OK, in “common use understanding”, I think it reasonable to say that:
a) Objective truth is true regardless of our or anyone’s belief;
b) Objective truth is true for all people.
Example of an objective truth: the rotation of the earth on its axis.
Of course, I haven’t really defined “truth” yet, but it’s a start.
Yep.
Most rational and intelligent people realize there are no to little objective truths, because the average person are too ill enlighten to precive anything close to an objective truth.
It requires immens knowledge, intellect and rationallity to precive it, and science books are regulary rewritten since we often find new things that contradicts the old.
You live in a time when the public is discouraged from any objective truth.
People aren’t as easy to fool into a new age if they believe in anything.
“Stand for nothing and you fall for anything.”
melonkali -
Here, we have the usual comparison, and the usual sloppy dichotomy. This reads as if one is the objective version and the other the subjective version of the same condition. When someone says “the room is cold”, they usually mean “I feel cold”. This is probably just as much a “fact” as is “the room is 70 degrees F”.
With all due respect, speak for yourself. Everyday speech is rife with errors that we can well afford to make in everyday speech. Philosophy is not that.
Again, with all due respect, speak for yourself.
When we say “true for all”, we are misattributing “truth”. Truth is a property of statements, and when you acquire more sophistication in philosophy, you may also attach yourself to a theory of truth - or even more than one, used as the context requires. You may, or more probably may not, realize that “objective truth” is a religious idea.
Read all of Nietzsche and report back to us.
Totally agree with Faust, he got it down right in that post.
One could argue, fairly easily I think, that we are in part a thermostat. We read the one on the wall, that may in fact be incorrect. And we read ourselves. Our own thermostat may be incorrect, but I can’t see calling one objective and the other subjective. Especially given that we are really talking about two processes both with subjects working with perceptions.
Reporting back. I hope I’m talking about the correct parts of Nietzsche. I gleaned that Nietzsche saw truth as relational, that in human knowledge what we call true is relational knowledge from the perspective of man, close to phenomenology in that we cannot know the thing in itself, only its relationship to us from our perspective. Just as the artist’s truth is from the artist’s perspective. For this reason we can’t really speak of objective truth, only relational.
But that’s really epistemology, not ontology, isn’t it? I mean, the thing is still there, and it has properties which we may not be aware of, and relationships we may not be aware of, but they are still real. Just as gamma rays were real centuries before we knew about them, yes?
Objective truth in these matters seems to be admitting that there is a possibility that there are things and properties of things in the universe which we know nothing of and/or may never know much about. But we know that some of them exist because of our relationships with some of them, and as the march of science continues, we may learn more about these objective realities and their truths. Until we learn more, we accept our present knowledge about them as objectively true for everyone. I don’t really see much subjectivity in that idea. I don’t see how Nietzsche’s idea negate objective reality and objective truth.
Or I am looking in the wrong place in N? BTW: I didn’t really read all of N today, just refreshed from my old Walter Kaufmann text book.
Cliff Notes.
It’s perspectivism, which brooks neither epistemology nor ontology, the latter being an example of the former.
Truth is a property of statements, and not of gamma rays. Gamma rays are neither true nor false, but statements about them are.
You gotta get the basics down before you can even talk about this stuff. It makes a difference. Especially if you already know that you are confused.
Objective truth doesn’t admit anything. You may admit some things. Again, this probably seems like nitpicking, but truth is not an entity.
If you don’t have this stuff straight, you’re liable to commit gibberish like:
Truth is a property of statements, and not of things. I realize that you have no reason to trust me on this, but that’s your problem and not mine. You probably won’t be able to see how the term “objective truth” is gibberish until you get these basics down.
That’s because 'subjective truth" is as much gibberish as is “objective truth”. Nietzsche spoke about psychological truths, one subspecies of which is “necessary truths”, which are not objective truths. I’m not sure you really have read all of Nietzsche, or perhaps you have just misunderstood him. You have to jettison the entire subjective/objective dichotomy - which he clearly tells you to do, to understand what he even means by psychological or necessary truth. Necessary truths do not lead you to objective truths, nor to subjective truths. They don’t lead you away from them. N uses a theory of truth that doesn’t accept the objective/subjective dichotomy. It’s irrelevant.
You might want to start by looking up “theories of truth” somewhere. You probably won’t find Nietzsche’s, but you’ll at least learn what a theory of truth is. Then, maybe you will be able to discern N’s. I could tell you, in fact i have told you, but you apparently don’t believe me. To find it in his writing, read N until you find it.
Philosophy is easy, but a little time-consuming.
maybe this will help - it’s Ernst Werklempter’s theory of truth. “Screw the truth, before the truth screws you”.
