I don't much like either, as I suppose every right-thinking person doesn't. But how simple or difficult is it to conclusively refute them?
Pretty simple, actually, for they are self-refuting. The claim that all truth is relative is itself asserted absolutely. The claim that nothing has any meaning or value, if true, must itself have no meaning or value.
Consider a claim such as "it is illegal for two women to marry". It's true in some places and false in others. As such, the truth of "it is illegal for two women to marry" is relative. Does it then follow that there is no fact of the matter? Of course not. In some places it really is illegal, and in some places it really isn't.
Although this really depends on what you mean by nihilism. If you mean it in the sense that there is no inherent fact of the matter (i.e. a discoverable fact like the speed of light as opposed to an imposed fact like the rules of chess), then sure; relativism likely entails nihilism. But it would be a mistake to go from "it is not an inherent fact that it is illegal for two women to marry" to "it is not a fact that it is illegal for two women to marry".
Reply to tim wood
I think the natural ground to look at is communication, since the relativist and friend are talking to each other, understanding each other's assertions, and so on. The question is how much mileage you can get out of that. It might be a lot.
With respect to relativism itself, it's not whether this is true or that false, but rather the assertion that I'm right (in my beliefs and attitudes, and of course my actions), or that my position is justified (and yours isn't even part the discussion). So the first hurdle to get over, or trap to avoid, is that the refutation of relativism/nihilism is not just a clever - if irrelevant - logic game.
I'm not seeing any great difference between asserting that something is true and asserting that one is right. "It is true that I am typing on a keyboard" and "I'm right that I'm typing on a keyboard" are making precisely the same truth claim.
I define relativism, here, as simply the attitude and belief that your views cannot bind me (except perhaps as supported by irresistible force), because I have my own that I hold are at least as valid.
Here is a definition of "relativism" from a dictionary site - "the doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute." That's not necessarily inconsistent with your definition, but I think yours misses an important emphasis - the lack of absolute standards.
Nihilism (I define here): the belief and attitude that ultimately nothing matters, nothing has any ultimate or absolute value or significance.
From a dictionary site - "The rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless." That definition and yours match well.
But how simple or difficult is it to conclusively refute them? By conclusive refutation I understand an argument in the presence of which we may judge any relativist or nihilist as simply vicious, and act accordingly
First of all, refutation deals with demonstrating that a statement, theory, or belief is incorrect. Why would that lead to judging a relativist or nihilist as vicious? Incorrect is not the same as vicious. And what exactly does "act accordingly" mean in this context?
Has philosophy ever conclusively refuted anything? It certainly can't deal with nihilism and relativism because these philosophies deal not with matters of fact, but with matters of human value. Nihilism seems goofy to me. I think it is unequivocally at odds with human nature. Relativism, on the other hand, I would almost say is self-evident, unless an omnipotent and omniscient god is assumed.
Actually, I don't believe anything is self-evident. Still, I think belief in any kind of absolutism without the presence of God is hard to justify.
If you're interested in a detailed examination of relativist claims and examples of refutations, then I'd recommend Paul Boghossian's book: Fear of Knowledge; against relativism and constructivism (2006).
I'm not a huge fan of his, but he recently pulled off another delicious Sokal hoax: http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/conceptual-penis-social-contruct-sokal-style-hoax-on-gender-studies/
Edit: Wrong Boghossian! I'll have to check Paul out now.
You might like Paul, that book is very well written. He also wrote an article about the original Sokal hoax in the 1990s which is available online here: http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/boghossian/papers/bog_tls.html
Reply to ThorongilReply to jkop The splendid jargonized pyrotechnic caricatures of postmodernism discussed in your references are apt demonstrations of what happens when people come to believe their own bullshit.
Bullshit took off in the 1960s, in ever so many ways.
I don't much like either [nihilism or relativism] as I suppose every right-thinking person doesn't. But how simple or difficult is it to conclusively refute them?
It's impossible in our current cultural context. That is because no agreed set of values or qualitative norms exist against which to adjudicate such claims. It's relatively simple in the example of change for a purchase because it's a quantitative matter. Another factor is that one fundamental plank of liberalism is the fact that the individual conscience is the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong. That actually developed out of the Christian and specifically Protestant understanding of the nature of the person. Now, however, the basis of the kind of sanctified ethos that was part and parcel of that theory of the person has been discarded, and with it any sense of the moral absolute. Now science has become the de facto arbiter of truth - but it deals in quantitative analyses, not qualitative judgement.
And indeed in informal usage it is taken as such, just as you have described. However, the sentence itself is inadequately qualified and absent the missing qualifications is actually meaningless with respect to the missing qualifications. What are the missing qualifications? For starters, just those you provide in your description; viz, that it's legal in some places and not in others.
It's not meaningless. You understand what "it is illegal for two women to marry" means (or at least I expect you to, being that you seem to understand English). It's just that further qualifications are needed for it to have a truth value. And that's exactly the point that the relativist makes. Certain kinds of propositions – e.g. "it is illegal for two women to marry", and for the moral relativist "it is immoral for two women to marry" – must be contextualised to a particular country or culture (or in the extreme case of subjectivism, the feelings or opinions of the individual) for them to be either true or false.
Add the qualification and you get propositions that are true (or false) and are not relative at all.
And the relativist would agree. If they say that the truth of moral claims is relative to one's culture then they will also say that when qualified to a particular culture some given moral claim is absolutely true (or false). The distinction between relativism and absolutism is one that only really applies to broad statements like "it is immoral for two women to marry" and "it is illegal for two women to marry", not usually to qualified statements like "it is immoral for two women to marry in Saudi Arabia" and "it is illegal for two women to marry in Saudi Arabia".
Reply to Bitter Crank
Boghossian takes on philosophically far more interesting relativists than the postmodernists. Nelson Goodman, for instance.
Frankfurt invertigates the nature of bullshit, and does not even mention the word postmodernism, but he brings up, I think, a very interesting phenomenon where the relativist, in the assumed absence of truth, considers him/herself more sincere than those who belive in truth. Here's a description of it written by a reviewer of his book:
[quote=Petter Naessan";https://philosophynow.org/issues/53/On_Bullshit_by_Harry_Frankfurt"]when a person rejects the notion of being true to the facts and turns instead to an ideal of being true to their own substantial and determinate nature, then according to Frankfurt this sincerity is bullshit.[/quote]
If relativism holds, then you and I are both right (because each of us claims to be, QED). Anyone is right who claims to be right. If everyone is right, no one is. The notion of right loses its substance
I think the difficulty with summarising 'relativism' that way is that it's a strawman. Obviously such a relativism is bollocks.
But take the study of history. History can be studied, told and disputed from as many viewpoints as there are people in the world. The way we talk to each other about it, however, enables us to do this with as much science as can be brought into the arena. We agree certain standards that underpin our disagreements. The imperialist and the Marxist can inhabit the same common room or bar room and, for a start, accept certain 'facts' and certain criteria for 'facts'. They can also agree certain evidential standards for testimony and written records.
If you start from that sort of point - what are our conversational or disputational norms? - then to me relativism make reasonable sense. For example, I've been reading about placebos and that's made me think, there is no non-relativistic way of studying the effect of pharmaceutical products on human beings, because there is no way that the effects of the beliefs of both the 'patients' and the medical practitioners can be discounted. All the same, we can arrive at reliable enough assessments of the effects of pharamaceuticals, as long as scientists and their employers are transparent with the information they have, because we have established norms that satisfy any thinking critic.
Now, in the physical, chemical and biological arenas, maybe we can discount the effect of experimenters sufficiently that knowledge is in some sense 'absolute'. But if that were easy, Meillassoux wouldn't have had to tie himself up in knots (in my opinion) trying to demonstrate that to be the case. Even here, if you accept what Popper has to say, or something like it, we stand with only provisional knowledge, relative to an imagined future which might overturn our paradigms.
Terrapin StationJune 01, 2017 at 15:15#735960 likes
I define relativism, here, as simply the attitude and belief that your views cannot bind me (except perhaps as supported by irresistible force), because I have my own that I hold are at least as valid. (An example, if any reader here needs one: you hold that all persons have equal standing, with equal justice for all, while I, on the other hand, believe that subjugation and exploitation of inferior persons - the many - for the benefit of the few - me - is right, correct, and appropriate.)
Nihilism (I define here): the belief and attitude that ultimately nothing matters, nothing has any ultimate or absolute value or significance.
I'm a relativist, but in that I'm not saying anything about anyone's views "binding" or "not binding" anyone. What I'm saying in that primarily is that facts (states of affairs a la ontology) are relative to other facts. For example, P is the case from reference point x, but ~P is the case from reference point y. P might be "A is to the left of B," for a simple, non-controversial example, and of course y is a reference point from which A is to the left of B, while x is a reference point from which B is to the left of A.
That relativism certainly carries over to persons' views, their beliefs, the truth-values they assign to propositions and so on, but my concern is typically more one of ontology, in a general sense.
I'm also a nihilist in the way that you're defining that, if "ultimate/absolute mattering/value/significance" is supposed to denote objective mattering, valuation or significance, since I believe those things are subjective, not objective. Again, I'm making an ontological statement in that. I'm simply stating that those are things that persons' brains do--brains care about things, assign value to them, assign significance to them. Objects in the world other than brains, or the "world itself" in some general way, does not assign mattering, valuations or significance to anything.
So I'm a relativist and nihilist (I suppose), but I'm not denying that there are objective facts, and I'm not denying that things matter, have value, etc.--it's just that objective facts are relative to other objective facts, and mattering, valuing, etc. is (relative) to individuals.
And no, there would be no effective way to refute that, because you'd be arguing something that is wrong about the way the world is. (Although of course, relatively, you believe that your alternate view is correct.)
Terrapin StationJune 01, 2017 at 15:20#736000 likes
If relativism holds, then you and I are both right (because each of us claims to be, QED).
If by "right" you're referring to truth values (namely, assigning "T" to some proposition), in my view truth values are subjective judgments that individuals make about the relations of propositions to other things. It's a category error to try to "make that" something other than a subjective judgment about the relation in question.
When you realize that this is what truth values refer to (under my view, at least), then it's far less controversial that person A assigns "T" to P and person B assigns "F" to P. They're simply making different judgments about the relation of the proposition in question. And there's nothing to talk about other than the judgment that an individual person makes there. The idea of there being a "right" (or "wrong") judgment "beyond that somehow" is nonsensical.
Terrapin StationJune 01, 2017 at 15:24#736010 likes
The claim that all truth is relative is itself asserted absolutely.
It's not though. If I say, "'All truth is relative' is true," as a relativist, and as a truth-value subjectivist, I'm not saying that "'All truth is relative' is true" is anything but relatively, subjectively true to me--I'm reporting my judgment about that proposition to you. Certainly other people can and do assign "false" to that statement instead. And assigning "true" and "false" to it are nothing other than judgments that we make as individuals. I'd not be claiming that the "is true" part of "'All truth is relative' is true" is something other than a judgment that an individual makes.
Often what's happening there is that the truth-value non-relativist is reading their non-relativistic framework into the statement; they're not parsing it under whatever the relativist's notion of truth is.
Terrapin StationJune 01, 2017 at 15:28#736030 likes
Further I do not know what truth is. Do you? If you think you do, please say here what you think truth is.
I know, and I've stated it here on this board and the previous board at least a few times:
‘P’ is true for S iff S judges ‘P’ to have relation R to either S’s phenomenal P, and/or S’s stock of previously adjudged true propositions, depending on the relation R. Relation R is whatever truth theory relation S feels is the appropriate one(s)—correspondence, coherence, consensus, pragmatic, etc.
So in other words, what it is for some proposition, 'P' (quotation marks denoting the proposition literally as a sentence), to be true to some individual, some S, is for the proposition to have the relation R to S's phenomenal P (their phenomenal perception etc. of some state of affairs) or their stock of previously adjudged true propositions, in S's judgment.
That's all that truth value is.
Terrapin StationJune 01, 2017 at 15:30#736040 likes
Your argument against nihilism suffers worse flaws. If the nihilist's claim that nothing has any meaning or value is true, rendering even his claim both meaningless and valueless, he likely would say, "Amen, buy me a beer!"
The issue is that nothing has objective meaning, value, etc. It's not that there is no subjective meaning, value, etc. Meaning and value are things that individual persons do--they're basically ways that brains work. There's no meaning and value outside of that.
It seems pretty outrageous, but the consequence of not having any refutation for relativism is that nothing is wrong, except as we say it is, and have the power to impose what we say.
And nothing is illegal, except as the legislature says it is, and has the power to impose what it says.
Is this outrageous, or is it common sense?
It seems to me that you've moved away from taking issue with relativism and have moved on to taking issue specifically with moral relativism?
The cry 'it's all relative!" would stand as absolute defense against any charge.
Reply to tim wood I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Do you accept that things are illegal only if some relevant body of people says it is, that different bodies will say different things, and so that something can be illegal in one place but not in another?
Terrapin StationJune 01, 2017 at 20:47#736640 likes
Is it then, the view of the several relativists here that, notwithstanding their private views, cannibalism, genocide, exposing infants, slavery, pedophilia (for a selection) are all ok?
That question doesn't make sense, because whether something is okay or not is a matter of someone's "private" or personal views. "Is this okay aside from anyone's personal views" is a category error.
but the consequence of not having any refutation for relativism is that nothing is wrong, except as we say it is, and have the power to impose what we say.
And that's indeed a fact. What is is for something to be wrong is for people to feel that it's wrong. And in some situations people have the power to impose behavioral limitations based on those feelings.
But is there no commonality among otherwise healthy people that itself puts the lie to relativism?
There are certainly more or less common views, and when there's some significant consensus about a view, the people who hold that view can declare themselves (mentally) "healthy" for holding that view if they like, but it's just a common view . . . that doesn't make them objectively correct for their agreement. Of course, they're not objectively incorrect, either. Since there is no objectively correct or incorrect for this stuff. There are ways that people feel about things, and we interact and makes rules and such based on that.
the refutation of these two (or three, including skepticism) lies in persuasive and well-reasoned argument,
Reply to tim wood
I don't have a horse in this race, Tim, and there is a certain sort of relativism I find worrisome, but I think we often have more to worry about from the absolutists. An ideology that is held to be above question can justify the most barbarous acts.
Reply to tim wood As others have said, moral relativism is different from relativism about knowledge.
I don't think we refute such relativism, but instead we make it part of a set of agreed practices. What I think of as good moral practice happens within well-founded institutions, robust but flexible, with a strong justice system. That's because I'm a virtue man, and virtues require a sound polis or political structure.
Your list of abhorrent practices is interesting. What exactly is wrong with cannibalism? Why would moral rectitude rest on prohibitions rather than on maxims of good and bad behaviour?
Incorrect? Again confusion, this time between incorrect and wrong. I believe 2+2=5: I'm incorrect and wrong. I believe shiny brass idols are more powerful than silver idols. Wrong, but would you care to demonstrate how I am incorrect? By refutation I mean those persuasive arguments that drive both the relativist and the nihilist from their respective grounds.
In common English usage, when we're talking about physical rather than moral matters, incorrect and wrong are synonyms. They mean the same thing, with minor differences in tone. They are interchangeable. You make a distinction between them that I don't understand. I think you are using the words incorrectly. And wrongly. You are guilty of what you have been railing against - you're a linguistic relativist. Things mean what you think they mean, not what they actually mean.
Whatever, please explain the distinction you are making. What is all this about brass and silver idols?
An ideology that is held to be above question can justify the most barbarous acts.
Are true ideas ideologies? Do we have visual experiences of ideologies or objects? I'd say some ideas are not based on other ideas but brute facts. For example, that there is something. Some ideas are plausibly held above question.
So I answer my own question this way: the refutation of these two (or three, including skepticism) lies in persuasive and well-reasoned argument, not always easy to construct. And once the argument is made, with all allowances for problems in communication, if not effective, then force may be the only recourse.
Are you saying you're going to use force against people because they disagree with your philosophy? You talk about absolute moral values, I would have thought freedom of speech and thought would be included on that list.
I'll lay out my thoughts about what human morality represents. I think you will probably call my approach relativistic, but I'm not sure that you will. Here goes - Humans are social animals. We like each other. We live together in groups. I think what we call morality is a set of values built deeply into human nature, biologically and genetically. What are those values? Here is an impressionistic, personal list. Things that make sense to me. It's not intended to be complete, comprehensive, or even correct. I'll settle for plausibility.
[1] Provide a secure place for children[2] Support families[3] Protect weaker people from stronger ones[4] Provide for the well-being of members of the group[5] Promote the stability of the group[6] Protect members of the group from hazards from outside
Does this represent any kind of absolute set of values? Well, nothing human is really absolute. I see it like language - it's a physical, biological, and psychological part of human nature. It get's expressed differently in different cultures, different time periods, and under different conditions.
Also - I previously wrote that I don't think any kind of absolute values, moral or otherwise, are possible without an omniscient and omnipotent god. What are your thoughts on that?
"Truth is that which you can rely on"! Do you join me in thinking gurugeorge has the last word on truth? Or do you have something different?
I don't want to go getting into a discussion of "truth" here. There are 457 other threads where that has been beaten with a stick. Be that as it may, gurugeorge's discussion is just what I might call relativistic. I'm surprised that you approve.
One thing I find curious is the near universal acceptance of mathematics.
You can, of course, fake data, misrepresent data, tendentiously interpret data, and so on, and you can accuse someone you disagree with of the same, but there's no room for someone to say baldly, "In my view, 3 is greater than 4."
Agreed (with some minor reservations). Where are you going, here?
I'm explaining the principle of relativism. The statement "it is illegal for two women to marry" is true in some places but false in others. This isn't absurd, it doesn't entail that two women marrying isn't illegal (in some places), and one cannot rationally respond to a charge of criminality with "but it's all relative!".
One thing I find curious is the near universal acceptance of mathematics.
You can, of course, fake data, misrepresent data, tendentiously interpret data, and so on, and you can accuse someone you disagree with of the same, but there's no room for someone to say baldly, "In my view, 3 is greater than 4."
Curious? 4 is defined as being (1) greater than 3. It would be curious not to accept that 4 is greater than 3.
Unless you're curious that there's near universal acceptance of the definitions of terms?
Also, I am pretty sure that when most people claim to be relativists, the are saying they do not believe in morals or find them to be contextual. They are not claiming truth, as a whole, is relative.
Unless you're curious that there's near universal acceptance of the definitions of terms?
Um, yeah. Math alone is treated as objective, as objectively true, by all parties to all arguments. That's ever so slightly an overstatement--I'm leaving to one side discussion of the foundations of mathematics. Outside of that vanishingly small exception, nothing even comes close to the universality with which mathematics is accepted.
Not even logic. Natural language is so complex, so much depends on context, on unstated assumptions, that people can argue endlessly whether A follows from B. They argue about the meanings of words. They argue about what words mean "to them," or what they "should" mean. They argue endlessly about what is and what isn't a fact. They argue about right and wrong and how you decide which is which.
But if an argument reaches a point where it's just a question of whether 4 is greater than 3, it's over.
And just what are a relativist's criteria if not his or her own opinion?
I am getting a little tired of this misrepresentation of the relativist position. Here's a definition I used in a previous post on this thread - "the doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute."
In relation to culture, society, or historical context - not my opinion. To oversimplify - society defines and enforces moral values.
Um, yeah. Math alone is treated as objective, as objectively true, by all parties to all arguments.
Math is only objectively true as long as it is abstract. When you start filling in the blanks with information from the real world, you get all the uncertainty and fog you do with any human enterprise.
One thing I find curious is the near universal acceptance of mathematics.
You can, of course, fake data, misrepresent data, tendentiously interpret data, and so on, and you can accuse someone you disagree with of the same, but there's no room for someone to say baldly, "In my view, 3 is greater than 4."
There are two issues there:
(1) To an extent, especially when we're talking about basic arithmetic, it's simply a factor of how humans (and perhaps persons in general--it might not be limited to humans) tend to think about relations on the most abstract level.
and
(2) Despite (1), I believe that the "near universal acceptance of mathematics" is commonly overstated. When we begin learning mathematics in school, there are quite a few kids who think that various aspects of it don't make a lot of sense. They come up with different answers that they feel are right instead. That disagreement is socialized out of them. And as one progresses in mathematics, more of it doesn't make a lot of sense to many people--things like imaginary numbers, the way that infinities are handled, etc.--I personally think that a lot of advanced mathematics is kind of ridiculous/arbitrary, for example, but by that point you've already been socialized into accepting it as a series of conventions that are followed, and to succeed in it as an academic discipline, you follow along whether you think there are good reasons for it being the way it is or not.
Terrapin StationJune 02, 2017 at 16:38#738150 likes
And just what are a relativist's criteria if not his or her own opinion? I trust all of us can make compelling argument against the practices listed above. But our relativist says, "Well, that's just your opinion." There seems but three ways to go: 1) adduce a general refutation, 2) adduce specific refutations, 3) if reason fails, then resort to force. The best I can think of with option one is to show that relativism can lead to absurdity - but when was that ever an effective practical argument?
Everyone's criteria for whether some conduct is okay or not is their own opinion--how they feel about various types of conduct, whether following some conduct or not would result in a scenario that they feel positive about or not, and so on.
"Compelling arguments" in this milieu have to rest on and appeal to how individuals feel. (And part of that can be how they feel about functioning as social outliers or not--there is a whole complex of things involved.)
I don't really get what you have in mind with "adduce a general refutation" and "adduce specific refutations." You'd have to explain that in more detail.
What's absurd is relative, too, by the way.
Terrapin StationJune 02, 2017 at 16:43#738160 likes
The words are simply grammatical permutations. "That's the truth"="You've stated something that is true." "Truth-value"="the assignment of 'true' and 'false' to propositions" etc.
Yes, I saw the reference to gurugeorge's post. I could pick it apart if you like, but I'd rather have a more direct conversation with you than argue about someone else's comments.
Terrapin StationJune 02, 2017 at 16:47#738180 likes
I am getting a little tired of this misrepresentation of the relativist position. Here's a definition I used in a previous post on this thread - "the doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute."
In relation to culture, society, or historical context - not my opinion. To oversimplify - society defines and enforces moral values.
It's not a strawman applied to me, and I disagree with framing morality as something cultural. Cultures do not think. They don't have views about conduct. Individuals do. Individuals interacting make up cultures, but the culture itself doesn't amount to something more than those individuals interacting and having the views they do. I'm a relativist where I believe that morals, truth, etc. are relative to individuals.
It's not a strawman applied to me, and I disagree with framing morality as something cultural. Cultures do not think. They don't have views about conduct. Individuals do.
You and I are using the word "relativism" differently. As is my wont, I've gone to the internet and looked up five definitions
[1] The view that truth and falsity, right and wrong, standards of reasoning, and procedures of justification are products of differing conventions and frameworks of assessment and that their authority is confined to the context giving rise to them.[2]The doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute.[3] Relativism is the philosophical position that all points of view are equally valid, and that all truth is relative to the individual. [4] The relativist about a given domain, D, purports to have discovered that the truths of D involve an unexpected relation to a parameter - holy crap. What the ding dong does that mean.[5] Ethical relativism represents the position that there are no moral absolutes, no moral right or wrong. This philosophy allows people to mutate ethically as the culture, knowledge, and technology change in society.
That doesn't really help much. The definitions are not consistent. Just for discussion's sake, let's use this definition - "The doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute." Does that position represent relativism to you? If not, what is it? Do you reject it in the same manner and for the same reasons you do what you have been calling "relativism."
I don't like the social/cultural emphasis of that.
We can certainly say that relative to one society something is legal whereas relative to another society it's not, and so on, but the reason for that is the individuals in that society and the way they're interacting. Morals (and other things) and ultimately relative to individuals.
I don't like the social/cultural emphasis of that.
We can certainly say that relative to one society something is legal whereas relative to another society it's not, and so on, but the reason for that is the individuals in that society and the way they're interacting. Morals (and other things) and ultimately relative to individuals.
I described a philosophical approach - "The doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute." Whether or not you like it, is it relativism? If not, what is it? It is clearly not absolutism.
Terrapin StationJune 02, 2017 at 19:01#738750 likes
I described a philosophical approach - "The doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute." Is that relativism? If not, what is it? It is clearly not absolutism.
Yeah, that's a type of relativism.
I was just saying that as a relativist myself, I don't like the emphasis on culture/society in that approach. I think it stresses norms/conformity (within cultures) too much and devalues individuals, when cultures/society are just collections of individuals and their interactions, their views, etc.
I was just saying that as a relativist myself, I don't like the emphasis on culture/society in that approach. I think it stresses norms/conformity (within cultures) too much and devalues individuals, when cultures/society are just collections of individuals and their interactions, their views, etc.
I like the emphasis on cultural and societal context. I think it makes a relativist position more rigorous and more consistent with human nature. Both your approach and mine seem consistent with the imprecise definition of the word.
4 is greater than 3 by definition, not mathematics.
One of us is missing the point, maybe it's me. We're exposed to lots of definitions, and people argue about those definitions, except when it comes to mathematics.
it's simply a factor of how humans (and perhaps persons in general--it might not be limited to humans) tend to think about relations on the most abstract level.
That also may be.
I have no opinion to share at the moment on why it is so. My point is only what I said: mathematics holds a unique position.
If President Trump wants to claim that the crowd at his inauguration was bigger than the crowd at President Obama's, he can't just say, "I think 317,000 is more than 513,000." He has to say that the estimates of attendance at each event were wrong. Not only is that a good strategy, it's the only strategy because everyone on earth agrees that 513,000 > 317,000.
I brought it up because this thread was supposed to be about what happens when relativists and non-relativists argue. Well, one of the things that happens is that they agree on basic mathematics. They may disagree on where the numbers come from and what they mean. That might be ever so important to the argument. Not denying any of that.
@tim wood seems worried that there is no absolute truth that everyone accepts, and that not everyone even agrees there is such a thing. I'll grant that it's not what he wanted, but mathematics appears to me to enjoy universal acceptance.
Look at the way you guys are arguing over the definition of "relativism," and compare that to your behavior when it comes to math. Suppose you were having this argument over dinner and then split the check. It might take a few tries, but you would agree on an answer within minutes, after arguing for hours about the definition of a single word.
Look at the way you guys are arguing over the definition of "relativism," and compare that to your behavior when it comes to math. Suppose you were having this argument over dinner and then split the check. It might take a few tries, but you would agree on an answer within minutes, after arguing for hours about the definition of a single word.
