Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Mar 25, 2021 9:33 pm
Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Mar 25, 2021 4:06 pm
Peter Holmes,
criterion
/krʌɪˈtɪərɪən/
noun
a principle or standard by which something may be judged or decided.
"they award a green label to products that meet certain environmental criteria"
Similar:
basis
point of reference
standard
norm
yardstick
benchmark
touchstone
test
formula
measure
gauge
scale
barometer
indicator
litmus test
specification
guide
guideline
guiding principle
principle
rule
law
canon
convention
Definitions from Oxford Languages
Whether abortion is right or wrong is subject to a criterion or several criteria.
Ethicists study criteria that apply to questions that are considered to be 'moral' questions.
A woman has the same rights as a man over her body is one criterion and you can see criteria themselves may be subject to higher order criteria.
What are culturally taken to be 'matters of fact' are also subject to criteria which in this scientific age are "
is it falsifiable?" and "
Is there evidence?"
What are culturally accepted as 'aesthetic ' questions are subject to aesthetic criteria such as "
Is the symbolism new or derivative?"?" or "
Has it classical proportions?"?"
You're arguing an argumentum ad populum. Convention, cultural acceptance, etc. doesn't make something the case (aside from it being a fact that it's a convention or that it's culturally accepted).
I am arguing that all criteria are subject to cultural norms.
I am
not arguing that
because criteria are cultural norms
it follows they are absolutely true; that would indeed be a false argument.
There is nothing that is absolutely the case except, I would argue,the transcendent virtues of truth with regard to scientific criteria, beauty with regard to aesthetic criteria, and good with regard to moral criteria.
Edited:
In this connection I think 'transcendental' may be a better word than 'transcendent'.
E.g. John Keats:
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, —that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”.
Others would argue truth is the best access way to the other two. Yet others argue good is the best access way to the other two.
Along with his countrymen Coleridge and Wordsworth, Carlyle embraced a “natural supernaturalism,” the view that nature, including human beings, has the power and authority traditionally attributed to an independent deity.
(extract from Stamford Dictionary article)