Talk:Objectivity (philosophy)/Archive 1

message: This article is a mess. The lead does not conform in the slightest with WP:LEAD. On the whole the article is not written in a way which would allow anybody to know what it was talking about and does not engage with any of the major ideas about objectivity in philosophy. --Fastfission 03:30, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup

message: Metaphysical objectivism: "Metaphysical objectivism holds that the universe exists objectively."
Can we define this without using 'objectively'? Chiok 03:21, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Circular definition

message: Regardless of Hardy's position, it astounds me that an article on objectivity does not even mention relativism, but appears to wish to divide philosophy into the false dichotomy of subjectivity/objectivity.  
I am not a professional philosopher, but I can identify a weak article. I complained about this article months ago -  and something needs to be done about it. (20040302 19:55, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Still a mess

message: I was so marvelled at this article that I made a livejournal entry making fun of it.  
Chiok 05:45, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wow this is bad 

message: The word objectivity admits at least two related meanings in philosophy.
:Doesn't continue thought.  What are the two things?
Objectivity is the belief that the existence and nature of reality do not depend on anyone's awareness of it
:I'm not sure what 'existence and nature of reality' refers to here.  Objectivity usually refers to classes of things, properties, events, etc.  Existence and natural of reality is too general.
For example, the old saying: "If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?". The answer, according to the purest form of objectivism is yes - because objects will continue to exist whether or not they are actively perceived. 
:This is irrelevant.  The tree might be objective, but the phenomenal experience of sound is not.  
billions of miles from Earth.  ... through a telescope, it is not being filmed, aliens are not aware of its existence
:I think this was an attempt to sound clever.  It doesn't add anything.  
No one is looking at it presently
:Assumes observer-independent measure of time.
discovered nor 
:Unnecessary.  We would discover it by perceiving it.  This doesn't add anything.
By the philosophy of subjectivism... because it is not and has not been perceived
:Replaced with "According to subjective theories," 
By the philosophy of objectivity,
:Replaced with "According to objective theories,"
For a dulled down example: by according to the idea of objectivism
:Replaced with "With objectivist theories," 
Its existence is taken for granted;
:We should not grant the existence of a particular thing in a particular place if it was never perceived.
It does not simply cease to exist because it is not being actively perceived.
:Since it has never been perceived, subjectivism doesn't believe it ceased to exist as it never did.  The contrast doesn't work.
as an epistemic virtue, is the recognition 
:The words 'virtue' and 'recognition' are biased.  Changed to "is the belief".  This line has been moved to beginning of the article.
or one's personal feelings, opinions and beliefs
:As far as I know, this doesn't add anything to the definition.
Such objectivity is generally regarded as essential to science, to philosophy, and to justice (see scientific method.)  When a lawyer assessing the fitness of a potential juror asks "Can you be objective in judging the facts of this case?", it is this sense of the word objectivity that is being used.
:Not true.  Scientists reject the idea of immeasurable quantities, entities, and events since they figured out QM and relativity. Metaphysical objectivism is not respectable in philosophy departments. In justice, 'objectivity' has a completely different meaning, that of impartiality.
Metaphysical objectivism holds that the universe exists objectively.
:Circular
In psychometrics a measure is objective to the extent to which different users estimate the same value when they use it. The extent of agreement and the likelihood that it is non-random can be estimated mathematically.
:This is a completely different sense of the term, closer to 'consistent'.  This should be elsewhere and only on this page as a disambiguation.
That should not be confused with Ayn Rand's systematic philosophy called Objectivism, 
:Irrelevant.
which distinguishes among three views that it characterizes as intrinsic, subjective, and objective.
:Even more irrelevant.
For information on the Objectivist political philosophy, see Ayn Rand
:Completely irrelevant.
Chiok 09:07, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moved from Article 

message: Anything was better than nothing in this case. I wish I knew the area enough to join in more proactively - my partner was surprised that I opened my mouth at all, knowing that I do not like to criticise where I am unable to improve - but I guess there are exceptions to that rule (20040302 20:18, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem.  I just took out the parts that were awful.  This doesn't mean that I like what is left.  Actually, I'm not sure why this is even an article.  Subjectivity and Subjectivism (philosophy) both redirect to Subject (philosophy)  I think this is the right way to go, delete this and redirect it to Object (philosophy).  The important part of objectivist theories is that it make certain things (mind-independent) objects and really has nothing to do with beliefs about "the existence and nature of reality" (whatever that is).  The only philosophically interesting thing is what do objectivist theories claim are objects.  Make the articles about that, the objects.  We might also create Psychometric objectivity and  Intrinsic-objective-subjective distinction to separate those different topics and move the Searle bit to John Searle.  Chiok 21:50, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thanks for the start 