Yes, we could split the bill with few issues. We could just as easily agree that it was morally or ethically wrong when Tim Wood snuck off without paying. Absolutism vs. relativism doesn't really make much a difference on a day to day basis.
"Nothing in the world—or out of it!—can possibly be conceived that could be called ‘good’ without qualification except a GOOD WILL."
The proof lies within the concept itself. And the same for reasonableness. Of course reasonableness itself is not prescriptive; the process is to judge the argument, and then the content of the argument. But both the good will and reasonableness have the special quality they can self-prove without becoming absurd.
That all seems pretty absurd--and pretty arbitrary and kind of word salady--to me.
[1] Provide a secure place for children
[2] Support families
[3] Protect weaker people from stronger ones
[4] Provide for the well-being of members of the group
[5] Promote the stability of the group
[6] Protect members of the group from hazards from outside
Hows about one of you who have identified yourself as absolutist do something similar from an absolute point of view.
Terrapin StationJune 02, 2017 at 22:43#739360 likes
The poster child for abhorrent practices is Nazi Germany, although the same wind has blown all throughout history. Nazi practices were based on beliefs; do you think they and similar beliefs are irrefutable? (Without attempting to hang too much on the hook of irrefutability - that's why I think most argument is of limited value, and that it take an especially strong argument to make people change.) I think they must be refutable. If not, then the Holocaust becomes "reasonable," Either that or it is not susceptible or resolvable within reason. Of course Kan'ts imperative comes in here: if it's ok for us to kill them, it must be ok for them to kill us.
You can't refute any moral claims because moral claims are not true or false. They're ways that people feel. They're endorsements or rejections of behavior based on "feeling" ultimately.
"Just in case x is not refutable, then x is reasonable" is completely arbitrary. Whether something is reasonable is a matter of whether someone feels that conclusions follow from premises given by the way.
And re Kant's categorical imperative, that's simply a way that Kant felt about how interpersonal conduct should proceed. (And of course many other people feel the same way about it, but that's all it is.)
Terrapin StationJune 02, 2017 at 22:45#739370 likes
Look at the way you guys are arguing over the definition of "relativism," and compare that to your behavior when it comes to math. Suppose you were having this argument over dinner and then split the check. It might take a few tries, but you would agree on an answer within minutes, after arguing for hours about the definition of a single word.
Yes, we could split the bill with few issues. We could just as easily agree that it was morally or ethically wrong when Tim Wood snuck off without paying. Absolutism vs. relativism doesn't really change much on a day to day basis.
I think you're right about that last point, and that's worth looking at closer.
I think you're wrong about the other bit. It's just as easy to imagine one of you excusing him and one of you not, for all sorts of different reasons. But it's inconceivable that you would have different "points of view" about the math.
How would moral codes be "legitimate" or "illegitimate" in your view?
Maybe "legitimate" is not the right word. Maybe "reasonable" is better. Reasonable in that basic principles are 1) clearly stated and 2) justified based on testable hypotheses about human nature. A (vague) mechanism by which those principles can be turned into a moral code (the action of society and culture) is then proposed.
I think you're wrong about the other bit. It's just as easy to imagine one of you excusing him and one of you not, for all sorts of different reasons. But it's inconceivable that you would different "points of view" about the math.
Have you ever split up a bill before? "I think we should just split the bill three ways." "No way, I only had one drink but Bill had three and I had a hamburger and fries but Al had the lobster and an appetizer." "I only want to leave a 10% tip." "Separate checks please."
That of course is not an argument about the math, it's an argument about "what's fair."
Agreed. But there aren't all that many questions that are just about the math. Math questions are easily answered without conflict not because they are special, but because they are, at this level, trivial. They are matters of fact like the capital of France or the number of ounces in a pound. We used to argue about that type of thing all the time. Now, with iPhones, calculators, and Google, we can't do it anymore.
Math questions are easily answered without conflict not because they are special, but because they are, at this level, trivial. They are matters of fact like the capital of France or the number of ounces in a pound. We used to argue about that type of thing all the time. Now, with iPhones, calculators, and Google, we can't do it anymore.
That's an interesting view. I still think you're wrong, but now I'm intrigued by this idea of math as fact.
Why do I think you're wrong? Well, you got the capital of France readily, but what's the capital of Israel? For almost any fact you can think of, there's probably someone out there who denies it.
I'm really glad you brought this up though, because I think I have an idea now why math is different. What counts as a fact, what we assert as true, is intimately related to what counts as evidence for it, and people can predictably disagree about evidence and its interpretation, and some of those debates are just unresolvable.
But think about math. The connection between a mathematical fact and the evidence for it is really quite different from everything else.
That is true, but I'm sure there are plenty of disagreements in the area of 'higher mathematics' - philosophy of number, and so on. The point about math itself, however, is that numbers are the same for anyone who can count; it's not up to you or anyone whether two plus two is four.
On that note, when Galileo said that 'the book of nature is written in mathematics', he was plainly trying to bring the same mathematical rigour to the study of nature. That is why he is a seminal figure in modern science. Rather less appreciated is the fact that this grew out of his interpretation of Plato, for whom 'dianoia' - knowledge of mathematics and geometry - had higher intrinsic value that either opinion or sensory knowledge, because it's objects were ideal and invariant. And that Platonist influence in turn grew out of the rediscovery of Plato by the Renaissance humanists, such as Ficino, who translated Plato's works into Latin.
Subsequently, when we talk in terms of 'scientific knowledge', we almost invariably refer to something mathematically quantifiable. After all virtually the whole of physics is now mathematical physics. But in so doing, the original philosophy behind Galileo's method, and indeed Galileo's broader philosophical assumptions, are generally forgotten. For us, it's simply 'scientific truth' which is as near as we're going to get to truth in the general sense.
I'm really glad you brought this up though, because I think I have an idea now why math is different. What counts as a fact, what we assert as true, is intimately related to what counts as evidence for it, and people can predictably disagree about evidence and its interpretation, and some of those debates are just unresolvable.
But think about math. The connection between a mathematical fact and the evidence for it is really quite different from everything else.
I disagree. As I said, at the level we are discussing, i.e. restaurant bills and similar situations, math is just arithmetic. It's trivial. The capital of Israel is complicated in the same way that me paying for your lobster when all I had was a hamburger is complicated. When human judgment gets involved, nothing is easy. This web site provides dozens, hundreds, of examples of that. We'll argue about anything.
Let's consider the trivial notion that 1+1=2. It is five symbols strung together that is inherently meaningless. It has as much truth as covfefee. It is when one attempts to ascribes meaning to it that relativism floods in.
But we can even go further. There are people who cannot do arithmetic (learn the symbolic sequence) and for them there is disagreement with all those who can.
at the level we are discussing, i.e. restaurant bills and similar situations, math is just arithmetic. It's trivial. The capital of Israel is complicated in the same way that me paying for your lobster when all I had was a hamburger is complicated. When human judgment gets involved, nothing is easy. This web site provides dozens, hundreds, of examples of that. We'll argue about anything.
I'm going to keep saying, "except math." @Terrapin Station might assert that truth is whatever he says it is, in both the general and specific senses, but even Terrapin is not going to assert that 2 + 2 = 5, or, more importantly, something like "To me, 2 + 2 = 5, even if for you 2 + 2 = 4." Nobody ever says anything like that. Math is out of reach of all sorts of controversy, both in fact and in principle.
Let's consider the trivial notion that 1+1=2. It is five symbols strung together that is inherently meaningless. It has as much truth as covfefee. It is when one attempts to ascribes meaning to it that relativism floods in.
Do you have an example in mind of an alternative interpretation of "1 + 1 = 2"? Have you had experience with someone claiming "1 + 1 = 2" means something different from what you think it means? Relativism floods in a whole lot of places, but I really don't see it flooding in here. What does this math relativism you speak of look like?
It is true, though, that I'm rapidly running out of room here as I back into this corner. There are controversies that relate to the "higher mathematics" that Terrapin has doubts about, and there are controversies about the foundations of mathematics. There are philosophical differences about what I guess we'll have to call the "interpretation of mathematical symbolism." But these are really quite different from issues like what the capital of Israel is, whether I said I'd arrive at 7 or 8, whether Oswald acted alone, etc. And the goal is almost never some sort of relativism--it's usually still the nature of the one mathematics that's at stake. (We're getting farther afield here, which I suppose is my fault, but not to worry, because we're nearing the edge of my "expertise" too.)
It is also true that I cheated a little in my last post. The evidence most people actually rely on for the basic facts of arithmetic is either "That's what I learned in school," or "That's what the calculator/computer says." But if you consider the possibility of debate, which is what we're interested in here, there is always an effective decision procedure to determine whether a mathematical statement is true or false. That's true for mathematics bottom to top. What counts as a proof changes as you move from bottom to top and back, but the core remains the same: an effective decision procedure. So I had this in mind as the ultimate backstop for arguments over mathematics, whether or not it's actually accessible to the people who happen to be having the argument. So there's evidence and there's evidence.
So to get back to splitting the check and such: only an effective decision procedure, even if it's just a calculation on your phone, can settle mathematical arguments--no effective procedure, no truth--but an effective decision procedure is always available to settle any such dispute. (Until Fermat's Last Theorem was proven, no one knew whether it was true. Now we do.) There's no room to debate what to count as evidence, or how to interpret the evidence, and so forth. I guess people sort of know that, though maybe not explicitly, so they just don't argue about math the way they argue about other questions of fact. There's no point. There is also no room for "my math" and "your math," "math as I see it" and "math as you see it," etc.
For the purpose of this thread, it might be worthwhile to characterize other fields of argument by how they differ from mathematics.
PS: Should have said this too: Note that mathematicians have never argued about whether Fermat's Last Theorem is true. They might argue about whether it was likely to be true, whether it was likely we would ever have a proof, what approach might work, and so on, but there was universal acceptance for the method of deciding whether it was true: show us the proof. What other field has that kind of unanimity?
if nothing of these is absolute, then what grounds them? One answer: their absolute presuppositions - their unarticulated, unexplicated fundamental axioms
This is an interesting point to reach. R G Collingwood's view of metaphysics (thanks to a poster on the old forum for ever pointing me in that direction some years ago now) was that it involved asking a series of questions of any philosopher. Whenever their work answers a question, you ask a deeper question of their work. Finally you reach some sort of bedrock: the answer that provokes no questions. These answers for him are that philosopher's metaphysics: their absolute presuppositions, rooted in their historical situation and their personal outlook. Oddly enough Collingwood held such a relativist view and yet remained a practising Anglican.
Nazi practices were based on beliefs; do you think they and similar beliefs are irrefutable? (Without attempting to hang too much on the hook of irrefutability - that's why I think most argument is of limited value, and that it take an especially strong argument to make people change.) I think they must be refutable. If not, then the Holocaust becomes "reasonable,"
Nazi practices were purportedly based on certain beliefs. It seems to me always open (a) to question rationally whether certain beliefs really do underpin the relevant practices; and (b) to burrow into the core of a belief rather than take it at face value.
Eugenics, for instance, was a shared belief among Nazi and some Western intellectuals at a certain time, and I have seen it alleged that we have returned to it in a different form, in genetically manipulating offspring. There are excellent reasoned arguments for it, even though we might find it repugnant.
I don't think, for instance, you can 'refute' the idea that one 'race' or 'people' is inferior to another. You can critically undermine the terms, and demonstrate that what might be left of the idea lacks evidence in its favour. Then you can commit - the existential moment - to anti-racism, as lots of people do. But that's not going to amount to a 'refutation' that would be likely to prevail against a broad sincerely-held belief.
Terrapin StationJune 03, 2017 at 12:05#740520 likes
It's not though. If I say, "'All truth is relative' is true," as a relativist, and as a truth-value subjectivist, I'm not saying that "'All truth is relative' is true" is anything but relatively, subjectively true to me--I'm reporting my judgment about that proposition to you. Certainly other people can and do assign "false" to that statement instead. And assigning "true" and "false" to it are nothing other than judgments that we make as individuals. I'd not be claiming that the "is true" part of "'All truth is relative' is true" is something other than a judgment that an individual makes.
Often what's happening there is that the truth-value non-relativist is reading their non-relativistic framework into the statement; they're not parsing it under whatever the relativist's notion of truth is.
I would point out that the truth value of the cognitive relativist's claim that their statement "all truth is relative" is only relatively or subjectively true for them would likewise be only relatively or subjectively true for them, and thus can be disregarded at will by the non-relativist (or other cognitive relativists, for that matter). Little, if anything, a cognitive relativist says can carry probative force.
Terrapin StationJune 03, 2017 at 13:13#740660 likes
I would point out that the truth value of the cognitive relativist's claim that their statement "all truth is relative" is only relatively or subjectively true for them would likewise be only relatively or subjectively true for them,
thus can be disregarded at will by the non-relativist (or other cognitive relativists, for that matter).
And of course it can be and often is disregarded.
Not that that depends on truth being relative. One can disregard something if truth isn't relative, too. People can disregard all sorts of things if they like.
If only the fact that people can disregard things had any particular significance.
You're probably also disregarding that it's an objective fact that truth is relative. But whether a statement about that fact is true or false is subjective of course.
Do you have an example in mind of an alternative interpretation of "1 + 1 = 2"?
1+1=2 is essentially 5 arbitrary symbols strung together that we are taught in elementary school to accept by rote. Inherently it has as much meaning as any string of symbols. Without further meaning one can just stare at it with bewilderment?. It is when one starts applying meaning to it, e.g. one apple and another apple is two apples that we begin to inject relativism. Exactly what makes two apples? You would have to start defining an apple and then all heck breaks loose in the same way that trying to define relativism creates problems.
Terrapin StationJune 03, 2017 at 13:43#740710 likes
1+1=2 is essentially 5 arbitrary symbols strung together that we are taught in elementary school to accept by rote. Inherently it has as much meaning as any string of symbols. Without further meaning one can just stare at it with bewilderment?. It is when one starts applying meaning to it, e.g. one apple and another apple is two apples that we begin to inject relativism. Exactly what makes two apples? You would have to start defining an apple and then all heck breaks loose.
Yeah, to even get at the concept of a unit that can be counted you need to learn to conceptualize things in a particular way. So it's basically noting a supposed uniformity a la "if you play the game of conceptualizing things this way, then you conceptualize things this way."
For the purpose of this thread, it might be worthwhile to characterize other fields of argument by how they differ from mathematics.
I don't think we will resolve our differences on this matter. Whatever I say will just be a repeat of something I said before, so I'm going to leave this dead horse alone for now. That doesn't mean I won't be willing to continue at a later time.
I don't think, for instance, you can 'refute' the idea that one 'race' or 'people' is inferior to another. You can critically undermine the terms, and demonstrate that what might be left of the idea lacks evidence in its favour. Then you can commit - the existential moment - to anti-racism, as lots of people do. But that's not going to amount to a 'refutation' that would be likely to prevail against a broad sincerely-held belief.
Isn't that true of any except the simplest idea, perhaps something as definite as mathematics as Srap Tasmaner has been writing.
1+1=2 is essentially 5 arbitrary symbols strung together that we are taught in elementary school to accept by rote. Inherently it has as much meaning as any string of symbols. Without further meaning one can just stare at it with bewilderment?. It is when one starts applying meaning to it, e.g. one apple and another apple is two apples that we begin to inject relativism.
Of course, symbols like "1" and "2" and "+" aren't inherently meaningful, but I would say they acquire meaning for us when we are taught how to use them to do math, not when we apply them.
I also agree that application can be messy, but that takes the math end as settled, as given. The poster child for this is the sorites and friends.
[Bonus apple math trivia: apples are sized not by diameter or weight or something, but by how many will fit in a standard box, so 120's are smaller than 90's.]
I used to love going out to dinner with my Dad and his brothers, because when the check came, there was what I called "the dance of the 20's," as they each started tossing 20-dollar bills out and picking up each other's and tossing them back.
if nothing of these is absolute, then what grounds them? One answer: their absolute presuppositions - their unarticulated, unexplicated fundamental axioms. These are both absolute and not absolute (but never relative). Absolute in that they are both cornerstone and keystone of any belief system, not absolute in that they evolve as cultures and systems evolve.
As I said in a previous post, here is a possible answer to the question "what grounds them? Quoting T Clark
[1] Provide a secure place for children
[2] Support families
[3] Protect weaker people from stronger ones
[4] Provide for the well-being of members of the group
[5] Promote the stability of the group
[6] Protect members of the group from hazards from outside
Yeah, to even get at the concept of a unit that can be counted you need to learn to conceptualize things in a particular way. So it's basically noting a supposed uniformity a la "if you play the game of conceptualizing things this way, then you conceptualize things this way."
I think "play the game" is a little tendentious. There is uniformity, but we have no idea why. Maybe it's cultural, maybe linguistic, maybe it's hard-wired, maybe something else. Maybe evolution nailed it, and maybe it fucked us over. Maybe it's optional, maybe it's not. Maybe Davidson is right, and the very idea of competing conceptual schemes is incoherent. I don't think the dismissive description you give here quite captures the range of issues at stake.
I think "play the game" is a little tendentious. There is uniformity, but we have no idea why. Maybe it's cultural, maybe linguistic, maybe it's hard-wired, maybe something else. Maybe evolution nailed it, and maybe it fucked us over. Maybe it's optional, maybe it's not. Maybe Davidson is right, and the very idea of competing conceptual schemes is incoherent. I don't think the dismissive description you give here quite captures the range of issues at stake.
I like the phrase "play the game" in this context and I don't see it as dismissive. I don't think "we have no idea why." We have too many ideas why, as you have listed. The way I see it, humans are hard wired to see patterns. We can't help telling stories. Math is one of our stories. Physics, religion, democracy, absolutism, relativism. Another way to say the same thing is that we play games. I acknowledge I have spent a lot of time thinking about this issue and I still have work to do.
Reply to T Clark Okay, that was funny. Thanks for keeping your sense of humor.
Anyway, I have already given, in this thread, a reason or two to think math is quite different. There are more, but I guess that should wait for another thread.
Terrapin StationJune 03, 2017 at 16:29#741070 likes
I think "play the game" is a little tendentious. There is uniformity, but we have no idea why. Maybe it's cultural, maybe linguistic, maybe it's hard-wired, maybe something else. Maybe evolution nailed it, and maybe it fucked us over. Maybe it's optional, maybe it's not. Maybe Davidson is right, and the very idea of competing conceptual schemes is incoherent. I don't think the dismissive description you give here quite captures the range of issues at stake.
The thing is that it's trivially clear that people can conceptualize it in a different way. Again, people (students mainly, because of the social circumstances) do disagree with conventional mathematics, all the way back to the beginnings of arithmetic The degree of widespread agreement about it is typically overstated.
I’m with this post trying to better understand what the relativists actually uphold in regard to facticity.
… First, a current event: USA has recently pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement, internationally leaving it in the sole company of Syria and Nicaragua (but Nicaragua is not part of the agreement due the agreement’s not going far enough to protect against global warming; so, imo, it’s a false positive).
Q1 (regarding concrete facts of the recent past): Is the facticity of just stated current event being right (i.e., correct) dependent on how people feel about it so being and their beliefs—such that the stated current event ceases in being a fact were individuals (and cohorts composed of these individuals) to not believe that this current event actually occurred?
Q2 (regarding predicted facts concerning the future): In relation to global warming, is the appraised factuality of its occurrence right (i.e., correct) in manners fully dependent upon what people believe and feel—such that, for one example, global warming would reach lethal levels for humanity (and a good number of other species) if unchecked only were all people of the world to believe and feel that it will? [Therefore: don’t believe in human caused global warming and global warming will cease to be a factual aspect of the world you inhabit.]
Q3 (regarding abstract generalities concerning factuality obtained via a hypothetical): If an ostrich were to place its head in a hole in the ground upon seeing a lion attacking, would the danger to the ostrich then vanish and thereby rescue the ostrich from being harmed?
Q4: If any of the aforementioned questions are answered with a “no”, how does the relativist justify the answer of “no” without relying upon some absolute? … such as that of objective reality, i.e. a reality that occurs regardless of the beliefs and feeling of individuals (and cohorts comprised of these)?
people (students mainly, because of the social circumstances) do disagree with conventional mathematics, all the way back to the beginnings of arithmetic
If you think that 2 + 2 might be equal to 5 rather than 4, then you have not yet learned what these symbols mean.
Terrapin StationJune 03, 2017 at 17:02#741140 likes
Some of your wording is confusing to me, but in a nutshell:
It's important for understanding my views that one understand the distinction between true/false (or truth-value) and fact. I follow the very noncontroversial analytic philosophy view that truth-value is a property of propositions, and truth-value is distinct from facts, which are states of affairs ("in the world"). What I think that amounts to on the truth end, exactly, is fairly idiosyncratic and controversial, but my view of truth and the distinction between truth and fact stem from that very standard analysis.
So truth, on my idiosyncratic view, is a judgment that individuals make about the relation of a proposition to other things. Thus, whether a particular proposition about about the Paris Climate Agreement is true or false depends on an individual's judgment. Truth is relative to individuals. (I can get into why I believe that's the case in more detail if we need to, but I want to refrain from making my reply too long.)
This is a very different matter than talking about facts re the Paris Climate Agreement. Remember, facts are states of affairs, not propositions about states of affairs, or properties of those propositions, or judgments about those propositions.
Facts are still relative on my view. They're relative to other states of affairs, which is ultimately a way of saying that from different reference points or reference frames in the sense of physics for the latter, a given state of affairs will have different properties. So, for a simple example, from a reference frame moving at the speed of light, any "happenings" at the Paris Climate Agreement were effectively frozen in time.
Terrapin StationJune 03, 2017 at 17:02#741150 likes
If you think that 2 + 2 might be equal to 5 rather than 4, then you have not yet learned what these symbols mean.
Being stern about one's one view isn't actually an argument. That people are stern in that manner is one of the reasons that disagreements wind up socialized out of mathematics, however, especially when we're talking about people progressing into more advanced mathematics.
Reply to Terrapin Station
I'll grant it was poorly worded. Sometimes we are uncertain until we have carried out the calculation.
So I'll say it this way: if you think you can prove that 2 + 2 = 5, and that 2 + 2 ? 4, then you don't yet understand the meaning of these symbols. It may be as simple as mixing up "4" and "5."
Terrapin StationJune 03, 2017 at 17:49#741240 likes
Proofs are simply relative to the formal systems we set up. A proof in system x is simply a matter of a conclusion incorrigibly following in system x, per the definitions, inference rules, etc. that we've set up as system x.
If you are upholding that facts are not relative to feelings and beliefs, but to themselves, how do you establish this to be the state of affairs—i.e., the fact of the matter—without also affirming that this appraisal is itself relative to your own beliefs and feelings?
[emphasis provided because that is the missing link I don't yet understand]
Terrapin StationJune 03, 2017 at 18:09#741270 likes
If you are upholding that facts are not relative to feelings and beliefs, but to themselves, how do you establish this to be the state of affairs—i.e., the fact of the matter—without also affirming that this appraisal is itself relative to your own beliefs and feelings?
"Establish this to be the state of affairs--i.e., the fact of the matter" sounds like you're instead saying "Determine whether the proposition 'Facts are not relative to feelings and beliefs' is true." Would you agree with that? I just want to clarify this before explaining more.
Proofs are simply relative to the formal systems we set up. A proof in system x is simply a matter of a conclusion incorrigibly following in system x, per the definitions, inference rules, etc. that we've set up as system x.
Would you grant that this is a somewhat different way of establishing the truth of a proposition than obtains in, say, physics, history, politics, bar-room linguistics, etc.?
(Btw, my intention earlier was to be succinct, not "stern." I'm just an average joe, not a member of some cult.)
Funny, I’m not a correspondence theorist of truth only on grounds that for me truth is (pithily expressed) “fidelity to that which is objective reality" (hence making sense of semantics such as "the arrows aim was true" and "staying true to oneself"). Takes a lot for me to justify this position, and this isn’t the place for me to try; still, the point of this being: though I’m not a correspondence theorist of truth, to me the notions presented by correspondence theory become one necessary form that truth takes … this via fidelity to objective reality.
This off the beaten path view, however, requires that there be a state of affairs (physical, metaphysical, or both) that is absolute, i.e. not relative--namely, that of objective reality.
To avoid this whole notion of what truth is and what it stands in relation to (never mind the issue of objective reality), I intentionally first used the words “right (i.e., correct)” in my first post in this thread. Likewise with my last given question: I asked for means of justification for the addressed state of affairs—and not whether or not the state of affairs addressed was true.
So, no, I disagree with your interpretation of my latest question (in part due to our likely different, and slightly contradicting, understandings of truth—with your understanding likely not affirming anything non-relative to which truths stand in relation).
Instead, my latest question can better be interpreted as asking how one justifies facticity without reliance upon a notion of something absolute (with "absolute" here interpreted as "something not relative that nevertheless is regardless of beliefs and feelings").
[… But all this should be taken in the context of my first post on this thread to which you first replied. More succinctly expressing its contents: if facticity too is dependent upon beliefs and feelings, then do particular facts cease to be when people (and/or ostriches) don’t believe in them?]
The degree of widespread agreement about it is typically overstated.
Should have addressed this before...
Can you name me one business, government, non-profit, in fact any institution of any kind anywhere in the world today that takes an "alternative view" of basic math. (I say "basic math" because few institutions are concerned with, say, axiomatic set theory.)
For comparison, there are, particularly with the rise of data science, lively and valuable debates within what we could loosely call the "statistics community" over the interpretation of Bayesian and frequentist statistics, and the value of different approaches to different problem domains. There is also the so-called "p-value crisis" in the social sciences. In none of these cases is there debate about the math side of things--everyone agrees on that--but about how it's applied and how the results are interpreted.
Terrapin StationJune 03, 2017 at 20:19#741400 likes
Would you grant that this is a somewhat different way of establishing the truth of a proposition than obtains in, say, physics, history, politics, bar-room linguistics, etc.?
Well, empirical claims are not provable. Proofs only work in formal systems we've set up, within the context of which a conclusion can not be wrong.
Terrapin StationJune 03, 2017 at 20:24#741410 likes
Instead, my latest question can better be interpreted as asking how one justifies facticity without reliance upon a notion of something absolute (with "absolute" here interpreted as "something not relative that nevertheless is regardless of beliefs and feelings").
