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Terrapin Station wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:What do you mean 'what are the reasons for any of this?" . . . Objectivity is not obvious, but gleaned through verification, with others.

What I'm getting at is this: I say that objectivity is obvious, and that in includes that there are others in the first place.

You'd say this is wrong. Okay, well how would we establish that it's wrong? Why would I change my belief to "objectivity is not obvious" instead?

The justification for it being obvious is that I can look at, hear, smell, touch and taste things like rivers , other people, flowers, rocks, strawberries, etc.

All of this is nothing more than your mental perception. You were born into a world of naive realism. Science has grown by challenging this childish simplicity which kept humans in a primitive state of nature for millennia.
It's a complete no brainer that every thing you have described here is your fantasy.
I'm not denying that that we live in a material world. But even you should know that there is more to a soft fleshy red fruit than is described by "strawberry". And the fact that you assume that I know what you are talking about is that humans have invented a concept and a word to share that experience. None of this avoids the issue which you are repeatedly ignoring.

My experience of strawberry is different to yours. probably by not much that makes a difference. But the obvious brigade tend to think there entire world is objective and uncontroversial. And such naivete breeds distrust in others that hold different opinions in matters of truth; moral, social, political, religious. In fact all the things that matter.

We can disagree on what is a normal sized strawberry; or if the mutants you buy in a supermarket are truly strawberries as opposed to wild ones. But it won't matter. But unless you recognise that what is objective requires agreement and is far from obvious you will never understand the human condition. Nor will you accept the fact that your entire world is a construct. Everything you take as obvious fits into your narrow narrativized world. Taking that as obvious is not only false but dangerous.

https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/wild-st ... 124981.jpg

Hobbes, wait. Before we go on to other things, from my perspective, you don't seem to be answering this:

"You'd say this is wrong. Okay, well how would we establish that it's wrong?"

I'm sure you feel like you are answering that. But that doesn't help me. I need you to answer it in a way that I feel that you're answering it.

That would be something like saying, "The way that we'd establish that that is wrong is _________" and then you'd fill in the blank.

Terrapin Station wrote:
What I'm getting at is this: I say that objectivity is obvious, and that in includes that there are others in the first place.

You'd say this is wrong. Okay, well how would we establish that it's wrong? Why would I change my belief to "objectivity is not obvious" instead?

The justification for it being obvious is that I can look at, hear, smell, touch and taste things like rivers , other people, flowers, rocks, strawberries, etc.

I do not think you can look at, hear, smell etc. any of those things.

Bits of my body are sensitive to pressure, light etc. That's all. Interpreting such events as 'seeing' etc. is something that goes on in my head. Putting the events together and then interpreting them as 'a strawberry' is also something that goes on in my head. When I say 'I see a strawberry' I am going well beyond what I see, hear etc. For example, I understand strawberries as having a back, even though I only see the front, and so on.

And of course, if I had been born blind then 'strawberry' would not look like anything, so the objectivity of a strawberry is contingent on what sensory organs we happen to have. If I had Daltonism, then the obvious objectivity of strawberries would be that they are green.

Terrapin Station wrote:Hobbes, wait. Before we go on to other things, from my perspective, you don't seem to be answering this:

"You'd say this is wrong. Okay, well how would we establish that it's wrong?"

I'm sure you feel like you are answering that. But that doesn't help me. I need you to answer it in a way that I feel that you're answering it.

That would be something like saying, "The way that we'd establish that that is wrong is _________" and then you'd fill in the blank.

What is "IT" exactly?

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Terrapin Station wrote:Hobbes, wait. Before we go on to other things, from my perspective, you don't seem to be answering this:

"You'd say this is wrong. Okay, well how would we establish that it's wrong?"

I'm sure you feel like you are answering that. But that doesn't help me. I need you to answer it in a way that I feel that you're answering it.

That would be something like saying, "The way that we'd establish that that is wrong is _________" and then you'd fill in the blank.

