Should a review be "objective"?

[vivafruit]

Hmm, well, my use of "unobjective" there was just careless word choice. I wasn't really trying to rekindle the debate - I was just showing some examples of "flamebait" that could be entertaining and helpful, and that being well-supported mattered more than the overall tone of the work. In other words, I was saying that it's possible to create a review that is absolutely seething with negative emotion, but still good. Reviews like these are what make me so adamant about not being afraid to voice your opinion - you just need to be well-supported.

Personally, "an objective" review for me would at least try to keep emotion out of it (and neither review that I posted does this), but I understand how other people would have different definitions (as strange and counterintuitive these definitions seem to me).

At any rate, I might jump into this debate a little later (Vivi made an excellent post), but for now I'm off to bed.

[VivisQueen]

Originally Posted by Cetonis

A review is not a solid block of one consistent thing, but rather a mixture of a variety of ideas, thoughts and statements. So, one could say that the more objective statements there are in a review, the higher its 'objectivity density', if you will. I would argue that it can be quite productive to aim for a higher objectivity density in a review, at least without getting to the point that one is adding facts that serve no logical purpose.

1) If your ideas are interlinked as they probably will be in a review, introducing a subjective element will render much of the linked information subjective. So, the idea of just reducing a review to its constituent parts for the sake of argument is highly flawed. If you want an 'objective' review, then you want an entirely 'objective' review, because if only parts of it are truly objective, the entire thing is subjective.

2) To increase 'objectivity density' means just putting in more relevant facts; the more relevant facts, the better, is your argument. So I could string together: 'Akira is set in Tokyo. Akira is animated. Akira has motorbikes in it. Akira was created in the 1980s. I love all those elements so Akira is a fantastic movie.' Someone else could say 'Akira has psychic kids in it. I hate psychics so Akira is a shit movie.' And according to you the first is more 'objectively dense' because it's got more relevant facts set in a logical argument. However, this doesn't make it any better or worse a review than the other one. In fact neither is more or less subjective in the relevant sense.

The point is, what makes a review a review are the points of analysis, when we show people how those ideas connected and made sense to us, and how effective we thought they were; this involves someone somewhere interpreting something, as well as picking the facts to interpret in the first place. Relevant/logical facts in themselves matter very little.

Originally Posted by Cetonis

Obviously very few, if any, things are truely objective in the purest sense of the definition, but I think it is far from unreasonable to accept a margin of error. Sure, there are probably some who wouldn't notice the relgious references in Eva, but I don't think it'd really be wrong to call "Eva has religious references" an objective statement, because the amount that would disagree is acceptably trivial.

Yup, there are Christian symbols in Eva - a nice little fact, but ultimately that's a statement that has little to do with what makes a review a review. My point is, you can obtain true objectivity... if you write purely factual statements (and if you make sure you capture all the factual statements relevant to whatever you're discussing). But that isn't actually a review. To write a good review, you are necessarily engaging in an exercise that requires interpretation. Also, don't mistake objective for what everyone knows. An objective fact is not necessarily one that everyone knows of, because not everyone sees the same thing. An objective fact is one that is true regardless of whether we know of it or not. Gravity and the scientific expression for it was the same two thousand years ago as it is today, despite them not knowing about it in the way we do. So someone might not notice the religious symbols in NGE, but they are objectively there. (NOTE: Or are they? Isn't a symbol only a symbol because it is interpreted as such? >_<)

Originally Posted by Cetonis

you are unwilling to accept even the smallest margin of error when judging what can be considered 'objective', whereas I (and I think v16 as well) think it's perfectly fine. Somehow I don't think there's going to be any changing of minds on this, so we may just have to agree to disagree. Although that does make things rather difficult for finding review guidelines everyone likes :P

Trust me, I'd agree to disagree if you didn't keep misinterpreting my argument. Let me go back to the social science research as an example. There are some strands of theory that argue that everything we ever research is subjective, thus we can't ever fully capture reaility. Yes, this includes 'densely objective' research that uses purely quantitative methods like computers, statistical data etc. They then follow this up by denying the relevance of any kind of research to our real world. They basically refuse to accept any margin of error, which in the eyes of most sensible people, is a pile of crap.

