)
(May 11, 2014 at 1:32 pm)rasetsu Wrote: I don't know what you mean. What you've given in the OP is an indexical.
Subjective and objective are properties of statements only. A statement is subjective if its (objective) meaning depends on certain contextual clues e.g. the identity of the speaker. I think this theory accounts for most uses of the word "subjective".
"Subejctive" can also denote that a thing is mental in nature, but I think that's a semantically distinct usage.
(May 11, 2014 at 2:14 pm)Confused Ape Wrote: 1: Did subjectivity versus objectivity exist before some humans came up with the concepts of subjective and objective?
No, there were no instantiations of these properties before language appeared.
(May 11, 2014 at 2:14 pm)Confused Ape Wrote: 2: The way we talk about it does seem to depend on context but that's the way the language we're communicating in works. How far is language influenced by a group's world view and experience?
Explain the relevance of this question.
(May 11, 2014 at 2:14 pm)Confused Ape Wrote: What is the true objective reality of snow and ice? An Innuit probably regards wet snow that can be used to ice a sleigh's runners as being objective reality but the English language doesn't have a word for it.
We could recreate the meaning of any of those eskimo words using multiple English words.
(May 11, 2014 at 2:14 pm)Confused Ape Wrote: We couldn't be having this discussion about objectivity versus subjectivity if the language we're using hadn't evolved to make it possible.
Yup, but subjective and objective statements existed even before we had words for them.
