"Pure objectivity" is a myth

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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John T
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Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

Post by John T »

Subjective feelings vs. Objective truths.

Subjective is based on personal feelings.
Objective is based on independent facts.
Liberals are subjective, conservatives are objective.

Liberals feel.
Conservatives think.

Liberals feel they have a strong argument based on how strong their feelings are.
Conservatives think they have a strong argument based on the facts and evidence that support it.

Liberals hate those who question their irrational feelings and want to destroy them.
Conservatives take pity on liberals as a mental disorder and want to help them.

So then, which group feels those who dare engage in Biblical Criticism and History on the Biblical Criticism and History Forum should be banned as trolls?

Never mind, we already know. :tomato:
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neilgodfrey
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Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

Post by neilgodfrey »

StephenGoranson wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:10 am As mentioned before, some views are more objective than others.
Hi Stephen, .... you said that before but you did not respond to my reply:
neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 1:48 pm
StephenGoranson wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 8:13 am Andrew Criddle wrote:
Granting that none of us are entirely objective some of us are more objective than others.

I, SG, agree with that.
And I suggest that it may be that the reply to that by NG above misses that point.
I would prefer you and / or Andrew to give an actual example of how A's assertion contradicts anything in what I said in the OP. My reply was simply trying to explain WHY it is that we see some persons as "less objective" than others (usually meaning "ourselves").

I would predict that examples of a "less objective" view would, when examined, actually demonstrate what my OP is saying.

Replying with a mere counter-assertion is not a reasoned engagement with the explanation I put forth.
How does "some views are more objective than others" address the argument of my OP?
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neilgodfrey
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Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

Post by neilgodfrey »

Secret Alias wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 9:29 amNeil's protection an overtly dishonest person . . . There is no excuse for this sort of 'tactical' allegiance with a liar. Lies are lies.
Stephan, you are personalizing a principle I tried to explain. If I do not apply a general principle of understanding other people even to those who express views I disagree with then I do not believe in the principle of understanding other people.

That is not a concession to lies. It is a concession to making an effort to understand their world view and to try to see why they interpret the evidence differently from the way I do. What is wrong with doing that?

I find your personal attacks on me to be uncalled for.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

Post by neilgodfrey »

Secret Alias wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 11:19 am You're either seeing the truth is good faith and objectivity and we can have a meaningful conversation or you're up to no good seeking something other than the truth and there's no point engaging with you. It's as simple as that.
Stephan, can I suggest you read and engage with the OP? Please.
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John T
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Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

Post by John T »

You know that the leftist, Marxist, atheists, went too far (jumped the shark) when even Bill Maher says, let me get off this crazy train.

https://youtu.be/schuzjknjYE
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neilgodfrey
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Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

Post by neilgodfrey »

lsayre wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 8:29 am I diectly engaged this:
Implication: A flat earther, a Christian fundamentalist, a QAnon conspiracy theorist, . . . . they will all point to facts to demonstrate their beliefs. The reason you may not agree with how they interpret those facts or the conclusions they draw from them is because they have a different hypothesis or belief-system that is not being made clear to you. Nothing is to be gained by accusing someone of being "pig headed" or "wilfully ignorant" or "intellectually dishonest" -- unless one can show that they have clear evidence that they are not being honest with their own world-view or belief-system. Someone's working hypothesis might give different weight to certain facts, or different interpretations of them from the one you have. Such disagreements are not signs of dishonesty or stupidity.
The implication here is clearly that one belief system is as good as another. Or in other words, your truth is not my truth...
Chris has had more patience to respond in depth than I have but I feel I should chime in since it is my own words you are responding to.

The words of mine that you have quoted are not saying one belief system is as good as another. I believe that's an absurd idea.

If my words sound nonsense and you are not yet persuaded by Chris's thorough explanation, maybe the way a senior lecturer in education at Monash university once expressed the idea is clearer:
Myths about scientific method

Stanley D. Beck has written: ‘The beginning, the first step in the scientific method, is one of simple observation. An observation is made of some phenomenon, one of nature’s hard facts.’8 The classical expression of this view that science starts with the collection of facts was Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum (1620).

