Good_Burning_Plastic comments on On Empirical Truth and Affective Truth - Less Wrong

-1 Post author: lionhearted 23 August 2015 11:45AM

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Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 01 September 2015 06:30:03PM 0 points [-]

"This painting is beautiful" is a statement about the reaction of the speaker's brain upon seeing the painting.

Well, not only the speaker, otherwise it'd be completely equivalent to "I like this painting" which it isn't. It is a claim about ambijective features of the painting -- more or less "this painting has certain features such that brains (at least those raised in cultural contexts similar to us) typically produce pleasant reactions".

Comment author: Plasmon 01 September 2015 07:43:08PM -1 points [-]

As I understand it, "This painting is beautiful" is completely equivalent to "I like (the visual aspects of) this painting".

Definitional arguments are not useful. Even using your interpretation, the point stands: the statement, properly understood, is empirical truth.