is philosophy objective?

[dsayers]

As a result of abuse in my childhood whereby my father (mostly) expressed opinions as facts in an order to hedge against scrutiny, I've noticed that I have a tendency to try and sum everything up as rules. As I seek self-knowledge, I'm finding this makes it hard for me to really think for myself instead of just whipping out whatever little rule suits my bias.

 

The question I've been struggling with as of late is: Is philosophy objective? As the pursuit of truth, I am inclined to say that it is objective. Since the pursuit of the truth can be flawed, I wonder if it is in fact subjective. Or if flaw is reason for scrutiny and revision which, once implemented, would lead to the truth again making it objective with misapplications being subjective.

 

Thank you for your time.

[Bulbasaur]

I think it helps to step back and look at definitions of terms and how they're related, before looking at how philosophy comes into the picture. As I see it, there are two related but distinct dichotomies involved here: subjective/objective and true/false. These are all terms that apply to claims or statements (where a statement may be composed of several claims). Claims can be subjective and true, subjective and false, objective and true, or objective and false.

 

I would define true and false as describing whether or not a claim is consistent with reality. Consistency with reality is not something we know automatically, but always relies to some degree on direct observation and experience (even a claim as fundamental as "I think, therefore, I am"). The truth or falsehood of a claim is thus distinct from our own ideas/beliefs/opinions about it. We may come to a wrong conclusion despite seemingly good reasoning, or we may be accidentally correct in spite of bad reasoning. 

 

I would define subjective and objective as describing the scope of a claim. Subjective claims are specific to an individual or group (local) and involve preferences and value judgments, whereas objective claims apply broadly to all of reality and all individuals (global) and are independent of any individual or group's preferences and values. A good subjective statement that Stefan likes to use is "I like ice cream." However, people very often tend to present subjective preferences and beliefs as objective claims, like "Mac is better than Windows." I would consider this pattern of subjective-presented-as-objective as the definition of "opinion." I would say that the difference distinguishing an opinion from a statement of fact is whether or not the claim has been critically examined by the person presenting it, and found to be well supported by evidence (of course we never reach 100% certainty, so fact/opinion is more of a gradient than a dichotomy). 

 

The issue of objective vs. subjective usually comes up with questions of morality. Theists like to claim the mantle of objective morality because their moral rules supposedly come from a divine arbiter and are thus independent of any human opinion. However, this actually makes theistic morality subjective; if moral rules exist entirely by fiat (divine or not), they are fundamentally arbitrary (a god's subjective preferences). A god could just as easily have chosen an entirely different or opposite set of moral rules, unless some real set of objective principles constrained it, in which case the principles exist in spite of the god rather than because of it. So objective morality is not only fully compatible with atheism, it in fact must be beyond the reach of capricious deities in order to be truly objective.

 

So where does philosophy come in? Philosophy is a methodology, much like the scientific method. The scientific method is the process of working systematically from observations to arrive at judgments about the truth of objective claims about reality. If we want to judge whether a claim is true or false with any justified confidence, we must rely on direct observation of reality (assisted through technology) in conjunction with reason, logic, and math. The main difference between philosophy and science is what sort of claims are being addressed. Science attempts to determine the truth of claims about objective "is" (physics), while philosophy attempts to determine the truth of claims about objective "ought" (ethics).

 

The philosopher probably has the much more difficult task since "ought" is about making choices, and choices are generally associated with matters of subjective preferences and values. It's much harder to see a moral "rule" as objective if I can simply choose to ignore it. Adding a God into the mix can introduce carrots and sticks to tempt and browbeat people into moral behavior, but it can't provide objectivity for the reasons given above. But if objective ethics do exist, we know that by definition they must apply universally to everyone, so many false moral systems can be immediately discarded on that basis alone. Finding correct objective ethics then requires finding those moral rules which are both universally applicable and logically self-consistent. This is the basic idea behind Stefan's approach of ethics as Universally Preferable Behavior.

 

To ask whether a methodology like philosophy is objective I think is a misapplication of the term. Objectivity refers to the scope of claims, and philosophy is a means of assessing the truth of objective claims about "oughts." Whether one makes mistakes in their reasoning and arrives at incorrect conclusions is not really a matter of philosophy itself being subjective or objective, and wrongness and falsehood are not synonymous with subjective anyway, just as correctness and truth are not synonymous with objective. Hopefully this helps.

[dsayers]

To ask whether a methodology like philosophy is objective I think is a misapplication of the term. Objectivity refers to the scope of claims, and philosophy is a means of assessing the truth of objective claims about "oughts." Whether one makes mistakes in their reasoning and arrives at incorrect conclusions is not really a matter of philosophy itself being subjective or objective, and wrongness and falsehood are not synonymous with subjective anyway, just as correctness and truth are not synonymous with objective. Hopefully this helps.

 

Yes, thank you. This part in particular was helpful as it assisted me in explaining why I was struggling with the false dichotomy. I can't thank you enough because you're actually helping me to learn how to talk. What do I mean by that? My journey towards self-knowledge has been so rewarding as it's helped me to put to words that which I seem to have a talent for understanding while being unable to communicate the understanding. It's made almost all of my life very isolating, forcing the choice upon me to either erase myself to fit or be erased by others.

