Philosophy Now Forum

Words and other signs can mean only what we use them to mean. And this applies to the words fact and objectivity.

What we call a fact is a feature of reality – sometimes called a state-of-affairs - that is or was the case, regardless of anyone’s belief, judgement or opinion.

An opinion held by everyone is still an opinion, whereas a fact acknowledged by no one is still a fact.

Lack of evidence may not mean a claim is false. But it does mean that to believe a claim is true is irrational.

A moral assertion is one that says something is morally right or wrong, or that we should or ought to do something because it is morally right, or not do it because it is morally wrong.

We can use the words right, wrong, good, bad, should and ought to morally or non-morally. For example, the expressions the right answer, a bad experience, and we ought to leave need have nothing to do with morality.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2023 4:41 am I have given you the definition of philosophical realism a 'million' times,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism
I am definitely NOT a realist in the above sense.
However, I am a realist in the Empirical Realism sense.

I claimed you are undeniably a philosophical realists [reality and things independent of opinions, beliefs and judgments] as defined above.
This is fundamentally what theists are grounding their theism.
Whilst you deny God exists, your philosophical grounding is the same as the theists'.

Btw, you have not support your claims with any reference nor alignment to any specific philosophy.
I have always state my philosophical stance clearly, i.e.
1. ANTI-Philosophical Realism
2. Kantian -Empirical Realism, Transcendental Idealism
3. Buddhism and other non-realist Eastern Philosophies.

My guess [you need to confirm] your philosophical stance is this;

1. Analytic Philosophy with the Linguistic Turn with the following background;

• In 1936, back from Vienna but not yet in the Chair, he [Ayer] announced an uncompromisingly formal version of linguistic philosophy:
  
  The Linguistic Turn:
  [T]he philosopher, as an analyst, is not directly concerned with the physical properties of things.
  He is concerned only with the way in which we speak about them.
  In other words, the propositions of philosophy are not factual, but linguistic in character — that is, they do not describe the behaviour of physical, or even mental, objects; they express definitions, or the formal consequences of definitions. (1936: 61-2).

Three Tenets of the Analytic School:

• Dummett gave a classic articulation of the Linguistic Turn, attributing it to Frege:
  Only with Frege was the proper object of philosophy finally established: namely,
  first, that the goal of philosophy is the analysis of the structure of thought;
  secondly, that the study of thought is to be sharply distinguished from the study of the psychological process of thinking; and,
  finally, that the only proper method for analysing thought consists in the analysis of language.
  [...] [T]he acceptance of these three tenets is common to the entire analytical school (1978: 458).

I believe your philosophical stance lies somewhere within the above, BUT the above philosophies all has their "legs amputated" and refuted at present.

Can you confirm the above?

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2023 12:53 pm As for the stuff about analytic philosophy - mistaking what we say for what we think is as confusing as mistaking what we say for the reality outside language. There was a wrong-turn to language, in my opinion, beginning with Frege and the Tractatus.

The Linguistic Turn was a major development in Western philosophy during the early 20th century, the most important characteristic of which is the focusing of philosophy primarily on the relations between language, language users, and the world.[1]

Very different intellectual movements were associated with the "linguistic turn", although the term itself is commonly thought to have been popularised by Richard Rorty's 1967 anthology The Linguistic Turn, in which he discusses the turn towards linguistic philosophy.
According to Rorty, who later dissociated himself from linguistic philosophy and analytic philosophy generally, the phrase "the linguistic turn" originated with philosopher Gustav Bergmann
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_turn

So far, you have not been specific on what grounds are your philosophical stances based on?

PH wrote:viewtopic.php?p=665777#p665777
As I've explained, I begin with a methodological distinction between three things:
features of reality that are or were the case;
what we believe and know about them; and
what we say about them - which, in classical logic, may be true or false, given our contextual and conventional use of signs.

I think this taxonomy - rigorously applied - unlocks the potential in the later Wittgenstein's insight into meaning as use - the 'right turn to language'. For example, it exposes the mistake of thinking that philosophy's true business is the analysis of thought or concepts.

And as for ontology, I reject claims about the existence and nature of supposed abstract or non-physical things, which, pending evidence, I think are irrational.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 12:23 pm
"Dictionaries provide just a snapshot of usage. But here are two.

1 Objective: adjective: (of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts: Contrasted with subjective.

2 Fact: noun: a thing that is known to exist, to have occurred, or to be true.

Given these, my OP question is obviously confused - and confusing. But what matters - it seems to me - is the centrality of facts with regard to objectivity. That there are facts is assumed in the definition of objectivity.

So earlier I've tried to rephrase the OP as: 'Are there moral facts?' And that obviously resolves into the question: what constitutes a fact?

