Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy)

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The distinction between subjectivity and objectivity is a basic idea of philosophy, particularly epistemology and metaphysics. It is often related to discussions of consciousness, agency, personhood, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, reality, truth, and communication (for example in narrative communication and journalism).

Both ideas have been given various and ambiguous definitions by differing sources as the distinction is often a given but not the specific focal point of philosophical discourse.

subject and object
, philosophical terms that mean, respectively, an observer and a thing being observed.

History in Western philosophy

In Western philosophy, the idea of subjectivity is thought to have its roots in the works of the

Kant though it could also stem as far back as the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle's work relating to the soul.[6][5] The idea of subjectivity is often seen as a peripheral to other philosophical concepts, namely skepticism, individuals and individuality, and existentialism.[5][6] The questions surrounding subjectivity have to do with whether or not people can escape the subjectivity of their own human existence and whether or not there is an obligation to try to do so.[1] Important thinkers who focused on this area of study include Descartes, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Husserl, Foucault, Derrida, Nagel, and Sartre.[1]

Subjectivity was rejected by Foucault and Derrida in favor of constructionism,[1] but Sartre embraced and continued Descartes' work in the subject by emphasizing subjectivity in phenomenology.[1][7] Sartre believed that, even within the material force of human society, the ego was an essentially transcendent being—posited, for instance, in his opus Being and Nothingness through his arguments about the 'being-for-others' and the 'for-itself' (i.e., an objective and subjective human being).[7]

The innermost core of subjectivity resides in a unique act of what Fichte called "self-positing", where each subject is a point of absolute autonomy, which means that it cannot be reduced to a moment in the network of causes and effects.[8]

Subjectivity applied

One way that subjectivity has been conceptualized by philosophers such as Kierkegaard is in the context of

hard sciences, which does not depend on the perception of people, and is therefore considered objective.[1] Subjectivity is what relies on personal perception regardless of what is proven or objective.[1]

Many philosophical arguments within this area of study have to do with moving from subjective thoughts to objective thoughts with many different methods employed to get from one to the other along with a variety of conclusions reached.[1] This is exemplified by Descartes deductions that move from reliance on subjectivity to somewhat of a reliance on God for objectivity.[1][9] Foucault and Derrida denied the idea of subjectivity in favor of their ideas of constructs in order to account for differences in human thought.[1] Instead of focusing on the idea of consciousness and self-consciousness shaping the way humans perceive the world, these thinkers would argue that it is instead the world that shapes humans, so they would see religion less as a belief and more as a cultural construction.[1]

Others like Husserl and Sartre followed the phenomenological approach.[1] This approach focused on the distinct separation of the human mind and the physical world, where the mind is subjective because it can take liberties like imagination and self-awareness where religion might be examined regardless of any kind of subjectivity.[7] The philosophical conversation around subjectivity remains one that struggles with the epistemological question of what is real, what is made up, and what it would mean to be separated completely from subjectivity.[1]

In epistemology and theory of knowledge

Aristotle's teacher

subjective knowledge.[12]

Platonic idealism is a form of metaphysical objectivism, holding that the ideas exist independently from the individual. Berkeley's empirical idealism, on the other hand, holds that things only exist as they are perceived. Both approaches boast an attempt at objectivity. Plato's definition of objectivity can be found in his epistemology, which is based on mathematics, and his metaphysics, where knowledge of the ontological status of objects and ideas is resistant to change.[11]

In opposition to philosopher

construct incorporates ontological commitments to the reality of objects.[14]

The importance of perception in evaluating and understanding objective reality is debated in the observer effect of quantum mechanics. Direct or naïve realists rely on perception as key in observing objective reality, while instrumentalists hold that observations are useful in predicting objective reality. The concepts that encompass these ideas are important in the philosophy of science. Philosophies of mind explore whether objectivity relies on perceptual constancy.[15]

