Re: Subjective/objective dichotomy
Posted: February 15th, 2024, 12:17 pm
Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑February 15th, 2024, 11:57 amIdeally, had the Church welcomed Galileo, and science had been pursued and integrated over the past 400 years, I think it would have led to a situation wherein is/ought would not be a dichotomy, but a continuum - with the ideal of truth as the fulcrum. i.e. is/truth/ought. Truth extends in both directions - truth, science, fact, technology, functionality. And in the other dimension, truth, honesty, justice. I think it begins with a regard for truth; and accordingly, I always try to speak truth to the good. I don't always succeed. But if I bear this in mind, it helps me understand if I'm not being true enough, or not being good enough, and leads to the kind of practical scepticism you describe.Mercury wrote: ↑February 8th, 2024, 1:20 pm It's rather that subjectivity is an artefact of radical scepticism; of the idea we cannot know an objective world exists 'out there.' Insofar as it is notionally true, it has no practical value.Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑February 15th, 2024, 9:16 amIt has one very practical value, I think. It reminds us that the truth — the truth(s) that we can know — is often inaccessible to us, that uncertainty can be an unavoidable feature of our reality. That is surely a very useful reminder, when we are always so keen to assume our opinions or guesses are more reliable than they actually are?Mercury wrote: ↑February 15th, 2024, 11:09 am So you think subjectivism has led to a practical scepticism, and not to nihilism, absurdism, and post-modern epistemic/moral relativism? You think it leads people to carefully examine and form their own values, rather than make a cathedral of their egos and insist no-one can tell them different? It hasn't undermined a common concept of truth and/or set of established social values, leading to solipsistic individualism, and in turn to polarisation unto extremes of political tribalism, no? Because had it done so, it might be worth asking whether Galileo wasn't right after all, and if he were, what are the implications of that?Yes, I think I agree with most of that...