Is there anything logically wrong with subjectivism? I know it's basically a middle schooler's go-to answer for philosophical questions, but it annoys me when people just casually dismiss it.
In my phil intro class today someone started to give an answer to a morality question like "well it depends on your point of v-" and the prof literally just says "That's subjectivism, and it's wrong. I'm a Platonist" with infinite smugness.
>Is there anything logically wrong with subjectivism?
It violates the principle of non-contradiction. If something can be its own contradiction, then anything can be predicated of anything. I can say, for example, that a ship is a horse. It becomes impossible to assert anything of anything and rational discourse is destroyed. It's a self defeating philosophy
Oh yeah? And what if dialetheism is true, huh?
Checkmate LNC-believer
Are you saying a ship isn't a horse? How do you know that?
>truth depends on your point of view
oh sweetie no..
I thought that was called moral-relativism?
Subjectivism is underrated, especially when it's about how to live your life
"Ship" and "horse" are just words. They mean whatever we use them for. So a "ship" can be a "horse".
The retard store called, they're running out of you
There's no such thing as a ship and a horse, there are only concepts in your mind which you label "ship" and "horse". So they can indeed be the same thing.
Words do have referents, you fucking spastic
Sure, there's some "thing" which you perceive, as you are intaking sensory information. But what that "thing" is is something that only exists in your mind. The "thing" isn't a "horse", it's something that you have conceptualized and labeled as "horse".
It have labeled it as horse as a means to distinguish it from other things that I haven't labeled as horse.
Define subjectivism.
...and? The thing we label as a horse is still not the same thing we label as a ship.
Truth is historically contingent and communal, not subjective. Your personal beliefs about things don't have an impact on anything unless they have discursive power to influence the social narrative. The "objectivity" of beliefs comes from their enduring strength as a social category, and those can be pretty stable and long-lasting, and they fundamentally determine your individual perception as a member of a community (whether local or global).
About time the pragmatists showed up.
>analytical philosophy
Just go full nihilism and argue from every possible position
After ending the discussion (and winning) end it with "but who cares anyways" and look at the horizon with a casual smile that also reveals a deep melancholy
>It's a self defeating philosophy
More like Self-reflecting.
You're saying truth is even more Subjective.
You can't stop someone from being a relativist. What you can do is recognize that there is nothing to gain from talking to them, and move on with your life. If people want to shout "that's just like your opinion man" at everything you say, you can't stop them. But you also don't have to.
Not true. In poetry
>Waves horse
>Needing to fit yourself into a camp and not venture out into other ways of thinking.
Your professor is a small-minded dick.
It sounds like your professor should have said that he was Kantian but if he did indeed say he was a Platonist then you should have asked him how he obtained that abstract knowledge of morality. It won't be very easy because then he would have to somehow explain how knowledge that existed non-spatiotemporally came to him through experience. This can work with mathematics, but I really don't see how you can do this with morality
Couldn't he just say it was innate/reincarnated.
No because the human exists in spacetime but platonic objects don't. He could argue that if he wants to commit himself to the view like Plato does that knowledge of abstract entities is a process of the immaterial soul coming to remember something which is different than something innate. He could also commit himself to the idea that the mind is non-spatiotemporal which is not very good.
>a process of the immaterial soul coming to remember something
>different than something innate
How could you tell the difference, experientially?
>He could also commit himself to the idea that the mind is non-spatiotemporal which is not very good.
Why?
not the poster, but again - how would you be able to tell that the mind is non-spatiotemporal.
One major problem with subjectivism, or to posit a subject is that it really has no way to explain or posit objects,
and their appearances, which is clearly a hurdle before moral considerations.
In the moral sense though, supposing there is a way to maintain subjectivism without solipsism, there is no way to evaluate moral conduct
in the case multiple views are considered, so any conclusion drawn would be arbitrary, and any premise mere assertion.
So, moral debate characterized this way is inconclusive, and possibly even incoherent.
Not to imply Platonism is a better view though.
TRANSCENDENTAL MOTHA FUCKIN SUBJEEEEEECCCCCTTTTTT
This is suggestive of the question of morality being incoherent as it lacks a foundation. Without knowing if subjectivism, or any other "ism" is correct then moral conclusions are predicated on the belief being proven correct. One may say that an action, from their system is wrong but that is all, given the current schools of thought, and their justification, in philosophy.
subjectivism as in phenomenology is of course true. it was invented by husserl and perpetuated by heidegger and sartre. being a platonist is utterly dumb, which can also easily inferred from her/his smugness
>How could you tell the difference, experientially?
If I'm understanding you correctly you're asking a psychological question. You're asking about the origins of a thought ("how can you tell when a certain reason or piece of knowledge is acquired") which is not the task of philosophy and wouldn't help us get anywhere. Plato's argument is that you cannot have the concept of, say, equality without that concept already preceding you since equality is a concept that doesn't require the senses to grasp. This grammatically looks like he is saying that it is an innate idea but in the context of his argument he is trying to show that the soul is immaterial, exists forever, and is independent of the body. In other words the concept of equality as we know it is actually the process of us coming to remember something that exists out there with our soul, a sort of grasping rather than something that is ingrained. An innate idea implies that it doesn't need to be out there or universal, but rather specific to the structure of the mind in question.
Thanks user, I find I am often drawn to the psychological side of these questions. I appreciate your answers.