Is truth subjective or objective?

val writes


Well it has been awhile since I visited brother Kant in any depth, but I seem to recall that his primary thesis was that all we can know of truth is that which we can experience or envision and the conclusions we draw from that. I don't believe Kant said there is no ultimate/final truth possible. His take on it was that we can't know it since we can't know the unknown. And in that, I agree wholeheartedly.

deleted by author

Sorry I missed this, JL. Musta been a doozy! :wink:

It was too stupid to discuss.

Does anybody else have trouble thinking of JL saying something really stupid?

You are right...he normally doesn't.

Although he has said an encyclopedia full of stuff that I disagree with.

But then again...most people have no trouble at all of thinking of me saying something stupid.

Really nice people. Thanks.

Truth is objective to the person who claims it, but subjective to everybody else.

Very good, C.I. . Everybody has opinions; I have knowledge.

" Do you feel that truth is a hard fact that cannot be refuted, or something that the majority merely agrees upon" ? If truth is a hard fact; can/cannot be refuted and the majority can agree upon ?

Again, I propose that truth has to do with propositions about the nature of reality. Truth is not a hard fact; it is ABOUT the hard facts of the matter. Truth is about human inquiry. We are truth seekers. Reality is just "there" Even the notion of hard facts troubles me; I think all facts are really little theories resting on tons of presupposition. If anything, they are ultimately soft facts. We DO speak constantly about THE TRUTH, but that's not the most useful usage if you ask me.

If humans ever learn what "reality" is, we might be able to describe what is subjective or objective.

Yes, C.I.. If we learn about OUR reality, that includes an awareness of how mind works, and this might include the nature of subjectivity--the opposite of objectivity.

What IS...IS.

That is the truth.

One can have considerations about what IS...but no matter what those considerations...only WHAT IS...IS.

That is the truth.

JL Nobody

As you know, I have a very different perspective.
I suggest we consider TRUTH in three levels:
First, the identity principle, like Frank has just mentioned: what is, is. That is true because if we deny the proposition we make a logical contradiction.
Second: true as adequation within a formal system of reference, like language. It is the case when I say "a stone is composed of minerals". Within an accepted geological perspective, it is true.
Third: adequation between a statement and a fact. When I say "this stone is heavy", although I am using words, I express some kind of reaction of my nervous system. In this case, if we accept that there is something external to us that interacts with our nervous system, and reality is the configuration we give to those external stimulations, we can speak about a "heavy stone". The statement "this stone is heavy" would then be true if, and only if there is a stone and it is heavy.

val, But how do you know that "all this" is not an illusion?

I think of truth in the way that JL describes it,
as the jewel, which for me also, incorporates its multiple facets.

I attended a memorial service recently. As each
person shared his memories about my friend, it
seemed that the truth of him became more
and more apparent....Many voices, many
shining aspects of his truth.

Val,

Just consider a "real situation" in which someone would make a statement like "this stone is heavy".

None of your three perpectives of "truth" have any bearing on such a situation except in terms of prediction and control...surprise...ability to lift...warnings etc. In other words "truth" is about interaction and subjective assessment of outcomes. (Muscle men, and little old ladies would have their own respective "truth").

Once more (after Wittgenstein) I say that non-contextual philosophical analysis may be meaningless. I am not denying "an external world" only the possibility of any "objective means" of defining it. Terms like "geological perspective" are simply references to a paradigmatic consensuses which like "humours of the body" or "Newtonian physics" are
functional (i.e. predictive) at different historical periods in epistemological development.

C.I., I "know" that all this IS an illusion. The world as I experience it may be represented in terms of ontological levels. For example, at a "lower" level the world consists of the activities of energy, at another of atoms (composed of energy), at another molecules (composed of atoms), at another inanimate and animate organizations of molecules, at another ontological level organisms, including our bodies, etc. etc. It's like a cumulative scale. All these, and other representations of "levels", are my (our) constructions, given that the concepts of "energy," "atoms," "molecules," organizations of molecules," "organisms," "human bodies" (and then up to "higher levels" like communities, nations, cultural systems, planets, Cosmos, ad delireum) reflect mental representations of what I believe is "out there." The buddhists say--and I agree--that it is all illusion or "empty" in so far as each level is not independent or absolute. Each "level" is dependent on, and relative to, (1) our constructive activities and (2) on the lower constructed levels of which it is epiphenomenal (or perhaps "epi-constructural"). I think.

Yeah...sure!

Another person who KNOWS the REALITY.

Incredible!

No wonder we still kill each other at the slightest provocation.

We are not grown-up!