What could make morality objective?

[popeye1945]

There is only biological truths or falsehoods and that biology is not infallible. All meaning is subjective first belonging to a biological subject, it is then bestowed upon a meaningless world.

[Veritas Aequitas]

If what you mean is that there's no such thing as absolute truth, ......

I agree, "there's no such thing as absolute truth, ..."

If there is no absolute truth [or fact] then there is only conditional truth or fact.
What you failed here is you stop short of what are these conditional truths or facts conditioned upon?
This is why you have been cowardly avoiding despite my many requests that you state what your conditional truths or facts are conditioned upon.

All you could to was to throw dictionary definitions of 'what is fact' at me.
If that is the best you can do, then you have to accept what is fact as conditional fact is conditioned upon the specific dictionary you quoted or the specific FSK of that dictionary or dictionary in general.

But we know the purpose of etymology [dictionaries] is merely to represent what is the common usage of a word at present and over time, its intention is not to represent reality at all.

So far, you have cowardly avoided to explain what your conditional facts or truths are conditioned upon. If you cannot do so, then such facts or truths are baseless, groundless and delusional.

First. Words such as 'fact' and 'truth' can mean only what we use them to mean. And dictionaries provide a snapshot of what we use words to mean. You can dismiss those uses of words, of course. But so what? That's how we use them.

Next. What we English speakers call a fact is a feature of reality that is or was the case. And that has nothing to do with knowledge - what we know to be or have been the case - or description - how we describe what is or was the case. So your claim that a fact is 'conditioned upon a system or framework of knowledge' is false. Repeat: false. Repeat: false.

Next. What we English speakers mean when we say a factual assertion is true is what constitutes what we call truth. And that's all there is to it. Again, you can reject that use of the word 'truth', but so what? That's how we use it.

Last. If you claim that nothing - no fact - exists outside a framework and system of knowledge, say it honestly, and prove it. It's nonsense, of course. And that's why your whole argument is hopeless.

Note my counter to your above, here,
Fact is What We English Speakers said It Is?
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=34762

[Peter Holmes]

I agree, "there's no such thing as absolute truth, ..."

If there is no absolute truth [or fact] then there is only conditional truth or fact.
What you failed here is you stop short of what are these conditional truths or facts conditioned upon?
This is why you have been cowardly avoiding despite my many requests that you state what your conditional truths or facts are conditioned upon.

All you could to was to throw dictionary definitions of 'what is fact' at me.
If that is the best you can do, then you have to accept what is fact as conditional fact is conditioned upon the specific dictionary you quoted or the specific FSK of that dictionary or dictionary in general.

But we know the purpose of etymology [dictionaries] is merely to represent what is the common usage of a word at present and over time, its intention is not to represent reality at all.

So far, you have cowardly avoided to explain what your conditional facts or truths are conditioned upon. If you cannot do so, then such facts or truths are baseless, groundless and delusional.

First. Words such as 'fact' and 'truth' can mean only what we use them to mean. And dictionaries provide a snapshot of what we use words to mean. You can dismiss those uses of words, of course. But so what? That's how we use them.

Next. What we English speakers call a fact is a feature of reality that is or was the case. And that has nothing to do with knowledge - what we know to be or have been the case - or description - how we describe what is or was the case. So your claim that a fact is 'conditioned upon a system or framework of knowledge' is false. Repeat: false. Repeat: false.

Next. What we English speakers mean when we say a factual assertion is true is what constitutes what we call truth. And that's all there is to it. Again, you can reject that use of the word 'truth', but so what? That's how we use it.

Last. If you claim that nothing - no fact - exists outside a framework and system of knowledge, say it honestly, and prove it. It's nonsense, of course. And that's why your whole argument is hopeless.

Note my counter to your above, here,
Fact is What We English Speakers said It Is?
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=34762

Noted and dismissed as irrelevant - and maybe duplicitous.

[Veritas Aequitas]

First. Words such as 'fact' and 'truth' can mean only what we use them to mean. And dictionaries provide a snapshot of what we use words to mean. You can dismiss those uses of words, of course. But so what? That's how we use them.

Next. What we English speakers call a fact is a feature of reality that is or was the case. And that has nothing to do with knowledge - what we know to be or have been the case - or description - how we describe what is or was the case. So your claim that a fact is 'conditioned upon a system or framework of knowledge' is false. Repeat: false. Repeat: false.

Next. What we English speakers mean when we say a factual assertion is true is what constitutes what we call truth. And that's all there is to it. Again, you can reject that use of the word 'truth', but so what? That's how we use it.

Last. If you claim that nothing - no fact - exists outside a framework and system of knowledge, say it honestly, and prove it. It's nonsense, of course. And that's why your whole argument is hopeless.

