I know there was a thread on this not long ago but I don't think I contributed so I thought I'd another thread. Objectivity and Subjectivity are two different ways of viewing things. One is from a subject-ive viepoint, i.e. from the view as a subject, a person, and the other is from an object-ive viewpoint i.e. the view of everything as an object. Objectivity is regarded as truth, and subjectivity as opinion. Objectivity, requires the use of reason and logic, and subjectivity of experience. Surely the subject-ive experience is the natural state for all animals, and objectivity can only be viewed when the subject sees the body as precisely what it is, an object: it can experience destruction and can be broken down as all objects can, we can all lose limbs and parts of the body. Even when we die the body can decay and become soil, the object can disappear, but the subject disappears much sooner! The object survives for longer and is therefore more eternal, and closer to truth than the subject. Objectivity and the use of reason can be seen as cold and calculating, as one things is linked to another. Cause is related to effect, and the subsequent effects. Objectivity does show truth, but it does not show the whole truth. For the person to view it's own body, the 'self', as an object scares because, as Foucault (it could have been Baudrillard) himself noted, objects have a use, and the potential to be acted upon. They have the potential to be used, and so can also be ab-used. Pens, chairs, tables and buildings etcetera, all can be utilised because they have a use. To see 'us' as objects with a use, is frowned upon. We are not mere objects but are the kings of the universe! We act upon the world and have a free will, which we can use to choose what the objects in the world will be used for. We decide whether an object will be used, or ab-used. Humanity itself has no set use, except maybe turning oxygen back into nitrogen in order for the trees to live, but trees are still a objects which do not make any decisions in the world about what other objects will be used for.The lack of knowledge of what the use for animals is, I think, probably scares people the most. Trees' 'use' is to take the large quantities of nitrogen within this atmosphere, and use it to create oxygen for us to breathe, and therefore to live. Humanity takes trees, and changes their natural use, trees are ab-used as the objects' use is taken, and bent to one of mankinds choosing: the trees use will be to house us, or anything else that it is suitable for. Objectivity can be seen as a re-action to a learning that the person can be an object. Subjects do not see the person as an object, we are above that: we decide what objects' uses are and thus are above objectivity. We exist between the world, we stand on podiums within the gaps that have been left by objects, and we decided what the world is. We create a new world, a different world. At a glance it would seem that objectivity and subjectivity are seperate entities however they are both intwinned. While subjectivity is what can give us feelings such as pride, the knowledge that we are above objects, it is subjectivity which provides this arrogance. It is subjectivity that shapes the surrounding world into what it wants it to be without a care for an objects use and therefore whether the object is to be ab-used or not. It is objectivity that watches, learns, and understands the object(s), and then decides whether an object already has a use, or whether it is use-less. It is this same subjectivity which either then decides to leave the object to its use, or to ab-use the object, or to create a use for an object which has none, or to leave the object useless. It is objectivity that creates the boundaries and sets the rules: it is objectivity that decides objects' use, and either utilises the object, or abuses the object. The artist that Neitzche talks of in The Genealogy of Morals is the one that creates. It is the subject that creates things and gives them meaning that is the artist, while the object, the 'ruler' (that which sets the boundarys, marks the territories) that sets the limits, within which the subject can play. Any thoughts anyone? Any additions? I can't really think of how to present any one, major observation.
To be Subjective , would entail , a mental act occuring entirely in the mind . This is modified by personal bias . I am not sure what the hell you are talking about in most of your above post . If I was to consider an essay , folderol ; this would be an example of subjectivity . ---------------------
I have problems with those two statements of yours: Objectivity and the use of reason can be seen as cold and calculating, as one things is linked to another. Humanity itself has no set use, except maybe turning oxygen back into nitrogen in order for the trees to live, ... Those two statements are in my opinion contradictory to each other. Please explain.
Charles - you said "Even when we die the body can decay and become soil, the object can disappear, but the subject disappears much sooner! The object survives for longer and is therefore more eternal, and closer to truth than the subject." Some objective evidence for this subjective conjecture would be useful. It is highly debatable whether there is anything at all that can be called entirely objective, since one has to have a subjective awareness of it to know about it. It is (I think) usually accepted that all observation is theory-laden. And idealism is not yet dead.
