Attention logicians. Facts are constructions!

What I understand is that you have not read any of the preamble to my comments, nor the published references to which they refer. We can all play at kibbitzing, or mouthing off at what the manager of the football team should have done.

Objectivity is both a central and elusive philosophical category. While there is no universally accepted articulation of objectivity, a proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are "mind-independent"—that is, not the result of any judgments made by a conscious entity or subject. Contrary to this, most recent philosophers, since the Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, have concluded that scientific knowledge is systematic knowledge of the nature of existing things as we perceive them, rather than as they are in themselves.

facts are real plain and simple

"Existence" always involves relationship. Some "things" are " solid" because their "atomic structure" cannot pass though an observer's "atomic structure" (unlike the "things" we call "cosmic rays"), but unless there is an observer to experience the "passing through" or otherwise, the concept of "solidity" is meaningless. And a similar argument stands for "visibility" and "audibility" etc. For this reason we can make no statements at all about the nature of a universe without observers. Naive realists who do, forget that THEY are still observing "IT" in their mind's eye.

I certainly commune with aspects of Heidegger's ontology and epistemology. His dalliance with the Nazis, however, suggests we handle with caution.

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".

You are almost there but not quite... take the argument to its full extent...."things" require "a thinger"!

fresco wrote:

You are almost there but not quite... take the argument to its full extent...."things" require "a thinger"!

I'll ask you again, because it's very relevant to the discussion at hand:

How do things become thinged, and how would a thinger thing a thing now?

Next time you find your yourself driving down the wrong road because of habit you will know what I mean by the absence of "self".

Its possible that a thinger things a thing in much the way a stuffer stuffs some stuff.

Huxley,

As a working hypothesis, we need to take language as an a priori for "thinging". Thus the segmentation of "the world" is usually available to the "observer" for those co-ordinative processes we call "thinking". Heidegger gives the example of a man hammering without any awareness (thinking) of a separation of "self" and "hammer" until he hits his thumb say. At that point the "hammer" and "self" becomes separated with a vocalization (internal or external) of the form "damn Hammer" or "Joe (himself) you idiot be more careful" etc. Thus "thinging" occurs when there is a pause in the flow in which relationships are examined and revised. He might even pick up what would in general terms would be called "a brick" so that it functions as a replacement for "hammer",i.e. it is "thinged" as "hammer". Note that the "properties" of "things" are expectations about functional relationships.
They are not aspects of "objects" per se. Obviously the origins of language are significant to this analysis, and this has lead some to speculate that we must search for those in the social domain, hence a leaning towards the concept of a socially structured reality.

Okay Zetherin. How about if you report back to us exactly how many times you use the brake pedal tomorrow.

Zetherin,

I suggest you are no more aware of the brake pedal during the "flow of driving" than you are are of breathing or blinking. "Awareness" comes when the flow is interrupted. Indeed psychologists argue that conscious awareness of automatic processes would cause "information overload" and impede the flow.
Think of cycling as another example. You are not going to argue that you are consciously aware of the feedback loop we use to keep our balance are you ?

The point is "the self" is absent from the flow much of the time, and so it should be from an evolutionary perspective. Some find this worrying!