In Ancient philosophy Aristotle's teacher
Plato considered
geometry to be a condition of
his idealist philosophy concerned with
universal truth. In Plato's
Republic,
Socrates opposes the sophist
Thrasymachus's relativistic account of justice, and argues that justice is mathematical in its conceptual structure, and that ethics was therefore a precise and objective enterprise with impartial standards for truth and correctness, like geometry. The rigorous mathematical treatment Plato gave to moral concepts set the tone for the western tradition of moral objectivism that came after him. His contrasting between objectivity and
opinion became the basis for philosophies intent on resolving the questions of
reality,
truth, and
existence. He saw opinions as belonging to the shifting sphere of
sensibilities, as opposed to a fixed, eternal and knowable
incorporeality. Where Plato distinguished between
how we know things and their
ontological status,
subjectivism such as
George Berkeley's depends on
perception. In
Platonic terms, a criticism of subjectivism is that it is difficult to distinguish between knowledge, opinions, and
subjective knowledge. 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. 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).
Religion One way that subjectivity has been conceptualized by philosophers such as Kierkegaard is in the context of
religion. Foucault and Derrida denied the idea of subjectivity in favor of their ideas of
constructs in order to account for differences in human thought. Partially in response to
Kant's
rationalism, logician
Gottlob Frege applied objectivity to his epistemological and metaphysical philosophies. If reality exists independently of
consciousness, then it would logically include a plurality of
indescribable forms. Objectivity requires a definition of
truth formed by propositions with
truth value. An attempt of forming an objective
construct incorporates
ontological commitments to the reality of objects. 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.
In 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
Leopold von Ranke (19th century) have advocated for the use of extensive
evidence –especially
archived physical paper documents– to recover the bygone past, claiming that, as opposed to people's memories, objects remain stable in what they say about the era they witnessed, and therefore represent a better insight into
objective reality. 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.
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. 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."
Trouillot The anthropologist
Michel-Rolph Trouillot developed the concepts of historicity 1 and 2 to explain the difference between the
materiality of
socio-
historical processes (H1) and the narratives that are told about the materiality of socio-historical processes (H2). This distinction hints that H1 would be understood as the
factual reality that elapses and is captured with the concept of "
objective truth", and that H2 is the collection of
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. 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). 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. 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.
Scientific objectivity is practicing science while intentionally reducing
partiality, biases, or external influences. Moral objectivity is the concept of moral or ethical codes being compared to one another through a set of universal facts or a universal perspective and not through differing conflicting perspectives.
Journalistic objectivity is the reporting of facts and news with minimal personal bias or in an impartial or politically neutral manner. ==See also==