I've been pointing out that there's a fundamental difference - evident in the above definition - between a fact-as-feature-of-reality (known to exist or to have occurred) and a fact as a thing that is true. The point being that features of reality have no truth-value; they just are or were the case. In this context, only factual assertions - typically linguistic expressions - are true or false - given the way we use the signs in context.

I maintain that most if not all philosophical confusion and disagreement arises from mistaking what we say - using factual assertions with truth-value - for the way things are or were. Outside language, reality is not linguistic - and features of reality aren't obliged to conform to our ways of talking about them. And I think that's one of the most profound consequences of Wittgenstein's profound insight - that meaning is use.

Needless to say, all this has a powerful bearing on VA's and other arguments for moral objectivity - for the existence of moral facts. And that's what I'm trying to get at by clarifying VA's argument.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Jun 08, 2024 9:52 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Jun 08, 2024 1:52 am The original argument was you insisted 'language' is imperative for solving philosophical problems.

No. My point is that so-called philosophical problems are linguistic in nature.
So questions about reality, knowledge and truth - for example - are really about the ways we do or could use those words, their cognates and related words.

There is no ' ultimate true nature of things and reality' for philosophy to examine.

There's no noumenon - or perhaps you've forgotten that.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Oct 16, 2023 3:17 pm .......

Scientific Realism is, at the most general level, the view that the world described by science is the real world, as it is, independent of what we might take it to be.
Within philosophy of science, it is often framed as an answer to the question "how is the success of science to be explained?"
The debate over what the success of science involves centers primarily on the status of unobservable entities apparently talked about by scientific theories.
Generally, those who are scientific realists assert that one can make reliable claims about unobservables (viz., that they have the same ontological status) as observables.
Analytic philosophers generally have a commitment to scientific realism, in the sense of regarding the scientific method as a reliable guide to the nature of reality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosoph ... ic_realism

Philosophical Realism – is the view that a certain kind of thing has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it exists even in the absence of any mind perceiving it or that its existence is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2023 9:39 am VA has taken to calling me a moral relativist.

But there are different kinds of moral relativism. And the central claim of one kind - descriptive moral relativism - is true: through time and space, people have had and have different moral opinions. Attitudes towards the subjugation of women, slavery, homosexuality and eating animals are obvious examples.

But to reject moral objectivism is not to embrace deontological moral relativism - or moral nihilism - much as VA and IC want that to be the case. To reject the existence of moral facts is to reject them wholesale - not to accept that moral facts are merely a matter of opinion.

I'm not a moral relativist. For example, I think that slavery was, is and will be morally wrong, anywhere. And I think that homosexuality wasn't, isn't and won't ever be morally wrong, anywhere. But that's just the nature of our moral opinions: we tend to apply them universally, because to do otherwise would be morally inconsistent.

• Moral relativism or ethical relativism (often reformulated as relativist ethics or relativist morality) is used to describe several philosophical positions concerned with the differences in moral judgments across different peoples and cultures. An advocate of such ideas is often referred to as a relativist for short.
  WIKI

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri Oct 27, 2023 8:19 am What's your opinion? Try thinking critically about this explanation. What does it actually say?

Can you produce a description that is the described - or could be called the described? Or a description that demonstrates an 'excluded middle' - subverting the 'binary framework': description/described?

Thought for the day. Antirealism isn't opposition to reality. So it must be something else.

Suggestion. Antirealism, in fact, is opposition to the claim that any one kind of description captures the actual nature or essence of reality - opposition to a monocular or blinkered way of thinking and talking about reality - the very source of talk about reality's fundamental nature or essence.

And that's either because we can never know what the fundamental nature or essence of reality is - or because reality has no fundamental nature or essence.

But if - as I think - reality has no fundamental nature or essence - or, as Wittgenstein jokingly put it, 'essence is grammatical' - then the claim that we can have no access to (can never 'know') reality's fundamental nature or essence is incoherent.

Or, to put it in Kantian terms, if there are no noumena, then the claim that all we can ever know are phenomena is incoherent.

(More thoughts pending. Of course.)

• Philosophical realism - is the view that a certain kind of thing has mind-independent existence [independent of the human conditions], i.e. that it exists even in the absence of any mind perceiving it or that its existence is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism

PH wrote:But if - as I think - reality has no fundamental nature or essence - or, as Wittgenstein jokingly put it, 'essence is grammatical' - then the claim that we can have no access to (can never 'know') reality's fundamental nature or essence is incoherent.

PH wrote:Or, to put it in Kantian terms,
if there are no noumena,
then the claim that all we can ever know are phenomena
is incoherent.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Oct 28, 2023 12:12 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Oct 28, 2023 9:40 am What is in contention between yours and my philosophical position is this.

