Objectivity does not exist.

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Choose the following you agree with the most.

Objectivity does not exist, only subjectivity.
3
17%
Subjectivity does not exist, only objectivity.
0
No votes
Both objectivity and subjectivity exist.
15
83%
Both objectivity and subjectivity do not exist.
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 18

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Objectivity does not exist.

Post by site »

Foundationally, we cannot prove deductively that the real world exists without assuming that is does.

Objectivity does not exist because of it. How can you decide what the objective values of something are whenever the things that you value are subjective to begin with? How can one decide objectively between two things whenever the value of those things is completely subjective to the circumstance at hand?

So, vote in the poll and discuss your choice. What is your take?
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Re: Objectivity does not exist.

Post by Vinyanyérë »

Subjectively speaking, objectivity exists.
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Re: Objectivity does not exist.

Post by deleted_user »

If you get shittered the world makes more or less sense bust it's which way in the spectrum it skews that begs the question which it is and it is clearly, for me, an objectively subjective experience. You are doing yourself a disservice for it's anything but.
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Re: Objectivity does not exist.

Post by JakeyBoyTH »

Ofc both exist. Science is incredibly objective. Art is incredible subjective. (quite a lot of bs as well in art for people who cant do science and want to be a professor)
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Re: Objectivity does not exist.

Post by HUMMAN »

As far as i get you come to the point where you can not be sure if your red is same as mine. Which we can not be sure, also there no counter arguments if world was created Last thursday for example, you can base your all knowledge on that. Yeah so subjectivity is really overwhelming yet most philosophers are against this self world- solipsism-. Okham s razor is used when there are more than one possible arguments, choose the less complex one. For example you have to use millions of extra information if the world was created Last thursday just following science and rationality is simply easier. So objectivity is an issue here, if not a fact. At this point it does not matter if you take it as real or not since you use it like real. I mean what is real anyway, you even cannot be sure of ypurself so it is better to just ignore it, okhams razor! And follow soluable problems.
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Re: Objectivity does not exist.

Post by musketjr »

facts are things that are true whether or not you believe in them

site made this thread. fact. this thread is pointless academic "philosophy". opinion.
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Re: Objectivity does not exist.

Post by musketjr »

lol some people voted first option. if you think there are no factually true (this is how OP used the word objective: as synonymous with factual) things, how do you think the computer you used to cast your vote operates? on opinions?
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Re: Objectivity does not exist.

Post by XeeleeFlower »

There are objective truths, but the way those truths are viewed is subjective. Additionally, we may never know those objective truths.
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Re: Objectivity does not exist.

Post by musketjr »

i haven't thought about it but i probably agree that our appreciation of things (factual or otherwise) may be inherently subjective, but the OP disputed that facts exist at all, which is nonsense.

actually the incoherence of the OP is that the first point refers to facts (there is nothing factually true) and the second refers to opinions (there is no what you might call human objectivity), but bases it on the - as we saw - unrelated and incorrect predicate that there are no factually true things.

the argument OP tried to make, i assume, is that essentially there is no objective morality. that may or may not be true. if you view morality as essential to survival in a darwinian sense then you could if you took the time figure out that certain moral precepts aid survival better than others. humans are primates that survive only in communities, so injunctions against deceit, for example could be said (granted that the lengthy academic work is done to corroborate it) objectively - that is, factually - to 'benefit humans', and you could then call that a good moral if you agree aiding survival is a good thing.

you know, to be a philosophical pedant is easy. you can say that "to win" is a value and therefore inherently subjective. fine, but chess engines still make objectively good chess moves if you grant that you want to win the game - here is objectivity nested within subjectivity. so lets circumvent the boring academic pedantry in this way: call our parameters subjective if you like (i.e. that to survive is good), and then figure out objective things within them.
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Re: Objectivity does not exist.

Post by Gendarme »

[spoiler=Read this before anything else.]Before we begin: Imagine your every single thought (including logical reasoning) being planted by a powerful entity to trick you. This is a reason you cannot claim absolute knowledge.