Then I don't really understand the idea. Facts do not need any sort of justification. They're simply the way that things are. That doesn't mean they're not relative (part of the way that things are is relative--for example, properties are relative to reference "points" (spatio-temporal points)).
The only facts that hinge on beliefs, feelings, etc. are facts of beliefs, feelings, etc. For example, the fact that Joe is sad that the Miami Heat weren't in the playoffs this year.
Terrapin StationJune 03, 2017 at 20:27#741430 likes
Can you name me one business, government, non-profit, in fact any institution of any kind anywhere in the world today that takes an "alternative view" of basic math. (I say "basic math" because few institutions are concerned with, say, axiomatic set theory.)
Re "institutions," it's certainly not anything that I keep track of either way, so who knows?
But I'd guess that there aren't many institutions that even have a view (so to speak) of basic math, period. That, to me, implies a philosophical position, and Kentucky Fried Chicken, the National Park Service, etc. are not really in the business of having philosophical views on mathematics.
Not that this is relevant to the point I was making of course.
Then I don't really understand the idea. Facts do not need any sort of justification. They're simply the way that things are. That doesn't mean they're not relative (part of the way that things are is relative--for example, properties are relative to reference "points" (spatio-temporal points)).
Yet this eludes the very issue that I’m raising.
“Facts are simply the way that things are” means what in your own perspective? Is ‘the way that things are’ non-relative to beliefs and feelings (hence absolute as previously defined by me: “something not relative that nevertheless is regardless of beliefs and feelings”) or is it relative to beliefs and feelings (and thereby malleable by beliefs and feelings)?
The only facts that hinge on beliefs, feelings, etc. are facts of beliefs, feelings, etc. For example, the fact that Joe is sad that the Miami Heat weren't in the playoffs this year.
I myself don’t follow this. If, for example, it is a fact that Joe is sad (at time A, for greater clarity), then Joe being sad at time A is a state of affairs that ‘simply is the way it is’ regardless of what anyone might believe or feel about it … including what Joe might self-delude himself into believing (and remembering) at a subsequent time B.
... In which case, facts about beliefs, feelings, etc., are not malleable by beliefs, feelings, etc. (Assuming I'm interpreting this last quote correctly.)
Hey, my last post of the day. But I am curious to better understand your own position.
Reply to javra I'm in another part of the relativistic wood from ts.
I think that the facticity of Usa's withdrawal from the Paris accord is related to some powerful peoples beliefs. Michael Bloomberg for instance has already said that the Usa through its cities and citizenry will meet its Paris obligations. So we might arrive at a point where the de facto position is different from the official one. But generally, facts are established by good practice, as demonstrated by the steps Facebook has taken to employ fact-checkers to diminish or identify as fake fake news. The disbelief of most biologists, for instance, in the factuality of certain reported findings would convince me. Reports by newspapers of record that the usa has quit the Paris accord convince me of the formal position.
Your remarks about predictions for the future, i didn't understand. There can't be facts about future anthropogenic global warming. I think most scientists think it's likely to be true, and that on the precautionary principle the best bet is to assume they're right.
Nihilism (I define here): the belief and attitude that ultimately nothing matters, nothing has any ultimate or absolute value or significance.
Hi. I would stress ultimate here. A nihilist perhaps reasons (1) that he will die and (2) the human species will become extinct. My personal death argues that all value is temporary. I act now in terms of a finite future, which is to say in terms of hopes and fears that do not extend indefinitely into the future. I may fantasize that I can contribute to science, art, or philosophy for instance in a way that gives me a sort of immortality. I can "crystallize" my personality in some work that will survive me. I "upload" my best self or spiritual fingerprint by adding this work (which hopefully is truly great and maintained in the minds of those who survive me), and I can enjoy this notion while still alive. I can comfort myself that death will not be as absolute as it might otherwise be. But (2) or the eventual extinction the species threatens even this comfort. It seems that even Newton, Shakespeare, and Plato will be erased --will become as if they had never been. From this perspective everything is radically temporary. Nothing is ultimately meaningful. Everything is finally empty or rather emptied or erased. To me this is both terrible and beautiful. This realization (or rather belief/myth) creates a "space" outside of everything finite. Life becomes a vivid dream. The only absolute is the impossibility of any other absolute.
Terrapin StationJune 03, 2017 at 22:10#741710 likes
“Facts are simply the way that things are” means what in your own perspective? Is ‘the way that things are’ non-relative to beliefs and feelings (hence absolute as previously defined by me:
The simplified answer is yes, facts are not relative to feelings or beliefs. If you call that "absolute" okay, but I don't know why we'd take "relative" to only refer to being relative to beliefs, feelings, etc. The word "relative" certainly doesn't conventionally imply that.
I myself don’t follow this. If, for example, it is a fact that Joe is sad (at time A, for greater clarity), then Joe being sad at time A is a state of affairs that ‘simply is the way it is’ regardless of what anyone might believe or feel about it … including what Joe might self-delude himself into believing (and remembering) at a subsequent time B.
... In which case, facts about beliefs, feelings, etc., are not malleable by beliefs, feelings, etc. (Assuming I'm interpreting this last quote correctly.)
The idea is simply that "facts in no way depend on feelings or beliefs" is false. Facts depend on feelings and beliefs when we're talking a out facts about feelings and beliefs. There's no fact that S believes that P if S doesn't believe that P. So in that sense, some facts depend on beliefs (and feelings, etc.)
Facts are claims made with great certitude from a relative perspective.
There is stuff out there but everyone sees it differently.
What people do is attempt to come to some consensus based upon common experiences and call it a fact. Thus if it looks like a duck, and whacks like a duck, it's a duck-but maybe not. Consensus tends to change over time as perspectives change.
It is hopeless attempting to establish facts in a continuously changing universe where perspectives are constantly changing. We do the best we can for practical purposes.
What people do is attempt to come to some consensus based upon common experiences and call it a fact. Thus if it looks like a duck, and whacks like a duck, it's a duck-but maybe not. Consensus tends to change over time as perspectives change.
I've been going through a bunch of posts which ask what firm base relativists nail their facts to. I have my answer ready, but you've beaten me to the punch. It's consensus. Even if you believe there is some final, definitive, concrete ground of being, e.g. objective reality, which I don't, the only thing we have to work with on a day to day basis is agreement among them what knows. Consensus.
I've been going through a bunch of posts which ask what firm base relativists nail their facts to. I have my answer ready, but you've beaten me to the punch. It's consensus. Even if you believe there is some final, definitive, concrete ground of being, e.g. objective reality, which I don't, the only thing we have to work with on a day to day basis is agreement among them what knows. Consensus.
Yes. I agree. There probably is something out there. Probably some wave patterns that the brain reconstructs as some sort of hologram. But everyone is perceiving it differently so there are disagreements and agreements. You and I may agree and disagree on this question but we attempt to reach a consensus. We may call this consensus a fact if we wish, if we agree to call it such.
But my thoughts are with the tougher problem of reality, what reality is, how that works with absolute presuppositions, and what about reality is immune from relativism. I'm persuaded that reality (here undefined!) is immune, and perhaps the only proof is that it had better be!
Nothing in reality is immune from relativism unless you assume the existence of objective reality, which I don't. I think the concept of objective reality can be useful and productive in some situations. On the other hand, it can keep us from recognizing the extent to which human interactions influence our view of truth.
The thought that objective reality does not, might not, or need not exist is not a new or radical one. If its existence is a fixed absolute, then there is no need to continue this conversation.
But (2) or the eventual extinction the species threatens even this comfort. It seems that even Newton, Shakespeare, and Plato will be erased --will become as if they had never been. From this perspective everything is radically temporary. Nothing is ultimately meaningful. Everything is finally empty or rather emptied or erased. To me this is both terrible and beautiful. This realization (or rather belief/myth) creates a "space" outside of everything finite. Life becomes a vivid dream. The only absolute is the impossibility of any other absolute.
I don't hate this formulation, but I think it's a bit cute. It avoids the main issue with verbal sleight of hand. The scope of nihilism, as normally discussed, doesn't deal with things happening billions of years from now. It deals with human lives now and especially human values and institutions.
Only a few things are better than talking with one who knows! Just minutes ago I post that I don't really know what reality is, and you know just enough about it to venture out on the ice where I'm afraid you've fallen through. Perhaps you'll say what reality is, and if not, then perhaps you can make clear whether it's reality that falls under relativism, or the things in reality - but how can you do that unless you already know what reality is?
Want to give it a try?
First of all "what is reality?" is a question of metaphysics. It doesn't have an answer. It only has different ways of looking at things that are more or less useful. Do I have what I consider useful ways of looking at the question? Yes. There are many other threads on this website which deal with the question. I'm guessing you have participated in at least one. Examining the issue will take forever, go round in circles, and never get resolved.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 12:17#743190 likes
Facts are claims made with great certitude from a relative perspective.
Just fyi for anyone reading my comments in this thread (or elsewhere). I don't use "facts" in that sense. I only use "facts" in the "states of affairs" sense.
As a realist, facts in no way depend on there being humans or persons. If no life existed, the world would still be overflowing with facts.
Just fyi for anyone reading my comments in this thread (or elsewhere). I don't use "facts" in that sense. I only use "facts" in the "states of affairs" sense.
As a realist, facts in no way depend on there being humans or persons. If no life existed, the world would still be overflowing with facts.
What do you call statements that describe facts?
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 12:27#743230 likes
I've been going through a bunch of posts which ask what firm base relativists nail their facts to. I have my answer ready, but you've beaten me to the punch. It's consensus. Even if you believe there is some final, definitive, concrete ground of being, e.g. objective reality, which I don't, the only thing we have to work with on a day to day basis is agreement among them what knows. Consensus.
I don't know if that's what javra was getting at with me. If so, that's why there was some confusion. Given the way that I use "facts" and that I'm a realist, (the simple version is that) facts aren't things that people do, facts are what the world does.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 12:27#743240 likes
Just fyi for anyone reading my comments in this thread (or elsewhere). I don't use "facts" in that sense. I only use "facts" in the "states of affairs" sense.
As a realist, facts in no way depend on there being humans or persons. If no life existed, the world would still be overflowing with facts.
As can be ascertained by my statement, I view facts as a manifestation of inter-human behavior.
What is out there is simply a mass of waves that are constantly in flux. It is the human mind (acting as a reconstructive wave) that manifests some images that we perceive from our individual perspectives.
What's out there and in here are undergoing constant change, the amount of change we are perceiving is dependent upon our internal time clocks, and when there is some agreement (because it is changing slow enough for agreement to take place) people agree to call it a fact.
Nothing in reality is immune from relativism unless you assume the existence of objective reality,
I think there is an objective reality--the subjective part of reality is only a very small part of it--but objective reality is not at all immune from relativism.
Again, by "relativism," I'm not at all implying anything about people.
The same thing would be the case if there were no people, if there was no life.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 12:34#743280 likes
I'm having that same discussion in a other thread at the moment, too.
But you believe in objective states-of-affairs; of there being facts even in the absence of people. How does this not entail that some statements can describe facts even if judged not to (or vice versa)?
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 12:38#743330 likes
Reply to Terrapin Station I don't understand that at all. If, for example, one of these objective facts is that there are two balls in the bag then the statement "there are two balls in that bag" would actually describe a fact and "there are three balls in that bag" wouldn't actually describe a fact, even if I were to judge otherwise.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 12:40#743360 likes
It sounds like we have completely different ontologies. If I weren't a realist then yeah, I'd need some other conception of facts. I'm just a garden variety realist though
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 12:42#743380 likes
Objectively, "There are two balls in that bag" is just some pixels activated on a monitor (or mobile device screen or whatever the case may be).
And "facts in no way depend on there being humans or persons. If no life existed, the world would still be overflowing with facts" is just some pixels activated on a monitor.
Notice how this doesn't actually address the issue?
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 12:45#743400 likes
The issue is that objectively there's no "accurately describing" or not of a proposition. It's a matter of an individual judging whether the proposition matches. I had explained that, and you said "what about actually (correctly) describing" as if it would be something different. Descriptions don't match or not match anything mind-independently.
The issue is that objectively there's no "accurately describing" or not of a proposition. It's a matter of an individual judging whether the proposition matches.
And that also includes the proposition "there are objective facts that in no way depend on there being humans of persons"?
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 12:48#743420 likes
It sounds like we have completely different ontologies. If I weren't a realist then yeah, I'd need some other conception of facts. I'm just a garden variety realist though
There is something real out there but whatever it is under constant flux. How we each perceive it is also under constant flux, but something about it may be just consistent enough for a long enough duration that humans may form a consensus to call it a fact. However, this is very much a rarety, which is why so-called facts are in constant dispute.
Facts are useful but unfortunately are subject to constant change.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 12:51#743460 likes
There is something real out there but whatever it is under constant flux.
I agree with that. The flux out there is the facts. (Well, keeping it simple again, when I detailed the exception earlier that just caused confused, so I'll keep it simple.)
Well you seem to be conflating propositions and what propositions are about (facts) at this point.
No, you are. When I talk about the fact that there are two balls in the bag you respond by saying that the proposition "there are two balls in the bag" is just pixels.
If one of the objective facts is that there are two balls in the bag then the proposition "there are two balls in the bag" actually describes a fact, even if I were to judge otherwise.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 12:54#743490 likes
No, you are. When I talk about the fact that there are two balls in the bag you respond by saying that the proposition "there are two balls in the bag" is just pixels.
You specifically asked me about descriptions, right?
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 12:57#743500 likes
What I disagree with is the idea that the proposition "there are two balls in the bag" mind-independently describes anything, correctly or incorrectly.
You specifically asked me about descriptions, right?
I asked you what you call a statement that describes an objective fact and what you call a statement that doesn't describe an objective fact. As an example, I offered the fact that there are two balls in a bag and the propositions "there are two balls in the bag" and "there are three balls in the bag".
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 12:58#743520 likes
I asked you what you call a statement that describes an objective fact and what you call a statement that doesn't describe an objective fact. As an example, I offered the fact that there are two balls in a bag and the propositions "there are two balls in the bag" and "there are three balls in the bag".
I agree with that. The flux out there is the facts.
A fact to me had to be more concrete, immobile to be useful. It is a movement that had been conceptualized as from. A photograph.
What's out there, on the other hand, is just a mass of stuff (whatever it may be) that is constantly in flux. One can say that in total it is a fact as the Universe of Everything. This would translate to the Dao or God or whatever Absolute that one embraces.
No you didn't. You told me what you call statements that are judged to describe a fact and that the proposition is just pixels on a screen. But I want to know is what you call a statement that actually describes the objective fact that there are two balls in the bag.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 13:01#743570 likes
A fact to me had to be more concrete, immobile to be useful.
I wouldn't say there is anything immobile. And I'd say everything is concrete, in the sense of material. There's a flux out there, and a flux in here. Everything in in flux. And it's all material, in particular relations, undergoing particular processes.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 13:03#743580 likes
But I want to know is what you call a statement that actually describes the objective fact that there are two balls in the bag.
And I told you that "accurately," as in mind-independently or objectively, as opposed to subjectively judged, when it comes to whether propositions describe anything, correctly or incorrectly, is a nonsensical idea in my view.
And I told you that "accurately," as in mind-independently or objectively, as opposed to subjectively judged, when it comes to whether propositions describe anything, correctly or incorrectly, is a nonsensical idea in my view.
So these objective facts are fundamentally ineffable?
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 13:08#743610 likes
You could say they're "objectively ineffable." But we're subjects. We describe things subjectively. The idea of an objective description, in a literal sense, is a category error.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 13:10#743620 likes
It's like wondering why your bathtub isn't breathing.
You could say they're "objectively ineffable." But we're subjects. We describe things subjectively. The idea of an objective description, in a literal sense, is a category error.
So how do you conceive of these objective facts? What sort of things do you imagine them to be, particularly when nobody is around?
I wouldn't say there is anything immobile. And I'd say everything is concrete, in the sense of material. There's a flux out there, and a flux in here. Everything in in flux. And it's all material, in particular relations, undergoing particular processes.
If we agree all is in flux, then the fact must also necessarily be in flux, creating as far as I can tell a unique meaning to the term fact. It's OK, as long as everyone understands your meaning.
I'm terms of materiality, this term itself is rather malleable as the nature of stuff is not clear. Ultimately the nature of facts is directly dependent upon how one views this stuff and how the mind manifests this stuff as perception. So different ontologies will lead to disagreement as to the nature of facts.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 13:14#743660 likes
Oh. That's easy. There's a blue bucket in my bathroom, for example.
Right. Then if there being a blue bucket in your bathroom is an objective fact then "there is a blue bucket in your bathroom" actually describes an objective fact and "there isn't a blue bucket in your bathroom" doesn't.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 13:22#743730 likes
"there is a blue bucket in your bathroom" actually describes an objective fact and "there isn't a blue bucket in your bathroom" doesn't.
Not in the sense of mind-independently or objectively, as opposed to per one's judgement, because there is no such thing as a mind-independent or objective correct/incorrect description.
I think that puts too much emphasis on us, which I think is an all-too-common error in philosophy.
A former English teacher of mine also insisted that an author's writing were completely distinct from the author. I argued back that it is impossible to separate the creator from the creation. They are entangled forever. Whatever we conceived creates a permanent entanglement. There is no way to disengage.
Not in the sense of mind-independently or objectively, as opposed to per one's judgement, because there is no such thing as a mind-independent or objective correct/incorrect description.
You seem to be misunderstanding the issue. It's not a case that we agree on what the objective fact is but disagree on which words describe that fact. It's that we disagree on what the objective fact is.
For example, if one person were to say "it's wet" and another person were to say "it's dry", it's not that what the first person means by "it's wet" is what the second person means by "it's dry", as if they have some mirrored language, and are simply disagreeing on which words describe the objective fact that the ball is covered in water. They have the same language. They agree on which words describe which facts. They just disagree about whether or not the ball is covered in water.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 13:38#743800 likes
For example, if one person were to say "it's wet" and another person were to say "it's dry", it's not that what the first person means by "it's wet" is what the second person means by "it's dry", as if they have some mirrored language, and are simply disagreeing on which words describe the objective fact that ball is covered in water. They have the same language. They agree on which words describe which facts. They just disagree about whether or not the ball is covered in water.
In a thought experiment where we're positing that we know they have just the same meanings in mind, etc, then yes, sure, they disagree on whether or not the ball is covered in water, which means that they are making different judgments about how the proposition relates to the world.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 13:38#743810 likes
A former English teacher of mine also insisted that an author's writing were completely distinct from the author. I argued back that it is impossible to separate the creator from the creation.
I agree with you there. I just don't think that the world is our creation.
I agree with you there. I just don't think that the world is our creation.
I clearly don't believe that we create the world (universe) but I do believe we are all involved (entangled) in a continuous co-creation (more Bergson).
In a thought experiment where we're positing that we know they have just the same meanings in mind, etc, then yes, sure, they disagree on whether or not the ball is covered in water, which means that they are making different judgments about how the proposition relates to the world.
And those judgements can be wrong. If, as a matter of convention, we accept that the proposition "X" refers to a particular state of affairs obtaining and that the proposition "not X" refers to that state of affairs not obtaining then if that state of affairs obtains then "X" is true and "not X" is false, even if we judge otherwise. Because as you've said, the facts are independent of us.
Again, we're not just disagreeing over which words describe the agreed-upon fact. We're disagreeing over the fact.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 14:04#743880 likes
Only in other persons' judgment. They can't be wrong objectively or mind-independently, because there is no objective meaning, no objective reference, etc.
If, as a matter of convention, we accept that the proposition "X" refers to a particular state of affairs obtaining and that the proposition "not X" refers to that state of affairs not obtaining then if that state of affairs obtains then "X" is true and "not X" is false, , even if were were to judge otherwise. Because as you've said, the facts are independent of us.
The only way it makes any sense for "X" to refer to a particular state of affairs is for us, subjectively (and individually), to decide for "X" to refer to a particular state of affairs, and what it is for "X" to refer to a particular state of affairs is for us to think about "X" and the state of affairs in a particular way. "X" only refers in the exact way that each individual thinks about it (even if in a thought experiment, we assume they all think the "same").
Outside of us thinking about it that way, "X" doesn't mean anything and "X" doesn't refer to anything.
So while the state of affairs obtains or not independently of us (assuming it's something independent of us of course), "X" referring to anything doesn't obtain independently of us. That's a category error. So "X" can't be true or false mind-independently.
Only in other persons' judgment. They can't be wrong objectively or mind-independently, because there is no objective meaning, no objective reference, etc.
That misses the point, as I've explained. We're not disagreeing over how to describe an agreed-upon fact. We're disagreeing over the fact.
The only way it makes any sense for "X" to refer to a particular state of affairs is for us, subjectively (and individually), to decide for "X" to refer to a particular state of affairs, and what it is for "X" to refer to a particular state of affairs is for us to think about "X" and the state of affairs in a particular way. "X" only refers in the exact way that each individual thinks about it (even if in a thought experiment, we assume they all think the "same").
Outside of us thinking about it that way, "X" doesn't mean anything and "X" doesn't refer to anything.
So while the state of affairs obtains or not independently of us (assuming it's something independent of us of course), "X" referring to anything doesn't obtain independently of us. That's a category error. So "X" can't be true or false mind-independently.
And if we subjectively agree that "X" refers to a particular state of affairs, and if that state of affairs doesn't obtain, than "X" doesn't describe a fact, even if we judge that it does. Again, the above shows that you're missing the point. We're disagreeing over which states of affairs obtain, not over which words refer to the states of affairs that do obtain.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 14:27#743930 likes
That misses the point, as I've explained. We're not disagreeing over how describe an agreed-upon fact. We're disagreeing over the fact.
You can't literally "think the fact." The fact is the state of affairs in the world.
So I'm not talking about disagreeing on how to describe the fact either. I didn't say anything that at all suggests that. What would be disagreed upon is the relation between the "identical" description in both cases and the world. People are making judgments about that relation. The world itself can't make judgments about that relation, because the world, sans minds, has no meaning, no reference, etc. There's no way in the world sans minds to set up any sort of "matching" (or not matching) relation between something like a text mark, "X" and some other fact(s).
And if we subjectively agree that "X" refers to a particular state of affairs, and if that state of affairs doesn't obtain, than "X" is false, even if we judge it to be true.
No. That makes no sense, because the only way that could possibly work would be for X to mean something, to refer to something, independently of how we think about it. But that's not how it works. Meaning and reference are how we think about it, and there's nothing else to it.
Not that that depends on truth being relative. One can disregard something if truth isn't relative, too. People can disregard all sorts of things if they like.
If only the fact that people can disregard things had any particular significance.
You're probably also disregarding that it's an objective fact that truth is relative. But whether a statement about that fact is true or false is subjective of course.
I'm not sure that I follow all of this. I think you're missing the point in saying that "people can disregard all sorts of things if they like." My point was that, by the cognitive relativist's own lights, his interlocutor can not only disregard the relativist's claim that "all truth is subjective/relative," but also the relativist's response that the truth that "all truth is relative" is true only for him (and other relativists, presumably).
No. That makes no sense, because the only way that could possibly work would be for X to mean something, to refer to something, independently of how we think about it. But that's not how it works. Meaning and reference is how we think about it, and there's nothing else to it.
It makes perfect sense. If we agree that "it is raining" refers to a state of affairs where water falls from the clouds, and if water isn't falling from the clouds, then "it is raining" is false, even if we believe that water is falling from the clouds.
The very fact that you're trying to argue that you're right and that I'm wrong shows that you understand the logic of this.
As a realist, facts in no way depend on there being humans or persons. If no life existed, the world would still be overflowing with facts.
There are those of us who don't agree, at least not in any absolute way. Facts are human. Stories we tell ourselves.
When you say you are a realist, do you mean you find that a useful approach to understanding and living in the world, or are you claiming some sort of privileged perspective?
There are those of us who don't agree, at least not in any absolute way. Facts are human. Stories we tell ourselves.
When you say you are a realist, do you mean you find that a useful approach to understanding and living in the world, or are you claiming some sort of privileged perspective?
A universe in continuous creation and flux can be imagined as a continuously rotating kaleidoscope. This would be the one and only fact, as far as I can ascertain, using Terrapin Station's definition and ontological perspective. The Stuff or the Universe is The Fact.
I clearly don't believe that we create the world (universe) but I do believe we are all involved (entangled) in a continuous co-creation (more Bergson).
A universe in continuous creation and flux can be imagined as a continuously rotating kaleidoscope. This would be the one and only fact, as far as I can ascertain, using Terrapin Station's definition and ontological perspective. The Stuff or the Universe is The Fact.
Is this the way things are, or one of the ways things are.
My point was that, by the cognitive relativist's own lights, his interlocutor can not only disregard the relativist's claim that "all truth is subjective/relative," but also the relativist's response that the truth that "all truth is relative" is true only for him (and other relativists, presumably)
Who would say that an interlocutor can't disregard whatever?
If you're wanting to say "should," that requires an additional view: that one should or shouldn't believe (or also assign "true" to) something when truth value is objective/subjective.
Also, it's important to understand the distinction between whether something is true and whether it's a fact.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 15:37#744200 likes
It makes perfect sense. If we agree that "it is raining" refers to a state of affairs where water falls from the clouds, and if water isn't falling from the clouds, then "it is raining" is false, even if we believe that water is falling from the clouds.
Let's try it this way. How would it work, exactly--basically in terms of the mechanics of it--that "it is raining" is true or false independently of what anyone thinks about it? You're got the proposition however you have it--are we talking about something printed? Some sound waves? And then what happens between the proposition and the facts in question?
Let's try it this way. How would it work, exactly--basically in terms of the mechanics of it--that "it is raining" is true or false independently of what anyone thinks about it?
The state of affairs we agree it refers to obtains independently of our opinion. As you've said, the facts that propositions are about are objective.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 15:42#744240 likes
How words come to refer to states of affairs isn't the issue. The issue is whether or not the states of affairs obtain. You've accepted that facts are objective. So whether or not a particular state of affairs obtains is independent of our judgements. Which means that we can believe that a particular state of affairs obtains even if it doesn't.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 15:48#744290 likes
How words come to refer to states of affairs isn't the issue.
That's why we're not understanding each other. That's exactly part of the issue on my view.
If words can't refer to something mind-independently, then we can't have reference obtaining or not mind-independently, and reference (and meaning, etc.) is necessary to assign "T" or "F"
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 15:49#744300 likes
States of affairs obtaining is talking about facts. There's no dispute about that.
