Objective Truth (For Twiffy)

“Truth” is a word we apply to statements. We take statements to be either true, false or indeterminate. We don’t say “That tree is true”, we say “That is a tree”, and then seek to ascertain if that statement is true, or not. We may say “That tree is real”, but we still must verify that claim, and it is the claim we verify, and not the tree itself. In this way, there is no “unattached” truth - truth is always attached to a statement.

The means of verification vary - direct observation being considered the most reliable. We can be fooled by our senses, but we may still ask if an hallucination is really an hallucination, and then ask if the answer to that question is true. In other words, we can have a real hallucination, what is in fact an hallucination, but it is the statements we make about that event that we apply the notion of truth to.

And we may accept testimony in lieu of direct observation, but we then trust that someone has made an observation. This is our common notion of verification - the process of determining truth. And there are some statements that nearly everyone accepts as true - that the Earth is a spheroid, for instance, despite that few people have directly observed this. And when enough people have accepted an idea, for a long enough period of time, we call it a fact. And a fact is some datum that it would be unreasonable to disbelieve.

So we arrive at an objective fact, something that is objectively true about the world. But it’s clear that we have not done anything of the kind - we have arrived at a collective verification. A large and longlasting number of individual verifications, subjective verifications if you will, that we are able to, through language, communicate to each other. The idea of a “subjective” verification suggests some alternative, even an opposite by some renderings - objectivity. But objectivity is not a necessary corollary of subjectivity. For much that is arrived at by an individual is never shared - never accepted by anyone, and simply not a part of the Universe outside the brain of that individual - not an accepted fact.

“Subjective truth” means “individually verified”, if it means anything. “Objective truth” means nothing at all. It’s not that it doesn’t exist - it’s that the phrase is nonsense to begin with. Everything that is verified is verified by someone, or a collective “someone”, and that which is true is that which is verified. That verification itself is problematic - for verification can be accepted at one time, by some people, and then later rejected - but if any truth exists at all, it resides in that verification - an activity of people. Objective truth is collective truth.

I think that accepted facts obviously have grounds in subjectivity, but i don’t think objectivity should be set as mere majority rule or mass agreement.

There is always the chance that we could stumble upon an understanding of something that is universally true; “objective”. Even if we might not be able to recognize that it is something “objectively true”, it still is as such.

Science itself assumes that the universe adheres to some constant set of rules.

I know it seems ridiculous, It’s like we would have to stumble through a backdoor into the control room of the universe, and find the manual.

I say we should allow a free usage of the word objective, if at least just to be able to tell when someones bull shitting.

Wonderer - I understand your point - I don’t think you understand mine. Rules are statements - we can and do verify them. And I will allow that these statements are “objectified” thoughts, or ideas. My claim is that this does not make them “objectively” true. Truth is a relation between a statement and a person.

In other words, I am not claiming that the statement “There is objective truth” is false, but that it doesn’t make any sense - that’s it’s not a coherent statement. For any thing to be true, it must be true to someone.

Further to your point, Faust, the falsehood in your OP is only that, sometimes we can say “That tree is true”, when we mean to say it is straight. Crooked trees are not thereby false. We assign the value True according to agreed upon definitions; because definitions are amended, or because there are different definitions for different contexts, does not bear on how we assign the value True. Truth, with a capital T, is an objectification of the process of assigning value; it is, essentially, a lie.

Well, that “true” is a different word altogether, or an extended meaning, I guess. But if I understand your point, then it speaks to Twiffy’s point that we are arguing definitions. And it is the confounding of definitions that allows metaphysics. Which relates to Plato’s mistake - that we define “cat”, and not some objective Form. Which does not mean that these cats aren’t real, but that “cat” (or certainly Cat) is not real.

I was about to make this point explicit myself. It can also be seen as a reification, but is best seen as simply what you say - the “freezing” in time of a temporal activity - turning what is essentially a verb into a noun - and then forgetting this.

In this way, metaphysics ignores the temporal element where doing so robs the idea of its meaning.

i guess i was just alluding to some possible form of learning which exists outside of subjectivity.

Subjective truths (subjectively true statements) can also be objectively true.

I’m just trying to say that objectivity can exist, and i accept that i have no clue how to get there.

everything can be doubted in the end. we just keep asking questions

depends on the truth discussed

is this truth fundamental too our existence or is the objective truth abstract to our fundamental existence ?

The universe consists of only the objects described in this story.

A train with no driver is flying down the tracks.
A driver of a car is nearing the tracks.
The driver see’s the train.
The driver holds a subjective truth, based on mathematics on his amazing head’s up display panel, that he will make the jump beyond the tracks without being hit by the train.
The driver races towards the tracks.
The train races towards the train crossing intersection.
The car is mere meters from the train at a 90 degree angle.
The car and train begin to enter the intersection.
AND!..

And the objective truth will be known by no one.

If the car makes it, then the truth will be known by the driver. (subjective)
If the car doesn’t make it, the truth will be witnessed by no one. (objective)

North - I cannot answer your question, for I do not know what it means. Could you rephrase?

I do notice that the example you choose as a “fundamental” truth is a biological one.

Still, it’s a statement, that must be verified by people.

actually it doesn’t have to be varified by people , it is varified by the very existence of people

While I accept that truth is very often subjective because held in the mind of the individual observer - that is to say, it is a state of conscious affairs - I also think that in order for certain practices, such as science (as Wonderer has already suggested), to function properly those initially subjective truths have to be abstracted into common values - that is to say, they have to be shown to adhere to a set of strategies or procedures which a particular community accepts as valid - and which we call objective for the purposes of clarity. In other words, the difference between objective and subjective truth is a difference of degree and not a difference in kind; indeed, it is the relationship between objective and subjective truth, I would argue, that makes any sort of innovation or insight possible in the first place.

matty -

If I understand you correctly, you have paraphrased my thesis. This clarity disappears once we take this device literally, however.

Have I? Oh, sorry… :laughing: Well, it is what I think!

As for your other point, I tend to agree except that I wonder why we need to even concern ourselves with it, given that - as Kant amply demonstrated - there is no way of discussing noumenal reality and our relation to it without tying ourselves in knots. I suppose the best way to approach “objective truth”, on our (?) understanding of it, would be through a study of its processes of abstraction in history - a “history of systems of thought”, to get Foucauldian about it.

The reason for addressing it is that the alternative leads to the Greatest Evil Ever Known - Rationalism.

:laughing: Right, I’ll be more observant in future then… picks up mustard pot

I recommend completely rejecting any bending of the term “objective” to include the subjective.

A quick reference:
From msn dictionary:
encarta.msn.com/dictionary_18616 … ivity.html

“3. PHILOSOPHY actual existence: the actual existence of something, without reference to people’s impressions or ideas”

You’ll notice the word “philosophy” connected to this definition. That’s the way that I see it: if someone wants to connect the objective to the subjective, they can, but it’s not philosophy.

It’s real simple: objective truth is the truth that is independent of human (or other animal) perception. As soon as we talk of the perception of something, it is the subjective.

Objectivity is Form.

Well, Membrain - What you are saying can be taken several ways. Name me an objective truth, and I might know which way you mean it.

OK, here goes:

Independent of my subjective perception of apples, I believe that apples actually do objectively exist.

Exquisite! =D>

Faust…?