Note my counter to your above, here,
Fact is What We English Speakers said It Is?
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=34762

Noted and dismissed as irrelevant - and maybe duplicitous.

As usual you are making noise.

You still have not provided the grounds that you are grounding your claim on what is fact other than insisting 'because we English speakers said so'.

I suggest you do a thorough research into how your views were arrived at since the days of the defunct logical positivists.

[Peter Holmes]

Note my counter to your above, here,
Fact is What We English Speakers said It Is?
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=34762

Noted and dismissed as irrelevant - and maybe duplicitous.

As usual you are making noise.

You still have not provided the grounds that you are grounding your claim on what is fact other than insisting 'because we English speakers said so'.

I suggest you do a thorough research into how your views were arrived at since the days of the defunct logical positivists.

Answer the question: Do you think that only what is claimed to exist actually exists? The answer is yes or no.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Noted and dismissed as irrelevant - and maybe duplicitous.

As usual you are making noise.

You still have not provided the grounds that you are grounding your claim on what is fact other than insisting 'because we English speakers said so'.

I suggest you do a thorough research into how your views were arrived at since the days of the defunct logical positivists.

Answer the question: Do you think that only what is claimed to exist actually exists? The answer is yes or no.

As usual you are constructing straw man.
Suggest you refer to the above where you first raised the question where I had provided the appropriate answer.

[Peter Holmes]

As usual you are making noise.

You still have not provided the grounds that you are grounding your claim on what is fact other than insisting 'because we English speakers said so'.

I suggest you do a thorough research into how your views were arrived at since the days of the defunct logical positivists.

Answer the question: Do you think that only what is claimed to exist actually exists? The answer is yes or no.

As usual you are constructing straw man.
Suggest you refer to the above where you first raised the question where I had provided the appropriate answer.

Your answer is evasive and contradictory. Does only what is claimed or known to exist actually exist? Could a thing that's not claimed or known to exist actually exist?

The answer is obviously yes. And you know you can't admit that, because it destroys your claim that what we call a fact - a feature of reality that is or was the case - can exist only within a framework and system of knowledge. You're stuck with a degenerate strain of Kantian empiricist skepticism.

We perceive and describe things in a human way. Aliens may well perceive and describe them in a different way. But perception and description don't create what's perceived and described. Esse non est percipi.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Answer the question: Do you think that only what is claimed to exist actually exists? The answer is yes or no.

As usual you are constructing straw man.
Suggest you refer to the above where you first raised the question where I had provided the appropriate answer.

Your answer is evasive and contradictory. Does only what is claimed or known to exist actually exist? Could a thing that's not claimed or known to exist actually exist?

The answer is obviously yes. And you know you can't admit that, because it destroys your claim that what we call a fact - a feature of reality that is or was the case - can exist only within a framework and system of knowledge. You're stuck with a degenerate strain of framework and system of knowledge.

What framework and system of knowledge??

Do you even understand [not necessary agree with] Kant Copernican Revolution?

Kant's most original contribution to philosophy is his "Copernican Revolution," that, as he puts it, it is the representation that makes the object possible rather than the object that makes the representation possible.
https://www.age-of-the-sage.org/philoso ... lution.asp#:

Btw, Kant is recognized as one of the Greatest Philosophers of ALL Times, so that has at least a good amount of credibility to Kant's philosophy.

Can you disprove his "Copernican Revolution" other than making noises.

Note your basis [you probable is ignorant or in denial] is leveraged on the
"correspondence theory of truth"

In metaphysics and philosophy of language, the correspondence theory of truth states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world and whether it accurately describes (i.e., corresponds with) that world.[1]

Correspondence theories claim that true beliefs and true statements correspond to the actual state of affairs. This type of theory attempts to posit a relationship between thoughts or statements on one hand, and things or facts on the other.

Note its objection;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspon ... Objections

Btw, you still have not justify the grounds of your claims and based on such empty grounds you want to critique my views?

[Peter Holmes]

As usual you are constructing straw man.
Suggest you refer to the above where you first raised the question where I had provided the appropriate answer.

Your answer is evasive and contradictory. Does only what is claimed or known to exist actually exist? Could a thing that's not claimed or known to exist actually exist?

The answer is obviously yes. And you know you can't admit that, because it destroys your claim that what we call a fact - a feature of reality that is or was the case - can exist only within a framework and system of knowledge. You're stuck with a degenerate strain of framework and system of knowledge.

What framework and system of knowledge??

Do you even understand [not necessary agree with] Kant Copernican Revolution?

