I wouldn’t fall into either of those camps. I understand concepts to be mental integrations of perceptual data. I understand concepts to mean the concretes they subsume, and their definitions are tools for using them. I understand the concepts ‘existence’ and ‘reality’ purely through perception, as they are axiomatic and not conclusions drawn from antecedent premises. Morality is a higher-level abstraction, and in its case, my understanding comes from all the integrations (ultimately from perceptual data) that I have made leading up to the concept ‘morality.’ I.e., morality is a code of values that guides one’s choices and actions in living.
If I understood your position correctly, you stand somewhere in-between the two categories that I described. Indeed, the two options can be seen as the extremes and people can choose intermediate paths.
Yeah, sort of. The first type you mentioned would be analogous to subjectivists. The second type to rationalists, and I would be an objectivist, which is what I am, with a capital O.
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That’s not how it works. Definitions are depictions with the intent of univocacy.
You seem to point out that people confuse the things words refers to for their ideas about the things words refer to (map vs territory thing). Anyway, all being subjective is logically incoherent nevertheless, like @PerpetuallyCurious and many others pointed out
I can have the best intentions for univocacy, but that is not how it works.
So much univocacy, that so many people identify differently the same terms like objectivism and subjectivism…
Read philosophers and see if all of them agree in their definitions. If it was that easy, philosophy would have got no unresolved issues.
I can unpack this for you if you want, but i wont start unless you want a comprehensive answer to it.
But to put it in a nutshell: Both statements are true.
There is an objective truth unrelated to the subjective viewer, and the viewer’s point of view will always be subjective to their existence and experiences.
As the chinese proverb goes: There are three truths. Yours, mine, and the truth.
Oh and science IS technically a religion when you look at it’s roots, albeit a very fair and rational one.
It admits so via naturalism and the claim that everything can be derived from matter and nature, which ofc is an unverified assumption packaged as a factual statement, based entirely on faith.
An unbiased, non religious statement would be what agnostic atheism does: “We do not know for we hold not enough information to make valid conclusions about it”.
That’s the point: definitions are contested, criticized and so. But they are depictions. Yes, the problem is when people cease to try to depict the same thing
Subjectivity and objectivity are about the subject-object relationship. What is the orientation of this relationship? Subjectivism is the primacy of the subject orientation. Consciousness comes first, and reality is a creation of consciousness. The alternative to this is the primacy of the object. Reality comes first, and consciousness is the faculty that perceives it, not the faculty that creates or alters it. All evidence points to the primacy of the object.
Perhaps one of the greatest arguments about subjectivity vs. objectivity is morality. I have an analogy. If agriculture is an objective science, then so is “humiculture” (morality). Agriculture discovers the conditions and practices that cause plants to flourish. Morality is identical in structure: the study of the conditions and practices that lead to human flourishing.
Suppose we said that agriculture is all subjective, there isn’t any objective truth:
In my town, we believe that battery acid is better than water for crops.
In my country’s tradition, the best time to plant is at harvest time.
In my opinion, one should roast the seeds in the oven at 375 degrees for 24 hours before planting.
Plants have specific conditions under which they grow and flourish. So do humans, and they are not a matter of opinion.
Define “people.”
: p
All the humans that can pee. The pee-pole