Timeline for How can language be objective, when it depends on subjectivities?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 28, 2022 at 1:18 | comment | added | Double Knot | A dictionary is like an electron, the hidden magic lies at the subtle but objective difference between when you look at it and when you don't (this is obvious with a bird eye's view). As Derrida and Baudrillard hinted the importance of the difference between signification and meaning of words of language (in a dict). Even what's referred (signified) is only a différance in the web of other references, eg, a dog is not a cat, not a tree, not a house, etc, and many times one does mistake a dog with an aardwolf if one is not expert, thus an objective language easily becomes subjective... | |
| Aug 27, 2022 at 7:57 | answer | added | mavavilj | timeline score: -1 | |
| Jan 6, 2020 at 8:57 | comment | added | christo183 | "The dictionary is a set of circular references and does not contain any experience, only words." True, if we're looking at the dictionary as a logical unit. However when we use the dictionary, we attempt to find the unknown/unexperienced word as expressed in terms of words we do have experience/knowledge of. Should we fail to find such familiar reference and continue searching, we could well end up back at the original word; but this isn't a problem of circularity but rather that we have insufficient experience with all the words along the way... | |
| Dec 28, 2019 at 21:57 | comment | added | curiousdannii | @RodolfoAP I did not mean that people are only objective or subjective, but that in a speech act they are one or the other, and only in the context of a speech act is it meaningful to characterise language as subjective or objective. | |
| Dec 28, 2019 at 17:40 | comment | added | Conifold | How one sees thermometer readings is also private, only how they act on it is not, same with other subjective feelings. Language neither can, nor is meant to express qualia. Dictionaries only relate words to other words, on which one already learned to act by other means, that is the real reference. Interpreted language is much broader than words or dictionaries, uninterpreted language is no language at all, just empty symbols. | |
| Dec 28, 2019 at 17:09 | comment | added | RodolfoAP | @Conifold I would be interested in knowing the difference between "common practice" of measuring temperature and the subjective feeling everyone has of a temperature (which is not a "common practice"). There is a gap there. That's the point of my question. "Language does refer to experience, which breaks the circularity": False. The dictionary is a set of circular references and does not contain any experience, only words. How is the word "feeling" related to what you understand as feeling? (which is surely different of my understanding of feeling) That's the point of my question. | |
| Dec 28, 2019 at 17:03 | comment | added | RodolfoAP | @curiousdannii "Isn't people who are objective or subjective, not the language the say..."? No. There is no "objective people" or "subjective people" (which group belong you to?). Mathematical language is normally objective. The language that politicians or religious use is usually subjective. etc. | |
| Dec 28, 2019 at 16:50 | answer | added | user39744 | timeline score: 2 | |
| Dec 28, 2019 at 13:50 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jan 12, 2020 at 3:01 | |||||
| Dec 28, 2019 at 13:31 | comment | added | curiousdannii | What do you mean by "objective language"? Isn't it people who are objective or subjective, not the language the say, which could be identical either way? But if you want to know how to get past the circularity of language, then read up on semantic primes. | |
| Dec 28, 2019 at 13:12 | comment | added | Conifold | The same way an algorithm can be platform-independent even though any implementation of it depends on the platform used? Language does refer to experience, which breaks the circularity, and much of experience is participation in common practice, hence not subjective. | |
| Dec 28, 2019 at 11:56 | history | asked | RodolfoAP | CC BY-SA 4.0 |