How do you know it’s objective fact and not just your subjective opinion? Can any opinion about the world you perceive through your senses be objective, if your senses are themselves subjective?
I haven’t read much on the topic, so forgive me for my ramble:
I agree with this sentiment. And find myself particularly cringing to people I agree with, espousing something as a FACT, as a part of their argument.
To me, science (my personal philosophy) is the best way we have to determine what is likely to be true, and the best way we have to describe the world in which we live.
When people start saying things like “and that’s a FACT” like it somehow makes their position more credible, annoys me greatly.
Getting ahead of the semantics, I don’t have an issue with the word itself, as being “something true”. Just that when people use it as something being self-evident. And I see it happening a lot, even with people saying something I agree with.
Sounds like an argument to make yourself feel superior to all groups without adding anything concrete to the conversation to me.
You seem to confuse subjectivity of perception with the objectivity of external facts. While our senses interpret the world, objective facts remain true independent of individual perception. For example, gravity exists whether or not one perceives or “believes” in it.
It’s the problem of knowledge all over again. Something which philosophers have been debating for centuries. But I highly doubt you have studied any of it.
That whole thing of “facts are just opinions” is nothing more than the devaluing of empirical evidence and turning observable facts into a matter of opinion, turning any and all political discussion into a shouting match where nothing ever comes of it because “it’s just my opinion”. This propaganda tactic is called “The Fire hose of Falsehood”.
I could go on and on about the nature of knowledge and the evolution of science, but I highly doubt you would care as you do not seem to know even the most basic things about The Problem of Knowledge and choose to go the self-contradictory skeptic route of “Knowledge doesn’t exist”.
Edit: I would just like to add that just because our sense are 100% reliable that doesn’t mean that everything is false.
I can know for sure that a thinking being I call ‘me’ exists. I act in my empirical life based off of my empirical knowledge, but I don’t think that it’s necessarily true, just a useful way to govern behaviour in a world I have just as much grounds for believing is true.
It is technically just an opinion that the empirical world exists, but when making decisions about the empirical world it makes most sense to me to treat the working knowledge the scientific method has given us as true, even though it technically isn’t.
Philosophy is fine and all but we can’t forget that from a practical standpoint, all this philosophizing is useless. We can’t live our day to day lives operating under the belief that the material world doesn’t exist and using The Problem Of Knowledge as a way to dismiss empirical evidence by stating that we can’t be sure if the material world even exist is impractical and useless. Remember: Philosophy is completely useless. The only value you will find in it is the development of critical thinking skills.
Just imagine if a murdered caught red handed could get away scoot free by just saying “Hey, you can prove the material world exist, therefore you can prove the victim ever existed!”
You clearly ignored the several times I said in my comment about how while I know it’s not necessarily true, I act in the empirical world based off of the working knowledge that it is.
![[Anecdotal evidence]](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/75f540ef-d018-44c9-89e2-e7b6d59f1676.jpeg){kind=link}
How do you know it’s objective fact and not just your subjective opinion? Can any opinion about the world you perceive through your senses be objective, if your senses are themselves subjective?
I haven’t read much on the topic, so forgive me for my ramble:
I agree with this sentiment. And find myself particularly cringing to people I agree with, espousing something as a FACT, as a part of their argument.
To me, science (my personal philosophy) is the best way we have to determine what is likely to be true, and the best way we have to describe the world in which we live.
When people start saying things like “and that’s a FACT” like it somehow makes their position more credible, annoys me greatly.
Getting ahead of the semantics, I don’t have an issue with the word itself, as being “something true”. Just that when people use it as something being self-evident. And I see it happening a lot, even with people saying something I agree with.
how can mirrors be real if our eyes aren’t real
When did I ever say mirrors were real?
Sounds like an argument to make yourself feel superior to all groups without adding anything concrete to the conversation to me.
You seem to confuse subjectivity of perception with the objectivity of external facts. While our senses interpret the world, objective facts remain true independent of individual perception. For example, gravity exists whether or not one perceives or “believes” in it.
You only know that gravity exists through your subjective perception.
What is your point?
So it might not exist. Subjective perception can lie, eg
It’s the problem of knowledge all over again. Something which philosophers have been debating for centuries. But I highly doubt you have studied any of it.
That whole thing of “facts are just opinions” is nothing more than the devaluing of empirical evidence and turning observable facts into a matter of opinion, turning any and all political discussion into a shouting match where nothing ever comes of it because “it’s just my opinion”. This propaganda tactic is called “The Fire hose of Falsehood”.
I could go on and on about the nature of knowledge and the evolution of science, but I highly doubt you would care as you do not seem to know even the most basic things about The Problem of Knowledge and choose to go the self-contradictory skeptic route of “Knowledge doesn’t exist”.
Edit: I would just like to add that just because our sense are 100% reliable that doesn’t mean that everything is false.
I can know for sure that a thinking being I call ‘me’ exists. I act in my empirical life based off of my empirical knowledge, but I don’t think that it’s necessarily true, just a useful way to govern behaviour in a world I have just as much grounds for believing is true.
It is technically just an opinion that the empirical world exists, but when making decisions about the empirical world it makes most sense to me to treat the working knowledge the scientific method has given us as true, even though it technically isn’t.
Philosophy is fine and all but we can’t forget that from a practical standpoint, all this philosophizing is useless. We can’t live our day to day lives operating under the belief that the material world doesn’t exist and using The Problem Of Knowledge as a way to dismiss empirical evidence by stating that we can’t be sure if the material world even exist is impractical and useless. Remember: Philosophy is completely useless. The only value you will find in it is the development of critical thinking skills.
Just imagine if a murdered caught red handed could get away scoot free by just saying “Hey, you can prove the material world exist, therefore you can prove the victim ever existed!”
You clearly ignored the several times I said in my comment about how while I know it’s not necessarily true, I act in the empirical world based off of the working knowledge that it is.
Also, philosophy is not useless.