The myth that observation of the facts is the first step in the scientific method is easy to attack. A large number of facts exist, even with respect to a fairly straightforward issue, but a scientist never attempts to collect them all. He collects only those facts which are likely to be relevant. The scientist rarely approaches a problem completely ignorant: either he has formulated a tentative hypothesis, which determines what sorts of facts he looks at, or he is unwittingly working within a theoretical framework which determines what he regards as relevant. Accounts of scientific method that start with the collection of facts are giving a distorted picture of the work of scientists.9

.
That's from an old book of mine,
    • Phillips, Denis Charles. Theories, Values and Education. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1971.
    The challenge that follows, I contend, is that when we have differences of interpretations of data, then we need to work a bit harder at trying to understand where the other person is coming from -- what the "world view" of someone else is.

    I tend to be more charitable than Secret Alias and give the benefit of the doubt. If the choice is between my discussion partner being an evil malicious low-down dirty scoundrel of a liar without a human conscience on the one hand, or they have a different way of looking at things from the way I do on the other, I tend to opt for the latter, as a general rule.

    ---

    Added after posting the above .....

    So back to "objectivity".

    The point of the above is that all we know and think we know is determined by our starting knowledge and our belief-systems. But history has shown us that such things always change and humanity is always learning.

    It's just another way of saying that all our beliefs and knowledge is provisional -- "true" until we learn something more that changes in some way what we once thought was "true".

    And different people bring different perspectives and may see things in a different way from the way we do.

    It's about tolerance, respect, understanding and getting along with others who are different from us.

    It's doesn't mean we let a murderer run riot. I posted in another thread something about accountability -- and that was also twisted by SA to suggest I meant anarchy and essentially letting murderers run riot. Accountability means we have a responsibility to look out for each other. That includes understanding other points of view, engaging in a responsible and positive way with other ideas, as well as acting to stop imminent danger.
    andrewcriddle
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    Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

    Post by andrewcriddle »

    neilgodfrey wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 12:53 pm
    andrewcriddle wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 1:53 am Granting that none of us are entirely objective some of us are more objective than others.

    Andrew Criddle
    Do you have an example to illustrate the sort of case you had in mind?

    My OP would predict that such a case would be explained by the logic of how our belief-systems govern how we select and interpret evidence. The point being that understanding where we all come from will be more profitable than assuming moral or intellectual failings on the part of those we disagree with.
    In the (faint) hope of a constructive debate I will not accuse specific individuals of lacking objectivity. (My views on the objectivity of specific posters may themselves be of questionable objectivity.)

    However, my general point is that some people are so committed to a (personal or collective) party line that all specific issues are filtered through this framework. As a result you know what they are going to say, (even on a basically new issue), before you read their contribution. Other people are more flexible, and what they say on a new issue is not foreordained by their party line.

    Andrew Criddle
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    neilgodfrey
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    Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

    Post by neilgodfrey »

    andrewcriddle wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 4:05 am
    neilgodfrey wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 12:53 pm
    andrewcriddle wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 1:53 am Granting that none of us are entirely objective some of us are more objective than others.

    Andrew Criddle
    Do you have an example to illustrate the sort of case you had in mind?

    My OP would predict that such a case would be explained by the logic of how our belief-systems govern how we select and interpret evidence. The point being that understanding where we all come from will be more profitable than assuming moral or intellectual failings on the part of those we disagree with.
    In the (faint) hope of a constructive debate I will not accuse specific individuals of lacking objectivity. (My views on the objectivity of specific posters may themselves be of questionable objectivity.)

    However, my general point is that some people are so committed to a (personal or collective) party line that all specific issues are filtered through this framework. As a result you know what they are going to say, (even on a basically new issue), before you read their contribution. Other people are more flexible, and what they say on a new issue is not foreordained by their party line.

    Andrew Criddle
    Which is exactly what I said above -- "our belief-systems govern how we select and interpret evidence."
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    neilgodfrey
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    Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

    Post by neilgodfrey »

    It follows that the onus is on "us" who are not committed to the same party line to be conscious of our own belief system and to be able to justify how we interpret evidence "our" way. But there is no viewpoint that is not in some way embedded in belief systems that need to be justified -- and that means we need to look into ourselves and become conscious of what it is that shapes our own world-view.

