I wrote: “I believe in subjective truth (read, reality)” in my last response to Theological Corner. Stupidly, I made an outlining error in that post, now that I reread it. I had my words reversed, and probably caused more than a bit of head-scratching. What I meant was:
“I believe in objective truth (read, reality).”
and, later:
“But, I believe also that, given human fallibility (which Mike and I, I’m sure can agree on), we can only hope to experience reality subjectively.
Dumb error. Big difference. I’ve been playing a lot of soduku, and it’s skewed my brain from words toward numbers; I can think of no other reason.
It looks like Mike got my point anyway.
I don’t doubt the existence of truth. Given the facts (elephant) and proper, agreed-upon metrics (eyes), we can both plainly see an elephant. Yet, I refuse to be drawn into a realm of pure logic for what I view as a philosophical discussion.
What you call “objective” truth slips through our senses, and since we are not omnipotent, we squeeze what we can handle into a smaller package I might call “subjective” truth. We share that experience with others. In doing so, ideals, morals, ethics, and other prevailing ideas are vetted and added to the common human experience. A gestalt, if you will.
It’s all truth. Asking the question as a dichotomy misses the point.
It’s as if you’re asking, “heads or tails?”, and I answer, “coin.”
(And I’ll probably answer “coin” if you ask me about First Cause…)
Does that mean I’m a complete relativist? No. Does it mean that I have a simplistic view of religion? I’ll concede that.
I paint a wide swath by saying, to paraphrase myself, all religions lead to the same place. More precisely, I mean that prevailing moral and ethical sensibilities, which are obviously reinforced by a variety of faiths and teachings, can be (mostly) settled on. Outliers do exist, but society naturally condemns them to sufficient degree to ensure their frequency and relevance remain outside the norm.
Jesus and Buddha appear to disagree. But, it’s a delusion to say that one is “right” and one is “wrong.” One universe of experiences makes up the concept “Christian,” and another universe encompasses “Buddhist.” To say there’s no overlap, however, is erroneous.
Does it make sense to debate the reasoning by which people justify not killing other people?
One cannot bisect truth. Could an observer witness an objective event (truth, reality, whatever) without considering it subjectively? The idea sounds preposterous. Likewise, the observer depends on the observed.
That we can agree on anything, the “chair” I’m sitting in, for instance, proves to me that there is a common experience, what you call “objective.” Yet the experience of sitting in this chair is an equally valid “subjective” truth. I sit differently in a lawn chair vs. a rocking chair vs. an armchair vs. a seat in a fine restaurant. I’m still sitting.
Just because I say x (This chair’s rock hard) and you respond y (Eh, it’s not so bad. Kinda comfy, actually), it doesn’t mean there isn’t considerable overlap in the universes of experience that make up those realities. It’s still a chair.
Dichotomies, of course, are still logically possible. Take your Baton Rouge example. The city can only be the capital of Louisiana, or it cannot be the capital. It is a measurable, factual matter. In this case, there is no plausible overlap of the experience. One person is clearly mistaken. Any reasonable observer of could prove or (in this case) disprove the statement.
But are dichotomies philosophically necessary to the discussion of truth’s finer qualities? I don’t think so. Put a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist and atheist all in a room and imagine the blacks and whites they’ll find when they start comparing dogmas. Yet, all agree that murder is generally bad, that breaking bread with others is a special event, and that death and taxes are unavoidable.
Many times, as you’ve pointed out, there just isn’t overlap. Take as an example the divergence over what happens after death and taxes weigh an earthly body to the ground. Inferring from those instances, however, that there always must be no overlap is simply wrong.