These buttons are my way of cheating and breaking out of the logic-loop that will follow. Click on the buttons to enter and leave infinite loops. I am not sure how to explain this without cheating.

Now, close this section, as it should be separated from the rest of the post to not cause confusion. Simply click on the above button again to hide this section.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Discussion]Lemma: Since I do not claim absolute knowledge, there is a possibility that any statement I make is wrong.

Let's take a few arbitrary statements as examples:

Example 1:
Since I do not claim absolute knowledge, there is a possibility that any statement I make is wrong.
If this statement is wrong (see Lemma), i.e. there is no possibility that this statement is wrong, then we have a paradox.


Example 2:
If this arbitrary statement is wrong, i.e. there is no possibility that this statement is wrong, then we have a paradox.
Since I do not claim absolute knowledge, there is a possibility that this statement is wrong (i.e. it is not a paradox).


Example 3:
Since I do not claim absolute knowledge, there is a possibility that this statement is wrong (i.e. it is not a paradox).
If this statement is wrong (see Lemma), then we have a paradox.

.
.
.

Warning: Close this section![/spoiler]
[spoiler=Conclusion]Trying to find an answer is incredibly ambitious, as it is not even possible to discuss it.[/spoiler]
Pay more attention to detail.
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Re: Objectivity does not exist.

Post by musketjr »

i've got no idea what your point is.

saying "i do not claim absolute knowledge" doesn't mean anything, and there are things we have knowledge of. saying "i claim no knowledge" doesn't stop "there are facts and we can know some of them" being true. mixing yellow and blue gives you green. me saying "i claim no knowledge, therefore any instruction i give regarding mixing colours may be false; and furthermore, this is a paradox if true, since we know yellow + blue = green yet this statement contradicts that" is no paradox because the statement doesn't negate the reality that if you mix yellow and blue you get green.

formal philosophy and semantic tricks. it's doubly pointless because we know language is a mere imperfect and symbolic representation of reality. so these attempts to find contradictions in reality because we find contradictions in language (if they are contradictions) miss the point. if you can find mathematical contradictions (paradoxes), then you'll have a point. but as for non-mathematical language, it -philosophy- shouldn't be rendered formal / academic for precisely the reasons this thread demonstrates.

philosophy peaked with the greeks IMO. and this is a fact, because my opinions are facts. for evidence, see the comments of the famous roman seneca on pointless philosophical pedantry (they were doing it even back then, the bastards)

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_le ... /Letter_48

4. And on this point, my excellent Lucilius, I should like to have those subtle dialecticians of yours advise me how I ought to help a friend, or how a fellow man, rather than tell me in how many ways the word "friend" is used, and how many meanings the word "man" possesses. Lo, Wisdom and Folly are taking opposite sides. Which shall I join? Which party would you have me follow? On that side, "man" is the equivalent of "friend"; on the other side, "friend" is not the equivalent of "man." The one wants a friend for his own advantage; the other wants to make himself an advantage to his friend.[2] What you have to offer me is nothing but distortion of words and splitting of syllables. 5. It is clear that unless I can devise some very tricky premisses and by false deductions tack on to them a fallacy which springs from the truth, I shall not be able to distinguish between what is desirable and what is to be avoided! I am ashamed! Old men as we are, dealing with a problem so serious, we make play of it!

6. "'Mouse' is a syllable.[3] Now a mouse eats its cheese; therefore, a syllable eats cheese." Suppose now that I cannot solve this problem; see what peril hangs over my head as a result of such ignorance! What a scrape I shall be in! Without doubt I must beware, or some day I shall be catching syllables in a mousetrap, or, if I grow careless, a book may devour my cheese! Unless, perhaps, the following syllogism is shrewder still: "'Mouse' is a syllable. Now a syllable does not eat cheese. Therefore a mouse does not eat cheese." 7. What childish nonsense! Do we knit our brows over this sort of problem? Do we let our beards grow long for this reason? Is this the matter which we teach with sour and pale faces?