A: You believe 'what is fact' [thus objectivity to you] is a feature of reality that is just-is, being-so, states of affairs, that is/are the case, and the like, that is [absolutely*] independent of the human conditions, i.e. independent of the subject[s] opinion, beliefs, judgments and description.
* it absolute because, to the extreme the moon pre-existed humans and will continue to exists even if humans are extinct.

If you think reality no fundamental nature or essence, then what is reality to you?
How do you reconcile your non-essence reality to A above?

To repeat. To put it in Kantian terms: if there are no noumena, then the claim that all we can ever know are phenomena is incoherent.

Not sure, what is the point re the above?

I think this is the heart of your mistake.

You and I are both 'anti-essentialists'. We agree that reality has no fundamental nature - or let's simplify and call it 'essence'. And you and I are both what could be called 'contextualists', in the sense that we agree a description - and therefore a truth-claim - is always contextual and conventional. This is what your 'fsk' theory amounts to.

Now, Kant's 'noumena' are just the same as 'fundamental natures' or 'essences'. And we agree they are just as unreal. You call them 'illusions'. For example, there's no such thing as a dog-in-itself. And I agree completely.

But I don't think you've thought through what this means, which is this: since there are no noumena, there's no reason to say that all we can know are phenomena - things as they appear to us. That dog is just a dog - not an appearance of some other kind of thing - a noumenon.

Of course, as we agree, we can perceive, know and describe what we call dogs only in human ways. But there's no reason to think that what we perceive, know and describe - those dogs - exist only because we humans perceive, know and describe them. And all the empirical evidence we have - if you like, using 'fsks' - is that they are real things. Just as we humans are real things, capable of perceiving, knowing and describing real things.

I think that what you call your 'philosophical antirealism' is the flip side of a kind of philosophical realism that mistakenly posits fictional (noumenal) things-in-themselves.

Chuck away the counterfeit coin.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Oct 28, 2023 12:12 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Oct 28, 2023 9:40 am What is in contention between yours and my philosophical position is this.

A: You believe 'what is fact' [thus objectivity to you] is a feature of reality that is just-is, being-so, states of affairs, that is/are the case, and the like, that is [absolutely*] independent of the human conditions, i.e. independent of the subject[s] opinion, beliefs, judgments and description.
* it absolute because, to the extreme the moon pre-existed humans and will continue to exists even if humans are extinct.

If you think reality no fundamental nature or essence, then what is reality to you?
How do you reconcile your non-essence reality to A above?

To repeat. To put it in Kantian terms: if there are no noumena, then the claim that all we can ever know are phenomena is incoherent.

Not sure, what is the point re the above?

I think this is the heart of your mistake.

You and I are both 'anti-essentialists'. We agree that reality has no fundamental nature - or let's simplify and call it 'essence'. And you and I are both what could be called 'contextualists', in the sense that we agree a description - and therefore a truth-claim - is always contextual and conventional. This is what your 'fsk' theory amounts to.

Now, Kant's 'noumena' are just the same as 'fundamental natures' or 'essences'.
And we agree they are just as unreal. You call them 'illusions'. For example, there's no such thing as a dog-in-itself. And I agree completely.

But I don't think you've thought through what this means, which is this: since there are no noumena, there's no reason to say that all we can know are phenomena - things as they appear to us. That dog is just a dog - not an appearance of some other kind of thing - a noumenon.

Of course, as we agree, we can perceive, know and describe what we call dogs only in human ways. But there's no reason to think that what we perceive, know and describe - those dogs - exist only because we humans perceive, know and describe them. And all the empirical evidence we have - if you like, using 'fsks' - is that they are real things. Just as we humans are real things, capable of perceiving, knowing and describing real things.

I think that what you call your 'philosophical antirealism' is the flip side of a kind of philosophical realism that mistakenly posits fictional (noumenal) things-in-themselves.

Chuck away the counterfeit coin.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 1:18 pm I suggest we need to clarify the use of the words belief and fact. And I apologise for contributing to the confusion. I wrote the following:

'...the fact that we have a moral belief/standard doesn't make that belief a fact - which is what [moral objectivists] insist is the case.'

What we call a fact is a feature of reality that is or was the case. And a factual assertion - typically a linguistic expression - says that a feature of reality is or was the case - which is why it may be (classically) true or false.

By contrast, what we call a belief is the acceptance or agreement that something is or was (or will be) the case, or that a factual assertion is true or false. So, though it need not be, it can be confusing to call a belief true or false, because acceptance and rejection (belief and disbelief) have no truth-value.

So - to untangle what I wrote.

1 It can be a fact that we have a moral belief, such as that X is morally wrong. So the factual assertion 'we believe X is morally wrong' can be true or false. If we do believe it, then the assertion is true, because it asserts a feature of reality that is the case - that we believe something is the case.

