• frank
    15.8k
    Interesting, but I disagree.
    19h
    Banno

    An artist who works for the police draws a portrait of a criminal based on the memories of a victim. After the image is broadcast on T.V., a woman calls the police to report that she knows the criminal. It is later proven that man she identified was in fact the perpetrator.

    Doesn't this show that there is more to subjective experience than the modification of a sentence? It involves accurate memories of what things look like.
  • S
    11.7k
    What is the "proper" understanding?Terrapin Station

    The fallacy is about applying the wrong criteria.

    It's a fallacy to argue that because lots of people believe that in ancient Greece, sculptures were unpainted, then they were unpainted. They were actually painted bright colours. The fallacy is that the incorrect criterion is being applied.

    It's not a fallacy to argue that the word "cat" means something other than "dog", because unless you're autistic, you'll know straightaway that what's meant by that is the general, ordinary meaning of the word, not what some joker or imbecile has decided it to mean. The correct criterion for that is common usage.

    What you're doing is making the irrelevant point that someone can set an idiosyncratic meaning, and you're pretending to be autistic when someone says that "cat" doesn't mean "dog".
  • S
    11.7k
    it may seem obvious to you that there are unconfirmed hypothetical facts, and there indeed may be, but as I said earlier they will only become actual facts when confirmed. The idea of a fact which could never be confirmed in principle is incoherent. So, facts and confirmation are inextricably tied.Janus

    No, you're just making a very basic error in confusing facts, what is the case, with knowledge, what is known to be the case. They become known facts when confirmed. They were facts beforehand.

    Confirmation is completely irrelevant here. Facts are not facts by virtue of anything whatsoever to do with confirmation. I know you really want to make your theory work, but it doesn't. It's rubbish. Just like your morality as herd-morality theory.
  • Banno
    25.1k
    What would be an example or two of that (of it "causing more fog than clarity") in your view?Terrapin Station

    I've given a few. Your present post, for one.

    "Meaning is shared" is what is wrong. No mental phenomena are literally shared in any sense.Terrapin Station

    I rest my case.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    It's not a fallacy to argue that the word "cat" means something other than "dog",S

    Toargue that it means something per what?
  • Banno
    25.1k
    Why a group, though? Wouldn't an individual be sufficient?Terrapin Station

    No. Meaning is shared.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    So if it's something an individual is doing, you're just not going to call it meaning?
  • Banno
    25.1k
    You are aware of the private language argument.

    It's rather disingenuous to insist that if someone does not agree with you then they have misread your posts.
  • S
    11.7k
    To argue that it means something per what?Terrapin Station

    Per the rest of what I explained which you cut out from your quote. Why are you playing dumb?
  • Banno
    25.1k
    Does it? What is it in your example that is subjective?

    here's' my contention: that there is a fairly straightforward use of "subjective" to talk about feelings and such. There is also a further use of "subjective" to talk about more philosophical stuff; this is a example of misappropriation.

    This thread has already flushed out plenty of examples. See Leo arguing that Jupiter is subjective or Terra arguing that meaning is private.
  • Banno
    25.1k
    Both are objective aspects of the world that we can talk about.Harry Hindu

    I just do most see what "objective" is doing here. Both are aspects of the world that we can talk about.
  • Banno
    25.1k
    When we think we are being objective but find out we were wrong, the reasons we find that we were wrong was because we were being more subjective and less objective. We were missing information, lied to, or committed a logical fallacy, like pleading to authority.[/quote]

    Hmm. The reasons you provide, that I italicised...

    Seem more objective that subjective.

    What if we were misled by feelings of revulsion, a preference for blonds...

    These would be subjective.
    Harry Hindu
  • Banno
    25.1k
    But do you realize that subjectivity includes perception itself and not just feeling or taste?leo

    I know some philosophers talk this way. I think it misleading. The remainder of your post serves as an example of what happens when a philosopher talks this way.
  • Banno
    25.1k
    "I prefer...", if stated sincerely, is objectively true - its truth is not dependent on anyone's opinion.
    — ChrisH

    Isn't it dependent on the opinion of the speaker?
    — Banno

    No it's a statement of fact. I suppose you could argue that all statements of fact are "dependent on the opinion of the speaker". I'm not sure how useful that would be.
    ChrisH

    You are here using "objective" in a way that differs from the one set out in the OP.

    "I prefer vanilla ice" is a subjective statement in accord with the use set out in the OP. It is true only if the speaker does have a certain preference.

    But it is also a statement of fact.

    That is, I don't agree with your "No it's a statement of fact". You imply that subjective statements and statements of fact are mutually exclusive. I don't see why this should be so.

    Nor need I argue that all statements of fact are mere opinions.
  • Banno
    25.1k
    @StreetlightX

    My apologies for being somewhat dismissive.

    This thread is about applying the stuff in PI to philosophical problems. You can see that other issues that take on prominence here.