 

There is one point I could use greater clarification on. Examining the definition of terms was useful because I did view objective as true and subjective as being inherently bad as if it was a requisite of being false. Could you provide an example of an objective falsehood? I'm thinking about it and feel as if it's within my reach, but maybe an example can help me get there quicker.

[Bulbasaur]

With the definitions I've used, where objective refers to the scope of a claim, an objective falsehood would just be any statement of a universal truth which is actually false, like "the universe was created by a flying spaghetti monster." But probably closer to what you have in mind is the definition of objective as that which is "real" or "actually exists." So you could say that hydrogen atoms are objective or exist objectively, and in that sense it doesn't make sense to be both objective and false (either they exist or they don't). But on the level of making claims about that which objectively exists, these can certainly be false. People are constantly making claims about the objective truth of gods, ghosts, spirits, souls, psychic phenomena, miracles, angels, extraterrestrials, and all sorts of things which they are unable to demonstrate and are very likely false. This is more what I was referring to. 

 

Clearly concepts like moral rules don't exist as physical entities, but I think concepts can be considered objective if they are non-arbitrary and refer specifically to the properties or interactions of physical entities (in other words, not just matters of opinion or imagination). For example, the rules of logic and mathematics or the models of physics would be objective whereas grammar rules of various human languages would be subjective. In that sense, as I think about it more, I guess I would consider methodologies like philosophy or scientific method to be objective as well, as long as they are rigorous and non-arbitrary. If one attempts to do philosophy but introduces irrational or arbitrary claims, they would end up using a partially subjective methodology instead. This would not mean that philosophy has 'become subjective,' only that the person has accidentally deviated from doing philosophy. 

 

Thanks for the discussion. I think this is a difficult topic, and it was helpful for me to try to collect my own thoughts and put them into writing.

[TDB]

"The atmosphere of planet Earth in the year 2013 was composed entirely of methane gas."

Objective and false.

 

Question: What if I invented an improved MRI and some software that could observe whether a person being examined likes ice cream or not? (Perhaps we should switch it to Lima beans, who doesn't like ice cream?) would ice cream liking now be an objective fact, because it is now observable? Or would it remain subjective, because it's only true so long as the subject believes it/experiences it that way?

 

What about language? Is it objective or subjective? They came up with a special word for things like that, where it depends on what people believe yet does not depend on what a particular person believes: intersubjective.

[dsayers]

Thanks, Bulbasaur. I can resume my position of philosophy as objective with improved rigor. I will continue to be mindful of the possible misuse.

 

 

Question: What if I invented an improved MRI and some software that could observe whether a person being examined likes ice cream or not? (Perhaps we should switch it to Lima beans, who doesn't like ice cream?) would ice cream liking now be an objective fact, because it is now observable? Or would it remain subjective, because it's only true so long as the subject believes it/experiences it that way?

 

I like ice cream would then become substantiated. It cannot be objective since the definition is independent of the individual (roughly).

 

 

What about language? Is it objective or subjective?

 

Relative to what? Dog is objective in that it is independent of the individual but subjective in that people who speak other languages have a different word that is also independent of the individual. That's my thoughts. It's an interesting question though. I have a friend who likes to argue for the sake of argue. I default to 2+2=4 when I'm trying to help somebody put implications of personalization to facts. To which this friend of mine replies "not in base 3." Which is a good point. Two of something added to two of something is four of something, but how it's displayed is not consistent. Would this make it objective or subjective?

[TDB]

. It cannot be objective since the definition is independent of the individual (roughly).

I don't think that's what you meant to say. Or maybe it is awkwardly put? Anyway, I think you mean independent of the observer. The contents of my stomach is part of objective reality, could be verified by any number of observers. But it is not independent of me, it depends on what I ate for lunch. Similarly, my brain waves are part of objective reality, and if we knew how to decode them, perhaps so would be my thoughts and preferences.

Relative to what? Dog is objective in that it is independent of the individual but subjective in that people who speak other languages have a different word that is also independent of the individual.

When is objectivity or subjectivity relative to anything? The meaning of words is historically contingent, arbitrary, but I can't change the meaning of "dog" in English by myself. Mistakes, jokes, laziness, cleverness can push language to evolve, but it is an emergent phenomenon of multiple minds, not of any single mind. Some economic phenomena, like market prices, are similar. Visit the commodity pits in Chicago if you doubt.I'd say more, but I have used up my monthly quota of big words.

[PatrickC]

Let me confuse things for you..

 

Philosophy can be objective whilst simultaneously being subjective.

 

I'll explain. Philosophy is really like a bunch of preferences. Which makes it subjective, insofar as I might have all manner of behaviour traits I prefer or detest. The objective part is to universalise some of these preferences. Insofar as people will be in universal agreement with you.

 

This is why UPB is so good, because it's the best attempt so far at bridging that dichotomy.