2 But the moral assertion 'X is morally wrong' is separate and independent from the factual assertion 'we believe X is morally wrong', just as the factual assertion 'water is H2O' is separate and independent from the factual assertion 'we believe water is H2O'.

3 So. The fact that we believe X is the case does not make it a fact that X is the case. If X is the case, then our belief or disbelief that X is the case is irrelevant. For example, that (one city called) Paris is the capital of France is a fact - a feature of reality that is the case.

4 Moral objectivists claim that an assertion such as 'homosexuality is morally wrong' asserts a fact - a feature of reality that just is the case, regardless of anyone's belief - so that the assertion 'homosexuality is morally wrong' has a (classical) truth-value: true.

5 So, to rewrite: The fact that we have a moral belief does not mean that what we believe is indeed the case. (And I reckon that should be acceptable for everyone - objectivists as well as subjectivists.)

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Oct 28, 2023 12:12 pm You and I are both 'anti-essentialists'. We agree that reality has no fundamental nature - or let's simplify and call it 'essence'. And you and I are both what could be called 'contextualists', in the sense that we agree a description - and therefore a truth-claim - is always contextual and conventional. This is what your 'fsk' theory amounts to.

And all the empirical evidence we have - if you like, using 'fsks' - is that they are real things.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat May 11, 2024 6:42 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat May 11, 2024 4:06 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri May 10, 2024 9:31 am No, I propose a premise that entails a conclusion. There are no so-called abstract things - forms or (to update the myth) concepts - so philosophy - 'the love of wisdom from knowledge and critical thinking' - doesn't and can't deal with them.

Instead, it deals with the ways we do or could use some so-called abstract nouns, their cognates and related words. De-dazzle any philosophical question or 'problem', and you'll see that's what it's about. (Other discourses deal with reality outside language, such as the natural sciences.)

Happy to be disabused by anyone here who has even one counter example.

A dog chasing its tail needs to re-think the premise.

You are very lost in philosophy.

• abstract noun: a noun denoting an idea, quality, or state rather than a concrete object, e.g. truth, danger, happiness.

Are you denying the concept of 'truth'? danger, happiness, wisdom, knowledge?
I would claim 'fact' is also an abstract noun.
You insist the above abstract nouns do not exist?

You either didn't read, or made no attempt to understand, what I wrote.

Look at the above definition of abstract noun. What exactly does it explain? For example, what does the word idea denote? Does it denote (name) an idea, or (posher) a concept? And what does the word concept denote? Try some genuinely critical thinking. And let me help. Here's how the delusion works.

1 We use nouns to name things.
2 We use concrete nouns to name 'concrete', real, physical things, such as rocks and stones and trees.
3 Therefore, it must be the case that we use abstract nouns to name abstract, unreal, non-physical things.

But what are those things? Is there any evidence for their existence? Ah, no, there can't be, because they're abstract, unreal, non-physical things. So what exactly do abstract nouns denote? (How can we keep recognition of the delusion at bay?)

Solution: they denote ideas or concepts, which exist in minds.

But what do the words idea, concept and mind denote? Ah, they denote ideas or concepts.

And on an on. A dog chasing its tail as it spirals down the rabbit hole needs to re-think the premise.

So, no, I don't deny the existence of abstract nouns, such as truth, because they're real things. But you ask if I deny the concept of 'truth', and so on. And I'm asking: what is it, about the existence of which you're asking? Like you, I know how to use the word truth, just as I know how to use an Occam's razor.

I don't suppose you'll read the above carefully and critically either. But if anyone else does, and wants to critique it, please do so.

Here is another point you avoided above.
Your claim of 'what is fact' is a personal subjective claim and cannot be placed within any Framework and System, thus it is very subjective and cannot be assessed and rated at all.

Rubbish. I use standard definitions of the word, such as: 'fact: a thing that is known to exist, or to have occurred, or to be true' (Concise Oxford) - though I challenge both the 'being known' condition, and the obvious equivocation on fact-as-feature-of-reality and fact-as-true-factual-assertion. And anyone is welcome and able to assess and rate my reservations.

I kept asking you for your references and the specific FSK, i.e. its is Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Armstrong, linguistic, ???. So where is your reference point on this.
You are unable to support your claim so what you keep postulating as "what is fact" is your personal opinion.

What do you mean by 'reference'? We're talking about premises and conclusions. I happen to follow the later Wittgenstein's radical critique of both his own earlier ideas, in the 'Tractatus', and (inevitably) the ideas of Frege, Russell, the logical positivists, empiricists, rationalists - and, in effect, the whole western philosophical tradition reaching back to and beyond Plato.

But this is always about premises and conclusions.

Have you got any idea of the origin and history of the term fact up to the present?

Yes. I've been thinking about it for at least 40 years.