Snow is white, and sugar is sweet.
If you can't immediately and confidently agree with the above, then throw out your philosophy and start again, because you've just been confusing yourself, and creating problems where they don't exist. That's what I say. What do you say?
we base our reasoning on reality so yeah tis true Ucci…
Define “white” and “sweet”
If “white” means “reflects or emits light at a certain frequency” then yes, it is empirically true. If “sweet” means “causes a certain bio-chemical and neurological effect upon contact with my tounge” than it is certainly true for me. However, I have no idea if everyone in the world regards sugar as sweet. They may well have some abnormality that causes a different sensation. I’d wager it’s true in the vast majority of cases though.
There are many instances where this is not true.
Much of philosophy is about trying to incorporate those said hypothetical scenarios into a coherence with the rest.
If you like stuff like this, you should see some of the examples they get into with philo of mind debates.
Snow’s grey, dude…
Well, I’ll bite. I say snow is clear. Like ground up glass’s atomic structure still transmits most of the light that bombards it, so that despite having rough edges that cause more white light to be reflected, it is clear. Snow is a form of frozen water, you realize. It doesn’t change its atomic response to light just because it’s arranged in snowflakes.
There are problems with snow being white and sugar being sweet; saying those things simplifies what they are really defined as, which in reality isn’t even the result of a complete understanding. While utility demands that you act based on current understanding, that doesn’t mean you should be satisfied with it, much less apply simplicity as a standard of a philosophy’s viability. Furthermore, there are different forms of utility. Mathematics would certainly go a roundabout way in declaring snow’s whiteness, does that mean we should throw it out?
Alun
If anything, it means that math isn't good for determining what color things are. Snow is what because that's how it looks- it's not going to smell white, or calculate white, or reason out to be white. If snow looks white, it is white, because color is no more than that.
Also, you talk about current understanding, and a lack of satisfaction with it. I'd be all about that, if philosophy in these areas actually led to a better understanding, but it doesn't usually. If thought leads you to the conclusion that snow is in fact clear, well- that's an answer, and I can accept an answer. What I want to address here is people stuck in a mindset where they consider the whiteness of snow or the sweetness of sugar to be either unknowable, or locked up in controversy.
at least 4 me , I’m 99% sure snow is white and sugar is sweet…
but I can’t say that ‘in reality’ they r that way…
cause u know…
maybe they r not! 
but that’s just a sophism and useless complication…
and so, my philosphy is skeptical in nature but I don’t doubt stuff like that in practice, only in theory…
so I guess my philosophy is not as rotten yet…
I hope I don’t become like pyrrho though…
who used to hit stuff while he walked cuz he didn’t believe it was there!!! lol… 
btw, I like ur image oni.
Ucci - Dunamis’ one-liner notwithstanding, snow is white under certain repeatable conditions, but more to the point, it is crystalised water. Sugar has a certain chemical composition. These are observable.
I agree in principle, as I duck for cover - the phenomenal world is reliably observable. I also agree that philosophy is not useful, excpet as an amusement, if this is not so.
I see a battle of the one-liners (Imp and Dunamis, evidently) - except they are all aimed in my direction.
Oh, well.
By the way - this thesis is central to my point on the “highest truth” thread, but I cannot divine how you can take it seriously.
Perhaps I’ll learn something here.
My truth is not your truth - B. Lee
-Imp
Pithy.
Hey Faust… should I assume you believe in an absolute objective truth!?
I not only don’t bvelieve in it, I don’t know what the phrase means.
you do believe in the absolute truth that statements are true and sentences are self-referential! 
I just remember to place universal statements into a speciest context, in that such wordings are formated for the sake of our species, not for the sake of the universe which they are attempting to describe.
In other words, if you say: “Snow is white, sugar is sweet.”
Then, that’s fine by me. 
Almost. Firstly, I claim that statements are either true or false. But not at all that sentences are self-referential. Try again. This thread-hopping might be confusing.
“Truth”, in the sense that I am using it, it verifiable. Nothing that is absolute is verifiable.
I have yet to see one absolute thing within infinity.
So fascinating. Some of you know my drill by now though - I’m off work, and thus, not here much for the next three days. When I raise this issue, the main thing on my mind is, what we seek to accomplish when we enter into philosophy, and how are results mesh up with those stated goals. If philosophy is for understanding the world, we have to assume a world that can be understood.
Oh, I see. Sorry. I think you might change the title though. This is more of a “basic” test of a worldview than an “ultimate” one. That isn’t to say it isn’t important, quite the contrary, but that it ought to be the first test of a worldview, not the last.