[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Colin, maybe the distinction you're getting at is between fact and value (rather than facts, ideas, beliefs etc).I think this is different to your next point. stealing can be demonstrated to have negative effects, and can be labelled as bad and as a truth. (tho of course we are putting meaning into everyhting even by judging what is negative)
As philosophers put it, value judgements have no "truth value" - that is, they are neither true nor false.
A value judgement would be, for example, a moral statement "stealing is bad"
or an aesthetic one "this is a beautiful portrait" or a statement to do with personal taste or experience "this orange tastes good".these two points are personal and as you say, cannot be 'fact'.
I think that although we cannot directly experience Truth for everything is filtered thru our mind/brain and coloured by our own meaning structures and experiences, we can come to an approximation of it. I think the further away from Truth we are, the more we suffer. Wrong thinking leads to pain and suffering. ( i am of course talkign about the personal directly hear. The Truthabout the Universe, physics etc is not what I am tlaking about except to say that all of that is also filtered thru our meaning structures and minds etc). We need to live according to our own consciences. we cannot live according to the consciences of others. people who say this is bad, that it is wrong for people to decide morals for themselves, are in essence saying we should follow their consciences.
In the end we cannot know Aboslute Truth. we cannot step outside of ourselves. ibeliev we can gain an approximation of truth. I think that pain and suffering and joy are good indicators of how well we are doing.
bw
colin
The so-called "fact-value distinction" is a big topic in philosophy. Sarah Colin wrote: If there is no distiinction bewteen beliefs and ideas and facts, then we are well and truly stuffed.
