Is a given perspective, claim or proposition true or false? Often it depends on the perspective you want to view it from.
Yes that is correct. Even a perspective itself, as claim or otherwise, requires another perspective to give it context and to ground its meaning.
What is really amazing about the way logic works and how philosophy actually is, despite the pretenses, is that most arguments and ideas and claims and beliefs arising within philosophy depend upon a certain perspective for their being declared true or appearing to be arguable and reasonable. But this perspective is usually hidden, the philosopher himself does not disclose it. Because, I am convinced, he is not aware that it exists. He mistakes his own perspective for THE way it is.
In other words and most importantly: philosophers and people generally mistake the perspective they are coming from to be an objective criterion, when in fact it can be seen as only one proposed-assumed perspective among many possible perspectives. One might take a different perspective instead, a totally different view of the appropriate context, values at play and underlying meaning of the key concepts involved. This is often why people disagree, because they hold different more fundamental perspectives through which they are viewing the same idea or claim or problem, yet they don’t realize that they come from very different perspectival positions of assumed values, meaning and context. Thus they mistake their disagreement as being about the idea or claim itself, when IN REALITY it is often the case that both of them are correct from their own perspectives.
What is missing often and needs improving is to make sure that when we make a claim or an argument we also elucidate the perspective we are coming from. This must include the basic three component I mentioned above: the general context, the values assumed most important, and the meanings involved with respect to the key terms of the argument or claim. But that would take a great deal more time to express, even to figure out since people don’t really think that deeply about their own ideas. Psychologically we tend to believe whatever comes out of our mouths, whatever mental images and ideas form inside of our mind’s eye are taken for granted as, if not always TRUE then at least always “this is something accurately representing what I believe”.
The problem with that is, if we don’t understand the WHY and HOW of what we believe then do we really understand what we believe? No, not really. Because once you comprehend the how-why as causal background reasoning for the belief you are already moving into the sphere of perspective, and would be forced to confront the fact that there exist other perspectives on the subject than the one you are holding. From a different point of view regarding the appropriate context of the problem, or a different set of values or priority of values, or with different essential meanings given to some or all of the key terms involved, there is no point arguing at the level of the belief itself. That would be nothing but apples and oranges, a fallacy of talking past one another.
This is something important to understand about this whole perspective thing that underlies claims and beliefs: if we push our comprehension deeper in this direction we not only become aware of our own perspective but also become aware at the same time of the fact that there are other possible perspectives different from our own. How to determine then which perspective is correct? Well first you would need to more or less exhaust the possibility-space of all such perspectives relevant to the problem or claim at hand, which would be… daunting. So right off the bat, there exists a natural and psychological, even intellectual deterrent from moving in this direction of trying to understand your own (and others) perspective as such and situated prior to the problem at hand.
But even if you assume we could sufficiently exhaust the relevant possibility-space for a given problem, what then? How to rank the various perspectives? Which one has the best (most accurate and good) view of the context, the best values and order of values, the best understanding of the true meaning of the terms involved? At least some of the time this will fall down to subjective determinations on the part of each person, appealing to their own particular life, history and personal idiosyncrasies. That’s all fine and good, and we can even make a claim here that each person’s subjectively held perspective is truthfully justified for them, to some degree or another (even if only minimally, this is still important) beyond dispute from the point of view of others and their own differing perspectives. But so what? Then it comes down to a sort of numbers game: how many people in society, or in the world, or to whom the problem itself applies or would matter, hold each of those perspectives? If most people hold one of them and only a very small number of people hold to others, and the perspectives are at least somewhat subjectively personally grounded as axiologically beyond reasonable dispute (either essentially or pragmatically) then it would seem to invoke a kind of best-possible optimization of outcomes for the relevant group of beneficiaries to whom the problem is a problem, to whom the idea or claim in question actually means something.