However, that's not what I'm doing. I'm saying that margin of error is necessary for a review to be a review, a review is by default subjective, so let's not talk about objectivity. Objectivity has nothing at all to do with what makes a good review (and because you can't get degrees of objectivity, let's not talk about that either). A review is still relevant to our world because it is an important and valid form of communication about necessarily subjective art/media. All you can do to make your review better than someone else's is to be more explicit about how you came to your conclusions, which requires detail, not just more relevant facts. This allows for others to pick out inconsistencies in your arguments, or simply to say 'yes, that event happened in this anime, but I interpreted it differently'. That is what vivafruit is arguing for, that is why he doesn't ask people to try and be objective in his guidelines, because objectivity has nothing to do with a review.

Lastly, you argued somewhere that we should still tell people to be objective because this will get across to them better than the use of any other language. Unfortunately, that's just misusing the word. It's like bandying around the word 'democracy' or 'freedom' because they're emotive, and without looking at whether those words are even applicable to that argument. For some of us who understand objectivity in its truest sense, we'd look at those instructions, then look at our own reviews, then look at viva's reviews, and we'd cry hypocrisy. Besides, whilst he tells people not to bother being objective (because it's futile and defeats the object), he gives a lot of advice on how to make their reviews more in-depth, and that is all that matters.

I repeat. You and I are not arguing degrees of objectivity or different ways of being objective or any of that; I'm questioning the relevance of objectivity to a review in the first place whilst you're using 'objective' when you mean 'in-depth' (i.e. there is an objective definition of 'objective' but you don't seem to know it). If we could agree that we both mean in-depth or detailed or well-justified, then we could start having a proper argument about what makes an in-depth/detailed/well justified review in order to come up with good guidelines.

[Cetonis]

I'm sorry if I misunderstood and/or just plain angered you, that is certainly not my intent and I assure you I am making efforts to try and understand where you're coming from...

To perhaps completely overgeneralize things, you basically feel that it is impossible for a review to be partially objective, and therefore see the very notion of attempting objectivity in a review as absurd, correct? I'd like to at least make sure I know what you're saying before I attempt to debate further...

[VivisQueen]

Firstly, I’m not angry. My comments are all coming from a point of genuine interest and only occasional mild irritation :P.

Anyway, you’ve got my argument but only in one sense. I’m not just saying it’s impossible to be partially objective in the sense that it could be done if we were perfect gods or something. I’m saying it’s logically impossible for any overall interconnected piece of work to be partially objective in the same way it’s impossible to say someone is partially dead or partially alive; partially left or partially right; partially standing or partially lying down. Objectivity isn’t like temperature, with a continuous spectrum, where you can be a little bit hot or a little bit cold or fairly warm or nearly freezing. There are only two options; objective or subjective. Nothing in between.

Now, to be subjective, all you need to do is have a subjective element in your theory/review/explanation/whatever. Like a drop of ink in water – it taints everything. If you ‘mix in’ your opinions the way you said we should, all that nifty work you did with ‘facts’ in an effort to make it ‘more objective’ goes to pot. As you can imagine, there is thus far more scope to be subjective than there is to be objective; there are a million ways to be subjective, but only one way to be objective. One strike and you’re out. Even if you have more facts in your review than someone else, their review isn’t ‘less’ objective. It’s all still subjective.

One problem I see is that you’re taking subjectivity to mean ‘poor review’, when I’m saying subjectivity is the point of a review; without subjectivity a review is not a review. Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of ‘review’: Published criticism of book, play, etc. The definition says nothing about the review being scientific i.e. factually true, in fact it states ‘criticism’ which is going to be pretty subjective or context-dependent. Asking for an objective review is like asking the waiter for a glass of dry water. People want to know your opinion, not some scientific exposition of the film. In fact, the more facts you pump in there, the less useful it’ll be to the potential viewer.

A good review is not one that is objective, but one that is analysis-focused. How you wish to write your in-depth analysis (as a witty piece or with a neutral tone) is up to you, but it’s still going to be subjective no matter what. To ask people to be objective in guidelines is not just misleading but counterproductive – rather, teach them to focus on giving detailed explanations of their viewpoint and thus analysing the different concepts and components that make up the anime. Does that make sense? I hope so, because I’m starting to feel mildly embarrassed about my long posts, but there seems to be no other way of making it clear apart from repeating myself.

Trust me, your notion of an ‘objective’ review is based on a misinterpretation/misuse of the term. That is why I’m arguing we all switch to a term most of us are likely to fully understand like ‘in-depth’ or ‘well justified’. We can then discuss what makes an in-depth review, and whether they should use neutral language or be allowed to be funny etc.

[Cetonis]

Ok, I think I see where you're coming from... as you have, I'd prefer to use a different angle/wordings to try to describe where I'm coming from...

