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RE: On the consistent use of "objective" and "subjective"
November 12, 2016 at 10:24 am
My impression is that they are used to imply something that is immutable versus something that is flexible. Hence the idea that if god says an act is moral it must be moral, but if a human says an act is moral he must be able to convince others that it is. So I just go with it.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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RE: On the consistent use of "objective" and "subjective"
November 12, 2016 at 7:32 pm
Subjective and objective are part of a theory of truth. The subjective is that reality which I experience in my mind. The objective reality is that of my subjective experience which corresponds to things outside my mind. Thus a correspondence theory of truth is not incidental to the subjective/objective split, it is required. My major question has to do with the role of the subconscious in all this. Many times theists will throw around the word subjective to imply mere changeable whim. But the evolved structures of our mind are not changeable by whim. That would imply that they are objective, according to such theists. But I would argue that there is a "midjective" which is neither changeable by whim, nor is it objective. These are the base operations of mind which occur in the subconscious. Our sense of morality would be an example of something that is midjective; it's not readily changeable by whim, yet it doesn't reflect an object's existence in our environment.
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RE: On the consistent use of "objective" and "subjective"
November 15, 2016 at 8:36 am
(This post was last modified: November 15, 2016 at 8:36 am by Edwardo Piet.)
I think that the illusion of a 'midjective' only comes about when people confuse epistemological subjectivity and ontological subjectivity. Our minds exist ontologically: we are 'subjects'... but subjectivity as a whim is epistemological subjectivity. Epistemologically objective/unbiased like science =/= having objective ontological existence. Epistemologically subjective/biased =/= existing ontologically as a subject with subjectivity.
Ontological subjectivity is a subcategory of ontological objectivity... because all ontology is about objective existence whether it's as a mind or 'subject' or not.
However the same is not the case with epistemological subjectivity. It's in direct opposition to epistemological objectivity. Knowable/evincable is very opposted to unknowable/unevincible.
Ultimately everything is a subcategory of ontology. That's ontology itself as opposed to the concept or subject or topic of "ontology". And what I mean by that is ultimately that any thing that is a thing at all has existence or is at least related to existence. We can't be a subject that is biased or unbiased without first existing. And we can't build a useful theory of knowledge without a useful theory of truth and we can't build a useful theory of truth without a useful theory of reality, existence and ontology. To know what the truth is you have to define what truth is and to define what truth is you have to define what the reality we live in that truth corresponds to is.
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RE: On the consistent use of "objective" and "subjective"
November 15, 2016 at 10:02 am
I don't think one concept trumps or invalidates another. Each sheds some light. Ontology obviously does a lot of work for making sense of things for you. But I haven't really thought a lot about it. If it isn't too annoying to back up so far, I wouldn't mind trying to follow. [Albeit when I get back from this morning's epic walk on the beach.]
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RE: On the consistent use of "objective" and "subjective"
November 15, 2016 at 10:09 am
Right, I'm gonna break down this OP. Brb.