    It won't do to say that "we" are values-neutral or have the perfect and only true god-like view of the evidence. None of us is God.

    And that means being able to explain to the predictable party-line person exactly why our world view and values or belief-system obliges us to interpret the evidence our way and why we do not subscribe to their interpretation......

    ..... But that can take a bit of self-awareness and reflection on our part if we are to avoid lazily accusing the other of being "dishonest, an ally of evil, a liar, waging a clandestine war against all that is good and true, or simply an idiot" etc. (as some of us currently tend to do here).
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    neilgodfrey
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    Re: "Pure objectivity" is a myth

    Post by neilgodfrey »

    I'll try to illustrate how the above [i.e. understanding where my own view is coming from and where an opponent's view is coming from] can be done, at least in short summary form hitting on a few of the essentials:

    First, the opponent's view:

    LC argues that Constantine invented Christianity. He bases this view, as I understand him, on the material evidence that cannot independently establish Christianity existing before the fourth century. That's a reasonable position to take. (Though I disagree with him for reasons I will try to explain). When presented with certain murals from the third century that most of us interpret as representations of gospel stories LC's view is that our interpretations are wish-fulfilment -- if we did not know the gospel stories we would interpret them quite differently. There is a logic to that view. We know people do indeed see Jesus in toast. LC also says that we are not to quote anything from our Christian sources because in his model they are all forged to look like they predate the fourth century.

    Okay -- I think that is where LC is coming from. His arguments have a reasonableness to them. He believes that only independently verifiable material evidence is truly valid.

    But I disagree because I have a different view of what counts as valid evidence. I don't have to fall back on simply calling LC an idiot or dishonest and leaving it at that. LC's arguments have forced me to go back and examine where I am coming from.

    My view is that there are circumstances when even late manuscripts can be justified as evidence for much earlier times. I think it is necessary to carefully study those manuscripts to see if they are the kinds of writings that we would expect to find if they were forged in the fourth century. I do not believe that we would expect a forger to write copious volumes that invent the minute details of opposing factions that were lost from view before the fourth century, or that forgers would write to each other contradictory theological views, or that they would redact each others' works as part of theological differences, or that some of their work would so closely align with specific historical conditions of the times of the Jewish wars. All of that kind of literature would not be expected from a forgery mill of the fourth century. A body of literature like that is best explained, in my view, as being a genuine product of a time of factional debates and evolving narratives that pre-date the fourth century.

    As for the interpretation of the art at Dura Europos, I can strive hard to try to see something other than Peter walking on water in one of them, but then when I am also asked to not see the healed paralytic taking up his bed and walking .... that's two images that I find it hard to unsee. I did read one early description of the water walk that interpreted it as a shipwreck scenario, but I think that is harder to see than the gospel narrative. Still, I will accept that if someone is convinced on other grounds that they are unlikely to be gospel images, okay, that's theoretically possible. Live and let live.

    So I have attempted to understand LC's view of what is acceptable evidence in historical research. It is a "minimalist" view. It has a raionality to it. It is not an "idiotic" view -- unless we refer to the Greek meaning of that word''s root.

    But I think my view of what is acceptable as evidence is justifiable, and if mine is justifiable, then LC's view is, in my view, inadequate -- too "minimalist".

    But I have profited from LC's presentation of his view because it has forced me to examine my own reasons more carefully and to be sure I have a sound reply when asked why I don't accept his conclusion about Christianity's origins.

    LC is a minimalist with the evidence but not an idiot. Not even dishonest.

    There is no need to condemn LC for a moral or intellectual failing. I am not threatened by his arguments because I believe I can justify my own view of what counts as valid evidence for a pre-Constantine existence of Christianity.

    But my own view of what counts as historical evidence is not "The Truth". I think it is better than LC's view. LC disagrees. That's okay -- we each follow the paths we feel most comfortable in. Besides, historians are always learning new ways to interpret evidence and what counts as evidence. There is so much we don't know about the texts we date before the fourth century and have yet to discover. Historians practise their craft differently today from how they did in the past. It will probably be practised differently again in the future.
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