Hi BF,
I promise you I have NOT read all of this. I am merely curious about the idea you are trying to get across here. Your idea of a 'third truth' reminded me more than a little of a paper by Alfred Tarski published in 1944:
http://www.ditext.com/tarski/tarski.html
It has been a while since I've read it, but I think he covers the idea of indeterminate truth fairly well. Karl Popper mentioned that he owed Tarski a lot for writing this paper.
Hmmm, thank you for bringing this to my attention. I was unaware of this paper. It may take some time to sift through though.
Taking into account what Tarski wrote, and also Popper's falsification, how could we approach the problem of the beauty or not of Jolie?
Well, I am unfamiliar with Tarski's argument, and a bit dubious about Popper too, although I have not spent rich study of his writings, just familiar with a few of his ideas.
Suppose that I take the position that 'Jolie is Beautiful'. For that to be meaningful in a scientific sense, I would need to be able to falsify it in order to form a dialectic.
Hmmm, this must be the Popper influence I imagine, yes? I dont agree with what I understand Popper's argument to be regarding the scientific method and philosophy. Now, I may also not fully understand Popper's argument, I have only superficially studied him, but to me, Popper seems to argue that philosophers cannot speculate rationally beyond what science provides for them. I dont agree with that. I think philosophy is much broader than science, and science has a difficult time with third value phenomena as well as subjective phenomena. I think rather that philosophy neccesitates speculation within reason, and should find a harmony with science, but should not contradict truths in science.
I do think, however, that he was sort of half right though. I think we can apply the scientific method to our personal or philosophical experiences for our own sake, meaning we can come to understand phenomena subjectively via experience, and then test consistancy within that experience. I can address more of this if you like.
If I am correct in understanding that to be Popper's argument, then to me, it would not neccesarily be benificial to be able to prove that Angelina Jolie was not beautiful, following the scientific method, but rather simply argue for her ugliness and commoness in appearance rationally if that is indeed your or anyone's truth value.
How could I prove that Jolie was NOT beautiful?
Well I can certainly prove she is not ugly, right? Do you see the distinction in method?
The statement 'Jolie is beautiful' is not scientific because it is irrational, but because it is unfalsifiable.
It is falsifiable when you frame it inside of an actual argument with someone who believes her to be ugly.
And I also dont think it would be unfalsifiable in a pure scientific sense either. I think with statistics, you could determine that she most likely is beautiful. However, I am not a scientist I may be wrong here.
I could answer the statement in a poetic sense by simply stating that all things are beautiful, in their own way.
But think about it, if that is true, then they must all share something in common to be found beautiful.
And then we have to deconstruct what 'beauty' means in the first place. Some people here think beauty means 'attraction'. So perhaps Indy Zaay just isnt in to Hollywood glamour, he likes pasty tattooed girls and finds them beautiful instead. Well that's attraction, which can be inferred from beauty (a characteristic of beauty would neccesitate 'attraction' in a significant number of points of view), but it's not the same as beautiful. I'm sure Elton John and The Pope of Rome are not attracted to her either, but would agree she is beautiful.
How does Zaay, you, or an artist define beautiful to themselves? I think many will come to find that although we may use the same word in what apparantly appears to be beautiful, we all may have very different meanings of the word 'beautiful'. Some think beauty is attraction, others think beauty is inspiration.
I garuntee, predict, that if anyone stepped forward to argue that Angelina Jolie was not beautiful and her beauty was soley a reflection of the internal subjective view point, you will find contradictions regarding the word beautiful.
Angelina Jolie's 'beauty' is truly apart of her. It is apart of her knowledge. If you look up a refrence to Angelina Jolie, something encylopedic in nature, you will see beauty refrenced in every single one. That beauty truly belongs to her.
If all things are beautiful, to argue it seems like an attempt at sophism
I'm not sure. All things are beautiful could be summed as 'Nature is beautiful', and I think that is both a highly objective and subjective comment.
I think we need to deconstruct it down to what is beauty itself? What is the ding an sich of beauty? Is beauty beautiful?
The law of identity tells us that beauty exists, because beauty = beauty, and all beauty is beautiful.
We just have to be clear about what beauty is then, eh?
A characteristic of a sophistic thread is that they tend to go over 50 pages or so, with no conclusion in sight.
Well a dialectic's thread is different, it will conclude. Dialectic naturally concludes in agreement and truth if followed through.
I can assure you that in dialectic, until there is agreement, there will be at least one side whose arguments simply tire out, for there are no further rationalizations, and producing rationalizations inside of a dialectic framework that are not founded in truth is exhausting.
Sophistry, by the way, to be sophistry, must contain contradictions that bore out in dialectic, and such dialogue that is sophistry must return to the rational side, or exhaust itself.
BF