First, I don't think I am actually lacking in understanding as to what the definition of objectivity is. I prefer to look at this definition:

Originally Posted by Dictionary.com

being the object of perception or thought; belonging to the object of thought rather than to the thinking subject

What I see this to mean is that, for the purposes of anime, an objective statement would be one that describes/explains the anime itself, independent (as much as is reasonably possible, anyway) of personal opinion or bias.

That said, it appears to me (of course I may be wrong) that we are more in disagreement as to what a review is - you feel like it is a cup of water, polluted by a single drop of ink, whereas I think of it as, say, a bucket of pebbles or something similar. In other words, I don't feel that objectivity is all or nothing - that despite a review's inherently subjective nature, there can still be an objective aspect to it.



I would like to attempt an illustration of sorts, so please bear with me:

I have seen several reviews of persuasive books while working on my research report for english class. The structure of these reviews often tends to be such that the review writer first explains the contents of the book - what arguments and points the author made, suggestions that they make, etc. After this, the reviewer proceeds to offer his or her personal opinion on these arguments - were they well thought out, could the reviewer find any obvious problems with them, etc.

Now, I think it is safe to say that the first part of these reviews are objective, as they describe the work, and the the second part subjective, as they give opinions and criticism. Saying the description of the book is subjective simply because it happens to be followed by opinions just seems unreasonable to me. So, we could say that the work as a whole is made up of one objective piece, followed by a subjective one, or a 50/50 split between objectivity and subjectivity assuming equal section length.

Now, suppose the book being reviewed had two parts, and the reviewer decided to cover them separately. The first part is described from an objective viewpoint, and then criticized, then the same is done for the second. This time there are four sections - objective, subjective, objective, subjective. I think it still holds that it is unreasonable to call the book description portions subjective on the sole basis that opinions are stated elsewhere in the writing. So, it remains 50% objective on the whole in my eyes.

One can see where I'm going with this - say, now, the reviewer wants to cover each aspect of a book separately. He or she describes what one aspect of the writer's argument is, then offers criticism of it. Then the next aspect is covered, etc. etc. Unsurprisingly, I would argue that the descriptions of the individual aspects are still objective, by definition, because they describe the work itself outside of the bias of the reviewer. So, still now I would say that it is 50% objective.



This last example is not far off from an anime review. Most reviews consist of descriptions of the various aspects of a series, as well as the reviewer's opinions about said aspects. Some of the descriptions may be used solely for description's sake (i.e. animation), others may be for explaining an opinion, still others may lead into an opinion. Regardless, any such statements that describe what the series is 'factually' like (again, there is of course a margin of error on this) would be objective, by defintion. I believe that the fact that a reviewer may use transitions and various organization methods for better readibility, that happen to thoroughly mix opinions and descriptions together, does not change this. So, since individual components of a review can be objective, I feel it is then possible for a review to be partially objective, by definition of 'partially' if you must :P

(note: see v16's earlier post about the Mad Bull review to see how it is not difficult to pick out the objective parts of a review)

This is also how I conclude that a 100% subjective review would not be very good. The way I see it, such a review would be one that contains no information about the series at all, just opinions about it. "I liked <anime>. <character> rocks. <animal>s are the best." Not terribly helpful.

Of course, it is also impossible to have an entirely objective review, as once that happens it is no longer defined as a review, as you pointed out.

So, in summary, yes, I do more or less equate objectivity with being in-depth, well-justified, etc. because doing those things naturally involves giving details about the series, which are objective as they describe the object and not the thoughts of the writer. The more in-depth, well-explained, etc. one is, chances are the more objective content there is in the review. And, I must say, I don't really think at this point that objectivity should be a major goal in and of itself, but more like something you double-check afterwards. As in, "after reading this review, will the reader have a decent idea what this series is like?" Something along those lines...

[VivisQueen]

Your Dictionary.com definition is the wrong sort of ‘objective’. It talks about the object of a sentence or the object of an investigation; the thing that has an action done to it. Here is an accurate definition of the 'objective' we're talking about:

Oxford English Dictionary definition of objective: 1. external to the mind; actually existing. 2 dealing with outward things uncoloured by opinions or feelings.

Despite the mistake, I think you initially get the idea of what it means to be objective i.e. to be totally free of feelings and opinions that may influence the conclusions you come to. However, you go on to weaken your definition (equating it with in-depth) in order to come to your conclusion. Also, the way you describe the English reviews you’ve read seems to me a particular style of review which is linked to academic assessment and not mainstream reviewing (certainly not the way visual media is reviewed). Yet, even in the examples you give, I doubt the reviewers themselves would quantify the objectivity of their reviews – heck, they would object to the relevance or importance of objectivity in an English review almost entirely (ask your English tutor and I bet s/he’ll agree with me).