There is some information that we must accept as true, because we are human. Because we need to, to survive as a species, because we have selected for it. There are some statements that we must accept as true, because we’d be very unhappy if we didn’t, and most of us have a low threshold for unhappiness. In its primitive forms, this is Nietzsche’s theory of truth. The great irony is that Plato co-opted philosophy in service of politics - Plato believed in something like “objective truth”. Nietzsche was apolitical, and saw objective truth for the nonsense that it is - and had been roundly co-opted by others for political purposes. That’s not a co-incidence.
Truth, in the usual sense, in the sense that even allows for “objective truth” is the greatest error the philosopher has ever made.
I’m handing it to you, man. Just read the guy.
Thanks for the help, guys – will do some hard study then get back to this thread, probably next week-ish. Got the N book and the old History of Western Philosophy text ready to roll.
I’m dense, but determined to learn. Hand to God, I did pass all my philosophy courses, with good grades, graduate school level, including Nietzsche, though I never really “got it” and I admitted as much to my professors (otherwise they might have flunked me). I passed because of memory skills, research skills, because I could parrot back anything, and other abilities, but abstract thinking was never one of them. (It also helps when a school has math and logic courses for liberal arts and humanities majors.)
later, thanks again rebecca
I think HoWP is a great read, but it approaches things by philosopher and epoch, rather than by subject. If you really want a clear introduction to the arguments about truth, I’d definitely recommend “Truth” by Simon Blackburn. It’s fairly non-partisan, and covers a lot of the approaches - extreme realism, relativism, quietism, all sorts. Even if you don’t come out of it with a definite conviction - it points out criticisms of all views - you’ll be familiar with the formulations and arguments in the area.
Thanks, I’ll see if I can find Truth A Guide. HoWP was not really the “great read” for me that it was for you. I have a clear memory (from the good old days) of picking that book up over my head and slamming it to the floor while cursing uncontrollably. It don’t come easy. rebecca
Melonkali,
It might help to keep in mind that people use the word “truth” in two distinctly different ways, but do not maintain their distinction.
To some, the word “truth” refers to what is “factual” such as a circle having a uniform radius. Such usage is the same as “objective truth”, independent of opinion.
To others (and sometimes even to the same person) “truth” refers to the statement itself, not the reality. A truth statement is not necessarily true. “It is true that 2+2=3” is a truth statement. Many people try to argue that because no truth statement can be 100% true, truth doesn’t exist.
A statement such as, “John likes pizza” is a truth statement concerning an objective truth but involving a subjective value. Then when John makes the statement, “Pizza is better than hamburger”, he has made a truth statement but it is only a subjective truth. A subjective truth is an objective truth concerning subjective evaluation. It is objectively true that “John evaluates pizza as better than hamburger”.
This is just another issue wherein the meanings get conflated with the words, “confusing the map with the terrain”.
Lots of our thoughts and concepts are easier to understand as the expression of hope an/or fear.
Many people seem to use Truth so that they have something unconditionally reliable, to counter the fear/uneasiness of uncertainty.
I think it’s another “feel good”, “feel safer” tool so that we can think we know something for sure.
And also now and then, what they believe actually IS true, despite why they believed it.
So truth is whatever humans as a collective agree upon, and personal truth is what collective does not agree upon. And all of these visible and tangible things are experienced by individuals, and would be part of their personal truth.
Yearh, in midevial times people would collectivly agree that this and that person was a witch, today a lot of weird people agree that it’s very healthy to be overly starved, thus lean, but intelligent people know it’s not true.
Just because a bunch of fools agree on something doesn’t nessesarily mean it’s true.
Truth is what you can prove, and it’s not always that you can prove it, or what you prove is the full truth.
Scientist found that light was particles, but another scientist prove it was waves, but both findings are true.
Truth is a relative and subjective matter, which can change or precived differently, why it’s only philosophers who chases truth like chasing a rainbow, more intelligent people are not so obsessed with this “concept of truth” as they deal in fact that may be true or untrue, even inconclusive.
Could you say that objective truth is value concept which is more verifiable then subjective truth? And then does not another fine tune is necessary to distinguish the truth of sensation type of value (ex: is that apple red or green or red-green) from organizational-structural type of values (such as "I think he belongs here), or from thought value-truths, (such as "I think we should all follow his example)
Sensational types of values are figurative, subjective. Organisational values can more easily quantified , so they appear to be more "objective". And thought like truths are more "literal", definitional, and representational.
A truth of a concept, statement, hypothesis, depends on both types of truth, and their validity, consensus, whatever, can be ascertained by a mixture of both, in varying degrees of validation.
Can it be said that the difference between "objective" and" subjective" truths are narrowing? As truth's become less personal due to the dissemination of public knowledge? Examples: Wikileak?
No?