In ethics

Moral objectivism and relativism

Moral objectivism is the view that what is right or wrong does not depend on what anyone thinks is right or wrong.[4] Moral objectivism depends on how the moral code affects the well-being of the people of the society. Moral objectivism allows for moral codes to be compared to each other through a set of universal facts than mores of a society. Nicholas Reschar defines mores as customs within every society (e.g., what women can wear) and states that moral codes cannot be compared to one's personal moral compass.[4] An example is the categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant which says: "Act only according to that maxim [i.e., rule] whereby you can at the same time will that it become a universal law." John Stuart Mill was a consequential thinker and therefore proposed utilitarianism which asserts that in any situation, the right thing to do is whatever is likely to produce the most happiness overall. Moral relativism is the view where an actor's moral codes are locally derived from their culture.[16] The rules within moral codes are equal to each other and are only deemed "right" or "wrong" within their specific moral codes.[16] Relativism is opposite to Universalism because there is not a single moral code for every agent to follow.[16] Relativism differs from Nihilism because it validates every moral code that exists whereas nihilism does not.[16] When it comes to relativism, Russian philosopher and writer, Fyodor Dostoevsky, coined the phrase "If God doesn't exist, everything is permissible". That phrase was his view of the consequences for rejecting theism as a basis of ethics. American anthropologist Ruth Benedict argued that there is no single objective morality and that moral codes necessarily vary by culture.[17]

Ethical subjectivism

See also: David Hume, Non-cognitivism, and Subjectivism

The term "ethical subjectivism" covers two distinct theories in ethics. According to cognitive versions of ethical subjectivism, the truth of moral statements depends upon people's values, attitudes, feelings, or beliefs. Some forms of cognitivist ethical subjectivism can be counted as forms of realism, others are forms of anti-realism.[18] David Hume is a foundational figure for cognitive ethical subjectivism. On a standard interpretation of his theory, a trait of character counts as a moral virtue when it evokes a sentiment of approbation in a sympathetic, informed, and rational human observer.[19] Similarly, Roderick Firth's ideal observer theory held that right acts are those that an impartial, rational observer would approve of.[20] William James, another ethical subjectivist, held that an end is good (to or for a person) just in the case it is desired by that person (see also ethical egoism). According to non-cognitive versions of ethical subjectivism, such as emotivism, prescriptivism, and expressivism, ethical statements cannot be true or false, at all: rather, they are expressions of personal feelings or commands.[21] For example, on A. J. Ayer's emotivism, the statement, "Murder is wrong" is equivalent in meaning to the emotive, "Murder, Boo!"[22]

Ethical objectivism

Main article: Moral realism

According to the ethical objectivist, the truth or falsehood of typical moral judgments does not depend upon the beliefs or feelings of any person or group of persons. This view holds that moral propositions are analogous to propositions about chemistry, biology, or history, in so much as they are true despite what anyone believes, hopes, wishes, or feels. When they fail to describe this mind-independent moral reality, they are false—no matter what anyone believes, hopes, wishes, or feels.

There are many versions of ethical objectivism, including various religious views of morality, Platonistic intuitionism, Kantianism, utilitarianism, and certain forms of ethical egoism and contractualism. Platonists define ethical objectivism in an even more narrow way, so that it requires the existence of intrinsic value. Consequently, they reject the idea that contractualists or egoists could be ethical objectivists. Objectivism, in turn, places primacy on the origin of the frame of reference—and, as such, considers any arbitrary frame of reference ultimately a form of ethical subjectivism by a transitive property, even when the frame incidentally coincides with reality and can be used for measurements.

In history and historiography

History as a discipline has wrestled with notions of objectivity from its very beginning. While its object of study is commonly thought to be the past, the only thing historians have to work with are different versions of stories based on individual perceptions of reality and memory.

Several history streams developed to devise ways to solve this dilemma: Historians like

objective reality.[23] In the 20th century, the Annales School emphasized the importance of shifting focus away from the perspectives of influential men –usually politicians around whose actions narratives of the past were shaped–, and putting it on the voices of ordinary people.[24] Postcolonial streams of history challenge the colonial-postcolonial dichotomy and critique Eurocentric academia practices, such as the demand for historians from colonized regions to anchor their local narratives to events happening in the territories of their colonizers to earn credibility.[25]
All the streams explained above try to uncover whose voice is more or less truth-bearing and how historians can stitch together versions of it to best explain what "actually happened."

The anthropologist

subjectivities that humanity has stitched together to grasp the past. Debates about positivism, relativism, and postmodernism
are relevant to evaluating these concepts' importance and the distinction between them.

Ethical considerations

In his book "Silencing the past", Trouillot wrote about the power dynamics at play in history-making, outlining four possible moments in which historical silences can be created: (1) making of sources (who gets to know how to write, or to have possessions that are later examined as historical evidence), (2) making of archives (what documents are deemed important to save and which are not, how to classify materials, and how to order them within physical or digital archives), (3) making of narratives (which accounts of history are consulted, which voices are given credibility), and (4) the making of history (the retrospective construction of what The Past is).[27]

Because history (official, public, familial, personal) informs current perceptions and how we make sense of the present, whose voice gets to be included in it –and how– has direct consequences in material socio-historical processes. Thinking of current historical narratives as

subjective
lens.