Anyway, back to my main points. Giving details does involve providing some facts, but you'll find the facts are unimportant by far compared to the subjective parts that convey what the anime is like. Here is an extract from my ‘animation’ review of Escaflowne that is detailed but as objective as my arse (yes, my arse is subjective :P):

Escaflowne's animation is very good for its day although not groundbreaking in any technical sense. What is noteworthy is the sheer level of beauty achieved in this series; from sumptuous cities to the intricate guymelef (mecha) designs and costumes, the clear pastel colours combined with the ‘sketchy' style make for a feast for the eyes. Visually, it’s reminiscent of series like Rose of Versailles and Saiunkoku Monogatari, although the diversity of Gaia's cultural and aesthetic concept is something I personally haven't seen matched anywhere else yet. Despite being pretty, the series doesn’t shy away from showing an ugly side to Gaia – when people die in their guymelefs or are cut open by a sword, it is all the more shocking to see shadowed faces contorted in agony or splashes of red against the baby blue sky.

I don’t just list facts, Cetonis, I list interpreted facts in order to support my argument. The facts in themselves are meaningless – they only attain meaning through the subjective interpretation I make. I mention cities, I mention 'guymelefs', I mention that people die in their guymelefs and are cut open by swords, and the contorted shadowed faces and splashes of red... these are factual statements of sorts. Firstly, the fact that I chose these facts to use in my review makes them subjective in their application. Secondly, the facts are incidental; I use them to get to the important subjective details about how the animation is of ‘sheer beauty’ or how the colours are ‘pastel’, the style is 'sketchy' and the cities and guymelef designs are 'sumptuous'. I liken the anime to Rose of Versailles and Saiunkoku Monogatari, which is a subjective detail which allows me to give a better idea of colour schemes through reference. Someone else might not justifiably see it that way. I say that although the series is pretty (subjective), it doesn't shy away from (personification to convey subjective feeling) showing ugly (subjective) bits. That it's shocking to watch the contorted faces is a purely subjective notion too, but it's a detail that supports my opinion.

Also, not all details are facts; detail means being more specific, which often means using factual examples, but that is not always the case. Here are two statements about Code Geass:

VIVI’S QUEEN: Sick twists and nasty cliff-hangers abound in this head rush of a story and the episodes pump forth with relentless efficiency.

VIVAFRUIT: For one, the pacing is terrible; while Mai Hime was unbearably slow for the first half, Code Geass feels permanently stuck on fast forward.

We both agree that the pacing is fast (which is not a fact, but a relative detail) but come to different conclusions as to its effectiveness. I think it’s very efficient pacing and he thinks it’s uncontrolled and ‘terrible’. We both use metaphor, not facts, to provide detail e.g. ‘stuck on fast forward’ and ‘head rush of a story’.

After all this, if you’re still arguing that the 5% interlinked facts in themselves make my review 5% objective, and that one review is better than another because it has a higher percentage of facts, then you’ve misunderstood the idea of objectivity completely. The facts remain objective no matter what, that is undisputable, but the facts are not isolated components like bricks of a building or pebbles in a bucket, but are interwoven with the subjective components. You can’t separate the component parts from the entirety and judge them differently. That’s not how the review will be read and that’s certainly not how the quality of the entire review should be judged. Furthermore, detail improves the depth of a review but not necessarily its objectivity. To ask for detail is to ask for factual examples as well as other ways of being more specific; to ask for objective facts excludes other ways in which one may be detailed.

If you equate objectivity with in-depth and well-justified, then you're not talking about objectivity at all. Thus, don't ask others to be objective in their reviews, and let's not use objectivity at all in this debate - it's totally irrelevant to a review that is by definition subjective.

Okey dokey, that’s me done with the debate for now. I will read any further posts you make, but I’d like someone else to give an opinion just to mix things up a little before I say anything else. I really doubt I’ve been talking bollocks, but I’d like to give anybody the opportunity to pick holes in my argument.

[Cetonis]

A few notes to begin:

The definition I chose for 'objective' was the one explicitly listed as the opposite of subjective.

Saying that the pure number of facts is important was an oversimplification on my part. I thought you would at least assume I didn't mean anything stupid by that, but you didn't so I rescind that particular statement. Will re-explain in a bit more detail later.