The dispute is about propositions being true and false.
Facts and propositions are very different things. I explained that under my view at the start. If this whole thing is arising over confusion about this, that would be ridiculous.
If words can't refer to something mind-independently, then we can't have reference obtaining or not mind-independently, and reference (and meaning, etc.) is necessary to assign "T" or "F"
I'm not saying that words refer to things mind-independently. I'm saying that, as a matter of inter-subjective convention, we agree to refer to a particular state of affairs using a particular string of symbols.
However, as you say, the states of affairs themselves are objective; they either obtain or they don't, and (except in trivial cases), what we say and believe has no effect on this.
Therefore, we might agree to refer to state of affairs X using the symbol "X", and we might believe that this state of affairs obtains, but it's actually the case that this state of affairs doesn't obtain. So we have a situation where we judge a proposition to be true even though the state of affairs that it (as a matter of inter-subjective convention) refers to doesn't actually obtain.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 15:54#744320 likes
Therefore, we might agree to refer to state of affairs X using the symbol "X", and we might believe that this state of affairs obtains, but it's actually the case that this state of affairs doesn't obtain.
There's no disagreement about that.
What there's disagreement about is whether "X" is true or false independent of us/our judgment. Whether X is true or false is a matter of a judgment about a proposition. That's what it "means" for something to be true or false. That's independent of whether the state of affairs in question obtains or not. And there's no way for "X" to be true or false ("X" would have to be a proposition, by the way, only propositions are true or false) independent of us, because there's no independent meaning, reference, etc. Again, this is independent of X as a state of affairs.
The state of affairs we agree it refers to obtains independently of our opinion.
The relativist position, at least the one I'm partial to, is not that truth or facts are dependent on our opinion. They're based on a consensus of observers.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 15:55#744350 likes
The relativist position, at least the one I' partial to, is not that truth or facts are dependent on our opinion. It's based on a consensus of observers.
That's different than my view. On my view, consensuses, norms, etc. can take a hike. ;-)
What there's disagreement about is whether "X" is true or false independent of us/our judgment. Whether X is true or false is a matter of a judgment about a proposition. That's what it "means" for something to be true or false. That's independent of whether the state of affairs in question obtains or not. And there's no way for "X" to be true or false ("X" would have to be a proposition, by the way, only propositions are true or false) independent of us, because there's no independent meaning, reference, etc. Again, this is independent of X as a state of affairs.
I'm not talking about "true" or "false". I'm talking about a proposition referring to a state of affairs that does or doesn't obtain. What do you call a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that actually obtains? What do you call a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that doesn't actually obtain?
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 15:59#744380 likes
You haven't answered this. You've only explained what you mean by "true" and "false". I want to know what you call a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that obtains (and one that doesn't).
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 16:01#744420 likes
Thanks. I'm getting there. But I want to make sure you understand this one step at a time, because this is ridiculously laborious for something so simple, and I don't want to have to keep explaining it over and over..
Okay, and you understand that on my view, reference (and meaning) only obtains when an individual thinks about it in a specific way?
Your remarks about predictions for the future, i didn't understand. There can't be facts about future anthropogenic global warming. I think most scientists think it's likely to be true, and that on the precautionary principle the best bet is to assume they're right.
The predicted fact of what will occur if we don’t counteract in the case of global warming can be construed to be a more complex version of what will happen to the proverbial ostrich with its head placed in the ground if it doesn’t start running away from the attacking lion.
Addressing the issue of facticity, through one can come up with a number of possibilities of why the lion is charging toward the ostrich (maybe the lion simply intends to greet the ostrich with a friendly lick, etc.), when the lion and the ostrich are in touching distance only one possibility will unfold. This one actualized possibility will at that juncture become a fact. When we visually imagine the proverbial ostrich placing its head in the ground as a lion charges towards it from afar, we predict what the one future actuality will be. In other words, we predict what the future pertinent fact will be. That the lion will kill the ostrich is then a predicted fact (again, emphasis on predicted).
Addressing the issue of a relativity in which facts are changeable by beliefs and feelings, if the ostrich places its head in the sand, ceases to visually perceive the lion attacking, and then believes and feels that it is free from all future danger in regard to this lion due to what it believes to be the lion’s disappearance, does the charging lion actually/factually/objectively/truly/ontically disappear? [A strictly rhetorical question since we all know via a conflux of experience and reasoning that the lion does not factually disappear relative to the ostrich’s being at such a juncture.]
The same can then be applied to the issue of global warming (a more pressing, realistic, and complex scenario): do the facts of today which point to (and limit) what will occur in the future if we don’t counteract the danger (i.e., today’s facts by which we predict what the future facts will be given set of conditions Q) then ontically disappear were one to not believe that the stated facts of today are indeed factual?
Unlike the ostrich scenario, which concerns a single ostrich, the global warming scenario regards a populace that does not currently hold a unified stance (in this case, a global consensus) regarding the danger of global warming. So, to try to keep things simple via a different question, if person A believes in human caused global warming and person B believes that global warming is a hoax, will the future of this planet be different for the grandchildren of person A and person B … this at the same time? If (objective) reality (as compared to the intersubjective realities of cultures, etc.) is relative to beliefs and feelings, how does this resulting absurdity not obtain?
I hope this clarifies what I initially intended to express.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 16:10#744500 likes
Okay. What it is, on my view, for a proposition to refer to a state of affairs (that obtains) is for an individual to think about propositions/meaning/reference in a particular way with respect to what they believe about the state of affairs. "What they believe" because since we're talking about a proposition and reference, it only makes sense to talk about it from that individual's perspective, because what propositions and reference/meaning and all that happen to be is that individual thinking about things a particular way.
Okay. What it is, on my view, for a proposition to refer to a state of affairs (that obtains) is for an individual to think about propositions/meaning/reference in a particular way with respect to what they believe about the state of affairs. "What they believe" because since we're talking about a proposition and reference, it only makes sense to talk about it from that individual's perspective, because what propositions and reference/meaning and all that happen to be is that individual thinking about things a particular way.
But things might be other than they think it to be. They might believe that a particular state of affairs obtains even if it doesn't. And if the proposition they choose to use to refer to that state of affairs is "it is raining", then the proposition "it is raining" is a true proposition (according to your definition of "true") that refers to a state of affairs that doesn't obtain.
So what do you call a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that actually obtains (or doesn't)?
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 16:24#744530 likes
But things might be other than they think it to be. They might believe that a particular state of affairs obtains even if it doesn't.
I agree with that part.
The problem with this part:
And if the proposition they choose to use to refer to that state of affairs is "it is raining", then the proposition "it is raining" is a true proposition (according to your definition of "true") that refers to a state of affairs that doesn't obtain.
Is that per my views that you just said that you understood above, propositions, reference and meaning don't even exist aside from an individual thinking about something in a particular way. So the proposition and how it relates or doesn't relate to the state of affairs are all about that individual's thoughts at the time in question.
So what do you call a proposition that subjectively refers to a state of affairs that obtains? What do you call a proposition that subjectively refers to a state of affairs that doesn't obtain?
Is that per my views that you just said that you understood above, propositions, reference and meaning don't even exist aside from an individual thinking about something in a particular way. So the proposition and how it relates or doesn't relate to the state of affairs is all about that individual's thoughts at the time in question.
That's not the issue, as I keep saying. The issue is whether or not the state of affairs obtains.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 16:30#744550 likes
So what do you call a proposition that subjectively refers to a state of affairs that obtains?
Just to make sure we don't ignore this, again, what it is for this to happen is for the person in question to judge it to be happening. When a proposition "matches" a state of affairs in a person's opinion, they say that it's a true proposition (or a "truth").
And likewise, the other is a false proposition in their view (or a "falsehood").
[quote=Michael]But things might be other than they think it to be. They might believe that a particular state of affairs obtains even if it doesn't.[/quote]
[quote=Terrapin Station]I agree with that part.[/quote]
So let's say that we have some state of affairs that doesn't obtain, even though I believe that it does. Now lets say that I refer to this state of affairs with the proposition "it is raining".
We have a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that doesn't obtain. What do we call this type of proposition? Obviously not "false" because I judge it to be true, and according to you, that's all it means for a proposition to be true. So is there some other term we can use?
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 16:43#744650 likes
We call it "false." The person who judges it to be true isn't going to say that it is false in that situation, but someone else could say that it is false. (And the person in question would say that it would be false if it weren't raining, but it is (per their belief).)
We call it "false." The person who judges it to be true isn't going to say that it is false in that situation, but someone else would say that it is false. (And the person in question would say that it would be false if it weren't raining, but it is (per their belief).)
There is nobody else. There's just me. I judge the proposition to be true, but it refers to a state of affairs that doesn't obtain. What do we call this type of proposition?
That's different than my view. On my view, consensuses, norms, etc. can take a hike.
I'm not an evolutionary biologist or physicist, so I may step off a cliff here. I've read a lot about evolution and I believe that humans are genetically related to much simpler organisms. That they are our ancestors or we have both evolved from a common ancestor. I believe that based on my understanding of the consensus of opinion of people who know more about it than I do.
I've read a bit about cosmology. It is my understanding that the gravitational behavior of the observable universe indicates there is more matter than is visible. It has come to be called "dark matter." It is also my understanding that there is no consensus among people who know more about it than I do about what it is, so I don't have an opinion.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 16:46#744680 likes
If you're asking "what does the person in question call the proposition 'it is raining' in a situation where it isn't raining but they believe it to be raining," then they call it "true."
If you're asking "what does the person in question call a proposition that doesn't match a state of affairs, even though there's a mistaken belief that it does," they'd call it "false," at least at time Tx when it's realized by whomever that it doesn't match the state of affairs.
If you're asking "what does the person in question call the proposition 'it is raining' in a situation where it isn't raining but they believe it to be raning," then they call it "true."
If you're asking "what does the person in question call a proposition that doesn't match a state of affairs, even though there's a mistaken belief that it does," they'd call it "false," at least at time Tx when it's realized by whomever that it doesn't match the state of affairs.
I'm asking if we have a term that refers to a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that doesn't actually obtain. We already have the term "false" that refers to a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that is judged not to obtain. Do we have a different term for the former? Or does the term "false" have two different (albeit related) meanings?
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 16:52#744700 likes
I'm asking if we have a term that refers to a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that doesn't actually obtain. We already have the term "false" that refers to a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that is judged not to obtain. Do we have a different term for the former? Or does the term "false" have two different (albeit related) meanings?
There is no difference. Comparing propositions to states of affairs is always a judgment. There's no "objective view."
Truth and falsehood are judgments about the relation of a proposition to something else.
That's not saying something necessarily about language. It's saying something about judging a relation between a proposition and something else.
Then why are you using the words "reference," "description," "proposition" etc.?
Because we have propositions that refers to states of affairs that obtain and propositions that refer to states of affairs that don't obtain. These propositions are different, even if everybody in the world judges them all to be true (or all to be false).
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 16:55#744740 likes
If you're using those words you're talking about people making judgments about things.
If you want to just talk the world outside of people thinking about it, there are no "states of affairs that do not obtain"--they don't exist. That's what it means to not obtain.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 16:56#744750 likes
Because we have propositions that refers to states of affairs that obtain and propositions that refer to states of affairs that don't obtain.
So what? I thought you weren't talking about propositions??
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 16:58#744770 likes
You can't talk about propositions, references, etc. and how they link up with aything without talking about people making judgments about that stuff, because that's all there is to that. There's no other way that propositions link up with anything.
We can have propositions that refer to states of affairs that don't obtain, even if everybody believes that they do obtain. According to your definition, all these propositions are true because all these propositions are judged to refer to states of affairs that do obtain. However, they don't obtain. So I want to know if we have a special term to refer to propositions (whether true or false) that refer to states of affairs that don't obtain (or do obtain).
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 17:02#744800 likes
We can have propositions that refer to states of affairs that don't obtain, even if everybody believes that they do obtain.
I'm writing another post because you respond so fast that I don't know if you'll see an edit.
Actually, I retract that last comment. I would say that you could have that, but it wouldn't be that it's false outside of everyone thinking it's true. I was thinking that you were saying it could be false (and maybe because you said that earlier)
No you can't, because reference doesn't exist outside of particular individuals thinking about it however they do.
That the proposition refers to a particular state of affairs depends on the individual thinking about it however they do, but that the state of affairs obtains (or doesn't) is an objective fact, as you've already admitted.
Therefore, the proposition can refer to a state of affairs that is judged to obtain even though it doesn't, or that is judged not to obtain even though it does.
Actually, I retract that last comment. I would say that you could have that, but it wouldn't be that it's false outside of everyone thinking it's true.
I'm not saying that it would be false. I'm going along with your definition of "true" and "false". I'm asking if you have a different term to refer to this kind of proposition.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 17:07#744840 likes
So I want to know if we have a special term to refer to propositions (whether true or false) that refer to states of affairs that don't obtain (and do obtain).
No. The word for that is "false."
There's not a special word for propositions that people would judge to be false in a different scenario.
There's not a special word for propositions that people would judge to be false in a different scenario.
So we have the word "false" that refers both to a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that is judged to not obtain and to a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that actually doesn't obtain?
So we have both an objective and a subjective notion of truth (and falsity).
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 17:10#744870 likes
So we have the word "false" that refers both to a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that is judged to not obtain and to a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that actually doesn't obtain?
People can't do anything but judge whether some state of affairs obtains or not first off.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 17:10#744880 likes
So you're wondering if there's a word for a scenario that isn't something that people could do.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 17:12#744890 likes
Why would we need a word for something to do with propositions and they way they link up with other things that targets something we can't even do or "make contact with" so to speak?
To me part of the relevance of relativism is to call into question the persistent use of 'we' in talk like this.It is a rhetorical device often used to imply that all us right-minded people will think the same way; but do we?
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 17:15#744910 likes
It also threw me off in the one earlier response, because he was asking "What do we call" and then all of a sudden he said, "I'm positing a scenario where there's only one person."
Well, if the scenario is that there's only one person, then the question should be, "What does that person call . . ."
That's why I responded with, "If you're asking "what does the person in question call the proposition . . . "
Why would we need a word for something to do with propositions and they way they link up with other things that targets something we can't even do or "make contact with" so to speak?
Because rather than say "this proposition refers to a state of affairs that doesn't actually obtain" we can say "this proposition is X". It's simple utility.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 17:20#744930 likes
But you can't say that without it being a judgment on your part, and we already have a word for that. "False."
Again, you're wondering why there isn't a word for something we can't do.
I'm not making a judgement about any particular proposition or any particular state of affairs. I'm saying that we can have a term "X" that is defined as "referring to a state of affairs that actually obtains" and a term "Y" that is defined as "referring to a state of affairs that doesn't actually obtain". These can be distinguished from the term "true" that you've defined as "referring to a state of affairs that is judged to obtain" and the term "false" that you've defined as "referring to a state of affairs that is judged not to obtain".
...to try to keep things simple via a different question, if person A believes in human caused global warming and person B believes that global warming is a hoax, will the future of this planet be different for the grandchildren of person A and person B … this at the same time? If (objective) reality (as compared to the intersubjective realities of cultures, etc.) is relative to beliefs and feelings, how does this resulting absurdity not obtain?
What we will have in the future are descriptions of states of affairs. These descriptions are going to vary depending on the overall beliefs and feelings of the people concerned. If the ostrich somehow survived alive, and miraculously received the gift of speech in the shock, it is going to have a different account of itself than the accounts of the people who advised it to run.
I think there's a good example in the thread across the way about Putin, where I claimed that the Soviet Union fell in 1991, and Agustino claimed it didn't. There are various facts about what happened to the former Soviet Union in 1991 and subsequently, but they don't resolve themselves into a simple 'future of this Russian-dominated bit of the planet' as far as human discourse goes. Actually, humans rarely bother over much about the outcome of forecasting, because we're largely terrible at it on any scale. it's amazing we've achieved such precision on smaller scales under controlled conditions.
I too, from a political standpoint, think there are a lot of ostriches with their heads in the sand about anthropogenic climate change. But in 150 years' time if, say, New York and London have been flooded and Bangladesh destroyed in the meantime, there will be some people who will say, 'It remains to be proved that anthropogenic climate change did this.' They will host chat shows and have followers. Just you wait and see.
I'm saying that we can have a term "X" that is defined as "referring to a state of affairs that actually obtains" and a term "Y" that is defined as "referring to a state of affairs that doesn't actually obtain".
But don't the interlocutors have to agree on criteria for what it means for something to obtain?
But don't the interlocutors have to agree on criteria for what it means for something to obtain?
You'll have to ask Terrapin. He's the realist who argues that facts are objective and obtain independently of people (except facts about people, of course).
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 17:30#745000 likes
Sure you could have that, but again I'm wondering why anyone would bother with a word for that, especially because it's not anything that anyone can do.
There are countless things we can do that there isn't even a word for. For example, there's no word for eating a dozen donuts rather than a half dozen.
Sure you could have that, but again I'm wondering why anyone would bother with a word for that, especially because it's not anything that anyone can do.
I don't know why, but I'd argue that we have them; "true" and "false". For the most part, it seems that when people say "X is true" they mean to say that the state of affairs referred to by "X" actually obtains, not just that they judge it to obtain. That's why scepticism is a thing; according to the sceptic, given that we can never access these objective states of affairs, we can never know if a proposition is true (even though we can and do make judgements).
Of course, you're free to use the terms however you like, but it'll make for difficult conversation with the many who use them this way.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 17:38#745050 likes
Reply to Terrapin Station So am I. When I say "you're fat", I am forming an opinion, estimate, notion, or conclusion about your body weight. But when I say "you're fat" I'm not saying "in my opinion, you are overweight". I'm just saying "you are overweight".
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 18:00#745220 likes
Right, so "You're overweight" isn't a conclusion you've reached from circumstances presented to your mind?
I didn't say it wasn't a conclusion. I'm saying that "overweight" doesn't mean "judged to have an unhealthy amount of fat". And so by the same token, "it is true" might be a conclusion, but "true" doesn't mean "judged to correctly describe the facts". And "you're a moron" might be an insult, but being an insult isn't part of the meaning of "moron".
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 18:19#745280 likes
I didn't say it wasn't a conclusion. I'm saying that "overweight" doesn't mean "judged to have an unhealthy amount of fat".
I wouldn't say that either, but it is an act of judging to be overweight, or "fat" if one takes that to be synonymous with "overweight."
"A conclusion you've reached from circumstances presented to your mind" is sufficient for "judged."
"true" doesn't mean "judged to correctly describe the facts".
I wouldn't use the word "means" in any event if we're getting down to brass tacks, but I wouldn't say that, either. What I say is that truth-value functionally amounts to a judgment about the relation between a proposition and something else. The "something else" depends on the relation the person in question considers the pertinent relation a la correspondence, coherence, etc.
But in 150 years' time if, say, New York and London have been flooded and Bangladesh destroyed in the meantime, there will be some people who will say, 'It remains to be proved that anthropogenic climate change did this.' They will host chat shows and have followers. Just you wait and see.
I get the part about disagreements. Thanks for the humorous reminder. What I don’t get is the part about whether or not there occur states of affairs irrespective to what sentience may believe or feel. We can ask this of the proposition, “I exist/am,” when we address it to our own individual selves as we can ask this of the proposition, “Elvis Presley has died”.
What’s worse to me is the proposition that, “because some believe that he has and some believe that he hasn’t, Elvis is both dead and alive at the same present time and in the same way”.
I invite you to consider the absolute of the present moment (that is, the moments of your life). These moments are temporary with respect to passing time, but the moments themselves are permanent. If a thing is well done, or done as well the moment allows, and you know it, that's really all the epitaph that matters, Comparisons are conjectural, memory unreliable, only the moment is real; self reflecting on itself is the ultimate beauty and monument.
I have no objection to the edifying intention of this passage, but the moments are by definition not permanent. We are also anticipating and remembering creatures, so present moments are often anything but present in another sense.
Still, I can relate to the notion/experience of the self-justifying moment. I can relate with making peace with impermanence. Indeed, I think there is a "feel good" aspect to nihilism as I described it. It articulates and strives to accept the futility of the all-too-human desire to escape time and chance. So my version of the nihilist (unless he is still green and angsty) would have to agree with the spirit of your post already in some way to endure his metaphysical vision of ultimate but not general or practical futility. A person can be an overachiever and a nihilist at the same time. Doing a job well for the beauty of it, for the self-consciously temporary narcissistic pleasure perhaps, is quite conceivable. But nihilism only really makes sense in terms of a metaphysical rejection of (metaphysical) absolutes. We are all practically dominated by (our actions manifest) various values and moral principles. But some of us might decide that various candidates for absolutes are grounded finally by the hope and fear of pleasure and pain, both of which are at best or worst temporary.
I don't hate this formulation, but I think it's a bit cute. It avoids the main issue with verbal sleight of hand. The scope of nihilism, as normally discussed, doesn't deal with things happening billions of years from now. It deals with human lives now and especially human values and institutions.
I think I can guess what you mean, but consider the OP: "Nihilism (I define here): the belief and attitude that ultimately nothing matters, nothing has any ultimate or absolute value or significance."
There's this from a dictionary: the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless.
But what sense can we make of "meaningless" if we're not talking about ultimate "meaninglessness"? We all have preferences and fears and therefore constraints on our behavior. If I'm hungry, the sandwich is meaningful. If I burn my lips on hot coffee, that's meaningful. I care. As I see it, most humans are dominated by spatio-temporallylocal hopes and fears most of the time. But the metaphysical urge is to articulate the imperishable (to do math in a wider, wilder set of concepts). We might also think of God as the image of the invulnerable perfected human. Man qua man is the desire to be God, one might say. Since doing this is impossible, we settle for surrogates. We participate in godlike collective enterprises like science, social justice, a church that embraces the notion of itself as the "body of Christ." The saved person is a member of Christ, a finger or a toe. This is the general structure. We have to share the absolute, because we can't pull off the thing by ourselves unless we do it in the bubble of madness.
But maybe this is too grandiose. Maybe we are just afraid to age and die. Aging dims our glory and dying dumps out of all intellectual treasures and memories at once. The newborn in the same hospital is not us. We construct ourselves over the decades. If we do a good job and attain self-love, we don't want such a unique fusion to be erased. So we either deny that we will be or we accept surrogate crystallizations of this unique self that will survive the death of the body. The nihilist sees that even this plan B is flawed and has to adapt to the metaphysically absurd situation.
My point is that while some (many) things are grounded via reference to something else, some standard, other things are grounded in reference to themselves. Perhaps I should say may be so grounded, but what I mean is when you get down to the bedrock of the matter, everything is so grounded.
I think we actually agree more than disagree. Non-silly nihilism is made possible by (almost) "everything being so grounded." I like "all is vanity." I find a wisdom in it. It is of course easy to interpret the phrase in a cheap way (silly nihilism), but I guess that's the cost of pithiness.
The nihilist says nothing matters, while it seems to me that only in traversing nihilism is real value found.
I can't make sense of this kind of nihilism. So for me it's a bit of scarecrow. I'd say that nothing matters in the long-enough-run but immediately stress that human concern fades out as it ventures further from the present. So Mr. Nothing Matters is 95% passionately invested in the same kinds of things as Mr. Something Matters Absolutely.
Nor is there any narcissism,which, to reclaim some precision, is just a personality disorder.
I realize that narcissism is usually only pointed out in terms of an accusation (as a vice), but I have in mind the sane and healthy driving force that encourages us to finish med school for instance, because we want to be a "winner." What is the force that gets us out of bed after 3 hours of sleep in order to shape ourselves into our ideal self? What is the force that carves and edits this very ideal? We might call it ambition, too. Lots of words come to mind. Anyway, I suggest that nihilism is embraced to some degree as a realization of freedom. His ego ideal is pure (theoretical) freedom, perhaps. The reasonable nihilist enjoys a sense of himself as bound by no artificial principle. He stands without the usual crutches. Of course this notion of himself can be attacked, but such attacks are usually going to rely on some absolute that the nihilist doesn't recognize as authoritative. He doesn't offer much of a target. So nihilism also looks like a late participant in the rhetorical-moral arms race.
If there's difference in our views in these posts, it appear to me that you're fixed in in the practical and the transient, a tumbleweeds sort of a value system, which understands itself as being no value system at all, but an illusion of one.
I would describe a process of "mind" becoming conscious of its own creation of its apparent masters. In earlier stages of this process, mind experiences principles as fixed, external objects. They are decrees of gods or sacred ancestors, for instance. Mind has not made its creative power explicit to itself. It lacks self-knowledge. But it comes to see the sacred objects outside it as its own projections. Finally it becomes conscious of this process itself. It becomes conscious of itself as process. In terms of what you wrote, we end up with a value system that is consciously in flux. It's not an illusion. It's a version that expects to be update, that even posits its own partial destruction as a value to the degree that this partial destruction allows for overall progress. What does seem to remain fixed is the idea of ascent or progress. But this is the bare skeleton or archetype. Our notion of the ideal and therefore of ascent is even self-editing. To posit truth as an absolute value might motivate us to question the sincerity or possibility of such a positing. Maybe "truth" is the mask of the will-to-status, for instance, etc.
My point is that while some (many) things are grounded via reference to something else, some standard, other things are grounded in reference to themselves. Perhaps I should say may be so grounded, but what I mean is when you get down to the bedrock of the matter, everything is so grounded.
As has been demonstrated throughout this thread, there are those of us who don't think everything is grounded the way you say.
If there's difference in our views in these posts, it appear to me that you're fixed in in the practical and the transient, a tumbleweeds sort of a value system, which understands itself as being no value system at all, but an illusion of one.
I like your use of "tumbleweeds" in this context. Really gets your point across with visual punch. Which doesn't mean I agree the alternative to your view is "no value system at all, but an illusion of one."
This comes very close to my personal theology. That "god" refers to, can only refer to, human possibility, broadly considered
Right. For me there can be no god that isn't anthropomorphic. If there was such a god, we couldn't make sense of it. We'd have no motive to worship or incarnate such a god. But there are divine "predicates" like love, wisdom, power, beauty that we always already revere. So a certain conception of nihilism is impossible, excepting perhaps rare moods of intense demotivation. Another conception of nihilism is that of the man awake to his "divinity." He has completed the iconoclastic journey through a sequence of projections that he once mistook for an alienated or distant version of the divine. Like anyone he still reveres the predicates, but these predicates recognized as such are therefore as ideas possessed already by the mind that might otherwise covet them.
