Don't despair, compare! Another great video. Perfect timing as I'm just reading Conant's paper now, a philosopher I discovered through your discussion of him in your Kant series. The universe smiles.

@VictorGijsbers

26 күн бұрын

Maybe, just *maybe*, I'll do a series on his book The Logical Alien at some point. But it's intimidatingly thick!

@rudijhayward

26 күн бұрын

@@VictorGijsbers Yes! That would be amazing! You've already started with your video on Hamawaki. Maybe just chip away at it bit by bit.

the excellent perspectival realism by massimi is relevant here.

hi Victor, I understand that it's terribly far from your usual fare, but I would love to watch you make sense of this video: "Donald Davidson and WVO Quine in Conversation"

Objectivism and perspectivism are not opposites; opposites would be the objective perspective and the subjective perspective. An argument can very easily be made for the impossibility of an objective perspective, however it is just as easy to maintain that the subjective perspective reduces to solipsism and thereby undercut the whole idea of a meaningful dialogue. Whether strictly speaking possible or not, the objective perspective is the aim of science, perhaps of all academic knowledge, possibly of epistemology itself. When we engage in meaningful discussion, in papers, in debate, in presentations we have to assume the objective endeavour, for coherence we have to assume common points of reference and a common language. This endeavour has turned out to be extraordinarily productive and successful (a small part of which are Victor Gijsbers' video presentations).

Is there any substantive difference between "negative perspectivism" and "positive perspectivism"? I suppose the attitudes are different, but it seems to me no matter how many perspectives you may collect and combine, there's no guarantee the sum of a finite number of specifically human perspectives will get you anywhere close to the totality of all perspectives, or perfect objectivity. I agree that this is what objectivity ultimately is, but the worry is, there might be an insurmountable gulf between what we might call 'provisional objectivity' (since we can always add more perspectives to the sum of a finite number of perspectives for a fuller picture) and perfect objectivity. Also this provisional objectivity seems to be just what intersubjectivity is (since it's a sum of subjective perspectives). And if that's so, it seems to me the distinction between the subjective view and the provisional objective view starts to blur a lot. Am I missing something?

@martinbennett2228

26 күн бұрын

I do not see that objectivity has to be absolute: that is the totality of all possible objective perspectives (clearly an impossibly high demand). Any perspective can be objective, that is objective within defined parameters (perhaps this is what you mean by provisional objectivity); it would mean that the particular perspective would be free from subjectivity. Obviously we can dispute whether objectivity has been achieved, but in order to question this, the distinction between objectivity and subjectivity has to be accepted.

@islaymmm

26 күн бұрын

@@martinbennett2228 I'm not sure what you mean by "parameters". Are you alluding to something like the Cartesian or Lockean distinction between primary and secondary properties? If so, then no, when I say provisional objectivity I mean to emphasise the idea that the particular mode of objectivity always has the potential for some kind of revision or update; take physics for example, it's understood to be the paradigmatic case of objective research and it works by constantly adding more discoveries to the collection of known facts and revising and updating theories. This is no news for anyone interested in philosophy or science, but the sense I get from a lot of claims about objectivity is that people do in fact seem to understand objectivity to be indisputable and absolute. (People routinely say "this is objectively true so you must agree that's the case, unlike cases where subjectivity rules.") So I tend to like to compare provisional objectivity, which is disputable, with perfect or absolute objectivity, which is indisputable and as you say is not attainable by mere mortals. But, if provisional objectivity is our vision of workable objectivity, then an objective view can only be valid for perspectives that contribute to its formation because provisional objectivity isn't universalisable beyond the boundary set forth by what contributes to it. And here's a worry, isn't that just what subjectivity is? It's not the subjectivity of an individual, but the subjectivity formed from a number of perspectives, intersubjectivity. It almost makes the idea attractive that (individual) subjectivity, intersubjectivity, provisional objectivity and perfect objectivity all reside on a single continuous spectrum rather than being discrete things. With all of that in mind, "negative perspectivism" seems to be exactly the same as "positive perspectivism" in substance, different only in attitude and thus in expression. Well, the difference between optimism and pessimism is the attitude so maybe that's to be expected, but I thought it's a weirdly value laden dispute in epistemology. Thank you for the reply!