From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Thu Jul 25 2002 - 01:38:50 MDT
On 25 Jul 2002 at 9:07, Blunderov wrote:
> <snip>
> What Thomas Nagel submits the truth-claim "everything is subjective" to
> is a combination of the "two horns of a dilemma" argument (either the
> statement itself is objective or it is subjective; there is no
> third-term wiggle room either between or beyond the touching horns of
> these two inclusive alternatives) combined with a demonstration of the
> self- contradictorynature of each. Any objective claim that 'everything
> (including, necessarily, the statement itself) is subjective" refutes
> itself by its own objective existence, yet to relegate the claim itself
> to subjectivity removes any claim to truth from the statement itself and
> relegates it to opinion, or belief.
> <snap>
>
> [Blunderov once again ventures where angels fear to tread]
>
> No wiggle room? Why is it permitted that the words "objective" and
> "subjective" are used as if their respective truth values are
> "absolutely true" and "absolutely false"?
>
> It seems possible to me that a thing might be true from one perspective
> only, or it might be true from more than one, so a thing may be "more
> true" or "less true" as well as "true" or "not true".
>
The third category besides truth and falsehood is meaninglessness.
But that is not the issue that concerns Nagel; it is the either/or of
subjectivity and objectivity. Either every thing and truth is dependent
upon the view of a subject (universal subjectivity), in which case the
statement must be true, but itself subjective, which removes the truth-
claim just granted it, or it is not and there are, or can be, intention-
independent (objective) truths (the denial of universal subjectivity), in
which case the statement is false, and there can indeed be such a thing
as objectivity, when then leaves room for the utterrer of the false
statement (every statement implies the existence of an (at least
hypothetical) object, or referent, a subject, or utterer, and a language,
or code) to nevertheless claim it to be one of the objective ones, hence
true. Since each coin is convertible t (at least the possibility of) its
opposite, a truth-value cannot be assigned the statement; it is thus
rendered Wittgensteinianly meaningless.
>
> [Blunderov now resumes construction of his air-raid bunker]
>
> Warm regards
>
>
>
>
>
>
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