I'm trying to paint a picture of "incarnate freedom" becoming conscious of itself as such by means of a dialectical process. We might call it "The Birth of Spirit from Agency," where agency is the general structure of the alienated state. The agent serves a distant or external divinity that is not simply his own ideal possibility. Then "Spirit" is incarnate freedom conscious of itself as such. It understands itself to have created itself dialectically (in an long, painful debate with itself and others about who it ought to be). But in my view this essentially terminal state is no substitute for the living of life, nor does "Spirit" stop learning and sculpting itself. It just continues its self-sculpting self-consciously, having accomplished what is likely its greatest triumph in the spiritual/intellectual realm, the winning of its theoretical if not practical freedom. The increase of practical freedom involves that "living of life" that is only illuminated but not performed by theory. We might say that we are only just fully born as we become conscious of ourselves as "incarnate freedom."
On the other hand, I'm well aware that this vision doesn't (as a rule) appeal to others. As I experience it, I'm a cheerleader for "spirit" who is always verbally grinding against cheerleaders for this or that agency. I wouldn't be very free if I needed agreement. But I have found variants of these ideas in some of the more famous philosophers, so I know my "brothers" in "spirit" (fellow devil-worshippers) are out there. And I paint my positronic graffiti on the wall like a muted post horn. I'd be delighted if you could relate to even 80% of this little sketch. By all means, point out what I left out or didn't account for or even the 20% that you can't relate to (an optimistic estimate on my part.)
This continues the thought of the above post but replies to no one in particular. The reasonable relativist is conscious that basic pre-rational investments close or open the possibility of various intellectual/moral positions. The reasonable relativist has been around long enough to recognize the futility of trying to reprogram those who are in error relative to his own vision. The reasonable relativist is not making some metaphysical point. He's just wisely acknowledging that in fact we have to deal with those we consider "irrational." And we most effectively do so (if persuasion is preferred to force) in terms of how those to be managed are motivated and understand the world. This is something like an extra-metaphysical perspective that metaphysics tends to misunderstand. It's a gesture that points at the futility of a certain game that can only register within the game (for those who live in the game) as another move in the game. It's more or less the same with the "reasonable" nihilist. The reasonable nihilist/relativist doesn't forget that he's a self-asserting personality among self-asserting personalities. He doesn't forget that sentences are tools in the hand (or rather mouth) of a person who likely enough is practicing seduction and/or intimidation. I try to convert you to my household god (I get to be high priest), and you do the same with me. This is "ugly" subtext, not the entire text. I suggest that this is the lower (that never vanishes) on which the higher blossoms. A "good" person is (in my view) more aware than most of that which is "evil" in them. If this view is ugly or cynical to some readers, then I myself tend to find opposite views unrealistic or sentimental.
Terrapin StationJune 11, 2017 at 01:24#766660 likes
The reasonable relativist is conscious that basic pre-rational investments close or open the possibility of various intellectual/moral positions.
I've read that sentence at least six or seven times now, but I can't any sort of grasp on what the heck it might be saying, exactly. What is a "pre-rational investment" first off?
By 'investment' I'm trying to stress that we don't enter a discussion without prejudices. These prejudices might even be said to constitute our intellectual personalities. For instance, I'm an atheist. I don't think I'm an atheist for purely "logical" reasons. (Indeed I think the notion of a cold "pure" reason is itself a God surrogate.) Roughly speaking, I think we all have images of the virtuous person that are as unique as our fingerprints, though of course roughly similar so that friendly communication is possible. I stress the word image to suggest the non-rational component. For instance, I have an irreligious/impious inclination that precedes the arguments I might make to defend this position or to justify my refusal to bother defending this position. You might say that I have an image of the radically free spirit that (in retrospect) I have been dialectically clarifying for myself since I was a teenager. We are taught to embrace and project universal systems (to understand religion as science and/or one-size-fits-all morality), so that the leap directly to the realization of freedom is just too terrifying. So instead we (or rather those I'm imaging as my general type) go through a sequence of wider and freer systems (bigger cages) until the negation of the cage as such becomes thinkable (emotionally bearable). For me "spiritual" growth is as much an affair of training and developing the heart and guts (arguably the body too) as it is of merely finding and believing the correct propositions.
Taken all together, I find in it a clear trend of progress, even if that progress is not smooth or consistent.
I agree. Of course I'm a big fan of Hegel, and I think he's roughly right. Of course technology now makes it possible for humanity to cut short its own development. I try to affirm that possibility, which is to say live happily without repressing my consciousness of that possibility. I suppose I see what I'd call higher states of consciousness as fragile blossoms that emerge from the soil of suffering and confusion. No soul, no blossom. No nightmarish past, no blessed "awakening" or transcendence. The confusion is that which is transcended. As Sartre wrote, we are our past in the mode of no longer being it, and we are our future in the mode of not (yet) being able to be it. History is the nightmare from which we strive to awaken, occasionally succeeding. For me this "awakening" has always been a process of dis-identification and/or demystification. For instance, most of us transcend our parents. We learn to see them as imperfect humans whose approval is not spiritually authoritative. Dad is demystified. The actual father is separated in our mind from the father archetype from which he derived his power over us. In the realm of love, similarly, we learn to separate the actual woman from the "anima" image that makes her so seductive. Oxytocin steps in so that (to some degree) a sexual friendship replaces the almost insane or manic first phase of "falling in love." In short, we "distill" the predicates. Plato and Blake come to mind. We don't escape or transcend the energy of the predicates, but we are liberated to some degree by "introjection" or projection in reverse. Quoting tim wood
Amen, and yet alas! It's a long road, and for many - maybe most - not a good trip.
Ah, yes. I feel like one of the lucky ones. I suppose most of us have our comforts, but I hate the idea of being robbed of the knowledge of my own freedom. And yet the beautiful drama of God waking up from the nightmare of not being God can only repeat if all souls are marched through Lethe every so often and installed in new bodies. For me this is metaphorical, but metaphorical is good enough. Quoting tim wood
And it's just here organized religion deserves credit, that is, the concept of god many of us find untenable. At its best it preserves/instructs in, hope and wisdom.
I agree that organized religion has its value. I might describe my own journey (which I understand to be a progress) in terms of a series of better interpretations of Christian ideas presented to me as a child. The texts and rituals are raw material. My irreligiousness is just another kind of religiousness. Of course Jesus himself was a religious rebel.
I've read that sentence at least six or seven times now, but I can't any sort of grasp on what the heck it might be saying, exactly.
A simple example is that some people just will believe in God and others just will not. Occasionally we do shift our views suddenly, but as a general rule the dialectical clash of a theist and and atheist is not going to change the basic position of either. They are emotionally ("pre-rationally" or "irrationally" invested in being whatever they currently are. The theist has an orderly universe that makes sense and a foundation for his or her moral preferences. The atheist has either the radical freedom that comes with the death of god or the beauty/nobility of living without a "crutch."
I think this "cynical" view of mind stands out (a little at least) on a philosophy forum because those who bother to argue either position with strangers are likely all invested (no matter their differences) in the notion of a single or universal truth which can and ought to be possessed. As rule, philosophers model themselves after scientists rather than novelists. They (often implicitly) make a claim on a shared "logical space." Their truth is not only theirs. I don't claim to completely escape this structure myself. But this is where I drag in Nietzsche's idea of "rank" and modify it a little bit, so that it's a little less hierarchical and more pluralistic. I think we can "let go" of the goal of inscribing the One Truth For All by living with the reduced goal of inscribing the "truth" of our own type. So the universal philosopher thinks of himself as a scientist, a universal metaphysician and the local philosopher develops "software" for others who happen to run a particular operating system --which is to say a community defined in terms of a set of "pre-rational investments." In practice (in my view) the healthy ego tends to feel that such pre-rational investments and their consequences are those of the "highest" type. But my reasonable relativist is well aware that just about everyone counts himself among the chosen or superior.
Finally, a conversation within such a community is "rational" or reasonable in terms of shared "normalizing" axioms or investments. An intellectual community might be defined in terms of an implicit and perhaps un-formalizable set of criteria for valid or warranted assertions. The criteria in this set are not "rational" in that they cannot be justified within the system of rational assertion that they make possible in the first place. Popper's notion of falsifiability, for instance, is a suggested criterion that cannot justify itself, which is not to say that it's not worth adopting as a demarcation of science from non-science. We might think of the realm of "rhetoric" or "abnormal discourse" as the sort of conversation that installs or edits these criteria. Rhetoric persuades us to adopt this or that notion of the trans-rhetorical (true philosophy as opposed to sophistry). For me that's philosophy at its most radical and exciting. I get my itch for normalized discourse scratched by my day job (which involves an almost ideally "normalized" discourse.)
Terrapin StationJune 14, 2017 at 10:39#775130 likes
By 'investment' I'm trying to stress that we don't enter a discussion without prejudices. These prejudices might even be said to constitute our intellectual personalities. For instance, I'm an atheist. I don't think I'm an atheist for purely "logical" reasons.
Ah, I agree with that. "Pre-rational investment" didn't convey that for me, partially because "investment" suggests something more active than I'd say is warranted with the idea prejudices/biases.
With this: "We are taught to embrace and project universal systems (to understand religion as science and/or one-size-fits-all morality)," you don't mean that everyone is taught that, do you? I certainly wasn't taught that, for example.
Terrapin StationJune 14, 2017 at 11:01#775190 likes
A simple example is that some people just will believe in God and others just will not. Occasionally we do shift our views suddenly, but as a general rule the dialectical clash of a theist and and atheist is not going to change the basic position of either. They are emotionally ("pre-rationally" or "irrationally" invested in being whatever they currently are. The theist has an orderly universe that makes sense and a foundation for his or her moral preferences. The atheist has either the radical freedom that comes with the death of god or the beauty/nobility of living without a "crutch."
I kind of agree with this (and your comments below it), but (a) as I noted in the other post, I think that "investment" is often not warranted for it, and (b) I don't think that there's always an emotional component to it. My take on it is that it's often simply a disposition of how the person's brain works so to speak. It's more like a bunch of trees. There are some shapes, some arrangements of branches, etc., that just won't work for some trees (at least without breaking branches and trying to regrow them with particular physical constraints in place--which still might not work). There's nothing emotional about that. However, I'd agree that there's an emotional component in some cases.
Re my atheism, for example, I'd say I'm an atheist for two reasons: (1) I wasn't raised an atheist--in fact, I was raised so that religion simply wasn't broached in any way, which effectively amounted to an experiment to see what would happen when someone learned close to nothing about religion until relatively late in life, and the upshot of the experiment was that (2) religous beliefs simply strike me as being completely absurd. Learning about them was akin to suddenly learning that a huge percentage of people believe that there are alien, repitilian shape shifters all around us, and we need to wear suits made of tinfoil at home to protect ourselves (whereupon I learn that lots of people do wear those suits at home).
I wouldn't say there's an emotional component to that for me. In fact, I'd prefer to believe that I somehow continue to exist after I die, that I'd go to some heaven, etc. The problem is that it's not possible for me to believe that, given my dispositions. It's just like if I could choose, I'd believe in all sorts of "supernatural" stuff. I'd love to believe that ghosts are real; I'd love to believe that all sorts of cryptids exist--including things like vampies, werewolves, etc.; I'd love to believe that we are regularly visited by aliens, etc., I'd love to believe that magic, including black magic, etc. is real.--all sorts of things like that, as I love the fantasy of that stuff, and I love the idea of it being real to an extent where I read a lot of supposedly non-fiction about it, I regularly visit sites that are supposedly haunted, etc. (Of course, I regularly engage in fiction about it, too.) I want that stuff to be real. It seems to me that the world would be that much more fun if that stuff were real. But that doesn't enable belief. By disposition, I'm a very hardcore skeptic, to a point where I even believe that a lot of scientific ideas that are considered pretty mainstream are really fantastical nonsense that people believe (just like many believe in ghosts, etc.). So if it were emotionally guided, I'd believe a lot of stuff that I do not. But I simply can't "make myself" believe something just because I want to.
I'd love to believe that we are regularly visited by aliens, etc., I'd love to believe that magic, including black magic, etc. is real.--all sorts of things like that, as I love the fantasy of that stuff, and I love the idea of it being real to an extent where I read a lot of supposedly non-fiction about it, I regularly visit sites that are supposedly haunted, etc. (Of course, I regularly engage in fiction about it, too.) I want that stuff to be real. It seems to me that the world would be that much more fun if that stuff were real. But that doesn't enable belief. By disposition, I'm a very hardcore skeptic, to a point where I even believe that a lot of scientific ideas that are considered pretty mainstream are really fantastical nonsense that people believe (just like many believe in ghosts, etc.). So if it were emotionally guided, I'd believe a lot of stuff that I do not. But I simply can't "make myself" believe something just because I want to.
I suppose I'd ask why you couldn't make yourself believe. According to my prejudice or theory, this is just your attachment to intellectual honesty overpowering your desire to find the spooky stuff to be real. In short, I think in terms of collisions of forces. Consciousness is a vector sum. I also can't make myself believe stuff that I'd like to believe. I'm attached to an image of myself as nobody's fool, not even my own. That's a partial explanation.
To be sure, all kinds of irony and comedy become possible as demystifying theories turn on themselves. If we are all enacting hero myths (rationalizing pre-rational investments or poses), then what kind of hero or pose can bear the self-demystification in pointing this out? The theorist of endless role-play is himself a role conscious of himself as such. He knows that on some level he's just fucking around, a child at play with the serious, solemn grown-up words. It's hard to codify the "gingerbread man" and/or the "laughter of the gods," but I tend to look for (rarely finding) a gleam in the eye of the other that is not quite immersed or trapped in the pose or the game of the moment.
Terrapin StationJune 14, 2017 at 23:05#777070 likes
I suppose I'd ask why you couldn't make yourself believe. According to my prejudice or theory, this is just your attachment to intellectual honesty overpowering your desire to find the spooky stuff to be real. In short, I think in terms of collisions of forces. Consciousness is a vector sum. I also can't make myself believe stuff that I'd like to believe. I'm attached to an image of myself as nobody's fool, not even my own. That's a partial explanation.
I don't think I'm attached to the idea of "intellectual honesty" or anything like that. I just have certain dispositions that lead me to believe or not believe certain things. It's not anything I'm consciously doing (and I don't at all buy the notion of unconscious/subconscious minds).
It's not anything I'm consciously doing (and I don't at all buy the notion of unconscious/subconscious minds).
Where are your memories when you are not remembering them? To me it's pretty clear that we know far more than we can be conscious of at any particular moment.
I can't help but be a little skeptical about your disavowal of intellectual honest. I can relate to a certain irony about the virtue. It comes off a goofy if so-and-so praises himself in such terms. But would you really not be embarrassed to be accurately (in your own eyes) judged as a sloppy or dishonest thinker whose words do not deserve respect? I understand rejecting a externally imposed duty to be intellectually honest. But I view intellectual honest as another aspect of beauty and nobility, and I view beauty and nobility as what we just want to incarnate or be. I might speak of an internally imposed duty except that "internal" here stresses that I experience this urge as my true self so that "imposition" involve only what gets in the way of this incarnation project. For instance, a pious or sentimental proclamation of intellectual honesty seems (at least) emotionally dishonest in its sentimentality. Along the same lines a person might mock the authenticity project in order to authentically express his complexity/ambivalence.
We can reject every bearer of the "divine" or sacred predicates but perhaps not the allure of the predicates themselves. One form is rejected in the name of another.
With this: "We are taught to embrace and project universal systems (to understand religion as science and/or one-size-fits-all morality)," you don't mean that everyone is taught that, do you? I certainly wasn't taught that, for example.
I don't think we are taught this explicitly, but I do think we learn this by imitation. Science is explicitly objective and metaphysics and religion at least often project themselves as true-for-all and binding-for-all. Correct beliefs are correct independent of the believer. That's the usual idea. This is of course common sense itself in everyday life. But pretty soon ambiguous propositions about invisible deities like Jehova, Progress, Freedom make an appearance, so these kinds of propositions are often presented as valid for all.
Of course political discussions are almost universally about what "we" should do, as if all good people had the same interest. The "idiot" is the "irresponsible" "private person" who doesn't have sophisticated, solemn opinions about this We. That's one way I can make sense of "nihilist" or "relativist." If the nihilist shares that he's not interested in what "we" "should" think but only what he should think, then the non-nihilist is likely to translate this thoughtlessly into the assertion by the nihilist that nihilism ought to be embraced. This scarecrows the nihilist as an evangelist. The "universal" man doesn't have much use for merely first-person reports except as raw material to synthesize into objectivity, duty, and prohibition. (Maybe I'm exaggerating, but I'm trying to point at something that is easy to miss because it lurks in every background.)
Terrapin StationJune 15, 2017 at 12:32#778050 likes
Where are your memories when you are not remembering them?
They're potentials for particular mental content. It seems to me that mentality would be akin to "precipitation states" on a mountain, say. The mountain doesn't always have flowing water or snowpack etc. on its surface. It only sometimes has that. When there is flowing water or snowpack on its surface, the exact form it takes, the exact way it flows, is largely determined by the structure of the mountain itself. But that structure of the mountain isn't a precipitation state when it hasn't rained or snowed.
But would you really not be embarrassed to be accurately (in your own eyes) judged as a sloppy or dishonest thinker whose words do not deserve respect?
Doesn't matter to me. As it is, I am not of the impression that anyone on this board (or the previous board) particularly likes me or thinks that any of my contributions are of value. I just don't see that as my problem. ;-)
The only emotional commitment I have in the vein of what you're talking about is to enjoy myself, enjoy my life, and be myself--at least outside of what's necessary to make a living and remain unincarcerated, I'm not about to kowtow to how other people want me to be.
Re the second post, I've always been uncomfortable with normatives in that sense, and I grew up in a family where that was rather a norm (ironically, I suppose). As I mentioned, re religion, I had just about zero notion of religious beliefs until I was in my mid/later teens.
Not to oversimplify, isn't is basically "no truth, no meaning"? Seems like they work on that level. Relativistic nihilist, nihilistic relativist, either way is saying the same thing to me. Sorry if I'm coming off as a pedantic but I'm not an authority on this subject, not being omniscient.
Comments (282)
Pretty simple, actually, for they are self-refuting. The claim that all truth is relative is itself asserted absolutely. The claim that nothing has any meaning or value, if true, must itself have no meaning or value.
Although this really depends on what you mean by nihilism. If you mean it in the sense that there is no inherent fact of the matter (i.e. a discoverable fact like the speed of light as opposed to an imposed fact like the rules of chess), then sure; relativism likely entails nihilism. But it would be a mistake to go from "it is not an inherent fact that it is illegal for two women to marry" to "it is not a fact that it is illegal for two women to marry".
I think the natural ground to look at is communication, since the relativist and friend are talking to each other, understanding each other's assertions, and so on. The question is how much mileage you can get out of that. It might be a lot.
Then they're not relativists....
Quoting tim wood
Ignorance of the truth does not entail its nonexistence.
Quoting tim wood
I'm not seeing any great difference between asserting that something is true and asserting that one is right. "It is true that I am typing on a keyboard" and "I'm right that I'm typing on a keyboard" are making precisely the same truth claim.
Quoting tim wood
Uh, what? I don't see any flaw you've identified here.
Here is a definition of "relativism" from a dictionary site - "the doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute." That's not necessarily inconsistent with your definition, but I think yours misses an important emphasis - the lack of absolute standards.
Quoting tim wood
From a dictionary site - "The rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless." That definition and yours match well.
Quoting tim wood
Hey, I resemble that remark.
Quoting tim wood
First of all, refutation deals with demonstrating that a statement, theory, or belief is incorrect. Why would that lead to judging a relativist or nihilist as vicious? Incorrect is not the same as vicious. And what exactly does "act accordingly" mean in this context?
Has philosophy ever conclusively refuted anything? It certainly can't deal with nihilism and relativism because these philosophies deal not with matters of fact, but with matters of human value. Nihilism seems goofy to me. I think it is unequivocally at odds with human nature. Relativism, on the other hand, I would almost say is self-evident, unless an omnipotent and omniscient god is assumed.
Actually, I don't believe anything is self-evident. Still, I think belief in any kind of absolutism without the presence of God is hard to justify.
If you're interested in a detailed examination of relativist claims and examples of refutations, then I'd recommend Paul Boghossian's book: Fear of Knowledge; against relativism and constructivism (2006).
https://www.amazon.com/Fear-Knowledge-Against-Relativism-Constructivism/dp/0199230412
A perhaps more common kind of relativism is related to bullshit, which has been studied by Harry Frankfurt: On Bullshit (2005).
https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Harry-G-Frankfurt/dp/0691122946/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0691122946&pd_rd_r=TC7F1S6JA9ZZHVWZ3M0K&pd_rd_w=UCu2R&pd_rd_wg=lYeSY&psc=1&refRID=TC7F1S6JA9ZZHVWZ3M0K
I'm not a huge fan of his, but he recently pulled off another delicious Sokal hoax: http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/conceptual-penis-social-contruct-sokal-style-hoax-on-gender-studies/
Edit: Wrong Boghossian! I'll have to check Paul out now.
You might like Paul, that book is very well written. He also wrote an article about the original Sokal hoax in the 1990s which is available online here: http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/boghossian/papers/bog_tls.html
Bullshit took off in the 1960s, in ever so many ways.
Google Ngram
It's impossible in our current cultural context. That is because no agreed set of values or qualitative norms exist against which to adjudicate such claims. It's relatively simple in the example of change for a purchase because it's a quantitative matter. Another factor is that one fundamental plank of liberalism is the fact that the individual conscience is the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong. That actually developed out of the Christian and specifically Protestant understanding of the nature of the person. Now, however, the basis of the kind of sanctified ethos that was part and parcel of that theory of the person has been discarded, and with it any sense of the moral absolute. Now science has become the de facto arbiter of truth - but it deals in quantitative analyses, not qualitative judgement.
It's not meaningless. You understand what "it is illegal for two women to marry" means (or at least I expect you to, being that you seem to understand English). It's just that further qualifications are needed for it to have a truth value. And that's exactly the point that the relativist makes. Certain kinds of propositions – e.g. "it is illegal for two women to marry", and for the moral relativist "it is immoral for two women to marry" – must be contextualised to a particular country or culture (or in the extreme case of subjectivism, the feelings or opinions of the individual) for them to be either true or false.
And the relativist would agree. If they say that the truth of moral claims is relative to one's culture then they will also say that when qualified to a particular culture some given moral claim is absolutely true (or false). The distinction between relativism and absolutism is one that only really applies to broad statements like "it is immoral for two women to marry" and "it is illegal for two women to marry", not usually to qualified statements like "it is immoral for two women to marry in Saudi Arabia" and "it is illegal for two women to marry in Saudi Arabia".
Boghossian takes on philosophically far more interesting relativists than the postmodernists. Nelson Goodman, for instance.
Frankfurt invertigates the nature of bullshit, and does not even mention the word postmodernism, but he brings up, I think, a very interesting phenomenon where the relativist, in the assumed absence of truth, considers him/herself more sincere than those who belive in truth. Here's a description of it written by a reviewer of his book:
[quote=Petter Naessan";https://philosophynow.org/issues/53/On_Bullshit_by_Harry_Frankfurt"]when a person rejects the notion of being true to the facts and turns instead to an ideal of being true to their own substantial and determinate nature, then according to Frankfurt this sincerity is bullshit.[/quote]
I think the difficulty with summarising 'relativism' that way is that it's a strawman. Obviously such a relativism is bollocks.
But take the study of history. History can be studied, told and disputed from as many viewpoints as there are people in the world. The way we talk to each other about it, however, enables us to do this with as much science as can be brought into the arena. We agree certain standards that underpin our disagreements. The imperialist and the Marxist can inhabit the same common room or bar room and, for a start, accept certain 'facts' and certain criteria for 'facts'. They can also agree certain evidential standards for testimony and written records.
If you start from that sort of point - what are our conversational or disputational norms? - then to me relativism make reasonable sense. For example, I've been reading about placebos and that's made me think, there is no non-relativistic way of studying the effect of pharmaceutical products on human beings, because there is no way that the effects of the beliefs of both the 'patients' and the medical practitioners can be discounted. All the same, we can arrive at reliable enough assessments of the effects of pharamaceuticals, as long as scientists and their employers are transparent with the information they have, because we have established norms that satisfy any thinking critic.
Now, in the physical, chemical and biological arenas, maybe we can discount the effect of experimenters sufficiently that knowledge is in some sense 'absolute'. But if that were easy, Meillassoux wouldn't have had to tie himself up in knots (in my opinion) trying to demonstrate that to be the case. Even here, if you accept what Popper has to say, or something like it, we stand with only provisional knowledge, relative to an imagined future which might overturn our paradigms.
I'm a relativist, but in that I'm not saying anything about anyone's views "binding" or "not binding" anyone. What I'm saying in that primarily is that facts (states of affairs a la ontology) are relative to other facts. For example, P is the case from reference point x, but ~P is the case from reference point y. P might be "A is to the left of B," for a simple, non-controversial example, and of course y is a reference point from which A is to the left of B, while x is a reference point from which B is to the left of A.
That relativism certainly carries over to persons' views, their beliefs, the truth-values they assign to propositions and so on, but my concern is typically more one of ontology, in a general sense.
I'm also a nihilist in the way that you're defining that, if "ultimate/absolute mattering/value/significance" is supposed to denote objective mattering, valuation or significance, since I believe those things are subjective, not objective. Again, I'm making an ontological statement in that. I'm simply stating that those are things that persons' brains do--brains care about things, assign value to them, assign significance to them. Objects in the world other than brains, or the "world itself" in some general way, does not assign mattering, valuations or significance to anything.
So I'm a relativist and nihilist (I suppose), but I'm not denying that there are objective facts, and I'm not denying that things matter, have value, etc.--it's just that objective facts are relative to other objective facts, and mattering, valuing, etc. is (relative) to individuals.
And no, there would be no effective way to refute that, because you'd be arguing something that is wrong about the way the world is. (Although of course, relatively, you believe that your alternate view is correct.)
If by "right" you're referring to truth values (namely, assigning "T" to some proposition), in my view truth values are subjective judgments that individuals make about the relations of propositions to other things. It's a category error to try to "make that" something other than a subjective judgment about the relation in question.