    Hope you find it interesting.
  • frank
    15.8k
    Does it? What is it in your example that is subjective?Banno

    The victim's experience of remembering what the criminal looked like is a subjective one. Though the victim does report on this experience verbally, I wouldn't think the memory itself is some database of sentences.

    If that's what you're saying, 1) why do you believe that, and 2) what does that theory of mind have to do with Wittgenstein?

    here's' my contention: that there is a fairly straightforward use of "subjective" to talk about feelings and such. There is also a further use of "subjective" to talk about more philosophical stuff; this is a example of misappropriation.Banno

    Is it? Philosophers frequently used specialized language just as shorthand. Is that wrong?
  • Banno
    25.1k
    The victim's experience of remembering what the criminal looked like is a subjective one.frank

    Now what does this mean? When you say it is subjective, what does that do?

    I understand what subjective means in the contexts explained in the OP - a feeling or a preference or that sort of thing.

    But a memory is not a feeling or a preference; although one can remember a feeling. Here, you are asking the victim to remember a face.

    So it seems you are using subjective here to mean something different. What?
  • Banno
    25.1k
    I'm not going to summarise PI in twenty words or less.
  • frank
    15.8k
    So it seems you are using subjective here to mean something different. What?Banno

    The story is constructed to keep you from avoiding my point.

    Information can be subjective or objective. Information comes in a variety of forms including pictures. A picture always has a point of view. In regard to subjective and objective information of a visual type, the position of the observer is what's being identified.

    When the victim was first assaulted, she had a subjective view of the criminal. So, for instance, she doesn't remember what the back of his head looked like. That's typical of the subjective view. Some things are visible, others are not. An objective view doesn't have limits of that type. It seems to be everywhere.

    The police artist asks her to recall the criminal's appearance. Now she has another subjective experience, except this time it isn't directed outward, but inward (so to speak) to the realm of memory.

    The idea of turning your view inward is something you'll have to understand in order to get the majority of visual art created in the 20th Century. So you couldn't really say there's anything obscure about that.
  • frank
    15.8k
    I'm not going to summarise PI in twenty words or less.Banno

    I was just asking how your theory of mind relates to Wittgenstein.
  • YuZhonglu
    212
    Belief and Truth are not the same... only if you can think from the perspective of someone else. If you can't, then they are the same.
  • Banno
    25.1k
    So why not just say that the victim has a point of view, and be done with it?

    What more is added by bringing in subjective? My contention is that it brings with it considerable harmful baggage.

    When the victim was first assaulted, she had a point of view of the criminal. So, for instance, she doesn't remember what the back of his head looked like. That's typical of the point of view. Some things are visible, others are not. An objective view doesn't have limits of that type. It seems to be everywhere.
    Not too bad.
    The police artist asks her to recall the criminal's appearance. Now she has another point of view experience, except this time it isn't directed outward, but inward (so to speak) to the realm of memory.

    ...and things start to come apart. Well, she has a memory, and it is from her point of view... unless it changes, as memories are prone to do.

    Also, we don't usually talk about experiencing memories; we just have them. Here lies another wombat hole, in which we start to use "experience" for things other than experiences. (A wombat hole is like a rabbit hole, but much, much bigger.)
  • Banno
    25.1k
    And by theory of mind, you mean why I think other people have minds? Or something else?
  • Banno
    25.1k
    @frank

    If you do mean theory of mind as in the psychology of why we think other folk are not philosophical zombies, there are numerous examples in PI. They usually take a form something like "I don't doubt that the man before me is in pain..."

    I guess it relates again to the rejection of the requirement that a proposition always be justified. Show me reason to think that other people are philosophical zombies...
  • frank
    15.8k
    So why not just say that the victim has a point of view, and be done with it?

    What more is added by bringing in subjective? My contention is that it brings with it considerable harmful baggage.
    Banno

    What's the harmful baggage in a statement like this?:

    Perhaps the most familiar basic issue in the theory of beauty is whether beauty is subjective—located ‘in the eye of the beholder’—or whether it is an objective feature of beautiful things.SEP

    Also, we don't usually talk about experiencing memories; we just have them.Banno

    Do you not understand what it means to have the experience of remembering?
  • YuZhonglu
    212
    If you are a fanatic, belief and truth are the same. They're different only if you're not a fanatic and can see things from the perspective of others.
  • Banno
    25.1k
    Do you not understand what it means to have the experience of remembering?frank

    No.

    I don't see a difference between having the experience of remembering and...remembering.

    Further I hold that if folk want to make such distinction, they ought explain it.
  • Banno
    25.1k
    ↪Banno If you are a fanatic, belief and truth are the same.YuZhonglu

    Only if the fanatic is right.
  • YuZhonglu
    212
    Human feelings of belief and truth have little to do with accuracy.
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