Kinds of Truth

Subjectivity refers to the subject; the individual person. When something is subjective it refers only to that particular person. Consider a person making a subjective judgment - a truth claim about a subjective matter. Sheila claims that oatmeal tastes terrible. As long as Sheila is being sincere (not lying), her judgments about subjective matters are always true. The reason for Sheila’s infallibility about subjective matters may be obvious, but it is worth considering carefully. A subjective judgment is really a statement of fact about how a person feels. One’s feelings, perceptions or tastes can’t be wrong -- they are what they are. So, when Sheila offers a sincere judgment about how she feels, she is necessarily making a true statement. It makes no sense to ask Sheila to prove her judgment about the taste of oatmeal. Each of us is uniquely qualified to make judgments about subjective matters.

An important consequence of the nature of subjective truths is that people who make conflicting judgments about subjective matters are not really disagreeing. Sheila’s judgment that oatmeal tastes terrible conflicts with Jack’s judgment that oatmeal tastes great, but they are not disagreeing. Sheila and Jack are both right. There is no logical problem with the same oatmeal tasting terrible and tasting great at the same time.

Contextual Truths

Something is contextual when it is properly considered only within certain prescribed circumstances. Where contextual matters are concerned, we must understand the relevant circumstances before we can do any analysis or make judgments. Often, a context is a human creation and the rules that apply to this context are decided upon by mutual agreement. It is correct to drive a car on the left side of the road. To assess this judgment, we must first know something about the context. The judgment is true if the context is England and false if the context is the United States.

An American and a person from England might make contradictory claims about which side of the road one should drive on and, within their own contexts, they would both be correct. If they agreed the context for their debate is Colorado, then there is only one right answer. Analyzing contextual matters can be difficult. Often, people waste time arguing because they fail to properly analyze the context or contexts that are relevant. If people can't agree on which context(s) are relevant, arguments about what is true are impossible.

Let's highlight that the truth about which side of a public road one should drive on is contextual but not subjective. Within each context, there is a standard of truth that can be used to judge a particular person’s claims. In this case, the standard is the traffic code (civil law) in each country.  A person may believe that it is legal to drive on the left side of the road in Colorado and we can use the laws of Colorado (the standard in this context) to prove her belief is wrong. A person might also believe that the standard does not make sense or that the justification for the accepted standard is unacceptable. Nonetheless, there are laws that are an accepted standard defining the proper side of the road to drive on.  Since these sorts of standards are created by humans, the can change and when the standard changes, so does the truth.

As we will see, using a context to find the truth is not always easy. But, it is important to note a significant difference between subjective and contextual matters on this point. While arguments about the truth of a contextual matter may be difficult, they are possible.  Arguments about judgments on subjective matters are not just difficult but logically impossible.

Objective Truths

When something is objective, it has actual existence or reality.  An objective matter is not subjective and not contextual. A judgment about an objective matter is true (or false) for all people and for all contexts -- even if these people believe otherwise.

Consider this judgment: the opposite angles of intersecting straight lines are always equal. This judgment is true in the objective sense. It is true today and has always been true -- even before the first person drew an X and made measurements. In the driving example used previously, we saw how a contextual truth could be used to make judgments about whether individual beliefs were right or wrong. A person who believes that it is proper to drive on the left side of the road in Colorado is wrong because her belief contradicts the standard that defines the contextual truth. Likewise, an objective truth can be used to make judgments about whether individual beliefs and contextual beliefs are right or wrong. The Earth is roughly spherical in shape. This judgment is objectively true. It is true for every person and for every context. Anyone who makes the judgment that the Earth is not spherical is wrong. Further if there were an entire culture that judged that the Earth is not spherical, it would be proper to say that this culture was wrong.

Objective truths can be demonstrated, proven or otherwise made clear to any intelligent, intellectually honest person. And so an informed and intellectually honest person can't reasonably deny an objective truth. For example, consider that at sea level dropped objects accelerate toward the center of the Earth at 9.8 meters per second squared. This objective truth is accessible to anyone willing to investigate and experiment. Not all objective truths need to be (or can be) physically demonstrated. We've already considered one objective truth of geometry, here is another -- the interior angles of any triangle will always total 180 degrees. There are many other such examples from geometry and mathematics. You might also consider objective truths which might be called logical truths. Consider that if all men are mortal and if Socrates is a man then it is objectively true that Socrates is mortal.

When two people make contradictory judgments about an objective matter, it is impossible that they are both correct. Where objective matters are concerned there is a standard which can be used to determine the truth. This standard supersedes any subjectivity and any context and so applies to everyone.

Category Mistakes

People make contradictory judgments all the time and for many reasons. Generally people can make progress in their arguments as long as they have not made a category mistake when considering what kind of truth they are disagreeing about. Consider the claim that all life on Earth evolved from a common ancestor over the past 3 Billions years. Suppose someone says you may have evolved from a single-celled organism, but I didn’t. This person is making a serious conceptual mistake. She thinks that she is talking about a subjective matter when she is really talking about an objective matter.

As we know, an objective matter can’t be true for one person and false for another. The claim about life evolving over the past 3 Billion years may be true or it may be false, but it is either true or false for everyone!  Life either did evolve in this way or it did not.   Note how any attempt to argue about human origins is doomed in this case since there is a fundamental disagreement about the kind of truth being discussed. 

An Example: Subjective, Contextual and Objective

Sitting in class, Jack makes the judgment that the room is uncomfortably hot while Sheila judges that the room is uncomfortably cold. Since a person’s perception of comfort is a subjective matter, the judgments of Jack and Sheila are both true -- it is both uncomfortably hot and uncomfortably cold in the same room at the same time.

Next, Jack judges that it is 70 degrees in the room and Sheila counters with the judgment that it is 65 degrees in the room. Temperature is an objective physical property of a room (or any system) referring to the energy in the system, the motion of the molecules. So, the temperature in the room is an objective matter.  Sheila and Jack inspect the thermostat on the classroom wall which reports 68 degrees – both Shelia and Jack are wrong in their assessment of the temperature of the room. We know they are wrong because a thermostat is a reliable standard that reflects the objective reality (the speed of the air molecules) in the room.

Later, Jack instant messages a friend in Germany who judges that it can’t really be 68 degrees in Jack’s classroom since a comfortable room temperature is about 21 degrees. Luckily, Sheila realizes that the friend from Germany is talking about the Celsius temperature scale while their classroom thermostat measures temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. The molecules in the classroom are moving at some objective speed which can be reported in several different ways in different contexts. So, once Jack and Sheila adjust for the different contexts, they realize that 68 degrees Fahrenheit is the same as 21 degrees Celsius.

Consider It

Take a few minutes to review items 1-8 below. Classify each as a subjective matter, a contextual matter or an objective matter. Offer a brief justification for your choice. Are there any items on this list where more than one kind of truth is relevant?

1. Food preferences (what tastes good)

2. Scientific facts (the laws of physics, etc.)

3. Dining etiquette (eating with forks, chop sticks, fingers, etc.)

4. Greeting rituals (shaking hands, waving, kissing, etc.)

5. Mathematics (rules of arithmetic, geometry, etc)

6. Fashion (what is or is not fashionable)

7. Civil and criminal laws (what is legal and legal)

8. Aesthetic judgments (what is beautiful, what is ugly, etc.)