Would you really know what philosophy offers to humanity? Philosophy offers counsel. Death calls away one man, and poverty chafes another; a third is worried either by his neighbour's wealth or by his own. So-and-so is afraid of bad luck; another desires to get away from his own good fortune. Some are ill-treated by men, others by the gods. 8. Why, then, do you frame for me such games as these? It is no occasion for jest; you are retained as counsel for unhappy mankind. You have promised to help those in peril by sea, those in captivity, the sick and the needy, and those whose heads are under the poised axe. Whither are you straying? What are you doing?

This friend, in whose company you are jesting, is in fear. Help him, and take the noose from about his neck. Men are stretching out imploring hands to you on all sides; lives ruined and in danger of ruin are begging for some assistance; men's hopes, men's resources, depend upon you. They ask that you deliver them from all their restlessness, that you reveal to them, scattered and wandering as they are, the clear light of truth. 9. Tell them what nature has made necessary, and what superfluous; tell them how simple are the laws that she has laid down, how pleasant and unimpeded life is for those who follow these laws, but how bitter and perplexed it is for those who have put their trust in opinion rather than in nature.
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Re: Objectivity does not exist.

Post by Laurence Drake »

site wrote:How can you decide what the objective values of something are whenever the things that you value are subjective to begin with?

This is related to the basic problem of radical interpretation, which addresses cases in which an interpreter must learn the language of a speaker who is completely alien to her. The dilemma is that, whereas the interpreter must know the beliefs of the speaker in order to assign meaning to her expressions, she cannot identify the meaning of the speaker's expressions without knowing what the speaker believes. The usual assumption, at least according to Davidson, is that the way to proceed in this scenario is through the application of a 'Principle of Charity', according to which the interpreter maximises agreement between her own beliefs and those of the speaker in order to compile a list of sentences that may function as a first-approximation to translation. But in applying this principle, the interpreter assumes firstly that the speaker adheres to certain principles of rationality which are acknowledged by the interpreter, and secondly that the speaker holds beliefs, at least on a basic level, that are similar enough to the interpreter's. In the absence of this assumption, it is unclear whether any interpretation of the speaker's language is possible, since the interpreter will fail to identify any of the cases in which the speaker holds her own expressions to be true.

The problem now is whether this principle of charity undermines the possibility of having knowledge of the speaker's beliefs that are appropriately divorced from the beliefs of the interpreter, i.e. observer-independent and value-free knowledge of what the speaker holds to be true. At least in the initial stages of interpretation, some common foundation of agreement must be assumed before radical differences in belief can even be rendered possible. In this way, our knowledge of what other people believe, and analogously our knowledge of other languages, is theory-laden; how we interpret a description of a speaker's beliefs must largely depend on what we ourselves believe to be true.

But the theory-laden nature of any field of inquiry doesn't have to undermine the possibility of objective validation of hypotheses. The physical sciences are theory-laden in the sense of semantic theory loading; our theoretical beliefs about the physical world influence how our observations are described, and our descriptions of an observation will become different if our theoretical beliefs change. For example, when we make the observation that 'X particle is orbiting with Y velocity at Z displacement from the sun', our understanding of this observation will depend on whether we subscribe to a Bohmian interpretation of quantum theory, which posits that all particles have a definite displacement and velocity at all times, or the conventional Copenhagen interpretation of the theory, which does not. In a way, this theory-ladenness gives rise to a phenomenon of circularity, since those who support Bohmian mechanics will be unable to justify their support for this interpretation except through an appeal to experimental observations, which will be understood differently by those who reject Bohmian mechanics in favour of a different interpretation. But the important point is that, in spite of these complications, observations may still conflict with the underlying theory, and force us to question our theoretical commitments, sometimes compelling us to revise or even reject them outright. So long as the theoretical beliefs are not used instead of evidence to support our observations, then some possibility of objective testing and validation of hypotheses remains.

The same may be said in the case of hermeneutical interpretation. When we aim to understanding the language of a foreigner, we must make assumptions about their beliefs or else the project of interpretation must be abandoned. But the fact that our interpretation is influenced by our theoretical commitments does not mean that we are unable to verify our interpretation of their language. So long as our beliefs do not determine the final interpretation, there is still sufficient scope for objectivity. Our first-approximation translations may still be challenged if they prove to be inconsistent with the speakers beliefs in ways that are not egregiously attributable to potential errors in the initial application of the charity principle.

