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by astine
6410 days ago
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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. |
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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?