Kant's most original contribution to philosophy is his "Copernican Revolution," that, as he puts it, it is the representation that makes the object possible rather than the object that makes the representation possible.
https://www.age-of-the-sage.org/philoso ... lution.asp#:

Can you disprove his "Copernican Revolution" other than making noises.

Note your basis [you probable is ignorant or in denial] is leveraged on the
"correspondence theory of truth"

In metaphysics and philosophy of language, the correspondence theory of truth states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world and whether it accurately describes (i.e., corresponds with) that world.[1]

Correspondence theories claim that true beliefs and true statements correspond to the actual state of affairs. This type of theory attempts to posit a relationship between thoughts or statements on one hand, and things or facts on the other.

Note its objection;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspon ... Objections

Btw, you still have not justify the grounds of your claims and based on such empty grounds you want to critique my views?

Why did you change what I actually wrote - 'a degenerate strain of Kantian empiricist skepticism'?

And I don't accept a correspondence theory of truth.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Your answer is evasive and contradictory. Does only what is claimed or known to exist actually exist? Could a thing that's not claimed or known to exist actually exist?

The answer is obviously yes. And you know you can't admit that, because it destroys your claim that what we call a fact - a feature of reality that is or was the case - can exist only within a framework and system of knowledge. You're stuck with a degenerate strain of framework and system of knowledge.

What framework and system of knowledge??

Do you even understand [not necessary agree with] Kant Copernican Revolution?

Kant's most original contribution to philosophy is his "Copernican Revolution," that, as he puts it, it is the representation that makes the object possible rather than the object that makes the representation possible.
https://www.age-of-the-sage.org/philoso ... lution.asp#:

Can you disprove his "Copernican Revolution" other than making noises.

Note your basis [you probable is ignorant or in denial] is leveraged on the
"correspondence theory of truth"

In metaphysics and philosophy of language, the correspondence theory of truth states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world and whether it accurately describes (i.e., corresponds with) that world.[1]

Correspondence theories claim that true beliefs and true statements correspond to the actual state of affairs. This type of theory attempts to posit a relationship between thoughts or statements on one hand, and things or facts on the other.

Note its objection;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspon ... Objections

Btw, you still have not justify the grounds of your claims and based on such empty grounds you want to critique my views?

Why did you change what I actually wrote - 'a degenerate strain of Kantian empiricist skepticism'?

And I don't accept a correspondence theory of truth.

Your Kantian empiricist skepticism is nonsensical. Kant was never an empiricist.


If you don't accept a correspondence theory of truth, then what? Your fact, state of affairs has to correspond to some referent.
If your referent is not mind entangled and it is independent of mind, it definitely fit into the correspondence theory of truth. How else?

[Peter Holmes]

What framework and system of knowledge??

Do you even understand [not necessary agree with] Kant Copernican Revolution?



Can you disprove his "Copernican Revolution" other than making noises.

Note your basis [you probable is ignorant or in denial] is leveraged on the
"correspondence theory of truth"



Note its objection;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspon ... Objections

Btw, you still have not justify the grounds of your claims and based on such empty grounds you want to critique my views?

Why did you change what I actually wrote - 'a degenerate strain of Kantian empiricist skepticism'?

And I don't accept a correspondence theory of truth.

Your Kantian empiricist skepticism is nonsensical. Kant was never an empiricist.


If you don't accept a correspondence theory of truth, then what? Your fact, state of affairs has to correspond to some referent.
If your referent is not mind entangled and it is independent of mind, it definitely fit into the correspondence theory of truth. How else?

1 Kant's whole enterprise came from his agreement that Hume and the empiricists were right, and his attempt to find a way to redeem rationalism.

2 Perhaps you don't understand a correspondence theory of truth. A fact/state-of-affairs/feature of reality doesn't correspond to anything. It just is. And a correspondence theory says that a factual assertion is true if it corresponds with a fact/state-of-affairs/feature of reality. So the assertion 'snow is white' is true if what we call snow is what we call white. Notice the tautology? X is Y because we call X, 'Y'.

Correspondence theories demonstrate our mistaking what we say about things for the way things are - the original mistake of and in philosophy.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Why did you change what I actually wrote - 'a degenerate strain of Kantian empiricist skepticism'?

And I don't accept a correspondence theory of truth.

Your Kantian empiricist skepticism is nonsensical. Kant was never an empiricist.


If you don't accept a correspondence theory of truth, then what? Your fact, state of affairs has to correspond to some referent.
If your referent is not mind entangled and it is independent of mind, it definitely fit into the correspondence theory of truth. How else?

1 Kant's whole enterprise came from his agreement that Hume and the empiricists were right, and his attempt to find a way to redeem rationalism.

