Holy Cyclops

I normally try to show what’s wrong with subjectivism, but let me try to think of what a subjectivist might say in response to criticisms.  (I’ll note that there are what one might call “hard subjectivists,” who deny that there is an objectively existing reality, and “soft subjectivists,” who merely don’t commit themselves one way or the other.)  I do want to note that subjectivism is not the same thing as perspectivalism.  We objectivists agree that different human beings perceive the world differently (some have sharper vision than others, some experience synesthesia, some see the world from a greater height than others) and interpret what they perceive differently.  We agree that our experiences affect how we think of what we perceive—that our conceptualizations of the world differ.  Each of us has his own perspective.  That’s not what the objectivist opposes.  The objectivist opposes the notion that nothing exists independently of his own mind.

1)  How does one explain the patterns and regularities of his personal experience? 

The objectivist explains them by saying that there is an objectively existing reality that has a certain structure, and that the structure of that reality causes events to occur in a lawlike way, and that we human beings perceive the lawlike occurrences of that reality (albeit indirectly), and that it therefore makes sense that our sensory qualia also occur in a lawlike way.  I never see objects fall up because my visual qualia reflect the gravitational aspect of objectively existing reality.

The subjectivist may explain them by saying that his internal world, his phenomenal reality, has a certain structure, and that the structure of that phenomenal reality causes his sensory qualia to occur in a lawlike way.

2)  How does one explain intersubjectivity? 

The objectivist’s explanation is that there really are other people who are on an existential par with himself, and that, having subjectivity himself, he assumes that other people, who seem similar to him in biological construction and physical behavior, and with whom he seems able to communicate, are not mindless robots but do also have mental lives.

It seems a bit tougher for the subjectivist.  If he claims that other people do have subjectivity, then he seems to be saying that the appearances of people in his mind have subjectivity.  They then seem to be portions of his own mind that are inaccessible to him directly, and that are only indirectly accessible to him, via the appearance of communication.  Moreover, if he thinks that their subjectivity includes the appearance of him, the subjectivist himself, then it seems as though we get a vicious loop:  Another person’s subjectivity is a hidden part of the subjectivist’s own mind, but the subjectivist’s own subjectivity is then a hidden part of that other person’s subjectivity, which is in turn a hidden part of the subjectivist’s own subjectivity; which is contained in which?  Intersubjectivity is, then, hard for the subjectivist to explain.

What the subjectivist can  say is something different:  Not that other people really do have subjectivity, but rather that the appearances of other people in his mind appear to talk and appear to act as though  they were subjective; he can treat those appearances as though they were subjective without actually claiming subjectivity for them.  (Notice that this has implications for ethics:  In circumstances in which the subjectivist has no expectation that his actions with respect to another person will have any consequences for himself beyond the action itself, why should he be kind or concern himself with the other person’s feelings?  It’s not as though the other person actually *had* feelings, after all.)  He may, in so doing, say that he is doing no more than is justified by the appearances—and the objectivist must agree that he doesn’t have direct knowledge of other people’s mental lives, and must agree that he only assumes that they have them by ostension.  But does the subjectivist really want to claim that other people don’t have thoughts or feelings?

3)  How is empirical error possible? 

The objectivist who says, “I was mistaken about X,” can say that there was an objective fact of the matter about X and that he misperceived that fact.

The subjectivist has a harder time of it.  He can hardly be mistaken about his own appearances!  What he might say is that he thought that X was so (X appeared to be so), but that various appearances of people appear to be telling him that he’s mistaken, and that on that basis he agrees to use the words, “I was mistaken about X,” even though he couldn’t have been mistaken about the appearance of X; or he might say that he thought that X was so (X appeared to be so), but that now X isn’t so (X no longer appears to be so), and that on that basis he uses the words, “I was mistaken about X,” instead of, “The appearances about X have changed.”  But in neither case is he really reporting an instance of being mistaken; nor could he be.  One can’t be mistaken about one’s own appearances.

The subjectivist’s best course might be to deny that there is such a thing as empirical error—to say that empirical error would require objective facts of matters, and that in the absence of such objective facts of matters, there simply is no empirical error. 

4)  How does one explain the existence of facts or knowledge that he himself is personally unaware of? 

The objectivist says that there is an objectively existing reality comprising a great many facts, and that he himself only knows a few of them—but the ones he doesn’t know are still facts, by virtue of their objective existence, and other objectively existing people may very well know some of those facts that he himself doesn’t know.