What is "IT" exactly?

That was just a couple posts ago.

The whole passage was this:

What I'm getting at is this: I say that objectivity is obvious, and that in includes that there are others in the first place.

You'd say this is wrong. Okay, well how would we establish that it's wrong? Why would I change my belief to "objectivity is not obvious" instead?

Londoner wrote:I do not think you can look at, hear, smell etc. any of those things.

Bits of my body are sensitive to pressure, light etc.

But if you don't believe that we can look at etc. any of those things, how do you get to a belief that you have a body that's sensitive to pressure, light, etc.?

Terrapin Station wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Terrapin Station wrote:Hobbes, wait. Before we go on to other things, from my perspective, you don't seem to be answering this:

"You'd say this is wrong. Okay, well how would we establish that it's wrong?"

I'm sure you feel like you are answering that. But that doesn't help me. I need you to answer it in a way that I feel that you're answering it.

That would be something like saying, "The way that we'd establish that that is wrong is _________" and then you'd fill in the blank.

What is "IT" exactly?

That was just a couple posts ago.

The whole passage was this:

What I'm getting at is this: I say that objectivity is obvious, and that in includes that there are others in the first place.

You'd say this is wrong. Okay, well how would we establish that it's wrong? Why would I change my belief to "objectivity is not obvious" instead?

It is not even wrong.

You are not saying anything at all.
You are saying objectivity is obvious; that which is obvious is objective. But you are not saying why you are replacing the word objective when you mean obvious.

It's meaningless.

Hobbes' is conflating belief and truth.

creativesoul wrote:Hobbes' is conflating belief and truth.

Nope.

If you think you have identified an issue then explain, otherwise remain silent.

Terrapin Station wrote:

Londoner wrote:I do not think you can look at, hear, smell etc. any of those things.

Bits of my body are sensitive to pressure, light etc.

But if you don't believe that we can look at etc. any of those things, how do you get to a belief that you have a body that's sensitive to pressure, light, etc.?

Because sensations arise independent of my will; they seem to act on me. And if I test my eyes (by putting my hand in front of them) what I was 'seeing' disappears. This makes me think that my eyes are sensitive to external light, or the lack of it. Even so, it is possible that all sensations are generated internally, but I posit that this is not always the case. Not always: I am aware that sometimes what I interpreted as my body responding to external pressure, light etc. turns out to be something else.

So, I agree that we cannot be certain of even our simplest ideas about how we touch, see etc. So, since not even what sensation is in itself is 'obvious', our interpretation of sensation, as things like 'strawberries' must be even more iffy.

And I would say:

Objectivity is not obvious because we know we can be mistaken about it.

Londoner wrote:So, I agree that we cannot be certain of even our simplest ideas about how we touch, see etc.

That's not my view of course, but on your view, you have absolutely no grounds to believe that you have eyes, hands to put in front eyes, and so on. Any argument you'd attempt to give in support of believing such things would work just as well for believing that there are trees that are independent of you, etc.

Londoner wrote:And I would say:

Objectivity is not obvious because we know we can be mistaken about it.

You couldn't possibly know that you could be mistaken about it if you believe you can't access it. You need to be able to access it to know you've gotten something wrong.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:It is not even wrong.

You are not saying anything at all.
You are saying objectivity is obvious

You'd have to try to explain why "Objectivity is not obvious" is meaningful but "Objectivity is obvious" is not. (Although I doubt we'd agree on philosophy of meaning, so that will probably just turn into a mess, but you can try to explain it and maybe we can avoid a philosophy of meaning discussion.)

that which is obvious is objective.

That part I don't agree with.

But you are not saying why you are replacing the word objective when you mean obvious.

And I don't know why that would seem to be the case to you--that it seems like I'm doing some sort of word replacement. You said, "Objectivity is not obvious." I disagreed and said, "Objectivity is obvious." So the question is then how we figure out who is right.