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You gave some examples of what this kind of truth doesn’t cover. Fire is hot. Australia exists. This table is wooden. The sun is hot. Could you give some examp

You gave some examples of what this kind of truth doesn’t cover. Fire is hot. Australia exists. This table is wooden. The sun is hot. Could you give some examples of what it does cover?

maze-le 6y ago
Currency XYZ is stable. This sentence reflects a socially constructed truth (or falsehood) insofar as we have to agree on what the symbol XYZ stands for, what a currency is (is bitcoin a currency, are apples -- depends on the context) and what criteria of stability we have. We can measure the exchange rate of a currency compared to others and we can define criteria for what we call stability in this context -- and we can make propositions based on that model, but only if we agree on the model. But all of that comes down to our socially constructed definitions. We cannot objectively measure the value of a currency like we measure the wavelength of a photon. Other examples: "A Tough stance on crime works" (or has a lower crime rate other possible explanations). "Tomorrow there will be a traffic jam on intersection XYZ" (or won't there be a traffic jam because people assume that there will be and avoid that intersection).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  Are these examples like saying "this movie sucks" or “specific person X is tall?” In that “tall” is fuzzy and social, but if we agreed on a precise definition (“any person at least Y height is defined as tall“), we could give it truth in the photon sense, but as it’s collectively used today, it’s too imprecise a word to assign true or false?
  - maze-le 6y ago
    Not every fuzzy proposition is necessarily a social construct. Your example of a tall object is as good as your definition of "tall" is, but once that is defined any object can be measured objectively. A good way of determining if something is a social construct is to ask yourself if the proposition would still hold if one were to remove all social lifeforms from the universe. A "tall" object would still be tall (to the degree that we can define tall) and it could still be measured somehow. In my example talking about a currency or an exchange rate wouldn't even make sense if we don't have a society that exchanges money or goods.
coldtea 6y ago
"Abortion is murder" "Gays are sick" "Orange man bad" "Your daughter needs a lobotomy" "We are bringing democracy to Iraq" "Drugs are bad" "We need to stop/continue growing the national debt" Just the tip of the iceberg.

You gave some examples of what this kind of truth doesn’t cover. Fire is hot. Australia exists. This table is wooden. The sun is hot. Could you give some examples of what it does cover?

maze-le 6y ago

Currency XYZ is stable. This sentence reflects a socially constructed truth (or falsehood) insofar as we have to agree on what the symbol XYZ stands for, what a currency is (is bitcoin a currency, are apples -- depends on the context) and what criteria of stability we have. We can measure the exchange rate of a currency compared to others and we can define criteria for what we call stability in this context -- and we can make propositions based on that model, but only if we agree on the model. But all of that comes down to our socially constructed definitions. We cannot objectively measure the value of a currency like we measure the wavelength of a photon. Other examples: "A Tough stance on crime works" (or has a lower crime rate other possible explanations). "Tomorrow there will be a traffic jam on intersection XYZ" (or won't there be a traffic jam because people assume that there will be and avoid that intersection).

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
Are these examples like saying "this movie sucks" or “specific person X is tall?” In that “tall” is fuzzy and social, but if we agreed on a precise definition (“any person at least Y height is defined as tall“), we could give it truth in the photon sense, but as it’s collectively used today, it’s too imprecise a word to assign true or false?
- maze-le 6y ago
  Not every fuzzy proposition is necessarily a social construct. Your example of a tall object is as good as your definition of "tall" is, but once that is defined any object can be measured objectively. A good way of determining if something is a social construct is to ask yourself if the proposition would still hold if one were to remove all social lifeforms from the universe. A "tall" object would still be tall (to the degree that we can define tall) and it could still be measured somehow. In my example talking about a currency or an exchange rate wouldn't even make sense if we don't have a society that exchanges money or goods.

coldtea 6y ago

"Abortion is murder" "Gays are sick" "Orange man bad" "Your daughter needs a lobotomy" "We are bringing democracy to Iraq" "Drugs are bad" "We need to stop/continue growing the national debt" Just the tip of the iceberg.