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art et al,
this seems to have a few different parts to it:
1. i think we may be brushing up against that subjective/objective junk again. i mean, some things are pretty much the way they are, for all intents and purposes, and i consider them close enough to facts to use. i'm an engineer, you know? thus i agree with jinn's basic point; when you design a bridge, all you care about is if it stands up, and that's not perspective. that's some calculus and some empirical laws. as i stated in my post in the other thread on the reverend falwell, we can debate whether they are 'true' or not to some extent, but at the end of the day their status of 'facts' is useful and necessary so that i can build things. i mean, gravity isn't a point of view from our time and length scales...my ass wants to be in a chair, not up on the ceiling, you know?
2. from more subjective discussions, i think point of view is inherent outside a question of logic. we can build logical trains of thought and check them internally for consistency, and i think within that framework we can say certain facts of logical follow. of course, then we have to backtrack assumptions and so forth, so i think i'd probably tend to agree with your position on these things. is a high heel fetish good or bad? all relative, etc. however, i think in many questions of morality / ethics, if we agree that we are all starting from the same basic assumptions (let's say maximize social stability and individual liberty, for instance) then by following logical lines of thought, we should be able to carve out procedures that might accomplish these assumptions / aims, procedures that will not be stable, and procedures that are irrelevant. so, for instance, something like the ten commandments might fall out of a discussion in many cultures across the boards, and i don't think that's coincidence or purely relative moral thought. it happens because it works when it's followed...if it ever has been. possibly another thread again, but as an example perhaps its useful to illustrate what i'm trying to talk about.
3. on debate/discussion: seems to me to be a semantic choice, as i alluded to elsewhere. perhaps the semantic distinction is akin to what uber alluded to above; motivation for the interaction. if i'm trying to convince you that 'facts' exist and attempt to explicitly invalidate your position, i suppose that would be a debate? however, if i produce a counter point of view and offer it up, that's a discussion? well, i'd say that regardless of our choice of interaction, the same basic conflict presents itself. and by follow up with subsequent sharing of points of view, you could say that we are trying to persuade each other a la debate, or that we are simply deepening our commentary a la discussion. i guess i don't see a huge distinction between the two modes at present. in the end, perhaps we walk away with mutual respect or disrespect, perhaps we begin to see another point of view (and would tend to think slowly consciously or subconsciously adsorb it into our own), or we reject that point of view out of hand. whether its framed as a 'debate' or a 'discussion' doesn't seem awfully germane to me.
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