3.Each person has their own reality; what is true for one person isn't true for another. (This relativism is taught in University Philosophy classess and disables the thinking of whole generations of students).
I tend to agree with the primary point I believe Terry is making. I think it's extraordinarily helpful for us to do our best to define things, and that doing so will bring clarity to our thoughts--and our lives. Furthermore, although my Myers-Briggs temperament classifies me as an Intuitive, for years I have fought the perception that I possess some magical ability to comprehend things--in favor of believing that there are good reasons for such comprehension. (Reasons that I may or may not be readily in touch with, but reasons nonetheless.) For instance, while many pride themselves in "going with their gut," I allow myself this policy only when the decision presented doesn't carry great potential ramifications. For decisions that do--or those that will affect others to whom I have commitments--I feel that I damn well better have good reasons for making the choices I do. And this certainly involves creating definitions.
I can also agree that statements such as the one, in red, made above can provide a comfortable excuse for those who perhaps don't want to take the time (or don't have the guts) to make important decisions. It can also give them the freedom to do as they wish and easily dismiss any negative consequences brought on.
However I believe it's a mistake to make strident statements to the effect that "something either is or is not true; case closed." To understand that, after conducting all due research into a subject, two people might see things differently--and thus make different decisions--is something with which we have to make peace.
Terry provides this example...
One person sees merely a "table".
Another sees a "card table"
Another person sees a "beige formica card table."
Another person sees a "$27 beige folding formica top card table made by Eureka Mfg."
Get it? The better informed the person's mind; the more details will be included in the definition under the concept of TABLE.
And this one...
A blind taste test among many people will not change a 1957 Chateau Mouton into ginger ale just because some hick from Palookaville tastes it! The wine maven who has taken the trouble of learning what wines are all about will correctly identify (place his concept on a 1:1 platform of identification) with the actual wine and its source.
In the first example we're shown how, in the case of a table (a concrete object,) more information leads to a more detailed definition. Yet the conclusions we come to in life must so often enter the abstract world, where details are not as easily referenced.
In the second a distinction is drawn between "some hick from Palookaville" and a "wine maven." But what if three wine mavens, all equally skilled and credentialled, come to three differing conclusions about the wine? And what if no authority exists to determine for certain where the wine indeed came from?
This statement may not be accurate: "What is true for one person isn't true for another."
I would however put it this way: "Well informed persons will still come to different conclusions on a matter."
I perceive in Terry's posts that he (like most of us) is irritated at seeing so many accept something as "truth" without ever having challenged it as "truth." The more we reflect on it, the more infuriating it can become, and the more we want to show people how to use their minds. The danger of course is in thinking that, since there can be only one truth about a matter--and we have taken considerably more time than others to define the issues in question--that we are the ones with the truth. It is thinking like this that, if we're not careful, can lead to exactly the type of intolerance that organizations such as the Watchtower Society promote.
We find the nascent beginnings of this thinking among those who, when communicating with us, insert comments such as, "Don't you get it?" or "Don't you see the difference?" indicating that they are the truly informed, the truly wise, and any disagreement we find must be the result of our weaker powers of discernment. It can't be that, as well informed, wise individuals, we might come to a slightly different conclusion than they, can it?
Challenge people to define ideas and beliefs? Excellent!
Insist that there is only one truth--and that unless we define ideas and beliefs as they do we are less enlightened "hicks from Palookaville?" Careful...