Steve3007 wrote: ↑April 16th, 2020, 9:39 am
Terrapin Station wrote:Just re what you're citing there, it's important again to make a distinction between "True statement about something objective" and "Truth having the property of being objective." There's an ambiguity in "objective truth" where some people are reading it the former way and some are reading it the latter way. I have no problem with the former. I just wouldn't call that "objective truth," since I take "objective" in "objective truth" to be an adjective modifying the noun "truth," but truth isn't something that occurs objectively.
Yes, I think we've discussed this before. I see the distinction you're making and the potential for ambiguity in the expression "objective truth".
But previously, in our discussions about this (and in discussions with other people), I've tended to use the expression "objective proposition" rather than "objective truth". I've tended to broadly agree with the poster G E Morton's view that an objective proposition is a proposition who's means of verification/falsification are public, as opposed to propositions whose means of verification/falsification are private. So:
"There is a table in this room."
is an objective proposition because it proposes the existence of something which is proposed to exist independently of any
individual sensations. To me, that's the same as saying that it proposes the existence of something that is the potential cause of an infinite/indefinitely large number of possible sensations. But I suspect you'll dispute that because, philosophically, you are (among other things) a direct realist?
By contrast, the slightly more unusual proposition:
"I am having a table sensation."
is a subjective proposition because it doesn't propose the existence of something which is proposed to exist independently of the individual's sensations. It's all about me.
In discussing this kind of thing previously with both me and G E Morton I know you had various disagreements with it, but I can't remember exactly what they were right now. I'll look them up in previous conversations when I get a minute. (Although the facility for searching through posts on this website is annoyingly limited in that it more often than not seems to fail if the search term is deemed to be too common. I can usually only link back to a previous conversation if it contains a relatively uncommon word.)
With propositions, it's the same thing. There's a difference between "A proposition
about something objective," and "A proposition having the property of being objective."
The "objective" part is that we're talking about something that exists independently of persons (basically, or more specifically something that exists something independently of their minds).
So re "A proposition about something objective"--well, a proposition about a table is that. The table is objective. We can have propositions about tables.
But the proposition itself isn't objective. The proposition itself doesn't exist independently of persons' minds in the way that the table does. (Keeping in mind that propositions are the meanings of declarative sentences, and meanings, at least on my view, are mental phenomena.)
So I use "objective x" so that "objective" is an adjective modifying, or noting/describing a property that x has. Thus, I wouldn't say that we can have objective propositions, because propositions do not have the property of being objective.
I have no problem agreeing that propositions can be
about something objective. I just wouldn't call that an "objective proposition."
It's just like I wouldn't call something a "fat book" if it's a book
about obesity, but it's only 120 pages long. I would expect most people to parse "fat" in the phrase "fat book" as
telling us something about the properties of the book itself, as a book. If the book is only 120 pages, it's not "fat," it's not a big book. It's pretty slim insofar as books go. But the book is
about fatness. The subject matter is fatness. It's just that the book itself isn't fat.
So same thing for propositions. The subject matter of a proposition might be something objective, but the proposition itself isn't objective.