"Let´s talk about everything" might as well be the sales pitch of philosophy. The question of why it matters is one that is often brought up as an objection, and also the most common misunderstanding about it: philosophy is the study of reality par excellence. All others originated from it, and it´s not by coincidence that it is that way. After all, philosophy isn´t just about discussing the answers to the big questions, but also about how the answers wer give to those questions guide the way we live and act.
To give an example, would it make sense for me, if I believe killing is wrong under all circumstances, to go and kill someone? Wouldn´t the same apply if we replace "kill" with "saying hi" or "doing a triple flip on a skateboard while in a cruiseship?" ... though we probably couldn´t do that last one anyway. Still, there are more subtle ways than that in which our beliefs affect how we act, how we speak and who we are. And more often than we think, we are influenced by unconscious and unexamined beliefs. We tend to think of things like raining on the day we wanted to go the beach as bad, we complain, but really, when did the universe compromise to give us that sunny day at the beach? If the example wasn´t too clear to you, I shall return to this at a later date. For now, the important thing is, that like it not, and whether we aknowledge it or not, we all hold some kind of "philosophy". And a surprisingly common one is the belief in subjectivism. Common society tends to believe, to some extent at least, that things like moral, quality of art, even rights in some cases are subjective in nature. That their validity and nature depends only on whether someone or a group of people aknowledge them so. Yet while I wouldn´t say nothing is like that, there defintely are things that depend entirely on our opinion, a lot of these don´t meet what I would consider to be the standards for subjectivity. You see, while the Pun Tyrant Times is a blog that will be based on my own opinion, this by no means implies that I will not be trying to prove what I´m saying. This is not a "take my word for it" scenario: Everyone is welcome to criticize, and I am welcome to present my reasons on being controversial. I will adress this matter further on an entry on freedom of speech. As such, something like a fact, a reality about which things are being discussed is essential. Whether I am talking about philosophy, graphics or anime, it´s important to know the difference between what is "just my tastes" and what is "an analysis or thought process". To begin with, I would like to establish the meaning of "subjective" for the purposes of this entry. "Subjective" is the concept of something that is entirely dependent on one´s opinion, how they feel about it or point of view. In sum, it´s something that can change entirely depending only on the inner personal experience of an individual. One thing of extreme importance that can be taken straight from the definition is that "Subjective" is the opposite of "objective". Only when objectivity is absent can there be subjectivity, because otherwise, the subjective thing is actually dependent not on the opinion of the individual, but on something that is exterior to them, and thus will not change if the opinion changes, it´s objective. From here, we can derive that no association with anything objective is permitted either, in the sense that while certainly things that are factual can be used to influence one´s subjective experience, the subjective experience cannot influence facts, since they do not depend on the person´s perception. In other words, there is no objective value that corresponds to the subjective value of something, which in turn also implies that a subjective thing is unquantifiable, untestable and unverifiable.
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