In sociology

Subjectivity is an inherently social mode that comes about through innumerable interactions within society. As much as subjectivity is a process of individuation, it is equally a process of socialization, the individual never being isolated in a self-contained environment, but endlessly engaging in interaction with the surrounding world. Culture is a living totality of the subjectivity of any given society constantly undergoing transformation.[28] Subjectivity is both shaped by it and shapes it in turn, but also by other things like the economy, political institutions, communities, as well as the natural world.

Though the boundaries of societies and their cultures are indefinable and arbitrary, the subjectivity inherent in each one is palatable and can be recognized as distinct from others. Subjectivity is in part a particular experience or organization of reality, which includes how one views and interacts with humanity, objects, consciousness, and nature, so the difference between different cultures brings about an alternate experience of existence that forms life in a different manner. A common effect on an individual of this disjunction between subjectivities is culture shock, where the subjectivity of the other culture is considered alien and possibly incomprehensible or even hostile.

Political subjectivity is an emerging concept in social sciences and humanities.[3] Political subjectivity is a reference to the deep embeddedness of subjectivity in the socially intertwined systems of power and meaning. "Politicality", writes Sadeq Rahimi in Meaning, Madness and Political Subjectivity, "is not an added aspect of the subject, but indeed the mode of being of the subject, that is, precisely what the subject is."[29]

See also

References

  1. ^
    Oxford Companion to Philosophy
    (Oxford University Press, 2005), p.900.
  2. ^ Gonzalez Rey, Fernando (June 2019). "Subjectivity in Debate: Some Psychology". Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. 49: 212–234 – via EBCOhost.
  3. ^
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  5. ^ a b c Bykova, Marina F. (February 2018). "On the Problem of Subjectivity: Editor's Introduction". Russian Studies in Philosophy. 56: 1–5 – via EBSCOhost.
  6. ^ a b Strazzoni, Andrea (2015). "Introduction. Subjectivity and Individuality: Two Strands in Early Modern Philosophy". Societate Si Politica. 9 – via ProQuest.
  7. ^ a b c Thomas, Baldwin. "Sartre, Jean-Paul," in Honderich, Ted. Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2005). pp. 834–837
  8. ^ Žižek, Slavoj (2019-09-23). "The Fall That Makes Us Like God, Part I". The Philosophical Salon. Archived from the original on 2019-09-25. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
  9. Oxford Companion to Philosophy
    (Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 201–205.
  10. ^ Plato, "The Republic", 337B, HarperCollins Publishers, 1968
  11. ^ a b E. Douka Kabîtoglou (1991). "Shelley and Berkeley: The Platonic Connection" (PDF): 20–35. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
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  13. ^ Suzuki, Fumitaka (March 2012). "The Cogito Proposition of Descartes and Characteristics of His Ego Theory" (PDF). Bulletin of Aichi University of Education. 61: 73–80.
  14. ^ Clinton Tolley. "Kant on the Generality of Logic" (PDF). University of California, San Diego. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  15. ^ Tyler Burge, Origins of Objectivity, Oxford University Press, 2010.
  16. ^
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  17. ^ "Moral Relativism and Objectivism". University of California, Santa Cruz. Retrieved 20 February 2019.
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  19. ^ Rayner, Sam (2005). "Hume's Moral Philosophy". Macalester Journal of Philosophy. 14 (1): 6–21.
  20. ^ "A Substantive Revision to Firth's Ideal Observer Theory" (PDF). Stance. 3. Ball State University: 55–61. April 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-06-12. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
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  22. ^ "24.231 Ethics – Handout 3 Ayer's Emotivism" (PDF). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  23. ^ Leopold von Ranke, “Author’s Preface,” in History of the Reformation in Germany, trans. Sarah Austin, vii–xi. London: George Rutledge and Sons, 1905.
  24. ^ Andrea, A. (1991). Mentalities in history. The Historian 53(3), 605–608.
  25. ^ Chakrabarty, D. (1992). Postcoloniality and the artifice of history: Who speaks for "Indian" pasts?Representations, (37), 1–26. doi:10.2307/2928652.
  26. ^ Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. (1995). Silencing the past : power and the production of history. Boston, Mass. :Beacon Press,
  27. ^ Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. (1995). Silencing the past : power and the production of history. Boston, Mass. :Beacon Press,
  28. ^ Silverman, H.J. ed., 2014. Questioning foundations: truth, subjectivity, and culture. Routledge.[page needed]
  29. ISBN 978-1138840829. Archived
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Further reading

External links

Look up Subjectivity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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