John Page

Facts do not exist regardless of perception. I don't disagree with your causality argument (although it is the mind that imputes the cause). I would define a fact as a generally accepted truth and/or a (scientifically, methodologically) verified result.
The repeatability of our experiences indicates that there is an external reality in which some phenomena remain constant w.r.t our perception/memory.

This thread, however is to do with absolute truth. My argument remains that truth is relative and is created in our minds by assuming two entities are identical. While we may be able to comprehend and share concepts of absolute truth, I don't see any proof of the existence of an absolute truth.

Summary. Truth is in the mind. Our thoughts are subjective. That you exist may be an absolute truth for you, here, now, in your mind. However, such a truth has very limited domain.

Cheers, John

Hugo Holbling

A happy new year to you, Bill. As charitable as i feel at this time of year and with food in my belly, i nevertheless can't let you get away with this. I fear all we can say is that you've used more words. Please explain to my befuddled brain how you're saying anything at all, since it seems that if the two of us spent an afternoon partaking of a philosophical picnic and you pulled this line out of the hamper, all we could do is silently pack and go home. (I'll allow we might just try the wine first...)

Let's take a look, then - i wouldn't want you to think i was avoiding a killer dissection of my bluster...

Ah - there's no attempt to be clever here. I just meant "what makes you so sure it can?" - no more than that.

This is an excellent move; undoubtedly one i would have played myself if the tables were turned! However, i have more wriggling in me yet! Allow me to be slippery still and answer that i am glad to accept a pragmatist conception of truth and explain my words accordingly (after all, i've been trying to answer as a Rortian pragmatist from the outset...).

When Rorty says "the world is out there", he isn't making a consistency or category error; he's a pragmatist, so he'll just say that it is useful to suppose that the world is out there, or that it's a fact that i - dear Hugo - exist. He (and John and i) are taking issue with the entirely different claim of such facts or truths being absolute by some correspondence with "some actual state of affairs that is instantiated in reality".

The utility of such an approach is clear, because if i refuse to accept my existence i somewhat suspect you'll wash your hands of me...

Please set me straight if - your denials aside - you aren't merely mouthing a correspondence theory as John and i understand it (hence our constant referrals to epistemology).

Thanks for staying with us thrice-damned postmodernists, Bill!

Hugo Holbling

I'll happily accept said "fact" as a pragmatic fact, along with pragmatic truth (a la Rorty), as i said to Bill. What i don't accept is that said fact is an absolute truth or fact, and i patiently await a demonstration of this from my opponents in the blue corner.

An absolute fact? Methinks this argument needs more work. I, of course, am glad to accept Bill's existence as a subjective or pragmatic fact because i'm enjoying jousting with him!

Thomas Ash

Yes, this is shaping up as a bit of a boxing match debate, with two people in the blue corner and two people in the red corner. This thread seems to have lost everyone else a few pages back, unless some people are still listening... (if so, join in - so long as you agree with me and Bill! )
Could you define what you mean by an absolute fact?

Hugo Holbling

*beats the count*

Not so fast, Truthsayer! I'm the evil postmodernist, fallen to the Dark Side; ergo, i'll take to bashing your concept, not the converse! You said, previously:

I'll therefore guess that you call a fact absolute if it remains a fact whether known or not. If you're going for something slightly different i'd appreciate a heads up, as i like to know what i'm disagreeing with...

Hugo Holbling

When we say "does reality exist if i am not here to ask?", perhaps the answer is in the question?

I wonder if this makes sense to anyone but me?

Keith Russell

Greetings:

Antics with semantics, guys.

Whether you call it 'reality', or 'something called reality', or a 'theory of reality', or a 'belief of reality', or even a 'dream of reality', can we stop trying to agree about what to call it, and start actually talking about it?

Hmmm?

Keith.

John Page

Identity is internal and, as mentioned previously, can be intersubjectively shared. It is not a criteria, but is rigorusly defined (in my philosophy)
The reality that comprises the rabbit exists before we sense it and recognize it for a rabbit (by our own parameters for rabitness). That it is truly a rabbit is something determined in the mind.
Truth is not only a semantic function and I do not concur that Tarski's treatment of truth and his Russell's Antinomy are adequate.
You're wrong. There is a spatio-temporal location of the third man in the Parmenides debate - its the mind/brain. We perceive forms judging them against forms we have previously learned and it these that I refer to as "prototype definitions". Formally I refer to them as axiomatic concepts. You can also think of them as the idealisation of an identity.

I'm sure that deep analyses of grammar such as those offered by Chomsky offer interesting insights. However, as I've intimated previously in this thread I don't think the meaning comes from language. Rather, meaning comes from the context of language and ultimately I hold that must be reality.

My philosophy is not tongue in cheek, it is a concerted attempt to see how different philosophical world-views can be reconciled by arriving at an over-arching explanation as to how it is possible to for these different philosophies to exist. I currently believe absolute truth to be a self-defeating concept alongside EOG etc.
To the extent that absolute truth falls into the category of transcendental ideal I agree with you. Let us deal with our real truth, the truth that can be found within the minds of mankind.
Time to ReKant!

Cheers, John

Kantian

:banghead:
Keith, that doesn't answer my question in the slightest. What is the difference between talking about reality and defining what reality is? And if you desist in calling the discussion mere semantics, it is because you are out of your league.

~Transcendentalist~
__________________
Reason has often led us into transcendent metaphysics that "overstep the limits of all experience, [and] no object adequate to the transcendental ideal can ever be found within experience."

Keith Russell

Kantian:

What is the difference between 'talking about reality' and 'defining what reality is'?

I believe that 'talking about' something can involve defining it, but there are also numerous ways one can 'talk about' something which do not involve discussing definitions.

Do you agree, or do you just wish to discuss which league for which I play?

Keith.