Attention logicians. Facts are constructions!

Zetherin wrote:

And propositions would exist in the same sense. There is only one sense something can exist in that I know of. What other senses are you referring to?

The existence of mental objects is quite different from the existence of physical objects, but both are reasonably easy to characterise (I think), however, I've no real idea what people mean when they talk about the existence of propositions when there is no agent who can propose.

An idea and a chair, while different in many ways, exist in the same way, as there is only one way to exist.

do you think abstract objects, such as the number three, exist if there is no agent to express them?

Can you please provide specific examples? One from each class that best supports your belief that they exist differently. Thanks.

Because Cartesian Materialism says the mind is the brain, it requires us to assume that the only way that the mind can have experience of the world is to somehow get the world inside the brain. Because this is clearly impossible, what with the world being so big and the brain being so small, it is very hard to avoid concluding that knowledge is impossible.

In other words, I believe there is an objective, mind-independent world.

We can infer this viewpoint, that is all.

Zetherin wrote:

Can you please provide specific examples? One from each class that best supports your belief that they exist differently. Thanks.

If I tell you that there exists something self contradictory, for example, a number smaller than itself, presumably you will tell me that this is impossible because the concept is self contradictory. This reduces to a statement that existence is precluded by the property of being self contradictory, which is true for physical objects.
1) there is no physical object which is self contradictory
2) self contradictoriness precludes physical existence
3) physical existence is, partly, defined by lack of self contadictoriness
4) there is a mental object which is self contradictory: a number smaller than itself
5) therefore there exists at least one mental object which is self contradictory
6) therefore mental existence is not defined by lack of self contradictoriness
7) physical and mental existences have different defining features
8) therefore physical and mental existences are not the same existences.

Yes, but that doesn't mean we don't have good reason to believe there is an objective world. I think that the relativist does not understand the distinction between matters of fact and matters of opinion. They think everything is a matter of opinion, "what is true for you, may not be true for me".

Nothing would be true for humans, because they wouldn't exist anymore. Truth is irrelevant without an observer, because it has to do with value, and it takes a subject for there to be a value judgment made. The thing we call the moon would still exist, but "the moon exists" wouldn't be true or false--it just wouldn't be. It would take a new species to observe the moon for it to exist in the sense that we mean when we say "the moon exists."

Nothing would be true for humans, because they wouldn't exist anymore. Truth is irrelevant without an observer, because it has to do with value, and it takes a subject for there to be a value judgment made. The thing we call the moon would still exist, but "the moon exists" wouldn't be true or false--it just wouldn't be. It would take a new species to observe the moon for it to exist in the sense that we mean when we say "the moon exists."

Come on! You expect to do philosophy by looking up a dictionary?

If one considers that the English word "representation", it is used to designate several different concepts, two among which are designated in German by the two words Darstellung and Vorstellung. The first comes to the mind of English-speakers whenever there is no explicit indication that another is intended. This concept is close to the notion of "picture" and as such involves the replication, in a physical or formal way, of something else that is categorized as "original". The second concept is close to the notion of "conceptual construct", and the German word for it, Vorstellung, is central in the philosophies of Kant and Schopenhauer.

Have our new friends immersed in logical analysis on recent threads considered the etymology of the word "fact" from the Latin facere (similar to French faire) to make or to do? Does this not undermine concepts of "objectivity" and suggest that our picture of "the world" is "brought forth" by observer activity ?

No, "observation" is a verbal accompaniment to a two way inter-relational process between what we call "observer" and "observed". The word "self" can be evoked as " observer", but during most interactions which proceed without description neither the "self" nor "things" have ontological status.

For those who don't understand this idea, let them count on the fingers of one hand how many times they were aware of "self" pushing "brake pedal" last time they "drove a car".

Indeed, let them consider the status of "car" when they make "observations" such as "I turned the corner".

This is a philosophy forum not a barbers shop .