message: Okay, John Searle says that consciousness can be studied by epistemically objective means, but what does that mean?  How is consciouness objective but not metaphysically objective?  What are epistemically objective means?  It sounds like he is equivocating the two different sense of 'objective', mind-independent real objects and an unbiased approach.  Can we describe what epistemic objectivity is? Chiok 21:43, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not consciousness that is held to be epistemically objective; it is the means of studying consciousness.  More later...... Michael Hardy 21:45, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This distinction is not listed in the John Searle article.  Why does the distinction warrant its own article when it not even listed under John Searle? Chiok 21:20, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Epistemic objectivity 

message: I have rewritten this article within the narrow scope of the term "objectivity" with the intent of not having it confused with various objectivisms and notions of objective knowledge.  The article was up for deletion and this is an effort to save a definition of the term in philosophy.  Possibilities for expansion would overlap with many other concepts in philosophy and I think this page would serve best a link depository for those concepts.  Otherwise, it could be merged into an article on the various notions of the term "objective", but it would probably lose its identity in doing so.Amerindianarts 21:24, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That's much better.  Thanks.  Chiok 04:09, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the changes; forgive me for my ignorance: Regarding the conclusion of the article ...it is doubtful that such knowledge would be considered as attaining the precision experienced in the natural sciences, and would probably be referenced by a name other than "objectivity". What is meant by this?  And is it necessarily true?  I am under the impression that many scientists believe that at it's best, science is concerned with modelling via experimentation rather than discovering truths thereby, or am I missing the point? (20040302 15:24, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Yeah.. but - keeping with science - I went over to Scientific Method after I asked - and I feel that the way in which science is typified in this article doesn't reflect the views of Heisenburg, Kuhn, etc. - that observation is necessarily theory-dependant; a view which I would subscribe to. As I understand it, Mathematics is a well-developed modelling language, though maybe I am still missing the point!  Thanks for taking the time to explain this stuff to me, AA (20040302 20:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I think the point you may be making is that according to the definitions of the article, then the natural sciences cannot fall under the term "objectivity".  If so, that is a good point, but the philosophical notion of objectivity I think should reveal this.  Philosophers will be the first to critique scientific method.  I really don't like the current article, I just wanted to save the term.  Input from other philosophers would be welcome but as I warned prior to the revision, being specific about the term in philosophy is tenuous. The task of philosophers trying to be more all-encompassing in its definition is usually pertinent to a particular school of thought.Amerindianarts 20:53, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Current rewrite

message: This article survived an Articles for Deletion debate. The discussion can be found here. -Splashtalk 02:19, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Splash linked to the wrong page.  It should be here Chiok 04:27, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Articles for Deletion debate

message: The article is still here, so what do we want it to be?  Whatever happens I don't want it to be Ayn Rand centric.  The old article looked liked someone's handout given out at an Ayn Rand salon or a participant's sponsored session at a TOC conference, but Wikipedia is not an Ayn Rand salon.  I also don't particularly like Lapez's additions.  I'm not sure what it is, but I find them confusing.  The last version I like was this oneprimarily written by Amerindianarts, even though it is a little focused on propositions. Something also should be said about perceptional objectivity and moral facts.  It would be nice if we could add a few people with a philosophy degree to the conversation. 
I should also point out that there is an article on Objectivity in both the Routledge encyclopedia (by Alexander Miller) and in the The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Objectivityby Dwayne H. Mulder).  We will be better off if we try to emulate those two articles for now.  We should also try to avoid listing particular philosophers' unique meanings of Objectivity and only mention, at first anyway, the philosophers mentioned in those two encyclopedia articles.  Although the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy doesn't have an article on Objectivity itself, there are 141 articles that mention the word  The articles that use the word the most are about the Feminist critique of objectivity and this is not discussed in either the IEP or Routledge encyclopedia article. 
I also want to point out that I still don't know exactly what objectivity is.  Is there a difference between something being objective and the objectivity of a something?  If Objectivity is merely "The state or quality of being objective" wouldn't it be better to redirect this article to something on the subjective-objective distinction (and that article improved)?  If objectivity refers to the objectiveness of something, what can be objective?  For example, things (in the technical scholastic res sense), intentional objects, propositions, (moral) beliefs, facts, or mathematical objects?  Does objectivity concern propositional truths or the property/predicate of existing?  Does it require mind-independence or, at the very least, consistency over some/all observers?  Does it require unbiased beliefs in the weak journalistic sense, a value-neutral sense, an emotionally detached sense, or in the stronger sense that includes no perceptual biases?  Is "a view from nowhere" needed?  Can phenomenal objects have objectivity or just noumenal objects?  Does the philosophy of science discussion of verifiably versus falsifiably come into play at all?  Okay, I think you got my point.  We need to figure out what this article is about. Chiok 08:06, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I dropped the word 'more' when I said we should get (more) people with phil degrees.  I didn't mean to suggest that you or the other people here don't have one.  Whoops, my bad.  I have no problem with the journalistic section, instead I was talking more about the first paragraph.  I think it is trying to say too much in one paragraph and I don't know what "quality of truth" means, so I get kinda confused reading it.  Sorry if I was unclear and came across as overly dismissive. It's good to have you aboard.  Chiok 20:24, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Now what? 