You use the phrase "subjective parts that convey what an anime is like." I think this is something of an oxymoron. If you are conveying what the anime is like, that's being objective. If you are, at the same time, conveying how you interpret this or rate it from a quality perspective, then you're conveying two ideas at once - one objective, the other subjective. Ink may color a cup of water, but there are still water molecules in there.

You say that you cannot separate the facts out of a review; but, while it may often be impossible to take groups of physical words out to create facts, it is very possible to derive facts from what is said. And these facts can definitely be useful on their own - in general, I feel like one gets two things out of a review I would consider to be 'good':

1. A reasonably good idea of what the anime is like, beyond what might be said in a simple synopsis.

2. What the writer felt about the series and why he or she felt that way.

I think these (namely the first one, since it's the point of argument) are fundamental; if all you get from a review is a writer's opinion without actually learning anything about the show, that's hardly any more useful than simply looking at an Anidb graph.

In your Code Geass example, even though both are colored by opinion, anyone reading the review with some amount of critical thinking (using my English teacher's definition of the word; this is actaully happenstance and not a stab at your reference to him. I will ask him about this, though, since it's interesting) will see two things when they read one of those statements. First, that the pace is fast. Second that the writer felt it was either too fast or efficiently fast. They gain both an objective fact (even though calling the pace fast is a relative term, the number of people who would disagree is likely trivial. Even if you want to say that it's not, it wouldn't be too hard to find similar statements for which this works) as well as the opinion. Similarly, in your Escaflowne example, the reader gains the facts that the costumes and mechs have at least relatively detailed designs, the colors are pastel, the style could be described as 'sketchy', they're not afraid to show blood or pain in the anime, etc.

So, my argument is that since one can obtain objective information from such statements, they can be considered to have some aspect of objectivity. And similarly, if one can gain some amount of objective facts regarding a series from a review, then that review must also have some degree of objectivity. To be 'more objective' would mean to give a better idea of what the series is like - within reason, of course. Minor details like "<character> has a pet rabbit," spoilers, etc. are by no means what I''m referring to.

As you can see, I'm pretty much looking at this from an end results perspective. This is why I felt it safe to put things like being in-depth in the same basket - not because they are similar in definition or application, but because the end result is normally an informative review. (using informative to mean providing a lot of relevant 'objective' facts) Even if some or most of the facts used while being in-depth are exceptionally minor or chosen in a biased manner, there will still be relevant information somewhere. For instance, if an in-depth reviewer talks about the plot at all, the reader should be able to derive some idea of how the story is told. Same goes for other major aspects of a show, etc.

Clearly, these end result observations are separate from and generally irrelevant to the process of writing itself. This is why I think of it as something to double-check after one is done, and not something to actively consider while writing. I agree that we generally shouldn't use the word 'objective' when talking about the writing of reviews, because there are so many ways people define it, correctly or not, (some definitions make it dangerous to say to avoid objectivity as well) and there are so many other ways to describe what constitutes a good review without it. But, this thread is basically all about trying to come to some kind of consensus as to what being objective means as it relates to a review, so I continue towards that end.

[vivafruit]

I guess it's my turn to carry the torch. First, I'd like to point something out:

So, one could say that the more objective statements there are in a review, the higher its 'objectivity density', if you will. I would argue that it can be quite productive to aim for a higher objectivity density in a review, at least without getting to the point that one is adding facts that serve no logical purpose.

In your Code Geass example, even though both are colored by opinion, anyone reading the review with some amount of critical thinking will see two things when they read one of those statements. First, that the pace is fast. Second that the writer felt it was either too fast or efficiently fast.

Let us assume for the sake of argument that, "The pacing is fast" is an objective statement (it's not, because it deals with human perception, but whatever).

Let's say that I am writing a review, and am debating two separate statements.

1. The pacing is fast.
2. Sick twists and nasty cliff-hangers abound in this head rush of a story and the episodes pump forth with relentless efficiency.

One uses highly subjective words like, "sick," "nasty," "head rush," "relentless,"
and the other is (supposedly) nothing more than an objective statement. It follows that sentence 1 has a much higher "objectivity density" then sentence 2. Are you implying in quote #1 that statement 1 is better than statement 2?

*

Also, I would disagree that a given sentence can be distilled into a subjective part and an objective part without losing meaning. Vivi has repeatedly said that the two cannot be split up in this way, and I think I agree. Consider:

1. The lettuce tastes good because it is fresh, and the lettuce looks good because it is moist.
2. The lettuce looks good because it is fresh, and the lettuce tastes good because it is moist.