When you realize that this is what truth values refer to (under my view, at least), then it's far less controversial that person A assigns "T" to P and person B assigns "F" to P. They're simply making different judgments about the relation of the proposition in question. And there's nothing to talk about other than the judgment that an individual person makes there. The idea of there being a "right" (or "wrong") judgment "beyond that somehow" is nonsensical.
It's not though. If I say, "'All truth is relative' is true," as a relativist, and as a truth-value subjectivist, I'm not saying that "'All truth is relative' is true" is anything but relatively, subjectively true to me--I'm reporting my judgment about that proposition to you. Certainly other people can and do assign "false" to that statement instead. And assigning "true" and "false" to it are nothing other than judgments that we make as individuals. I'd not be claiming that the "is true" part of "'All truth is relative' is true" is something other than a judgment that an individual makes.
Often what's happening there is that the truth-value non-relativist is reading their non-relativistic framework into the statement; they're not parsing it under whatever the relativist's notion of truth is.
I know, and I've stated it here on this board and the previous board at least a few times:
‘P’ is true for S iff S judges ‘P’ to have relation R to either S’s phenomenal P, and/or S’s stock of previously adjudged true propositions, depending on the relation R. Relation R is whatever truth theory relation S feels is the appropriate one(s)—correspondence, coherence, consensus, pragmatic, etc.
So in other words, what it is for some proposition, 'P' (quotation marks denoting the proposition literally as a sentence), to be true to some individual, some S, is for the proposition to have the relation R to S's phenomenal P (their phenomenal perception etc. of some state of affairs) or their stock of previously adjudged true propositions, in S's judgment.
That's all that truth value is.
The issue is that nothing has objective meaning, value, etc. It's not that there is no subjective meaning, value, etc. Meaning and value are things that individual persons do--they're basically ways that brains work. There's no meaning and value outside of that.
And nothing is illegal, except as the legislature says it is, and has the power to impose what it says.
Is this outrageous, or is it common sense?
It seems to me that you've moved away from taking issue with relativism and have moved on to taking issue specifically with moral relativism?
Because that works so well in a court of law.
Nonsense. I explained exactly what it is. Maybe it's that you didn't understand what I wrote?
That question doesn't make sense, because whether something is okay or not is a matter of someone's "private" or personal views. "Is this okay aside from anyone's personal views" is a category error.
And that's indeed a fact. What is is for something to be wrong is for people to feel that it's wrong. And in some situations people have the power to impose behavioral limitations based on those feelings.
There are certainly more or less common views, and when there's some significant consensus about a view, the people who hold that view can declare themselves (mentally) "healthy" for holding that view if they like, but it's just a common view . . . that doesn't make them objectively correct for their agreement. Of course, they're not objectively incorrect, either. Since there is no objectively correct or incorrect for this stuff. There are ways that people feel about things, and we interact and makes rules and such based on that.
Well-reasoned in whose assessment?
I don't have a horse in this race, Tim, and there is a certain sort of relativism I find worrisome, but I think we often have more to worry about from the absolutists. An ideology that is held to be above question can justify the most barbarous acts.
I don't think we refute such relativism, but instead we make it part of a set of agreed practices. What I think of as good moral practice happens within well-founded institutions, robust but flexible, with a strong justice system. That's because I'm a virtue man, and virtues require a sound polis or political structure.
Your list of abhorrent practices is interesting. What exactly is wrong with cannibalism? Why would moral rectitude rest on prohibitions rather than on maxims of good and bad behaviour?
In common English usage, when we're talking about physical rather than moral matters, incorrect and wrong are synonyms. They mean the same thing, with minor differences in tone. They are interchangeable. You make a distinction between them that I don't understand. I think you are using the words incorrectly. And wrongly. You are guilty of what you have been railing against - you're a linguistic relativist. Things mean what you think they mean, not what they actually mean.
Whatever, please explain the distinction you are making. What is all this about brass and silver idols?
Are true ideas ideologies? Do we have visual experiences of ideologies or objects? I'd say some ideas are not based on other ideas but brute facts. For example, that there is something. Some ideas are plausibly held above question.
Are you saying you're going to use force against people because they disagree with your philosophy? You talk about absolute moral values, I would have thought freedom of speech and thought would be included on that list.
I'll lay out my thoughts about what human morality represents. I think you will probably call my approach relativistic, but I'm not sure that you will. Here goes - Humans are social animals. We like each other. We live together in groups. I think what we call morality is a set of values built deeply into human nature, biologically and genetically. What are those values? Here is an impressionistic, personal list. Things that make sense to me. It's not intended to be complete, comprehensive, or even correct. I'll settle for plausibility.
Does this represent any kind of absolute set of values? Well, nothing human is really absolute. I see it like language - it's a physical, biological, and psychological part of human nature. It get's expressed differently in different cultures, different time periods, and under different conditions.
Also - I previously wrote that I don't think any kind of absolute values, moral or otherwise, are possible without an omniscient and omnipotent god. What are your thoughts on that?
I don't want to go getting into a discussion of "truth" here. There are 457 other threads where that has been beaten with a stick. Be that as it may, gurugeorge's discussion is just what I might call relativistic. I'm surprised that you approve.
You can, of course, fake data, misrepresent data, tendentiously interpret data, and so on, and you can accuse someone you disagree with of the same, but there's no room for someone to say baldly, "In my view, 3 is greater than 4."
I'm explaining the principle of relativism. The statement "it is illegal for two women to marry" is true in some places but false in others. This isn't absurd, it doesn't entail that two women marrying isn't illegal (in some places), and one cannot rationally respond to a charge of criminality with "but it's all relative!".
Curious? 4 is defined as being (1) greater than 3. It would be curious not to accept that 4 is greater than 3.
Unless you're curious that there's near universal acceptance of the definitions of terms?
Also, I am pretty sure that when most people claim to be relativists, the are saying they do not believe in morals or find them to be contextual. They are not claiming truth, as a whole, is relative.
Um, yeah. Math alone is treated as objective, as objectively true, by all parties to all arguments. That's ever so slightly an overstatement--I'm leaving to one side discussion of the foundations of mathematics. Outside of that vanishingly small exception, nothing even comes close to the universality with which mathematics is accepted.
Not even logic. Natural language is so complex, so much depends on context, on unstated assumptions, that people can argue endlessly whether A follows from B. They argue about the meanings of words. They argue about what words mean "to them," or what they "should" mean. They argue endlessly about what is and what isn't a fact. They argue about right and wrong and how you decide which is which.
But if an argument reaches a point where it's just a question of whether 4 is greater than 3, it's over.
I am getting a little tired of this misrepresentation of the relativist position. Here's a definition I used in a previous post on this thread - "the doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute."
In relation to culture, society, or historical context - not my opinion. To oversimplify - society defines and enforces moral values.
Math is only objectively true as long as it is abstract. When you start filling in the blanks with information from the real world, you get all the uncertainty and fog you do with any human enterprise.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
4 is greater than 3 by definition, not mathematics.
There are two issues there:
(1) To an extent, especially when we're talking about basic arithmetic, it's simply a factor of how humans (and perhaps persons in general--it might not be limited to humans) tend to think about relations on the most abstract level.
and
(2) Despite (1), I believe that the "near universal acceptance of mathematics" is commonly overstated. When we begin learning mathematics in school, there are quite a few kids who think that various aspects of it don't make a lot of sense. They come up with different answers that they feel are right instead. That disagreement is socialized out of them. And as one progresses in mathematics, more of it doesn't make a lot of sense to many people--things like imaginary numbers, the way that infinities are handled, etc.--I personally think that a lot of advanced mathematics is kind of ridiculous/arbitrary, for example, but by that point you've already been socialized into accepting it as a series of conventions that are followed, and to succeed in it as an academic discipline, you follow along whether you think there are good reasons for it being the way it is or not.
Everyone's criteria for whether some conduct is okay or not is their own opinion--how they feel about various types of conduct, whether following some conduct or not would result in a scenario that they feel positive about or not, and so on.
"Compelling arguments" in this milieu have to rest on and appeal to how individuals feel. (And part of that can be how they feel about functioning as social outliers or not--there is a whole complex of things involved.)
I don't really get what you have in mind with "adduce a general refutation" and "adduce specific refutations." You'd have to explain that in more detail.
What's absurd is relative, too, by the way.
The words are simply grammatical permutations. "That's the truth"="You've stated something that is true." "Truth-value"="the assignment of 'true' and 'false' to propositions" etc.
Yes, I saw the reference to gurugeorge's post. I could pick it apart if you like, but I'd rather have a more direct conversation with you than argue about someone else's comments.
It's not a strawman applied to me, and I disagree with framing morality as something cultural. Cultures do not think. They don't have views about conduct. Individuals do. Individuals interacting make up cultures, but the culture itself doesn't amount to something more than those individuals interacting and having the views they do. I'm a relativist where I believe that morals, truth, etc. are relative to individuals.
You and I are using the word "relativism" differently. As is my wont, I've gone to the internet and looked up five definitions
That doesn't really help much. The definitions are not consistent. Just for discussion's sake, let's use this definition - "The doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute." Does that position represent relativism to you? If not, what is it? Do you reject it in the same manner and for the same reasons you do what you have been calling "relativism."
I don't like the social/cultural emphasis of that.
We can certainly say that relative to one society something is legal whereas relative to another society it's not, and so on, but the reason for that is the individuals in that society and the way they're interacting. Morals (and other things) and ultimately relative to individuals.
I described a philosophical approach - "The doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute." Whether or not you like it, is it relativism? If not, what is it? It is clearly not absolutism.
Yeah, that's a type of relativism.
I was just saying that as a relativist myself, I don't like the emphasis on culture/society in that approach. I think it stresses norms/conformity (within cultures) too much and devalues individuals, when cultures/society are just collections of individuals and their interactions, their views, etc.
I like the emphasis on cultural and societal context. I think it makes a relativist position more rigorous and more consistent with human nature. Both your approach and mine seem consistent with the imprecise definition of the word.
One of us is missing the point, maybe it's me. We're exposed to lots of definitions, and people argue about those definitions, except when it comes to mathematics.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That may be. School and home try to socialize kids in all sorts of ways, but this is the only one that sticks universally, so far as I can tell.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That also may be.
I have no opinion to share at the moment on why it is so. My point is only what I said: mathematics holds a unique position.
If President Trump wants to claim that the crowd at his inauguration was bigger than the crowd at President Obama's, he can't just say, "I think 317,000 is more than 513,000." He has to say that the estimates of attendance at each event were wrong. Not only is that a good strategy, it's the only strategy because everyone on earth agrees that 513,000 > 317,000.
I brought it up because this thread was supposed to be about what happens when relativists and non-relativists argue. Well, one of the things that happens is that they agree on basic mathematics. They may disagree on where the numbers come from and what they mean. That might be ever so important to the argument. Not denying any of that.
@tim wood seems worried that there is no absolute truth that everyone accepts, and that not everyone even agrees there is such a thing. I'll grant that it's not what he wanted, but mathematics appears to me to enjoy universal acceptance.
Look at the way you guys are arguing over the definition of "relativism," and compare that to your behavior when it comes to math. Suppose you were having this argument over dinner and then split the check. It might take a few tries, but you would agree on an answer within minutes, after arguing for hours about the definition of a single word.
Yes, we could split the bill with few issues. We could just as easily agree that it was morally or ethically wrong when Tim Wood snuck off without paying. Absolutism vs. relativism doesn't really make much a difference on a day to day basis.
That all seems pretty absurd--and pretty arbitrary and kind of word salady--to me.
Quoting T Clark
Hows about one of you who have identified yourself as absolutist do something similar from an absolute point of view.
You can't refute any moral claims because moral claims are not true or false. They're ways that people feel. They're endorsements or rejections of behavior based on "feeling" ultimately.
"Just in case x is not refutable, then x is reasonable" is completely arbitrary. Whether something is reasonable is a matter of whether someone feels that conclusions follow from premises given by the way.
And re Kant's categorical imperative, that's simply a way that Kant felt about how interpersonal conduct should proceed. (And of course many other people feel the same way about it, but that's all it is.)
How would moral codes be "legitimate" or "illegitimate" in your view?
Quoting T Clark
I think you're right about that last point, and that's worth looking at closer.
I think you're wrong about the other bit. It's just as easy to imagine one of you excusing him and one of you not, for all sorts of different reasons. But it's inconceivable that you would have different "points of view" about the math.
Maybe "legitimate" is not the right word. Maybe "reasonable" is better. Reasonable in that basic principles are 1) clearly stated and 2) justified based on testable hypotheses about human nature. A (vague) mechanism by which those principles can be turned into a moral code (the action of society and culture) is then proposed.
Have you ever split up a bill before? "I think we should just split the bill three ways." "No way, I only had one drink but Bill had three and I had a hamburger and fries but Al had the lobster and an appetizer." "I only want to leave a 10% tip." "Separate checks please."
Agreed. But there aren't all that many questions that are just about the math. Math questions are easily answered without conflict not because they are special, but because they are, at this level, trivial. They are matters of fact like the capital of France or the number of ounces in a pound. We used to argue about that type of thing all the time. Now, with iPhones, calculators, and Google, we can't do it anymore.
That's an interesting view. I still think you're wrong, but now I'm intrigued by this idea of math as fact.
Why do I think you're wrong? Well, you got the capital of France readily, but what's the capital of Israel? For almost any fact you can think of, there's probably someone out there who denies it.
I'm really glad you brought this up though, because I think I have an idea now why math is different. What counts as a fact, what we assert as true, is intimately related to what counts as evidence for it, and people can predictably disagree about evidence and its interpretation, and some of those debates are just unresolvable.
But think about math. The connection between a mathematical fact and the evidence for it is really quite different from everything else.
On that note, when Galileo said that 'the book of nature is written in mathematics', he was plainly trying to bring the same mathematical rigour to the study of nature. That is why he is a seminal figure in modern science. Rather less appreciated is the fact that this grew out of his interpretation of Plato, for whom 'dianoia' - knowledge of mathematics and geometry - had higher intrinsic value that either opinion or sensory knowledge, because it's objects were ideal and invariant. And that Platonist influence in turn grew out of the rediscovery of Plato by the Renaissance humanists, such as Ficino, who translated Plato's works into Latin.
Subsequently, when we talk in terms of 'scientific knowledge', we almost invariably refer to something mathematically quantifiable. After all virtually the whole of physics is now mathematical physics. But in so doing, the original philosophy behind Galileo's method, and indeed Galileo's broader philosophical assumptions, are generally forgotten. For us, it's simply 'scientific truth' which is as near as we're going to get to truth in the general sense.
I disagree. As I said, at the level we are discussing, i.e. restaurant bills and similar situations, math is just arithmetic. It's trivial. The capital of Israel is complicated in the same way that me paying for your lobster when all I had was a hamburger is complicated. When human judgment gets involved, nothing is easy. This web site provides dozens, hundreds, of examples of that. We'll argue about anything.
But we can even go further. There are people who cannot do arithmetic (learn the symbolic sequence) and for them there is disagreement with all those who can.
I'm going to keep saying, "except math." @Terrapin Station might assert that truth is whatever he says it is, in both the general and specific senses, but even Terrapin is not going to assert that 2 + 2 = 5, or, more importantly, something like "To me, 2 + 2 = 5, even if for you 2 + 2 = 4." Nobody ever says anything like that. Math is out of reach of all sorts of controversy, both in fact and in principle.
Quoting Rich
Do you have an example in mind of an alternative interpretation of "1 + 1 = 2"? Have you had experience with someone claiming "1 + 1 = 2" means something different from what you think it means? Relativism floods in a whole lot of places, but I really don't see it flooding in here. What does this math relativism you speak of look like?
It is true, though, that I'm rapidly running out of room here as I back into this corner. There are controversies that relate to the "higher mathematics" that Terrapin has doubts about, and there are controversies about the foundations of mathematics. There are philosophical differences about what I guess we'll have to call the "interpretation of mathematical symbolism." But these are really quite different from issues like what the capital of Israel is, whether I said I'd arrive at 7 or 8, whether Oswald acted alone, etc. And the goal is almost never some sort of relativism--it's usually still the nature of the one mathematics that's at stake. (We're getting farther afield here, which I suppose is my fault, but not to worry, because we're nearing the edge of my "expertise" too.)
It is also true that I cheated a little in my last post. The evidence most people actually rely on for the basic facts of arithmetic is either "That's what I learned in school," or "That's what the calculator/computer says." But if you consider the possibility of debate, which is what we're interested in here, there is always an effective decision procedure to determine whether a mathematical statement is true or false. That's true for mathematics bottom to top. What counts as a proof changes as you move from bottom to top and back, but the core remains the same: an effective decision procedure. So I had this in mind as the ultimate backstop for arguments over mathematics, whether or not it's actually accessible to the people who happen to be having the argument. So there's evidence and there's evidence.
So to get back to splitting the check and such: only an effective decision procedure, even if it's just a calculation on your phone, can settle mathematical arguments--no effective procedure, no truth--but an effective decision procedure is always available to settle any such dispute. (Until Fermat's Last Theorem was proven, no one knew whether it was true. Now we do.) There's no room to debate what to count as evidence, or how to interpret the evidence, and so forth. I guess people sort of know that, though maybe not explicitly, so they just don't argue about math the way they argue about other questions of fact. There's no point. There is also no room for "my math" and "your math," "math as I see it" and "math as you see it," etc.
For the purpose of this thread, it might be worthwhile to characterize other fields of argument by how they differ from mathematics.
PS: Should have said this too: Note that mathematicians have never argued about whether Fermat's Last Theorem is true. They might argue about whether it was likely to be true, whether it was likely we would ever have a proof, what approach might work, and so on, but there was universal acceptance for the method of deciding whether it was true: show us the proof. What other field has that kind of unanimity?
This is an interesting point to reach. R G Collingwood's view of metaphysics (thanks to a poster on the old forum for ever pointing me in that direction some years ago now) was that it involved asking a series of questions of any philosopher. Whenever their work answers a question, you ask a deeper question of their work. Finally you reach some sort of bedrock: the answer that provokes no questions. These answers for him are that philosopher's metaphysics: their absolute presuppositions, rooted in their historical situation and their personal outlook. Oddly enough Collingwood held such a relativist view and yet remained a practising Anglican.
Quoting tim wood
Nazi practices were purportedly based on certain beliefs. It seems to me always open (a) to question rationally whether certain beliefs really do underpin the relevant practices; and (b) to burrow into the core of a belief rather than take it at face value.
Eugenics, for instance, was a shared belief among Nazi and some Western intellectuals at a certain time, and I have seen it alleged that we have returned to it in a different form, in genetically manipulating offspring. There are excellent reasoned arguments for it, even though we might find it repugnant.
I don't think, for instance, you can 'refute' the idea that one 'race' or 'people' is inferior to another. You can critically undermine the terms, and demonstrate that what might be left of the idea lacks evidence in its favour. Then you can commit - the existential moment - to anti-racism, as lots of people do. But that's not going to amount to a 'refutation' that would be likely to prevail against a broad sincerely-held belief.
That doesn't sound like relativism to me, and it sounds like you believe that oughts can be derived from is's.
I wouldn't normally say that, but I'd agree with the idea of it.
I would point out that the truth value of the cognitive relativist's claim that their statement "all truth is relative" is only relatively or subjectively true for them would likewise be only relatively or subjectively true for them, and thus can be disregarded at will by the non-relativist (or other cognitive relativists, for that matter). Little, if anything, a cognitive relativist says can carry probative force.
Of course.
Quoting Arkady
And of course it can be and often is disregarded.
Not that that depends on truth being relative. One can disregard something if truth isn't relative, too. People can disregard all sorts of things if they like.
If only the fact that people can disregard things had any particular significance.
You're probably also disregarding that it's an objective fact that truth is relative. But whether a statement about that fact is true or false is subjective of course.
1+1=2 is essentially 5 arbitrary symbols strung together that we are taught in elementary school to accept by rote. Inherently it has as much meaning as any string of symbols. Without further meaning one can just stare at it with bewilderment?. It is when one starts applying meaning to it, e.g. one apple and another apple is two apples that we begin to inject relativism. Exactly what makes two apples? You would have to start defining an apple and then all heck breaks loose in the same way that trying to define relativism creates problems.
Yeah, to even get at the concept of a unit that can be counted you need to learn to conceptualize things in a particular way. So it's basically noting a supposed uniformity a la "if you play the game of conceptualizing things this way, then you conceptualize things this way."
I don't think we will resolve our differences on this matter. Whatever I say will just be a repeat of something I said before, so I'm going to leave this dead horse alone for now. That doesn't mean I won't be willing to continue at a later time.
Isn't that true of any except the simplest idea, perhaps something as definite as mathematics as Srap Tasmaner has been writing.
No, no, I insist.
More evidence - we'll argue about anything.
Of course, symbols like "1" and "2" and "+" aren't inherently meaningful, but I would say they acquire meaning for us when we are taught how to use them to do math, not when we apply them.
I also agree that application can be messy, but that takes the math end as settled, as given. The poster child for this is the sorites and friends.
[Bonus apple math trivia: apples are sized not by diameter or weight or something, but by how many will fit in a standard box, so 120's are smaller than 90's.]
I used to love going out to dinner with my Dad and his brothers, because when the check came, there was what I called "the dance of the 20's," as they each started tossing 20-dollar bills out and picking up each other's and tossing them back.
Perhaps that is a good definition of "relativism." Or is that what you were saying.
As I said in a previous post, here is a possible answer to the question "what grounds them?
Quoting T Clark
I think "play the game" is a little tendentious. There is uniformity, but we have no idea why. Maybe it's cultural, maybe linguistic, maybe it's hard-wired, maybe something else. Maybe evolution nailed it, and maybe it fucked us over. Maybe it's optional, maybe it's not. Maybe Davidson is right, and the very idea of competing conceptual schemes is incoherent. I don't think the dismissive description you give here quite captures the range of issues at stake.
I like the phrase "play the game" in this context and I don't see it as dismissive. I don't think "we have no idea why." We have too many ideas why, as you have listed. The way I see it, humans are hard wired to see patterns. We can't help telling stories. Math is one of our stories. Physics, religion, democracy, absolutism, relativism. Another way to say the same thing is that we play games. I acknowledge I have spent a lot of time thinking about this issue and I still have work to do.
I know you are, but what am I? Or - Oh yeah!? Or something like that
Anyway, I have already given, in this thread, a reason or two to think math is quite different. There are more, but I guess that should wait for another thread.
The thing is that it's trivially clear that people can conceptualize it in a different way. Again, people (students mainly, because of the social circumstances) do disagree with conventional mathematics, all the way back to the beginnings of arithmetic The degree of widespread agreement about it is typically overstated.
… First, a current event: USA has recently pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement, internationally leaving it in the sole company of Syria and Nicaragua (but Nicaragua is not part of the agreement due the agreement’s not going far enough to protect against global warming; so, imo, it’s a false positive).
Q1 (regarding concrete facts of the recent past): Is the facticity of just stated current event being right (i.e., correct) dependent on how people feel about it so being and their beliefs—such that the stated current event ceases in being a fact were individuals (and cohorts composed of these individuals) to not believe that this current event actually occurred?
Q2 (regarding predicted facts concerning the future): In relation to global warming, is the appraised factuality of its occurrence right (i.e., correct) in manners fully dependent upon what people believe and feel—such that, for one example, global warming would reach lethal levels for humanity (and a good number of other species) if unchecked only were all people of the world to believe and feel that it will? [Therefore: don’t believe in human caused global warming and global warming will cease to be a factual aspect of the world you inhabit.]
Q3 (regarding abstract generalities concerning factuality obtained via a hypothetical): If an ostrich were to place its head in a hole in the ground upon seeing a lion attacking, would the danger to the ostrich then vanish and thereby rescue the ostrich from being harmed?
Q4: If any of the aforementioned questions are answered with a “no”, how does the relativist justify the answer of “no” without relying upon some absolute? … such as that of objective reality, i.e. a reality that occurs regardless of the beliefs and feeling of individuals (and cohorts comprised of these)?
If you think that 2 + 2 might be equal to 5 rather than 4, then you have not yet learned what these symbols mean.
Some of your wording is confusing to me, but in a nutshell:
It's important for understanding my views that one understand the distinction between true/false (or truth-value) and fact. I follow the very noncontroversial analytic philosophy view that truth-value is a property of propositions, and truth-value is distinct from facts, which are states of affairs ("in the world"). What I think that amounts to on the truth end, exactly, is fairly idiosyncratic and controversial, but my view of truth and the distinction between truth and fact stem from that very standard analysis.
So truth, on my idiosyncratic view, is a judgment that individuals make about the relation of a proposition to other things. Thus, whether a particular proposition about about the Paris Climate Agreement is true or false depends on an individual's judgment. Truth is relative to individuals. (I can get into why I believe that's the case in more detail if we need to, but I want to refrain from making my reply too long.)
This is a very different matter than talking about facts re the Paris Climate Agreement. Remember, facts are states of affairs, not propositions about states of affairs, or properties of those propositions, or judgments about those propositions.
Facts are still relative on my view. They're relative to other states of affairs, which is ultimately a way of saying that from different reference points or reference frames in the sense of physics for the latter, a given state of affairs will have different properties. So, for a simple example, from a reference frame moving at the speed of light, any "happenings" at the Paris Climate Agreement were effectively frozen in time.
Being stern about one's one view isn't actually an argument. That people are stern in that manner is one of the reasons that disagreements wind up socialized out of mathematics, however, especially when we're talking about people progressing into more advanced mathematics.
I'll grant it was poorly worded. Sometimes we are uncertain until we have carried out the calculation.
So I'll say it this way: if you think you can prove that 2 + 2 = 5, and that 2 + 2 ? 4, then you don't yet understand the meaning of these symbols. It may be as simple as mixing up "4" and "5."
Proofs are simply relative to the formal systems we set up. A proof in system x is simply a matter of a conclusion incorrigibly following in system x, per the definitions, inference rules, etc. that we've set up as system x.
Thank you for your own views, TS.
If you are upholding that facts are not relative to feelings and beliefs, but to themselves, how do you establish this to be the state of affairs—i.e., the fact of the matter—without also affirming that this appraisal is itself relative to your own beliefs and feelings?
[emphasis provided because that is the missing link I don't yet understand]
"Establish this to be the state of affairs--i.e., the fact of the matter" sounds like you're instead saying "Determine whether the proposition 'Facts are not relative to feelings and beliefs' is true." Would you agree with that? I just want to clarify this before explaining more.
