[astine]

I don't know, while I might agree that what qualifies as 'interesting' probably is subjective, I think that insight is concrete enough so that you could objectively state whether some was or not with relation to the author or the audiance.

[unalone]

relation to the author or the audiance

But that makes it subjective, doesn't it?

[astine]

Yes, but it can be objectively subjective; or rather, it is subjective, but in a different sense.

To illustrate, the phrases "The audience finds this interesting," and "The audience finds this insightful," are both subjective in the sense that their truth-value is dependent on the subject (different speakers likely would have different perspectives,) but they are objective in that, given a particular subject, they are either true or false. So: ojective in the particular, and subjective in the universal. The difference is that the later can depend on factors that are external to the subject, are objective and can be shared.

A phrase (or whatever) can be insightful with respect to a particular context if it adds something that was not previoulsy present in that context. So an analysis of Hitler (for example) revealing him to be a raving ego-maniac would have been insightful in the early thirties when most people had rather more benign opinions of the Nazi party. Released today, the same analysis would be rather less insightful. Given that when people use the word 'insightful,' they usually are speaking from a particular context (usually shared with the listener), the word can be said to be used objectively.

[unalone]

Okay. So, objectively when regarding a large mass of people.

My only objection to that would be that again, an audience can vary wildly in different conditions. My professor gave an "enlightening" lesson on Delicious to my class, that the audience (college freshmen) on a whole found insight from. But the same lesson to, say Hacker News, would be far less insightful. You could get two different objective readings for the same material. Or am I missing something in what you said?

[astine]

No, that's about it.

I just annoyed when people are too quick to insist that something is 'subjective' as a means of dismissing it's relavence or importance, so I tend to be picky about it.

[unalone]

That's fair enough. I only did it in this case because the argument is so specifically about objectivity.

[Alex3917]

No, because insightful isn't relative to a person's innate aesthetic preferences, but rather it's relative to the cognitive models they use to understand the world.

In the same way that one mathematical object can objectively be larger than another mathematical object, one mental object can be objectively insightful in relation to another mental object.

[unalone]

The difference is that there's a physical reality to size. Insight is subjective by default. Even if you make a standard for monitoring it, your standard is going to be subjective.

[Alex3917]

"I might agree that what qualifies as 'interesting' probably is subjective"

Baillargeon, R. (1994) How do infants learn about the physical world? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 3, 133-140.