Under your argument, these both could be split up into:

The lettuce is fresh. The lettuce is moist. The lettuce tastes good. The lettuce looks good.

However, clearly there is meaning that is being lost here. I think this illustrates that the objective part and the subjective part of, say, the Code Geass sentence, cannot be split into two. They are inseparably related.

*

Finally, I disagree with your definition of a good review. I think it should be changed to:

A reasonably good idea of what experiencing the anime is like, beyond what might be said in a simple synopsis.

With no second part.

All that matters for a person who is deciding whether or not to watch the series is how they will experience it. They do not care about what the anime is like in some hypothetical sphere separate from their own experience. That is why plot summaries are so ridiculously boring.

[VivisQueen]

Originally Posted by Cetonis

In your Code Geass example, even though both are colored by opinion, anyone reading the review with some amount of critical thinking (using my English teacher's definition of the word; this is actaully happenstance and not a stab at your reference to him. I will ask him about this, though, since it's interesting) will see two things when they read one of those statements. First, that the pace is fast. Second that the writer felt it was either too fast or efficiently fast. They gain both an objective fact (even though calling the pace fast is a relative term, the number of people who would disagree is likely trivial. Even if you want to say that it's not, it wouldn't be too hard to find similar statements for which this works) as well as the opinion. Similarly, in your Escaflowne example, the reader gains the facts that the costumes and mechs have at least relatively detailed designs, the colors are pastel, the style could be described as 'sketchy', they're not afraid to show blood or pain in the anime, etc.

I take back my comment about you understanding objectivity. You don't. If even one person can justifiably disagree (whether the number is trivial or not has no bearing on objectivity) then the statement is not objective. It just means more people agree with it (I pointed out this error you were making before, but you don't seem to have got over it). An objective truth is scientific truth - it is true forever with everyone, whether they know it or not, like the movements of the planets. So in agreeing that pace is a relative term, you must automatically agree that saying the pace was fast is not an objective fact. It's a relative attribute... because speed of pacing is something that is always relative to the beholder. There is no objective, scientific way of measuring a fast-paced series or a slow-paced series. How the pace feels will depend 100% on the individual viewer. Some anime are more likely to be generally viewed as paced faster than others e.g. Black Lagoon versus Kanon 2006. But fast pacing is not itself an objective fact even though Vivafruit and I agree.

Same with the detailed designs and all the other examples. That they are detailed is my opinion, not an objective fact. In fact, that would be even more debatable than the pacing example. You can't objectively/scientifically measure detail in costume design, thus it is not an objective fact. These statements may look like 'facts' because of language but they are not scientific/objective facts. That there are guymelefs in the series is an objective fact, that the guymelefs are detailed is a subjective detail.

I don't often like to do this in a debate, and I don't mean it in a patronising way, but you're actually wrong. Factually wrong - the same wrong as adding 2 + 2 and getting 5. The problem is also that you can't see the fundamental flaw in your argument, namely that you don't stick to the true relevant definition of objective because you don't fully grasp what the definition is. You don't even check the Dictionary.com definition by making sure it matches your expectations - you simply accept it because it lists 'objective' as the opposite of 'subjective' - which tells me you depend on the dictionary to tell you what it is, not to help support your argument. 'Subjective' is also a grammatical term, and your Dictionary.com definition is definitely talking about grammar. Actually, I'm certain the second definition refers to the use of object/subject in philosophical debate. Still, it's defining anything but the objective/subjective we're using here.

From here on, anything else I say will probably be more repetition, so I won't say anything further about objectivity. I'm just looking forward to other opinions adding something and/or the shift of this debate turning to what makes an in-depth/well justified review.

[v16]

Originally Posted by Vivi's Queen

You don't. If even one person can justifiably disagree (whether the number is trivial or not has no bearing on objectivity) then the statement is not objective.
An objective truth is scientific truth - it is true forever with everyone, whether they know it or not, like the movements of the planets.

People constantly disagree with scientific statements. Justifiably. It's, in fact, what the science is about - challenging what you disagree with and seeking an explanation.

Newton's F=ma has been true forever with everyone, right until we started to study electrons and Einstein had to modify it with 1-v^2/c^2.

Every scientific truth has been reasonably challenged, and in XX century all scientific truths of the previous 3500 years have been replaced.


So, if following your definition, There is NO single objective statement EVER made by a human.


Or, in other words, objective statements don't exist.