Would you grant that this is a somewhat different way of establishing the truth of a proposition than obtains in, say, physics, history, politics, bar-room linguistics, etc.?
(Btw, my intention earlier was to be succinct, not "stern." I'm just an average joe, not a member of some cult.)
Funny, I’m not a correspondence theorist of truth only on grounds that for me truth is (pithily expressed) “fidelity to that which is objective reality" (hence making sense of semantics such as "the arrows aim was true" and "staying true to oneself"). Takes a lot for me to justify this position, and this isn’t the place for me to try; still, the point of this being: though I’m not a correspondence theorist of truth, to me the notions presented by correspondence theory become one necessary form that truth takes … this via fidelity to objective reality.
This off the beaten path view, however, requires that there be a state of affairs (physical, metaphysical, or both) that is absolute, i.e. not relative--namely, that of objective reality.
To avoid this whole notion of what truth is and what it stands in relation to (never mind the issue of objective reality), I intentionally first used the words “right (i.e., correct)” in my first post in this thread. Likewise with my last given question: I asked for means of justification for the addressed state of affairs—and not whether or not the state of affairs addressed was true.
So, no, I disagree with your interpretation of my latest question (in part due to our likely different, and slightly contradicting, understandings of truth—with your understanding likely not affirming anything non-relative to which truths stand in relation).
Instead, my latest question can better be interpreted as asking how one justifies facticity without reliance upon a notion of something absolute (with "absolute" here interpreted as "something not relative that nevertheless is regardless of beliefs and feelings").
[… But all this should be taken in the context of my first post on this thread to which you first replied. More succinctly expressing its contents: if facticity too is dependent upon beliefs and feelings, then do particular facts cease to be when people (and/or ostriches) don’t believe in them?]
Should have addressed this before...
Can you name me one business, government, non-profit, in fact any institution of any kind anywhere in the world today that takes an "alternative view" of basic math. (I say "basic math" because few institutions are concerned with, say, axiomatic set theory.)
For comparison, there are, particularly with the rise of data science, lively and valuable debates within what we could loosely call the "statistics community" over the interpretation of Bayesian and frequentist statistics, and the value of different approaches to different problem domains. There is also the so-called "p-value crisis" in the social sciences. In none of these cases is there debate about the math side of things--everyone agrees on that--but about how it's applied and how the results are interpreted.
Well, empirical claims are not provable. Proofs only work in formal systems we've set up, within the context of which a conclusion can not be wrong.
Then I don't really understand the idea. Facts do not need any sort of justification. They're simply the way that things are. That doesn't mean they're not relative (part of the way that things are is relative--for example, properties are relative to reference "points" (spatio-temporal points)).
The only facts that hinge on beliefs, feelings, etc. are facts of beliefs, feelings, etc. For example, the fact that Joe is sad that the Miami Heat weren't in the playoffs this year.
Re "institutions," it's certainly not anything that I keep track of either way, so who knows?
But I'd guess that there aren't many institutions that even have a view (so to speak) of basic math, period. That, to me, implies a philosophical position, and Kentucky Fried Chicken, the National Park Service, etc. are not really in the business of having philosophical views on mathematics.
Not that this is relevant to the point I was making of course.
Yet this eludes the very issue that I’m raising.
“Facts are simply the way that things are” means what in your own perspective? Is ‘the way that things are’ non-relative to beliefs and feelings (hence absolute as previously defined by me: “something not relative that nevertheless is regardless of beliefs and feelings”) or is it relative to beliefs and feelings (and thereby malleable by beliefs and feelings)?
Quoting Terrapin Station
I myself don’t follow this. If, for example, it is a fact that Joe is sad (at time A, for greater clarity), then Joe being sad at time A is a state of affairs that ‘simply is the way it is’ regardless of what anyone might believe or feel about it … including what Joe might self-delude himself into believing (and remembering) at a subsequent time B.
... In which case, facts about beliefs, feelings, etc., are not malleable by beliefs, feelings, etc. (Assuming I'm interpreting this last quote correctly.)
Hey, my last post of the day. But I am curious to better understand your own position.
I think that the facticity of Usa's withdrawal from the Paris accord is related to some powerful peoples beliefs. Michael Bloomberg for instance has already said that the Usa through its cities and citizenry will meet its Paris obligations. So we might arrive at a point where the de facto position is different from the official one. But generally, facts are established by good practice, as demonstrated by the steps Facebook has taken to employ fact-checkers to diminish or identify as fake fake news. The disbelief of most biologists, for instance, in the factuality of certain reported findings would convince me. Reports by newspapers of record that the usa has quit the Paris accord convince me of the formal position.
Your remarks about predictions for the future, i didn't understand. There can't be facts about future anthropogenic global warming. I think most scientists think it's likely to be true, and that on the precautionary principle the best bet is to assume they're right.
Hi. I would stress ultimate here. A nihilist perhaps reasons (1) that he will die and (2) the human species will become extinct. My personal death argues that all value is temporary. I act now in terms of a finite future, which is to say in terms of hopes and fears that do not extend indefinitely into the future. I may fantasize that I can contribute to science, art, or philosophy for instance in a way that gives me a sort of immortality. I can "crystallize" my personality in some work that will survive me. I "upload" my best self or spiritual fingerprint by adding this work (which hopefully is truly great and maintained in the minds of those who survive me), and I can enjoy this notion while still alive. I can comfort myself that death will not be as absolute as it might otherwise be. But (2) or the eventual extinction the species threatens even this comfort. It seems that even Newton, Shakespeare, and Plato will be erased --will become as if they had never been. From this perspective everything is radically temporary. Nothing is ultimately meaningful. Everything is finally empty or rather emptied or erased. To me this is both terrible and beautiful. This realization (or rather belief/myth) creates a "space" outside of everything finite. Life becomes a vivid dream. The only absolute is the impossibility of any other absolute.
The simplified answer is yes, facts are not relative to feelings or beliefs. If you call that "absolute" okay, but I don't know why we'd take "relative" to only refer to being relative to beliefs, feelings, etc. The word "relative" certainly doesn't conventionally imply that.
Quoting javra
The idea is simply that "facts in no way depend on feelings or beliefs" is false. Facts depend on feelings and beliefs when we're talking a out facts about feelings and beliefs. There's no fact that S believes that P if S doesn't believe that P. So in that sense, some facts depend on beliefs (and feelings, etc.)
There is stuff out there but everyone sees it differently.
What people do is attempt to come to some consensus based upon common experiences and call it a fact. Thus if it looks like a duck, and whacks like a duck, it's a duck-but maybe not. Consensus tends to change over time as perspectives change.
It is hopeless attempting to establish facts in a continuously changing universe where perspectives are constantly changing. We do the best we can for practical purposes.
I've been going through a bunch of posts which ask what firm base relativists nail their facts to. I have my answer ready, but you've beaten me to the punch. It's consensus. Even if you believe there is some final, definitive, concrete ground of being, e.g. objective reality, which I don't, the only thing we have to work with on a day to day basis is agreement among them what knows. Consensus.
Yes. I agree. There probably is something out there. Probably some wave patterns that the brain reconstructs as some sort of hologram. But everyone is perceiving it differently so there are disagreements and agreements. You and I may agree and disagree on this question but we attempt to reach a consensus. We may call this consensus a fact if we wish, if we agree to call it such.
Nothing in reality is immune from relativism unless you assume the existence of objective reality, which I don't. I think the concept of objective reality can be useful and productive in some situations. On the other hand, it can keep us from recognizing the extent to which human interactions influence our view of truth.
The thought that objective reality does not, might not, or need not exist is not a new or radical one. If its existence is a fixed absolute, then there is no need to continue this conversation.
I don't hate this formulation, but I think it's a bit cute. It avoids the main issue with verbal sleight of hand. The scope of nihilism, as normally discussed, doesn't deal with things happening billions of years from now. It deals with human lives now and especially human values and institutions.
First of all "what is reality?" is a question of metaphysics. It doesn't have an answer. It only has different ways of looking at things that are more or less useful. Do I have what I consider useful ways of looking at the question? Yes. There are many other threads on this website which deal with the question. I'm guessing you have participated in at least one. Examining the issue will take forever, go round in circles, and never get resolved.
Just fyi for anyone reading my comments in this thread (or elsewhere). I don't use "facts" in that sense. I only use "facts" in the "states of affairs" sense.
As a realist, facts in no way depend on there being humans or persons. If no life existed, the world would still be overflowing with facts.
What do you call statements that describe facts?
I don't know if that's what javra was getting at with me. If so, that's why there was some confusion. Given the way that I use "facts" and that I'm a realist, (the simple version is that) facts aren't things that people do, facts are what the world does.
Propositions.
As can be ascertained by my statement, I view facts as a manifestation of inter-human behavior.
What is out there is simply a mass of waves that are constantly in flux. It is the human mind (acting as a reconstructive wave) that manifests some images that we perceive from our individual perspectives.
What's out there and in here are undergoing constant change, the amount of change we are perceiving is dependent upon our internal time clocks, and when there is some agreement (because it is changing slow enough for agreement to take place) people agree to call it a fact.
Then what do you call statements that don't describe facts?
I think there is an objective reality--the subjective part of reality is only a very small part of it--but objective reality is not at all immune from relativism.
Again, by "relativism," I'm not at all implying anything about people.
The same thing would be the case if there were no people, if there was no life.
If one judges a proposition to correctly describe facts, it's a true proposition.
If one judges a proposition to incorrectly describe facts, it's a false proposition.
"Description" doesn't imply "correct."
But what about a proposition that actually describes (or doesn't describe) a fact, irrespective of our judgements?
Mind-independently? That's a nonsensical idea.
I'm having that same discussion in another thread at the moment, too.
But you believe in objective states-of-affairs; of there being facts even in the absence of people. How does this not entail that some statements can describe facts even if judged not to (or vice versa)?
Yeah, definitely. That in no way implies that propositions would objectively, accurately describe facts or not.
It sounds like we have completely different ontologies. If I weren't a realist then yeah, I'd need some other conception of facts. I'm just a garden variety realist though
Objectively, "There are two balls in that bag" is just some pixels activated on a monitor (or mobile device screen or whatever the case may be).
And "facts in no way depend on there being humans or persons. If no life existed, the world would still be overflowing with facts" is just some pixels activated on a monitor.
Notice how this doesn't actually address the issue?
The issue is that objectively there's no "accurately describing" or not of a proposition. It's a matter of an individual judging whether the proposition matches. I had explained that, and you said "what about actually (correctly) describing" as if it would be something different. Descriptions don't match or not match anything mind-independently.
And that also includes the proposition "there are objective facts that in no way depend on there being humans of persons"?
Of course.
Well you seem to be conflating propositions and what propositions are about (facts) at this point.
There is something real out there but whatever it is under constant flux. How we each perceive it is also under constant flux, but something about it may be just consistent enough for a long enough duration that humans may form a consensus to call it a fact. However, this is very much a rarety, which is why so-called facts are in constant dispute.
Facts are useful but unfortunately are subject to constant change.
I agree with that. The flux out there is the facts. (Well, keeping it simple again, when I detailed the exception earlier that just caused confused, so I'll keep it simple.)
No, you are. When I talk about the fact that there are two balls in the bag you respond by saying that the proposition "there are two balls in the bag" is just pixels.
If one of the objective facts is that there are two balls in the bag then the proposition "there are two balls in the bag" actually describes a fact, even if I were to judge otherwise.
You specifically asked me about descriptions, right?
What I disagree with is the idea that the proposition "there are two balls in the bag" mind-independently describes anything, correctly or incorrectly.
I asked you what you call a statement that describes an objective fact and what you call a statement that doesn't describe an objective fact. As an example, I offered the fact that there are two balls in a bag and the propositions "there are two balls in the bag" and "there are three balls in the bag".
Right and I answered that.
A fact to me had to be more concrete, immobile to be useful. It is a movement that had been conceptualized as from. A photograph.
What's out there, on the other hand, is just a mass of stuff (whatever it may be) that is constantly in flux. One can say that in total it is a fact as the Universe of Everything. This would translate to the Dao or God or whatever Absolute that one embraces.
No you didn't. You told me what you call statements that are judged to describe a fact and that the proposition is just pixels on a screen. But I want to know is what you call a statement that actually describes the objective fact that there are two balls in the bag.
I wouldn't say there is anything immobile. And I'd say everything is concrete, in the sense of material. There's a flux out there, and a flux in here. Everything in in flux. And it's all material, in particular relations, undergoing particular processes.
And I told you that "accurately," as in mind-independently or objectively, as opposed to subjectively judged, when it comes to whether propositions describe anything, correctly or incorrectly, is a nonsensical idea in my view.
So these objective facts are fundamentally ineffable?
You could say they're "objectively ineffable." But we're subjects. We describe things subjectively. The idea of an objective description, in a literal sense, is a category error.
So how do you conceive of these objective facts? What sort of things do you imagine them to be, particularly when nobody is around?
If we agree all is in flux, then the fact must also necessarily be in flux, creating as far as I can tell a unique meaning to the term fact. It's OK, as long as everyone understands your meaning.
I'm terms of materiality, this term itself is rather malleable as the nature of stuff is not clear. Ultimately the nature of facts is directly dependent upon how one views this stuff and how the mind manifests this stuff as perception. So different ontologies will lead to disagreement as to the nature of facts.
I don't really have any idea what you're asking there. Are you asking for something like a blueprint of how concept-creation works?
An example of an objective fact would be a good start.
I agree with that, but I don't agree with this:
Quoting Rich
I think that puts too much emphasis on us, which I think is an all-too-common error in philosophy.
Oh. That's easy. There's a blue bucket in my bathroom, for example.
Right. Then if there being a blue bucket in your bathroom is an objective fact then "there is a blue bucket in your bathroom" actually describes an objective fact and "there isn't a blue bucket in your bathroom" doesn't.
Not in the sense of mind-independently or objectively, as opposed to per one's judgement, because there is no such thing as a mind-independent or objective correct/incorrect description.
A former English teacher of mine also insisted that an author's writing were completely distinct from the author. I argued back that it is impossible to separate the creator from the creation. They are entangled forever. Whatever we conceived creates a permanent entanglement. There is no way to disengage.
You seem to be misunderstanding the issue. It's not a case that we agree on what the objective fact is but disagree on which words describe that fact. It's that we disagree on what the objective fact is.
For example, if one person were to say "it's wet" and another person were to say "it's dry", it's not that what the first person means by "it's wet" is what the second person means by "it's dry", as if they have some mirrored language, and are simply disagreeing on which words describe the objective fact that the ball is covered in water. They have the same language. They agree on which words describe which facts. They just disagree about whether or not the ball is covered in water.
In a thought experiment where we're positing that we know they have just the same meanings in mind, etc, then yes, sure, they disagree on whether or not the ball is covered in water, which means that they are making different judgments about how the proposition relates to the world.
I agree with you there. I just don't think that the world is our creation.
I clearly don't believe that we create the world (universe) but I do believe we are all involved (entangled) in a continuous co-creation (more Bergson).
And those judgements can be wrong. If, as a matter of convention, we accept that the proposition "X" refers to a particular state of affairs obtaining and that the proposition "not X" refers to that state of affairs not obtaining then if that state of affairs obtains then "X" is true and "not X" is false, even if we judge otherwise. Because as you've said, the facts are independent of us.
Again, we're not just disagreeing over which words describe the agreed-upon fact. We're disagreeing over the fact.
Only in other persons' judgment. They can't be wrong objectively or mind-independently, because there is no objective meaning, no objective reference, etc.
The only way it makes any sense for "X" to refer to a particular state of affairs is for us, subjectively (and individually), to decide for "X" to refer to a particular state of affairs, and what it is for "X" to refer to a particular state of affairs is for us to think about "X" and the state of affairs in a particular way. "X" only refers in the exact way that each individual thinks about it (even if in a thought experiment, we assume they all think the "same").
Outside of us thinking about it that way, "X" doesn't mean anything and "X" doesn't refer to anything.
So while the state of affairs obtains or not independently of us (assuming it's something independent of us of course), "X" referring to anything doesn't obtain independently of us. That's a category error. So "X" can't be true or false mind-independently.
That misses the point, as I've explained. We're not disagreeing over how to describe an agreed-upon fact. We're disagreeing over the fact.
Quoting Terrapin Station
And if we subjectively agree that "X" refers to a particular state of affairs, and if that state of affairs doesn't obtain, than "X" doesn't describe a fact, even if we judge that it does. Again, the above shows that you're missing the point. We're disagreeing over which states of affairs obtain, not over which words refer to the states of affairs that do obtain.
You can't literally "think the fact." The fact is the state of affairs in the world.
So I'm not talking about disagreeing on how to describe the fact either. I didn't say anything that at all suggests that. What would be disagreed upon is the relation between the "identical" description in both cases and the world. People are making judgments about that relation. The world itself can't make judgments about that relation, because the world, sans minds, has no meaning, no reference, etc. There's no way in the world sans minds to set up any sort of "matching" (or not matching) relation between something like a text mark, "X" and some other fact(s).
No. That makes no sense, because the only way that could possibly work would be for X to mean something, to refer to something, independently of how we think about it. But that's not how it works. Meaning and reference are how we think about it, and there's nothing else to it.
I'm not sure that I follow all of this. I think you're missing the point in saying that "people can disregard all sorts of things if they like." My point was that, by the cognitive relativist's own lights, his interlocutor can not only disregard the relativist's claim that "all truth is subjective/relative," but also the relativist's response that the truth that "all truth is relative" is true only for him (and other relativists, presumably).
It makes perfect sense. If we agree that "it is raining" refers to a state of affairs where water falls from the clouds, and if water isn't falling from the clouds, then "it is raining" is false, even if we believe that water is falling from the clouds.
The very fact that you're trying to argue that you're right and that I'm wrong shows that you understand the logic of this.
There are those of us who don't agree, at least not in any absolute way. Facts are human. Stories we tell ourselves.
When you say you are a realist, do you mean you find that a useful approach to understanding and living in the world, or are you claiming some sort of privileged perspective?
A universe in continuous creation and flux can be imagined as a continuously rotating kaleidoscope. This would be the one and only fact, as far as I can ascertain, using Terrapin Station's definition and ontological perspective. The Stuff or the Universe is The Fact.
Also Lao Tzu.
Is this the way things are, or one of the ways things are.
I would say it is a perspective.
The Dao that we speak of is not the Dao.
If you'd just given me the chance, I would have used the same quote.
Who would say that an interlocutor can't disregard whatever?
If you're wanting to say "should," that requires an additional view: that one should or shouldn't believe (or also assign "true" to) something when truth value is objective/subjective.
Also, it's important to understand the distinction between whether something is true and whether it's a fact.
Let's try it this way. How would it work, exactly--basically in terms of the mechanics of it--that "it is raining" is true or false independently of what anyone thinks about it? You're got the proposition however you have it--are we talking about something printed? Some sound waves? And then what happens between the proposition and the facts in question?
The state of affairs we agree it refers to obtains independently of our opinion. As you've said, the facts that propositions are about are objective.
I'm asking you how that works that the reference either obtains or it doesn't mind-independently, Explain it mechanically/physically.
Which part? States of affairs obtaining independently of our opinion or us agreeing which words refer to which states of affairs?
I typed a mess the first time. I corrected it after that.
That's why we're not understanding each other. That's exactly part of the issue on my view.
If words can't refer to something mind-independently, then we can't have reference obtaining or not mind-independently, and reference (and meaning, etc.) is necessary to assign "T" or "F"
The dispute is about propositions being true and false.
Facts and propositions are very different things. I explained that under my view at the start. If this whole thing is arising over confusion about this, that would be ridiculous.
I'm not saying that words refer to things mind-independently. I'm saying that, as a matter of inter-subjective convention, we agree to refer to a particular state of affairs using a particular string of symbols.
However, as you say, the states of affairs themselves are objective; they either obtain or they don't, and (except in trivial cases), what we say and believe has no effect on this.
Therefore, we might agree to refer to state of affairs X using the symbol "X", and we might believe that this state of affairs obtains, but it's actually the case that this state of affairs doesn't obtain. So we have a situation where we judge a proposition to be true even though the state of affairs that it (as a matter of inter-subjective convention) refers to doesn't actually obtain.
There's no disagreement about that.
What there's disagreement about is whether "X" is true or false independent of us/our judgment. Whether X is true or false is a matter of a judgment about a proposition. That's what it "means" for something to be true or false. That's independent of whether the state of affairs in question obtains or not. And there's no way for "X" to be true or false ("X" would have to be a proposition, by the way, only propositions are true or false) independent of us, because there's no independent meaning, reference, etc. Again, this is independent of X as a state of affairs.
The relativist position, at least the one I'm partial to, is not that truth or facts are dependent on our opinion. They're based on a consensus of observers.
That's different than my view. On my view, consensuses, norms, etc. can take a hike. ;-)
I'm not talking about "true" or "false". I'm talking about a proposition referring to a state of affairs that does or doesn't obtain. What do you call a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that actually obtains? What do you call a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that doesn't actually obtain?
Before I answer this again, I just want to make sure that you understand some basics of my view.
(1) Do you understand that I believe that propositions can only exist via an individual thinking the proposition?
You haven't answered this. You've only explained what you mean by "true" and "false". I want to know what you call a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that obtains (and one that doesn't).
Okay, that's fine. I haven't answered that.
Do you understand that I believe that propositions can only exist via an individual thinking the proposition?
Then what do you call them?
Yes.
Thanks. I'm getting there. But I want to make sure you understand this one step at a time, because this is ridiculously laborious for something so simple, and I don't want to have to keep explaining it over and over..
Okay, and you understand that on my view, reference (and meaning) only obtains when an individual thinks about it in a specific way?
Yes.
So what do you call a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that obtains?
The predicted fact of what will occur if we don’t counteract in the case of global warming can be construed to be a more complex version of what will happen to the proverbial ostrich with its head placed in the ground if it doesn’t start running away from the attacking lion.
Addressing the issue of facticity, through one can come up with a number of possibilities of why the lion is charging toward the ostrich (maybe the lion simply intends to greet the ostrich with a friendly lick, etc.), when the lion and the ostrich are in touching distance only one possibility will unfold. This one actualized possibility will at that juncture become a fact. When we visually imagine the proverbial ostrich placing its head in the ground as a lion charges towards it from afar, we predict what the one future actuality will be. In other words, we predict what the future pertinent fact will be. That the lion will kill the ostrich is then a predicted fact (again, emphasis on predicted).
Addressing the issue of a relativity in which facts are changeable by beliefs and feelings, if the ostrich places its head in the sand, ceases to visually perceive the lion attacking, and then believes and feels that it is free from all future danger in regard to this lion due to what it believes to be the lion’s disappearance, does the charging lion actually/factually/objectively/truly/ontically disappear? [A strictly rhetorical question since we all know via a conflux of experience and reasoning that the lion does not factually disappear relative to the ostrich’s being at such a juncture.]
The same can then be applied to the issue of global warming (a more pressing, realistic, and complex scenario): do the facts of today which point to (and limit) what will occur in the future if we don’t counteract the danger (i.e., today’s facts by which we predict what the future facts will be given set of conditions Q) then ontically disappear were one to not believe that the stated facts of today are indeed factual?
Unlike the ostrich scenario, which concerns a single ostrich, the global warming scenario regards a populace that does not currently hold a unified stance (in this case, a global consensus) regarding the danger of global warming. So, to try to keep things simple via a different question, if person A believes in human caused global warming and person B believes that global warming is a hoax, will the future of this planet be different for the grandchildren of person A and person B … this at the same time? If (objective) reality (as compared to the intersubjective realities of cultures, etc.) is relative to beliefs and feelings, how does this resulting absurdity not obtain?
I hope this clarifies what I initially intended to express.
But things might be other than they think it to be. They might believe that a particular state of affairs obtains even if it doesn't. And if the proposition they choose to use to refer to that state of affairs is "it is raining", then the proposition "it is raining" is a true proposition (according to your definition of "true") that refers to a state of affairs that doesn't obtain.
So what do you call a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that actually obtains (or doesn't)?
I agree with that part.
The problem with this part:
Is that per my views that you just said that you understood above, propositions, reference and meaning don't even exist aside from an individual thinking about something in a particular way. So the proposition and how it relates or doesn't relate to the state of affairs are all about that individual's thoughts at the time in question.
So what do you call a proposition that subjectively refers to a state of affairs that obtains? What do you call a proposition that subjectively refers to a state of affairs that doesn't obtain?
That's not the issue, as I keep saying. The issue is whether or not the state of affairs obtains.
Just to make sure we don't ignore this, again, what it is for this to happen is for the person in question to judge it to be happening. When a proposition "matches" a state of affairs in a person's opinion, they say that it's a true proposition (or a "truth").
And likewise, the other is a false proposition in their view (or a "falsehood").
That's not what I'm asking about. I'm asking about when that state of affairs obtains (or doesn't), which is an objective matter, as you've admitted.
You're asking what we call something when a particular sort of reference obtains, right?
[quote=Michael]But things might be other than they think it to be. They might believe that a particular state of affairs obtains even if it doesn't.[/quote]
[quote=Terrapin Station]I agree with that part.[/quote]
So let's say that we have some state of affairs that doesn't obtain, even though I believe that it does. Now lets say that I refer to this state of affairs with the proposition "it is raining".
We have a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that doesn't obtain. What do we call this type of proposition? Obviously not "false" because I judge it to be true, and according to you, that's all it means for a proposition to be true. So is there some other term we can use?
We call it "false." The person who judges it to be true isn't going to say that it is false in that situation, but someone else could say that it is false. (And the person in question would say that it would be false if it weren't raining, but it is (per their belief).)
There is nobody else. There's just me. I judge the proposition to be true, but it refers to a state of affairs that doesn't obtain. What do we call this type of proposition?
I'm not an evolutionary biologist or physicist, so I may step off a cliff here. I've read a lot about evolution and I believe that humans are genetically related to much simpler organisms. That they are our ancestors or we have both evolved from a common ancestor. I believe that based on my understanding of the consensus of opinion of people who know more about it than I do.
I've read a bit about cosmology. It is my understanding that the gravitational behavior of the observable universe indicates there is more matter than is visible. It has come to be called "dark matter." It is also my understanding that there is no consensus among people who know more about it than I do about what it is, so I don't have an opinion.
