Opinion
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2008-07-13T06:47:50Z
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Date the maintenance tags or general fixes
{{Unreferenced|date=November 2006}}
{{otheruses4|the general concept|the legal concept|Legal opinion|the Nirvana song|Opinion (song)}}
{{wiktionary}}
An '''opinion''' is a [[person]]'s [[idea]]s and thoughts towards something. It is an [[assessment]], [[judgment]] or [[evaluation]] of something. An opinion is not a ''[[fact]]'', because opinions are either not [[falsifiability|falsifiable]], or the opinion has not been proven or verified. If it later ''becomes'' proven or verified, it is no longer an opinion, but a fact.
In [[economics]], [[philosophy]], or other [[social science]]s, analysis based on opinions is referred to as [[normative]] analysis (what ''ought'' to be), as opposed to [[positive]] analysis, which is based on scientific observation (what materially ''is'').
Historically, the distinction of proven [[knowledge]] and opinion was articulated by some [[Ancient Greek]] [[philosophers]]. [[Plato]]'s analogy of the [[divided line]] is a well-known illustration of the distinction between [[knowledge]] and opinion.
[[Robert Webb (actor)|Robert Webb]], half of the [[Mitchell and Webb]] comedy duo, identified the phenomenon of '''idle opinion'''. Mitchell and Webb had come in for considerable criticism in the UK for their [[Apple Mac]] commercials, which contrasted the Mac with the [[Personal computer|PC]]. Webb noted that the vast bulk of the criticism happened during office hours, when people should have been doing their jobs. After 5pm each day, the criticism in blogs and Web chatrooms dried up. His conclusion is that '''idle opinion''' consists of views that people don't hold strongly, or indeed that they may not hold the view at all. 'Critics' just want to be part of a discussion, rather than do their daily grind.
Gordon Ramsay (chef) also once noted "opinions are like arseholes, everyone's got one." {{Fact|date=July 2008}}
==See also==
*[[Egocentrism]]
*[[Philosophy]]
*[[Politics]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Mental structures]]
[[be-x-old:Меркаваньне]]
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