Objectivity is our security blanket

[coberst]

Objectivity is our security blanket

 

My second son, Mike, was a blanket boy. He spent a good part of his first 24 months with a thumb in his mouth and a blanket in his arms. If we left the house with Mike we checked and doubled check that we did not leave his ‘blanky’ behind. After 24 months the blanky was nothing more than a scrap of shredded cloth. He would not accept a substitute.

 

Absolute truth is our blanky. DickandJane become very anxious when their security blanket, i.e. absolute truth, is not in hand.

 

Objectivism is a fundamentalist philosophy. It believes that reality is something external to the brain and that the task of the brain is to gain knowledge about this external reality.

 

Right/wrong and true/false are considered to be objective criteria rather than subjective criteria. Objectivism posits perfect knowledge and assumes such knowledge is obtainable. I think that such views have been discredited.

 

The myth of objectivism says that: the world is made up of objects that have properties completely independent of those who perceive them; we understand our world through our consciously constructed concepts and categories; “we can say things that are objectively, absolutely true, and unconditionally true and false about it…we cannot rely upon subjective judgments…science can ultimately give a correct, definitive, and general account of reality”; words have fixed meaning that can describe reality correctly. To be objective is to be rational.

 

The myth of subjectivism informs us that our senses and intuition is our best guide. Feelings are the most important elements of our lives. Aesthetic sensibilities and moral practices are all totally subjective. “Art and poetry transcend rationality and objectivity and put us in touch with more important reality of our feelings and intuitions. We gain this awareness through imagination rather than reason…Science is of no use when it comes to the most important things in our lives.”

 

The new paradigm of cognitive science rejects both objectivism and subjectivism. I believe in this new cognitive science, which theorizes that objectivity is a shared subjectivity.

 

Objectivity is shared subjectivity. Objective truth is a misnomer; there is only shared truth/false and there is only shared good/bad.

 

Objectivity is shared subjectivity. We create reality in our brain. If you and I create the same reality then we have a shared subjectivity. We cannot know the thing-in-itself, as Kant informs us and is easily recognized if we focus upon it.

 

I would say that reality comes in two forms; the thing-in-itself is the reality that Kant informs us that we cannot know and then we have the reality that our brain creates. This reality we create is aided by the senses and is congruent with how our body interacts with the thing-in-itself. If the interaction between the thing-in-itself and the creature’s embodied mind is too far off--the creature quickly becomes toast.

 

Most people are objectivist in many ways; do you still comfort yourself with blanky?

 

Quotes from “Moral Imagination” Mark Johnson (coauthor of “Philosophy in the Flesh”)

[jedaisoul]

Objectivism is a fundamentalist philosophy. It believes that reality is something external to the brain and that the task of the brain is to gain knowledge about this external reality.

True, but everyone who believes this is not an Objectivist.

 

Right/wrong and true/false are considered to be objective criteria rather than subjective criteria. Objectivism posits perfect knowledge and assumes such knowledge is obtainable. I think that such views have been discredited.

This is true, but applies only to Objectivism, not to the belief in the existence of an "objective reality" in general.

 

To be objective is to be rational.

True.

 

Objectivity is shared subjectivity.

True.

 

Objective truth is a misnomer; there is only shared truth/false and there is only shared good/bad.

No:

• With the definition that you use (objectivity is a shared subjectivity), objective truth and shared truth are the same thing. If objective truth is a misnomer, then so is shared truth.
  
• What about observations, beliefs and statements? Where do they fit in your definition of truth?
  
• You have introduced "good" and "bad" without defining them.

 

Objectivity is shared subjectivity. We create reality in our brain.

Yes and no. We create a subjective reality in our brain. See below...

 

I would say that reality comes in two forms; the thing-in-itself is the reality that Kant informs us that we cannot know and then we have the reality that our brain creates. This reality we create is aided by the senses and is congruent with how our body interacts with the thing-in-itself.

I would say (using your terminology) that reality comes in three forms:

• subjective reality (or subjective truths) - created in our minds.
  
• objective reality (or shared truths) - shared between individuals.
  
• reality - the "thing-in-itself".

All three can be describes as "realities", but I think that this terminology is potentially misleading to the reader. I would suggest that it is preferable to use the terms "subjective truths" and "objective truths", so that the term "reality" is reserved for "the thing-in-itself".

 

This is simply a matter of words, but it avoids statements like "we create reality in our brain", which is true, but may suggest to the unwary reader that we create reality (a.k.a. "the thing-in-itself") in our brains. That is definitely not correct. So I would prefer to say "we create subjective truths in our brain". It means the same thing, but is much less open to misinterpretation.

[coberst]

jed...

 

 

I agree with much that you say. It seems that what you and I have discovered is the fact that we do not have a vocabulary suitable for focusing clearly on the errors of objectivism. I guess that it is not surprising since our a priori philosophy has prepared us only for that mode of thought.