2 Perhaps you don't understand a correspondence theory of truth. A fact/state-of-affairs/feature of reality doesn't correspond to anything. It just is. And a correspondence theory says that a factual assertion is true if it corresponds with a fact/state-of-affairs/feature of reality. So the assertion 'snow is white' is true if what we call snow is what we call white. Notice the tautology? X is Y because we call X, 'Y'.

Correspondence theories demonstrate our mistaking what we say about things for the way things are - the original mistake of and in philosophy.

Earlier Kant was a true and true rationalist and never an empiricist.
Kant admitted Hume woken him from his dogmatic rationalist slumber but he never converted to be an empiricist.
Rather Kant took the middle way ending without pure rationalism nor empiricism.

PH: "A fact/state-of-affairs/feature of reality doesn't correspond to anything. It just is."
That is the problem that Kant denounced.
To Kant there is no fact-in-itself, i.e. a fact just is and is independent of human entanglement.

Reality is all there is where humans are intricately part and parcel of of reality.
There is no way humans can extricate themselves from reality which they are part and parcel of.
So fact is not "just is" a fact as I had claimed has to be conditioned to a specific FSK which is ultimately entangled with the human conditions, e.g. the scientific FSK generating scientific facts being the most credible at present.

Whatever exists or claimed as real must be entangled with a humanly entangled FSK, whatever real cannot exists independently of human entanglements.

You may denial the Correspondence Theory of Truth for its obvious objections but your stance that fact 'just is' subtly incorporate its essence of independence from human minds.

[Peter Holmes]

Your Kantian empiricist skepticism is nonsensical. Kant was never an empiricist.


If you don't accept a correspondence theory of truth, then what? Your fact, state of affairs has to correspond to some referent.
If your referent is not mind entangled and it is independent of mind, it definitely fit into the correspondence theory of truth. How else?

1 Kant's whole enterprise came from his agreement that Hume and the empiricists were right, and his attempt to find a way to redeem rationalism.

2 Perhaps you don't understand a correspondence theory of truth. A fact/state-of-affairs/feature of reality doesn't correspond to anything. It just is. And a correspondence theory says that a factual assertion is true if it corresponds with a fact/state-of-affairs/feature of reality. So the assertion 'snow is white' is true if what we call snow is what we call white. Notice the tautology? X is Y because we call X, 'Y'.

Correspondence theories demonstrate our mistaking what we say about things for the way things are - the original mistake of and in philosophy.

Earlier Kant was a true and true rationalist and never an empiricist.
Kant admitted Hume woken him from his dogmatic rationalist slumber but he never converted to be an empiricist.
Rather Kant took the middle way ending without pure rationalism nor empiricism.

PH: "A fact/state-of-affairs/feature of reality doesn't correspond to anything. It just is."
That is the problem that Kant denounced.
To Kant there is no fact-in-itself, i.e. a fact just is and is independent of human entanglement.

Reality is all there is where humans are intricately part and parcel of of reality.
There is no way humans can extricate themselves from reality which they are part and parcel of.
So fact is not "just is" a fact as I had claimed has to be conditioned to a specific FSK which is ultimately entangled with the human conditions, e.g. the scientific FSK generating scientific facts being the most credible at present.

Whatever exists or claimed as real must be entangled with a humanly entangled FSK, whatever real cannot exists independently of human entanglements.

You may denial the Correspondence Theory of Truth for its obvious objections but your stance that fact 'just is' subtly incorporate its essence of independence from human minds.

Things existed before humans turned up, and will exist after we're gone. So the claim that whatever exists depends on humans is patent nonsense.

And I suggest you investigate refutations of idealism, because you've been duped by an ancient dualism, that Descartes repackaged and Kant never questioned, and that takes metaphorical mentalist talk - about minds containing mental things and events - literally.

[Skepdick]

Things existed before humans turned up, and will exist after we're gone.

That's not true!

There is no such a thing as "thing" without humans abstractly conceptualising "thingness".

Convince yourself by trying (and failing) to show us a "thing". Just one example of a "thing" will suffice.

[Advocate]

[quote=Skepdick post_id=570929 time=1651839605 user_id=17350]
[quote="Peter Holmes" post_id=570927 time=1651835637 user_id=15099]
Things existed before humans turned up, and will exist after we're gone.
[/quote]
That's not true!

There is no such a thing as "thing" without humans abstractly conceptualising "thingness".

Convince yourself by trying (and failing) to show us a "thing". Just one example of a "thing" will suffice.
[/quote]

Actuality is undifferentiated stuff, infinite in all directions, at all scales, forever.

Reality is a sub-set of Actuality that is accessible to a mind, and is where all Things begin and end, because there are no beginnings or ends in Actuality.