Subjective and Objective

Abstract

There is a problem that emerges in several areas of philosophy whose connexion with one another is not obvious. I believe that it can be given a general form, and that some treatment of it is possible in abstraction from its particular instances – with results that can be applied to the instances eventually. This discussion is a preliminary sketch for what I hope will be a more thorough treatment. The problem is one of opposition between subjective and objective points of view. There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality. But often what appears to a more subjective point of view cannot be accounted for in this way. So either the objective conception of the world is incomplete, or the subjective involves illusions that should be rejected. Instead of trying to define these terms at the outset, I shall begin with some examples, drawn from ethics and metaphysics. The parallels between them should emerge as I proceed. Consider first a problem about the meaning of life. There is a way of considering human pursuits from within life, which allows justification of some activities in terms of others, but does not permit us to question the significance of the whole thing, unless we are asking, from within life, whether the allocation of energy or attention to different segments of it makes sense in virtue of their relative importance.