message: The Objectivism (metaphysics) seems very short and stubby. I think that article would work better here where there is a more context about objectivity in general. Indeed the objectivism section here is almost the same as in the other article. --Salix alba (talk) 08:17, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a tendency in Wikipedia which seems to favorize -isms articles, which is not a very good idea except for people who love categorizing others people in little cases which suit their nice little point of view. I don't think either that "objectivism" is a valid term, and it surely need to be sourced in order to remain as it is. This being said, objectivism may design something different and should be completed (however, it could be listed as a subsection, both alternatives are similar). Take for example subjectivism which has been merged with subject (philosophy): while subjectivism design a specific philosophical stance, subject is a core-concept shared by most if not all modern philosophers. Lapaz 13:14, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The main school of objectivism seems to be the Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy, Objectivist metaphysics, Objectivist epistemology. This starts from a position that reality is objective, but quickly adds a rather subjective conclusions. In Rands school the -ism does seem correct in that its a particular philosophical position. I'm unsure if any other major philosphers have started from the position. --Salix alba (talk) 14:46, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I can assure you that I never heard of Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy (although I do study philosophy); although there is no harm in Wikipedia having articles on it, it certainly shouldn't modify the content of other philosophical pages! I think objectivisim should be merged here. Lapaz 22:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  mergefrom Objectivism (metaphysics) 

message: Objective approach should be dealt with here. Lapaz 21:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. Objectivity (philosophy) is about whether it is posible to be objective and if there is an objective reality. Objective approach is more about how to be objective (assuming its possible). --Salix alba (talk) 22:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, you're right. This means that it's exactly the same debate (how is different the question of "whether it is possible to be objective" and "how to be objective (assuming its possible)"? I agree that the question of an "objective reality" is somewhat different, however, it may be adressed in a objective reality article if someone sees the point in making it differs from this one. No point in dividing the word "objectivity" in forks when it usually means what this page defines it as. Lapaz 01:08, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I think it's a bad idea, because most of the time objectivity means what objectivity (philosophy) is discussing: this is why it should redirect here. Objectivity is not a big problem, to the contrary of what the above debate might incite to believe. It most commonly means, according to its philosophical and ordinary definition, neutrality as in suspension of bias, or qualifies truth. There aren't a thousand definitions. Actually, the only others senses in the disambiguation page are objectivity (journalism) and New Objectivity, which is a 1920 German movement. Lapaz 01:05, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

text: From a more general point of view, the philosophical sense of objectivity can only be discussed it relating it to the "other senses", which actually are all common formulations of its philosophical sense. Philosophers just discuss the problem more in depth, questionning themselves how objectivity can be achieved in scientific discourse, in journalism; how truth itself can be said "objective"; etc. But these questions do not give to the word "objectivity" ten thousand meanings: whether in history, journalism, science, etc., while it is doubtlessly not the same kind of objectivity, you can hardly divide them as if they had nothing to do between themselves. The point of having this philosophical page of objectivity is precisely in having a clear discussion of the concept, which is why we have philosophers for in the first time! In other words, it is not as if we were discussing metaphysics questions such as which sex do angels have, which I agree are not of much concern to most mortals... Lapaz 01:14, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  merge from [[Objective approach]] 

message: This article has lost direction. It contains a lot of extraneous bull that has nothing to do with objectivity (philosophy) per se.  First, when searching Wiki for the term "objectivity" you are taken to "objectivity (philosophy)",  There are other conceptions of the term in general and this shows a complete lack of understanding of what the term means for PHILOSOPHY, and not the layman or any other discipline.  Next, you get the pathetic statement that in philosophy the term "objectivity" is a synonym for "neutral point of view".  This is complete bullshit and once again shows a complete lack of understanding for the term qua philosophy.  The smatterings and samplings of individual philosophers has now added a bias in point of view.  The article is no longer a neutral point of view and it is a disgrace to Wiki to have an article on "objectivity (philosophy)" that is not a tribute to objectivity (philosophy) itself.  Sections have been added that are irrelevant.  This article has become a hodge-podge of mishappenstance which looks like it was thrown together by a large, diverse group of philosopher wannabes.  The article is slanted and the samplings of different philosophers by no means is representative of philosophy as a whole, therefore it does not represent a neutral point of view.Amerindianarts 11:42, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Overview

message: The largest problem with this article is its lack of citations.  It only has 1!
Secondly, its written in a rather obfuscated manner that I doubt most laymen would appreciate.
I think it ought to be flagged and rewritten.
* I agree.Amerindianarts 02:13, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article needs massive work and CITATIONS