Catholic Word of the Day: OBJECTIVE (ONTOLOGICAL), 02-26-10

CatholicReference.net ^ | 02-26-10 | Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary

[Salvation]

Featured Term (selected at random):

OBJECTIVE (ONTOLOGICAL)

What belongs to a thing or is grounded in reality, prior to and independent of the mind's consideration of something. Also called ontological, in contrast with the mental or psychological. Opposite of subjective. Thus objective certitude is founded on reality, and objective morality is based on divinely established standards. (Etym. Latin obiectio, something thrown before or presented to [the mind], from obicere, to throw in the way, present.)

All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

[Salvation]

Hmmmm. Do we see some of this on FR, or do we see subjective points of view?

[Salvation]

Catholic Word of the Day – links will be provided later by another FReeper.

 

Monogamy	Sanctoral Cycle/Proper of the Saints	Prinknash
Gift of Knowledge	Nine Offices	Imputability
Thesis	Hypapante	Evangelist of Mary
Grace of God	Morality of Dancing	Priest
Henotheism	Creationism	Incommunicable Attribute
Homoousios	Credence	Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament
Baptism	Darius	Papal Decoration
Secret Society	Laus	Humanae Personae Dignitatem
Station Days	Christian Marriage	Incarnation
Gabriel	Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes	Dead Sea
Redemptorists	Agony	Dispensation
Monism	Cathedral of Cologne	Sursum Corda
Sacramental Confession	Mass Penny	Objective (Ontological)

Catholic Word of the Day Ping!

Please send me a FReepmail if you would like to be on the Catholic Word of the Day Ping List.

[Tax-chick]

All opinions, of course, are subjective. Facts are objective, but may still be false, by accident or intention.

Apart from revelation, our ability to identify the objective is limited by the fact that we perceive it through our senses, which are unique to each one of us.

For example, you and I may be say, “She’s wearing a red dress,” but can we be sure we mean the same thing by “red”? Neither of us knows exactly what view the other describes with the label “red.”

[Bigg Red]

And only spectrophotometry can supply the ontological data.

[Tax-chick]

In that example, yes. Science can say, “Light in these wavelengths is being described by most people as ‘red.’ “

[Salvation]

Good example and discussion.

My red would tend to be a red — darker with some blue in it. Others might want a red with a little orange in it. Makes a big difference.

[Tax-chick]

Or a person with red/green color blindness might be seeing a shade of gray, but calling it red because he’s been told, “That (shirt, car, ball) is red,” all his life.

This kind of thinking leads some people to the erroneous concept that there is no “objective” truth about anything. However, much of the time that’s a denial of what can be clearly shown, as in Bigg Redd’s example of the using a spectrometer to define accurately the light we’re describing as “red,” ... or in the case of the observable scientific fact that the union of sperm and egg creates, at that moment, a unique, living, human being.