ruby sparks
Contributor
True. Oversight. My bad
Now I'm confused. I had thought that you, fast, were holding to the view that 'subjective' relates only to one individual.
Whilst I wouldn't necessarily agree*, it was at least my impression of your view.
Now I don't understand how 'I like chocolate' can be anything other than wholly subjective.
*For example, two people saying the same thing can still be subjective.
Ok, I get it now.
So, would one person saying 'chocolate is nice' be subjective?
And if so, what about two people saying it, or a whole room full of people saying it?
You could say that there being a person, or a room full of people, saying it is an objective truth, but not that what they are saying is an objective truth, right?
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"Sally is at the bank" is objective. Either she's there or she's not. What any one individual thinks is beside the point and alters the truth or falsity not one bit.If it's ambiguous and needs context, how can it possibly be objective? And how is Tom is a liar any different?
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However, "Sally is at the bank" is also ambiguous. She might be at the bank (financial institution), or she might be at the bank (uprisen land by the river).
Both sentences are objective, but because we don't know the context of the sentence, we do not know which proposition is being expressed by it. Since context does not disambiguate which meaning was intended, the truth is not therefore subject dependent. What was meant in this case is subject dependent, not a subjective truth.
If Bob says "Sally is at the bank (financial institution)" but is instead at the grociery store, then objectively, Bob is incorrect. On the hand hand, if Bob says "Sally is at the bank (by the river)" but is instead at the grociery store, then objectively still, Bob is incorrect.
Now, if someone says "Tom is tall," we are met yet again with an ambiguous statement. Does the speaker mean "wowsers, that Tom sure looks tall to me (!)?" If so, one might argue that the statement is a subjective truth since no where within or upon the world can we go a-searchin' for validation of said truth.
Does this mean the statement "Tom is tall" is subjective? No, because it's ambiguous, and if the utterer didn't so happen to mean as exclaimed earlier but instead meant "Tom is taller than average," then although what was meant is subjective, the claim itself can be verified without appealing to the subjective opinions of any one person--the truth matters not to what anyone believes to be the case.
The statement "Tom is a liar" is ambiguous in that it either means "Tom generally lies and is therefore a liar" or "Tom has lied and is therefore a liar." Ambiguous, yes. Objective, yes. We need to know explicitly what the subject in fact wants to convey, but after that, the truth is not to be found in the subject, and that's why it's not subjective.
So where have we got to?
That 'Tom is a liar' is ambiguous?