In other words, it may be true that nothing is objective, but this thesis is trivial since the possibility of objective science can still be upheld.

musketjr wrote:i've got no idea what your point is.

saying "i do not claim absolute knowledge" doesn't mean anything, and there are things we have knowledge of. saying "i claim no knowledge" doesn't stop "there are facts and we can know some of them" being true. mixing yellow and blue gives you green. me saying "i claim no knowledge, therefore any instruction i give regarding mixing colours may be false; and furthermore, this is a paradox if true, since we know yellow + blue = green yet this statement contradicts that" is no paradox because the statement doesn't negate the reality that if you mix yellow and blue you get green.

formal philosophy and semantic tricks. it's doubly pointless because we know language is a mere imperfect and symbolic representation of reality. so these attempts to find contradictions in reality because we find contradictions in language (if they are contradictions) miss the point. if you can find mathematical contradictions (paradoxes), then you'll have a point. but as for non-mathematical language, it -philosophy- shouldn't be rendered formal / academic for precisely the reasons this thread demonstrates.

philosophy peaked with the greeks IMO. and this is a fact, because my opinions are facts. for evidence, see the comments of the famous roman seneca on pointless philosophical pedantry (they were doing it even back then, the bastards)

On the contrary, I'd say that a lot of the most interesting philosophy was published in about the last 50 years.
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Re: Objectivity does not exist.

Post by gibson »

Objectivity I guess exists but humans aren't capable of it. Objectivity depends upon one knowing everything about something, but how can you know if know everything about something?
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Re: Objectivity does not exist.

Post by Goodspeed »

Objective truth really isn't all that elusive. I even know of one: I exist.
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Re: Objectivity does not exist.

Post by pecelot »

Laurence Drake wrote:
site wrote:How can you decide what the objective values of something are whenever the things that you value are subjective to begin with?

This is related to the basic problem of radical interpretation, which addresses cases in which an interpreter must learn the language of a speaker who is completely alien to her. The dilemma is that, whereas the interpreter must know the beliefs of the speaker in order to assign meaning to her expressions, she cannot identify the meaning of the speaker's expressions without knowing what the speaker believes. The usual assumption, at least according to Davidson, is that the way to proceed in this scenario is through the application of a 'Principle of Charity', according to which the interpreter maximises agreement between her own beliefs and those of the speaker in order to compile a list of sentences that may function as a first-approximation to translation. But in applying this principle, the interpreter assumes firstly that the speaker adheres to certain principles of rationality which are acknowledged by the interpreter, and secondly that the speaker holds beliefs, at least on a basic level, that are similar enough to the interpreter's. In the absence of this assumption, it is unclear whether any interpretation of the speaker's language is possible, since the interpreter will fail to identify any of the cases in which the speaker holds her own expressions to be true.

The problem now is whether this principle of charity undermines the possibility of having knowledge of the speaker's beliefs that are appropriately divorced from the beliefs of the interpreter, i.e. observer-independent and value-free knowledge of what the speaker holds to be true. At least in the initial stages of interpretation, some common foundation of agreement must be assumed before radical differences in belief can even be rendered possible. In this way, our knowledge of what other people believe, and analogously our knowledge of other languages, is theory-laden; how we interpret a description of a speaker's beliefs must largely depend on what we ourselves believe to be true.

