Submitted by Maxwellsdemon17 t3_xsrx5g in philosophy
Reply to comment by TMax01 in “The objective requires the subjective as a foil if it is to play the scientific role late nineteenth-century philosophers assigned to it, not to mention to become accessible through our perceptual apparatus in new kinds of mathematical and logical symbolism.” by Maxwellsdemon17
Fear not, we are in r/philosophy so it is quite appropriate!
I think we must define our terms then. What do you define "subjective", "objective", "fact", and "opinion" as?
For me:
Something subjective is the experience a subject has. It is inherent related to the subject's point of view. Something objective is what is true about the object itself, outside of the experience. A green object reflects a certain wavelength of light (an objective fact), and that gives a viewer the subjective experience of what color it is. The subjective fact is the experience of green, through many physical processes we would call objective.
The word Fact I am using as a particular case/item/detail that is true (this can be at different levels of truth, either a scientific fact that we have good evidence to treat as true or speaking abstractly about a Fact which we want to know is part of any "Truth"). But i admit that usage could be cleaned up. I'm mainly just using it as a detail we want to know or are experiencing (for example, the light reflects off the green object).
It's also worth noting that I would not say I'm conflating "subjective" and "opinion" but rather that an opinion is a straightforward example of a subjective truth. Other subjective truths could include experiences.
Naturally, there's always interplay between the two and value to understanding/discussing both. I share your urge to not use subjective pejorativly.
>This approach [how much something is true beyond a certain point of view] conflates objective with popular, or risks doing so, and misrepresents what (if anything) distinguishes facts from opinions.
Not for nothing, how else do we approach identifing what is objective? Peer review is all about identifying what holds up across multiple perspectives. It dies indeed risk "popular" theories being passed as objective until such time as we disprove that iteration, but that is a mighty effective strategy.
>The same can be said of any opinion, though
This, to some extent, is my point I suppose.
In the end you're definitely right; I was too caught up in the (erronous, lay, and/or postmodern) debate between subjective and objective that sees an opinion as subjective rather than the use of the term to merely describe whether we are talking about the object or the experience of the object. So I appreciate the discussion.
>I think we must define our terms then
All of your "definitions" seem mundane and conventional, so I don't see any need to quibble with them. All of my definitions are implicit and otherwise correspond to the ineffable meaning the words have in any arbitrary context.
>It's also worth noting that I would not say I'm conflating "subjective" and "opinion" but rather that an opinion is a straightforward example of a subjective truth
This is an example of the conflation I was observing. I don't believe "truth" comes in objective or subjective varieties. Your note reiterates the "clever" approach you started with, and is subject to the criticisms I've already expressed about that technique. Being an honest opinion is not the same, either colloquially or philosophically, as it being true. Rhetorically, of course, people are used to making their conjectures unfalsifiable by resorting to the ambiguity of whether a "true opinion" is merely honest or "is likely to align with generalizable truths". That makes it a practice I would guard against rather than encourage.
> Other subjective truths could include experiences. [...] I share your urge to not use subjective pejorativly.
I believe such usage is intrinsic in your perspective. I mention using it dismissively as an example of the results (and the cause as well) of using it ambiguously, and from my perspective, you continue to use it ambiguously. To be honest, outside of philosophical discussions about the term itself, I make it a practice to simply never use the word at all. It cannot be divorced from its pejorative connotations in postmodern (contemporary) language.
>Not for nothing, how else do we approach identifing what is objective?
Well, when we avoid using "subjective" at all, we rarely need to identify what is objective, per se.
>Peer review is all about identifying what holds up across multiple perspectives.
I would dispute this notion, but we may have different processes in mind when using that term. "Peer review" is about identifying what cannot hold up under any reasonable perspective. It is a process that precedes publication of a scholarly paper. I believe you may be referring to public scrutiny, the process which follows publication, when other experts with different perspectives can consider and criticize the thesis.
>So I appreciate the discussion
I'm glad to hear it. I too, as well.
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