The subjectivist denies that there are any facts outside of his awareness, and unless he comes up with a subjectivist account of intersubjectivity, denies that there is any knowledge outside of himself.    He is then committed to denying that scientific research has discovered any facts that he has not himself heard about or read about; he is committed to denying that those people of whose existence he is unaware do not exist.  (There remains the question of whether his being vaguely aware of scientific research, without being aware of its specifics, suffices for him to accept that there are specific facts that he has not himself heard about or read about; there remains the question of whether individuals of whom he is not personally aware may nevertheless exist as part of a class of which he is aware—whether he may admit that individual Chinese people exist, on the basis of knowing that a Chinese population exists, without being aware of particular individuals.)  It seems as though the subjectivist is committed to claiming that all that exists is what he personally is aware of.

5)  How does one account for past events and knowledge of past events beyond his own personal experience? 

The objectivist thinks that temporality is part of objectively existing reality (whether he thinks that past and future objectively exist or not), and that past events really happened and that we can garner objectively existing evidence of what has really happened.

The subjectivist can accommodate talk about a past beyond his personal experience by allowing that the appearances of people appear to talk about a long-gone past and that appearances of people appear to identify various objects as being very old, and so on, and by saying that he simply agrees to talk in conformity with the conventions of those appearances; but, as in (4), it seems difficult for the subjectivist to go beyond that and to discuss an actual remote past.  Any time when he was not conscious seems to be nonexistent, for the subjectivist—including last night, when he was asleep.  

 6)  How does one account for technological progress?

The objectivist thinks that objectively existing people have made real scientific and technological advances, resulting in our having refrigerators and cell phones and laptop computers.

The subjectivist seems to be in a bit tougher spot.  He may say that it is part of the structure of his subjective reality that the appearances will alter over time in the direction of the appearance of technological progress, but otherwise, it’s hard to see how he explains it.  Unless he personally works in the factory where cell phones are made, he can’t appeal to the workings of people and machines to make them (because those people’s actions and those machines’ actions aren’t part of his personal subjective reality), and he must say that the appearances of technological goodies in the appearances of stores just appear, without explanation.

He might say that he has the idea of people’s and machines’ acting to make cell phones, and that he has the idea of people’s making scientific and technological breakthroughs, and that those ideas are part of his subjective reality; but it’s unclear how his having those ideas accounts for the appearance of a cell phone in his subjective reality, unless he again makes appeal to the structure of his internal, subjective reality.

It seems to me that the idea of an objectively existing reality serves to explain a lot, while the subjectivist view is beset with difficulties. 

On the Darwin Awards Forums (at http://forum.darwinawards.com ), I’m taking part in a few threads in which the question of whether there is such a thing as an objectively existing reality, and the question of whether or not we can know anything about it if it does exist, have arisen.  To my astonishment, about half of the authors in those threads are, or say they are, subjectivists:  They do not accept that there is an objectively existing reality.

To be fair, it seems that some of them take the quite natural position that we cannot know, with certainty, that there is an objectively existing reality external to ourselves, and that even if there is, we cannot know, with certainty, what it is like.  We could be brains in vats, being stimulated by some mad scientist; we could be hallucinating.  We have no way to know, with certainty; moreover, we have no way of assigning a probability to the existence of an objective reality:  How, after all, does one assign a probability to the alternative possibility of our hallucinating all of reality?  Most of the DAF’s subjectivists seem to think that as a practical matter, we operate as though there were an objectively existing reality, and simply refuse to say that we absolutely know there is.  

But for some reason, the word “objective” makes them quail.  When I say that I make the assumption that there is an objectively existing reality, they immediately react as though I were wrong to do so.  The word “objective” seems to make them think that I have in mind not only that there is an objectively existing reality but also that I have complete and certain knowledge of it—which, of course, is not at all what I have in mind.  I only have in mind that there are apples and tables and chairs whose existence does not depend on my perceiving them or thinking about them, and that will go on existing if I turn my back or walk away or go to sleep or die, and that other people can also perceive.  Our subjectivists say that I’m assuming too much—that I have no basis for assuming that there is an objectively existing reality.  But if there were no objectively existing reality, how could one explain the patterns and regularities of our sensory qualia?  How could one explain intersubjectivity—as the telepathic sharing of a mental world?  How could one explain the possibility of error in empirical claims?  How could one explain the usefulness of our mental maps if there were no territory being mapped—if there were no correspondence between the structure of a person’s mental map and the structure of the territory?  An objectively existing reality looks like a good bet to me. 

When did “objective” become a bad word?  When did subjectivism take such hold?  I’m baffled.