If you're asking "what does the person in question call the proposition 'it is raining' in a situation where it isn't raining but they believe it to be raining," then they call it "true."
If you're asking "what does the person in question call a proposition that doesn't match a state of affairs, even though there's a mistaken belief that it does," they'd call it "false," at least at time Tx when it's realized by whomever that it doesn't match the state of affairs.
I'm asking if we have a term that refers to a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that doesn't actually obtain. We already have the term "false" that refers to a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that is judged not to obtain. Do we have a different term for the former? Or does the term "false" have two different (albeit related) meanings?
There is no difference. Comparing propositions to states of affairs is always a judgment. There's no "objective view."
Truth and falsehood are judgments about the relation of a proposition to something else.
That's not saying something necessarily about language. It's saying something about judging a relation between a proposition and something else.
I'm not comparing propositions to states of affairs. I'm comparing states of affairs that obtain to states of affairs that don't.
Then why are you using the words "reference," "description," "proposition" etc.?
Because we have propositions that refers to states of affairs that obtain and propositions that refer to states of affairs that don't obtain. These propositions are different, even if everybody in the world judges them all to be true (or all to be false).
If you want to just talk the world outside of people thinking about it, there are no "states of affairs that do not obtain"--they don't exist. That's what it means to not obtain.
So what? I thought you weren't talking about propositions??
No you can't, because reference doesn't exist outside of particular individuals thinking about it however they do.
I'm writing another post because you respond so fast that I don't know if you'll see an edit.
Actually, I retract that last comment. I would say that you could have that, but it wouldn't be that it's false outside of everyone thinking it's true. I was thinking that you were saying it could be false (and maybe because you said that earlier)
That the proposition refers to a particular state of affairs depends on the individual thinking about it however they do, but that the state of affairs obtains (or doesn't) is an objective fact, as you've already admitted.
Therefore, the proposition can refer to a state of affairs that is judged to obtain even though it doesn't, or that is judged not to obtain even though it does.
I'm not saying that it would be false. I'm going along with your definition of "true" and "false". I'm asking if you have a different term to refer to this kind of proposition.
No. The word for that is "false."
There's not a special word for propositions that people would judge to be false in a different scenario.
So we have the word "false" that refers both to a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that is judged to not obtain and to a proposition that refers to a state of affairs that actually doesn't obtain?
So we have both an objective and a subjective notion of truth (and falsity).
People can't do anything but judge whether some state of affairs obtains or not first off.
To me part of the relevance of relativism is to call into question the persistent use of 'we' in talk like this.It is a rhetorical device often used to imply that all us right-minded people will think the same way; but do we?
It also threw me off in the one earlier response, because he was asking "What do we call" and then all of a sudden he said, "I'm positing a scenario where there's only one person."
Well, if the scenario is that there's only one person, then the question should be, "What does that person call . . ."
That's why I responded with, "If you're asking "what does the person in question call the proposition . . . "
Because rather than say "this proposition refers to a state of affairs that doesn't actually obtain" we can say "this proposition is X". It's simple utility.
But you can't say that without it being a judgment on your part, and we already have a word for that. "False."
Again, you're wondering why there isn't a word for something we can't do.
I'm not making a judgement about any particular proposition or any particular state of affairs. I'm saying that we can have a term "X" that is defined as "referring to a state of affairs that actually obtains" and a term "Y" that is defined as "referring to a state of affairs that doesn't actually obtain". These can be distinguished from the term "true" that you've defined as "referring to a state of affairs that is judged to obtain" and the term "false" that you've defined as "referring to a state of affairs that is judged not to obtain".
What we will have in the future are descriptions of states of affairs. These descriptions are going to vary depending on the overall beliefs and feelings of the people concerned. If the ostrich somehow survived alive, and miraculously received the gift of speech in the shock, it is going to have a different account of itself than the accounts of the people who advised it to run.
I think there's a good example in the thread across the way about Putin, where I claimed that the Soviet Union fell in 1991, and Agustino claimed it didn't. There are various facts about what happened to the former Soviet Union in 1991 and subsequently, but they don't resolve themselves into a simple 'future of this Russian-dominated bit of the planet' as far as human discourse goes. Actually, humans rarely bother over much about the outcome of forecasting, because we're largely terrible at it on any scale. it's amazing we've achieved such precision on smaller scales under controlled conditions.
I too, from a political standpoint, think there are a lot of ostriches with their heads in the sand about anthropogenic climate change. But in 150 years' time if, say, New York and London have been flooded and Bangladesh destroyed in the meantime, there will be some people who will say, 'It remains to be proved that anthropogenic climate change did this.' They will host chat shows and have followers. Just you wait and see.
But don't the interlocutors have to agree on criteria for what it means for something to obtain?
You'll have to ask Terrapin. He's the realist who argues that facts are objective and obtain independently of people (except facts about people, of course).
Sure you could have that, but again I'm wondering why anyone would bother with a word for that, especially because it's not anything that anyone can do.
There are countless things we can do that there isn't even a word for. For example, there's no word for eating a dozen donuts rather than a half dozen.
I don't know why, but I'd argue that we have them; "true" and "false". For the most part, it seems that when people say "X is true" they mean to say that the state of affairs referred to by "X" actually obtains, not just that they judge it to obtain. That's why scepticism is a thing; according to the sceptic, given that we can never access these objective states of affairs, we can never know if a proposition is true (even though we can and do make judgements).
Of course, you're free to use the terms however you like, but it'll make for difficult conversation with the many who use them this way.
Definitely, but what are they doing? They judging that to be the case. Hence why trying to make the distinction is pretty pointless.
Re skepticism you can't know with certainty, but it's silly to worry about that in my opinion.
Knowing whether something is true has nothing to do with knowing things with certainty.
And when I say "you're fat" I'm making a judgement, but "fat" doesn't mean "judged to be overweight"; it just means "overweight".
I'm not using "judgment" in anything like a value judgment sense.
I'm using it in the sense of "the forming of an opinion, estimate, notion, or conclusion, as from circumstances presented to the mind"
Right, so "You're overweight" isn't a conclusion you've reached from circumstances presented to your mind?
I didn't say it wasn't a conclusion. I'm saying that "overweight" doesn't mean "judged to have an unhealthy amount of fat". And so by the same token, "it is true" might be a conclusion, but "true" doesn't mean "judged to correctly describe the facts". And "you're a moron" might be an insult, but being an insult isn't part of the meaning of "moron".
I wouldn't say that either, but it is an act of judging to be overweight, or "fat" if one takes that to be synonymous with "overweight."
"A conclusion you've reached from circumstances presented to your mind" is sufficient for "judged."
I wouldn't use the word "means" in any event if we're getting down to brass tacks, but I wouldn't say that, either. What I say is that truth-value functionally amounts to a judgment about the relation between a proposition and something else. The "something else" depends on the relation the person in question considers the pertinent relation a la correspondence, coherence, etc.
I get the part about disagreements. Thanks for the humorous reminder. What I don’t get is the part about whether or not there occur states of affairs irrespective to what sentience may believe or feel. We can ask this of the proposition, “I exist/am,” when we address it to our own individual selves as we can ask this of the proposition, “Elvis Presley has died”.
What’s worse to me is the proposition that, “because some believe that he has and some believe that he hasn’t, Elvis is both dead and alive at the same present time and in the same way”.
I have no objection to the edifying intention of this passage, but the moments are by definition not permanent. We are also anticipating and remembering creatures, so present moments are often anything but present in another sense.
Still, I can relate to the notion/experience of the self-justifying moment. I can relate with making peace with impermanence. Indeed, I think there is a "feel good" aspect to nihilism as I described it. It articulates and strives to accept the futility of the all-too-human desire to escape time and chance. So my version of the nihilist (unless he is still green and angsty) would have to agree with the spirit of your post already in some way to endure his metaphysical vision of ultimate but not general or practical futility. A person can be an overachiever and a nihilist at the same time. Doing a job well for the beauty of it, for the self-consciously temporary narcissistic pleasure perhaps, is quite conceivable. But nihilism only really makes sense in terms of a metaphysical rejection of (metaphysical) absolutes. We are all practically dominated by (our actions manifest) various values and moral principles. But some of us might decide that various candidates for absolutes are grounded finally by the hope and fear of pleasure and pain, both of which are at best or worst temporary.
I think I can guess what you mean, but consider the OP: "Nihilism (I define here): the belief and attitude that ultimately nothing matters, nothing has any ultimate or absolute value or significance."
There's this from a dictionary: the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless.
But what sense can we make of "meaningless" if we're not talking about ultimate "meaninglessness"? We all have preferences and fears and therefore constraints on our behavior. If I'm hungry, the sandwich is meaningful. If I burn my lips on hot coffee, that's meaningful. I care. As I see it, most humans are dominated by spatio-temporallylocal hopes and fears most of the time. But the metaphysical urge is to articulate the imperishable (to do math in a wider, wilder set of concepts). We might also think of God as the image of the invulnerable perfected human. Man qua man is the desire to be God, one might say. Since doing this is impossible, we settle for surrogates. We participate in godlike collective enterprises like science, social justice, a church that embraces the notion of itself as the "body of Christ." The saved person is a member of Christ, a finger or a toe. This is the general structure. We have to share the absolute, because we can't pull off the thing by ourselves unless we do it in the bubble of madness.
But maybe this is too grandiose. Maybe we are just afraid to age and die. Aging dims our glory and dying dumps out of all intellectual treasures and memories at once. The newborn in the same hospital is not us. We construct ourselves over the decades. If we do a good job and attain self-love, we don't want such a unique fusion to be erased. So we either deny that we will be or we accept surrogate crystallizations of this unique self that will survive the death of the body. The nihilist sees that even this plan B is flawed and has to adapt to the metaphysically absurd situation.
I think we actually agree more than disagree. Non-silly nihilism is made possible by (almost) "everything being so grounded." I like "all is vanity." I find a wisdom in it. It is of course easy to interpret the phrase in a cheap way (silly nihilism), but I guess that's the cost of pithiness.
Quoting tim wood
I can't make sense of this kind of nihilism. So for me it's a bit of scarecrow. I'd say that nothing matters in the long-enough-run but immediately stress that human concern fades out as it ventures further from the present. So Mr. Nothing Matters is 95% passionately invested in the same kinds of things as Mr. Something Matters Absolutely.
Quoting tim wood
I realize that narcissism is usually only pointed out in terms of an accusation (as a vice), but I have in mind the sane and healthy driving force that encourages us to finish med school for instance, because we want to be a "winner." What is the force that gets us out of bed after 3 hours of sleep in order to shape ourselves into our ideal self? What is the force that carves and edits this very ideal? We might call it ambition, too. Lots of words come to mind. Anyway, I suggest that nihilism is embraced to some degree as a realization of freedom. His ego ideal is pure (theoretical) freedom, perhaps. The reasonable nihilist enjoys a sense of himself as bound by no artificial principle. He stands without the usual crutches. Of course this notion of himself can be attacked, but such attacks are usually going to rely on some absolute that the nihilist doesn't recognize as authoritative. He doesn't offer much of a target. So nihilism also looks like a late participant in the rhetorical-moral arms race.
Quoting tim wood
That's a beautiful line. I think I know what you mean, and I agree.
I would describe a process of "mind" becoming conscious of its own creation of its apparent masters. In earlier stages of this process, mind experiences principles as fixed, external objects. They are decrees of gods or sacred ancestors, for instance. Mind has not made its creative power explicit to itself. It lacks self-knowledge. But it comes to see the sacred objects outside it as its own projections. Finally it becomes conscious of this process itself. It becomes conscious of itself as process. In terms of what you wrote, we end up with a value system that is consciously in flux. It's not an illusion. It's a version that expects to be update, that even posits its own partial destruction as a value to the degree that this partial destruction allows for overall progress. What does seem to remain fixed is the idea of ascent or progress. But this is the bare skeleton or archetype. Our notion of the ideal and therefore of ascent is even self-editing. To posit truth as an absolute value might motivate us to question the sincerity or possibility of such a positing. Maybe "truth" is the mask of the will-to-status, for instance, etc.
As has been demonstrated throughout this thread, there are those of us who don't think everything is grounded the way you say.
Quoting tim wood
I like your use of "tumbleweeds" in this context. Really gets your point across with visual punch. Which doesn't mean I agree the alternative to your view is "no value system at all, but an illusion of one."
Right. For me there can be no god that isn't anthropomorphic. If there was such a god, we couldn't make sense of it. We'd have no motive to worship or incarnate such a god. But there are divine "predicates" like love, wisdom, power, beauty that we always already revere. So a certain conception of nihilism is impossible, excepting perhaps rare moods of intense demotivation. Another conception of nihilism is that of the man awake to his "divinity." He has completed the iconoclastic journey through a sequence of projections that he once mistook for an alienated or distant version of the divine. Like anyone he still reveres the predicates, but these predicates recognized as such are therefore as ideas possessed already by the mind that might otherwise covet them.
I'm trying to paint a picture of "incarnate freedom" becoming conscious of itself as such by means of a dialectical process. We might call it "The Birth of Spirit from Agency," where agency is the general structure of the alienated state. The agent serves a distant or external divinity that is not simply his own ideal possibility. Then "Spirit" is incarnate freedom conscious of itself as such. It understands itself to have created itself dialectically (in an long, painful debate with itself and others about who it ought to be). But in my view this essentially terminal state is no substitute for the living of life, nor does "Spirit" stop learning and sculpting itself. It just continues its self-sculpting self-consciously, having accomplished what is likely its greatest triumph in the spiritual/intellectual realm, the winning of its theoretical if not practical freedom. The increase of practical freedom involves that "living of life" that is only illuminated but not performed by theory. We might say that we are only just fully born as we become conscious of ourselves as "incarnate freedom."
On the other hand, I'm well aware that this vision doesn't (as a rule) appeal to others. As I experience it, I'm a cheerleader for "spirit" who is always verbally grinding against cheerleaders for this or that agency. I wouldn't be very free if I needed agreement. But I have found variants of these ideas in some of the more famous philosophers, so I know my "brothers" in "spirit" (fellow devil-worshippers) are out there. And I paint my positronic graffiti on the wall like a muted post horn. I'd be delighted if you could relate to even 80% of this little sketch. By all means, point out what I left out or didn't account for or even the 20% that you can't relate to (an optimistic estimate on my part.)
I've read that sentence at least six or seven times now, but I can't any sort of grasp on what the heck it might be saying, exactly. What is a "pre-rational investment" first off?
By 'investment' I'm trying to stress that we don't enter a discussion without prejudices. These prejudices might even be said to constitute our intellectual personalities. For instance, I'm an atheist. I don't think I'm an atheist for purely "logical" reasons. (Indeed I think the notion of a cold "pure" reason is itself a God surrogate.) Roughly speaking, I think we all have images of the virtuous person that are as unique as our fingerprints, though of course roughly similar so that friendly communication is possible. I stress the word image to suggest the non-rational component. For instance, I have an irreligious/impious inclination that precedes the arguments I might make to defend this position or to justify my refusal to bother defending this position. You might say that I have an image of the radically free spirit that (in retrospect) I have been dialectically clarifying for myself since I was a teenager. We are taught to embrace and project universal systems (to understand religion as science and/or one-size-fits-all morality), so that the leap directly to the realization of freedom is just too terrifying. So instead we (or rather those I'm imaging as my general type) go through a sequence of wider and freer systems (bigger cages) until the negation of the cage as such becomes thinkable (emotionally bearable). For me "spiritual" growth is as much an affair of training and developing the heart and guts (arguably the body too) as it is of merely finding and believing the correct propositions.
I agree. Of course I'm a big fan of Hegel, and I think he's roughly right. Of course technology now makes it possible for humanity to cut short its own development. I try to affirm that possibility, which is to say live happily without repressing my consciousness of that possibility. I suppose I see what I'd call higher states of consciousness as fragile blossoms that emerge from the soil of suffering and confusion. No soul, no blossom. No nightmarish past, no blessed "awakening" or transcendence. The confusion is that which is transcended. As Sartre wrote, we are our past in the mode of no longer being it, and we are our future in the mode of not (yet) being able to be it. History is the nightmare from which we strive to awaken, occasionally succeeding. For me this "awakening" has always been a process of dis-identification and/or demystification. For instance, most of us transcend our parents. We learn to see them as imperfect humans whose approval is not spiritually authoritative. Dad is demystified. The actual father is separated in our mind from the father archetype from which he derived his power over us. In the realm of love, similarly, we learn to separate the actual woman from the "anima" image that makes her so seductive. Oxytocin steps in so that (to some degree) a sexual friendship replaces the almost insane or manic first phase of "falling in love." In short, we "distill" the predicates. Plato and Blake come to mind. We don't escape or transcend the energy of the predicates, but we are liberated to some degree by "introjection" or projection in reverse.
Quoting tim wood
Ah, yes. I feel like one of the lucky ones. I suppose most of us have our comforts, but I hate the idea of being robbed of the knowledge of my own freedom. And yet the beautiful drama of God waking up from the nightmare of not being God can only repeat if all souls are marched through Lethe every so often and installed in new bodies. For me this is metaphorical, but metaphorical is good enough.
Quoting tim wood
I agree that organized religion has its value. I might describe my own journey (which I understand to be a progress) in terms of a series of better interpretations of Christian ideas presented to me as a child. The texts and rituals are raw material. My irreligiousness is just another kind of religiousness. Of course Jesus himself was a religious rebel.
Quoting Terrapin Station
A simple example is that some people just will believe in God and others just will not. Occasionally we do shift our views suddenly, but as a general rule the dialectical clash of a theist and and atheist is not going to change the basic position of either. They are emotionally ("pre-rationally" or "irrationally" invested in being whatever they currently are. The theist has an orderly universe that makes sense and a foundation for his or her moral preferences. The atheist has either the radical freedom that comes with the death of god or the beauty/nobility of living without a "crutch."
I think this "cynical" view of mind stands out (a little at least) on a philosophy forum because those who bother to argue either position with strangers are likely all invested (no matter their differences) in the notion of a single or universal truth which can and ought to be possessed. As rule, philosophers model themselves after scientists rather than novelists. They (often implicitly) make a claim on a shared "logical space." Their truth is not only theirs. I don't claim to completely escape this structure myself. But this is where I drag in Nietzsche's idea of "rank" and modify it a little bit, so that it's a little less hierarchical and more pluralistic. I think we can "let go" of the goal of inscribing the One Truth For All by living with the reduced goal of inscribing the "truth" of our own type. So the universal philosopher thinks of himself as a scientist, a universal metaphysician and the local philosopher develops "software" for others who happen to run a particular operating system --which is to say a community defined in terms of a set of "pre-rational investments." In practice (in my view) the healthy ego tends to feel that such pre-rational investments and their consequences are those of the "highest" type. But my reasonable relativist is well aware that just about everyone counts himself among the chosen or superior.
Finally, a conversation within such a community is "rational" or reasonable in terms of shared "normalizing" axioms or investments. An intellectual community might be defined in terms of an implicit and perhaps un-formalizable set of criteria for valid or warranted assertions. The criteria in this set are not "rational" in that they cannot be justified within the system of rational assertion that they make possible in the first place. Popper's notion of falsifiability, for instance, is a suggested criterion that cannot justify itself, which is not to say that it's not worth adopting as a demarcation of science from non-science. We might think of the realm of "rhetoric" or "abnormal discourse" as the sort of conversation that installs or edits these criteria. Rhetoric persuades us to adopt this or that notion of the trans-rhetorical (true philosophy as opposed to sophistry). For me that's philosophy at its most radical and exciting. I get my itch for normalized discourse scratched by my day job (which involves an almost ideally "normalized" discourse.)
Ah, I agree with that. "Pre-rational investment" didn't convey that for me, partially because "investment" suggests something more active than I'd say is warranted with the idea prejudices/biases.
With this: "We are taught to embrace and project universal systems (to understand religion as science and/or one-size-fits-all morality)," you don't mean that everyone is taught that, do you? I certainly wasn't taught that, for example.
I kind of agree with this (and your comments below it), but (a) as I noted in the other post, I think that "investment" is often not warranted for it, and (b) I don't think that there's always an emotional component to it. My take on it is that it's often simply a disposition of how the person's brain works so to speak. It's more like a bunch of trees. There are some shapes, some arrangements of branches, etc., that just won't work for some trees (at least without breaking branches and trying to regrow them with particular physical constraints in place--which still might not work). There's nothing emotional about that. However, I'd agree that there's an emotional component in some cases.
Re my atheism, for example, I'd say I'm an atheist for two reasons: (1) I wasn't raised an atheist--in fact, I was raised so that religion simply wasn't broached in any way, which effectively amounted to an experiment to see what would happen when someone learned close to nothing about religion until relatively late in life, and the upshot of the experiment was that (2) religous beliefs simply strike me as being completely absurd. Learning about them was akin to suddenly learning that a huge percentage of people believe that there are alien, repitilian shape shifters all around us, and we need to wear suits made of tinfoil at home to protect ourselves (whereupon I learn that lots of people do wear those suits at home).
I wouldn't say there's an emotional component to that for me. In fact, I'd prefer to believe that I somehow continue to exist after I die, that I'd go to some heaven, etc. The problem is that it's not possible for me to believe that, given my dispositions. It's just like if I could choose, I'd believe in all sorts of "supernatural" stuff. I'd love to believe that ghosts are real; I'd love to believe that all sorts of cryptids exist--including things like vampies, werewolves, etc.; I'd love to believe that we are regularly visited by aliens, etc., I'd love to believe that magic, including black magic, etc. is real.--all sorts of things like that, as I love the fantasy of that stuff, and I love the idea of it being real to an extent where I read a lot of supposedly non-fiction about it, I regularly visit sites that are supposedly haunted, etc. (Of course, I regularly engage in fiction about it, too.) I want that stuff to be real. It seems to me that the world would be that much more fun if that stuff were real. But that doesn't enable belief. By disposition, I'm a very hardcore skeptic, to a point where I even believe that a lot of scientific ideas that are considered pretty mainstream are really fantastical nonsense that people believe (just like many believe in ghosts, etc.). So if it were emotionally guided, I'd believe a lot of stuff that I do not. But I simply can't "make myself" believe something just because I want to.
I suppose I'd ask why you couldn't make yourself believe. According to my prejudice or theory, this is just your attachment to intellectual honesty overpowering your desire to find the spooky stuff to be real. In short, I think in terms of collisions of forces. Consciousness is a vector sum. I also can't make myself believe stuff that I'd like to believe. I'm attached to an image of myself as nobody's fool, not even my own. That's a partial explanation.
To be sure, all kinds of irony and comedy become possible as demystifying theories turn on themselves. If we are all enacting hero myths (rationalizing pre-rational investments or poses), then what kind of hero or pose can bear the self-demystification in pointing this out? The theorist of endless role-play is himself a role conscious of himself as such. He knows that on some level he's just fucking around, a child at play with the serious, solemn grown-up words. It's hard to codify the "gingerbread man" and/or the "laughter of the gods," but I tend to look for (rarely finding) a gleam in the eye of the other that is not quite immersed or trapped in the pose or the game of the moment.
I don't think I'm attached to the idea of "intellectual honesty" or anything like that. I just have certain dispositions that lead me to believe or not believe certain things. It's not anything I'm consciously doing (and I don't at all buy the notion of unconscious/subconscious minds).
Quoting Terrapin Station
Where are your memories when you are not remembering them? To me it's pretty clear that we know far more than we can be conscious of at any particular moment.
I can't help but be a little skeptical about your disavowal of intellectual honest. I can relate to a certain irony about the virtue. It comes off a goofy if so-and-so praises himself in such terms. But would you really not be embarrassed to be accurately (in your own eyes) judged as a sloppy or dishonest thinker whose words do not deserve respect? I understand rejecting a externally imposed duty to be intellectually honest. But I view intellectual honest as another aspect of beauty and nobility, and I view beauty and nobility as what we just want to incarnate or be. I might speak of an internally imposed duty except that "internal" here stresses that I experience this urge as my true self so that "imposition" involve only what gets in the way of this incarnation project. For instance, a pious or sentimental proclamation of intellectual honesty seems (at least) emotionally dishonest in its sentimentality. Along the same lines a person might mock the authenticity project in order to authentically express his complexity/ambivalence.
We can reject every bearer of the "divine" or sacred predicates but perhaps not the allure of the predicates themselves. One form is rejected in the name of another.
I don't think we are taught this explicitly, but I do think we learn this by imitation. Science is explicitly objective and metaphysics and religion at least often project themselves as true-for-all and binding-for-all. Correct beliefs are correct independent of the believer. That's the usual idea. This is of course common sense itself in everyday life. But pretty soon ambiguous propositions about invisible deities like Jehova, Progress, Freedom make an appearance, so these kinds of propositions are often presented as valid for all.
Of course political discussions are almost universally about what "we" should do, as if all good people had the same interest. The "idiot" is the "irresponsible" "private person" who doesn't have sophisticated, solemn opinions about this We. That's one way I can make sense of "nihilist" or "relativist." If the nihilist shares that he's not interested in what "we" "should" think but only what he should think, then the non-nihilist is likely to translate this thoughtlessly into the assertion by the nihilist that nihilism ought to be embraced. This scarecrows the nihilist as an evangelist. The "universal" man doesn't have much use for merely first-person reports except as raw material to synthesize into objectivity, duty, and prohibition. (Maybe I'm exaggerating, but I'm trying to point at something that is easy to miss because it lurks in every background.)
They're potentials for particular mental content. It seems to me that mentality would be akin to "precipitation states" on a mountain, say. The mountain doesn't always have flowing water or snowpack etc. on its surface. It only sometimes has that. When there is flowing water or snowpack on its surface, the exact form it takes, the exact way it flows, is largely determined by the structure of the mountain itself. But that structure of the mountain isn't a precipitation state when it hasn't rained or snowed.
Quoting visit0r
Doesn't matter to me. As it is, I am not of the impression that anyone on this board (or the previous board) particularly likes me or thinks that any of my contributions are of value. I just don't see that as my problem. ;-)
The only emotional commitment I have in the vein of what you're talking about is to enjoy myself, enjoy my life, and be myself--at least outside of what's necessary to make a living and remain unincarcerated, I'm not about to kowtow to how other people want me to be.
Re the second post, I've always been uncomfortable with normatives in that sense, and I grew up in a family where that was rather a norm (ironically, I suppose). As I mentioned, re religion, I had just about zero notion of religious beliefs until I was in my mid/later teens.