"Dianelos Georgoudis" <dianelos@tecapro.com> wrote in
news:1130927466.834737.64810@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:
I see your point, so let me revise my example. What about "Honey
tastes sweet". Honey is defined as the sticky, honey-colored stuff
that bees excrete, but I think in no way honey is that what tastes
sweet. So why would most people agree that "Honey tastes sweet" is an
objective statement?
That one is even subtler. Part of the meaning of "sugar" is that it
tastes sweet (this is true of the popular understanding, though not of
the chemist's understanding). It is the same as "salt is that which
tastes salty." The objectivity of "sugar tastes sweet" comes from the
(objective) fact that honey contains sugar. I.e., when someone says that
something tastes sweet, he is saying that it contains sugar. It tastes
sweet because it *is* sweet (contains sugar).
But one may say that something is sweet when there is no implication that
it contains sugar, e.g., "My boyfriend is sweet," "That poem is sweet."
Those are subjective, because they are just expressions of approval.
People may also claim that something tastes sweet which does not contain
sugar. In those cases, someone else may say, "It doesn't taste sweet to
me." Those are subjective also, because we have no public truth condition
to apply.
In a world where everybody would agree that broccoli soup tastes yummy
people would say that "yummy" is a property of the soup. The same way
that sweetness is a property of honey.
Only if "yumminess" was a distinct sensory response to a specific group
of stimuli, which everyone is presumed to be able to detect. In that
case, "yumminess" would have different meaning than its present one. At
the present, it only means, "I like it." When saying something is sweet,
on the other hand, there is no implication that one likes it: "This tea
is sweet. Yech."
Language presumes a fund of common experience, but also acknowledges a
realm of private experience and judgments. The objective/subjective
distinction marks that difference. A world in which everyone thought
broccoli soup was yummy would just be one where everyone happened to like
broccoli soup; it would still be subjective. "This soup is yummy" would
be objective in that world only if everyone would agree it is yummy
*whether they liked it or not*. They'd then try to isolate the
"yumminess" factor in the soup, and "yumminess" would then have a
different meaning than its present one.
That is misleading, for the same reason that it would be to say that
"triangles are closed plane figures with 3 sides" is an opinion.
Truth conditions are conventions regarding the usage of certain
terms. Determining whether figure x is a closed plane figure with 3
sides is the truth condition for, "x is a triangle."
Yes, but most people would suggest that the distinction between
objective and subjective does not apply to definitions.
Why not? A definition is nothing more than an explicit statement of the
truth conditions for use of the *definiendum*. The truth conditions for
any term can be stated as definitions, though not always as crisply as
one can do with geometric and mathematical terms.
Sugar. 1a. a sweet crystallizable material . . .
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/sugar
Stating the truth conditions for a term is to define it. They tell us
under which circumstances we may apply that term if we wish to
communicate with it.
To conclude, the reason I dislike the distinction between objective
and subjective knowledge, is that in the web of patterns we call
knowledge there is no duality between objective patterns and
subjective patterns. There are only more strong patterns, detailed,
well-interconnected, and useful - and less strong patterns. Where is
only a continuum of confidence. The objective-subjective duality is an
artificial construct, which has become so popular because it hides
physicalism's failings as an ontology.
I agree that the objective/subjective distinction is given metaphysical
(ontological) significance it does not deserve. But when understood as
merely a means of distinguishing between public and private judgments,
between propositions whose truth conditions are public and those which
are private, then it is a useful, and harmless, distinction.
It does require the assumption that there is a common fund of experience.
But then so does the very possibility of language.
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