But the theory-laden nature of any field of inquiry doesn't have to undermine the possibility of objective validation of hypotheses. The physical sciences are theory-laden in the sense of semantic theory loading; our theoretical beliefs about the physical world influence how our observations are described, and our descriptions of an observation will become different if our theoretical beliefs change. For example, when we make the observation that 'X particle is orbiting with Y velocity at Z displacement from the sun', our understanding of this observation will depend on whether we subscribe to a Bohmian interpretation of quantum theory, which posits that all particles have a definite displacement and velocity at all times, or the conventional Copenhagen interpretation of the theory, which does not. In a way, this theory-ladenness gives rise to a phenomenon of circularity, since those who support Bohmian mechanics will be unable to justify their support for this interpretation except through an appeal to experimental observations, which will be understood differently by those who reject Bohmian mechanics in favour of a different interpretation. But the important point is that, in spite of these complications, observations may still conflict with the underlying theory, and force us to question our theoretical commitments, sometimes compelling us to revise or even reject them outright. So long as the theoretical beliefs are not used instead of evidence to support our observations, then some possibility of objective testing and validation of hypotheses remains.

The same may be said in the case of hermeneutical interpretation. When we aim to understanding the language of a foreigner, we must make assumptions about their beliefs or else the project of interpretation must be abandoned. But the fact that our interpretation is influenced by our theoretical commitments does not mean that we are unable to verify our interpretation of their language. So long as our beliefs do not determine the final interpretation, there is still sufficient scope for objectivity. Our first-approximation translations may still be challenged if they prove to be inconsistent with the speakers beliefs in ways that are not egregiously attributable to potential errors in the initial application of the charity principle.

In other words, it may be true that nothing is objective, but this thesis is trivial since the possibility of objective science can still be upheld.

musketjr wrote:i've got no idea what your point is.

saying "i do not claim absolute knowledge" doesn't mean anything, and there are things we have knowledge of. saying "i claim no knowledge" doesn't stop "there are facts and we can know some of them" being true. mixing yellow and blue gives you green. me saying "i claim no knowledge, therefore any instruction i give regarding mixing colours may be false; and furthermore, this is a paradox if true, since we know yellow + blue = green yet this statement contradicts that" is no paradox because the statement doesn't negate the reality that if you mix yellow and blue you get green.

formal philosophy and semantic tricks. it's doubly pointless because we know language is a mere imperfect and symbolic representation of reality. so these attempts to find contradictions in reality because we find contradictions in language (if they are contradictions) miss the point. if you can find mathematical contradictions (paradoxes), then you'll have a point. but as for non-mathematical language, it -philosophy- shouldn't be rendered formal / academic for precisely the reasons this thread demonstrates.

philosophy peaked with the greeks IMO. and this is a fact, because my opinions are facts. for evidence, see the comments of the famous roman seneca on pointless philosophical pedantry (they were doing it even back then, the bastards)

On the contrary, I'd say that a lot of the most interesting philosophy was published in about the last 50 years.

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Re: Objectivity does not exist.

Post by site »

True objectivity does not exist unless in a God. (Let's not argue the existence of a God or gods here though, just hear me out.)

We cannot be objective because we do not know everything. Objective truths can exist, but our knowledge of those truths is completely subjective. Assuming the presence of a creator, he could be objective as he made all.

You can claim science as being objective. Our understanding of science is subjective though. We simply don't know everything.
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Re: Objectivity does not exist.

Post by Goodspeed »

But we do know some things. Wouldn't you say you objectively exist?
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Re: Objectivity does not exist.

Post by _FluXx »

site wrote:True objectivity does not exist unless in a God. (Let's not argue the existence of a God or gods here though, just hear me out.)

We cannot be objective because we do not know everything. Objective truths can exist, but our knowledge of those truths is completely subjective. Assuming the presence of a creator, he could be objective as he made all.

You can claim science as being objective. Our understanding of science is subjective though. We simply don't know everything.


Thats ubsurd I know everything :love: :salt:
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Re: Objectivity does not exist.

Post by Laurence Drake »

pecelot wrote:
Laurence Drake wrote:
site wrote:How can you decide what the objective values of something are whenever the things that you value are subjective to begin with?

This is related to the basic problem of radical interpretation, which addresses cases in which an interpreter must learn the language of a speaker who is completely alien to her. The dilemma is that, whereas the interpreter must know the beliefs of the speaker in order to assign meaning to her expressions, she cannot identify the meaning of the speaker's expressions without knowing what the speaker believes. The usual assumption, at least according to Davidson, is that the way to proceed in this scenario is through the application of a 'Principle of Charity', according to which the interpreter maximises agreement between her own beliefs and those of the speaker in order to compile a list of sentences that may function as a first-approximation to translation. But in applying this principle, the interpreter assumes firstly that the speaker adheres to certain principles of rationality which are acknowledged by the interpreter, and secondly that the speaker holds beliefs, at least on a basic level, that are similar enough to the interpreter's. In the absence of this assumption, it is unclear whether any interpretation of the speaker's language is possible, since the interpreter will fail to identify any of the cases in which the speaker holds her own expressions to be true.

The problem now is whether this principle of charity undermines the possibility of having knowledge of the speaker's beliefs that are appropriately divorced from the beliefs of the interpreter, i.e. observer-independent and value-free knowledge of what the speaker holds to be true. At least in the initial stages of interpretation, some common foundation of agreement must be assumed before radical differences in belief can even be rendered possible. In this way, our knowledge of what other people believe, and analogously our knowledge of other languages, is theory-laden; how we interpret a description of a speaker's beliefs must largely depend on what we ourselves believe to be true.

But the theory-laden nature of any field of inquiry doesn't have to undermine the possibility of objective validation of hypotheses. The physical sciences are theory-laden in the sense of semantic theory loading; our theoretical beliefs about the physical world influence how our observations are described, and our descriptions of an observation will become different if our theoretical beliefs change. For example, when we make the observation that 'X particle is orbiting with Y velocity at Z displacement from the sun', our understanding of this observation will depend on whether we subscribe to a Bohmian interpretation of quantum theory, which posits that all particles have a definite displacement and velocity at all times, or the conventional Copenhagen interpretation of the theory, which does not. In a way, this theory-ladenness gives rise to a phenomenon of circularity, since those who support Bohmian mechanics will be unable to justify their support for this interpretation except through an appeal to experimental observations, which will be understood differently by those who reject Bohmian mechanics in favour of a different interpretation. But the important point is that, in spite of these complications, observations may still conflict with the underlying theory, and force us to question our theoretical commitments, sometimes compelling us to revise or even reject them outright. So long as the theoretical beliefs are not used instead of evidence to support our observations, then some possibility of objective testing and validation of hypotheses remains.

The same may be said in the case of hermeneutical interpretation. When we aim to understanding the language of a foreigner, we must make assumptions about their beliefs or else the project of interpretation must be abandoned. But the fact that our interpretation is influenced by our theoretical commitments does not mean that we are unable to verify our interpretation of their language. So long as our beliefs do not determine the final interpretation, there is still sufficient scope for objectivity. Our first-approximation translations may still be challenged if they prove to be inconsistent with the speakers beliefs in ways that are not egregiously attributable to potential errors in the initial application of the charity principle.

In other words, it may be true that nothing is objective, but this thesis is trivial since the possibility of objective science can still be upheld.

musketjr wrote:i've got no idea what your point is.

saying "i do not claim absolute knowledge" doesn't mean anything, and there are things we have knowledge of. saying "i claim no knowledge" doesn't stop "there are facts and we can know some of them" being true. mixing yellow and blue gives you green. me saying "i claim no knowledge, therefore any instruction i give regarding mixing colours may be false; and furthermore, this is a paradox if true, since we know yellow + blue = green yet this statement contradicts that" is no paradox because the statement doesn't negate the reality that if you mix yellow and blue you get green.

formal philosophy and semantic tricks. it's doubly pointless because we know language is a mere imperfect and symbolic representation of reality. so these attempts to find contradictions in reality because we find contradictions in language (if they are contradictions) miss the point. if you can find mathematical contradictions (paradoxes), then you'll have a point. but as for non-mathematical language, it -philosophy- shouldn't be rendered formal / academic for precisely the reasons this thread demonstrates.

philosophy peaked with the greeks IMO. and this is a fact, because my opinions are facts. for evidence, see the comments of the famous roman seneca on pointless philosophical pedantry (they were doing it even back then, the bastards)

On the contrary, I'd say that a lot of the most interesting philosophy was published in about the last 50 years.

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