p.185
25
The Myths of Objectivism and Subjectivism
We have given an account of the way in which truth is based on understanding. We have argued that truth is always relative to a conceptual system, that any human conceptual system is mostly metaphorical in nature, and that, therefore, there is no fully objective, unconditional, or absolute truth. To many people raised in the culture of science or in other subcultures where absolute truth is taken for granted, this will be seen as a surrender to subjectivity and arbitrariness---to the Humpty-Dumpty notion that something means "just what I choose it to mean---neither more nor less." For the same reason, those who identify with the Romantic tradition may see any victory over objectivism as a triumph of imagination over science---a triumph of the view that each individual makes his own reality, free of any constraints.
Either of these views would be a misunderstanding based on the mistaken cultural assumption that the only alternative to objectivism is radical subjectivitythat is, either you believe in absolute truth or you can make the world in your own image. If you're not being objective, you're being subjective, and there is no third choice. We see ourselves as offering a third choice to the myths of objectivism and subjectivism.
Incidentally, we are not using the term "myth" in any derogatory way. Myths provide ways of comprehending experience; they give order to our lives. Like metaphors, myths are necessary for making sense of what goes on
p.186
around us. All cultures have myths, and people cannot function without myth any more than they can function without metaphor. And just as we often take the metaphors of our own culture as truths, so we often take the myths of our own culture as truths. The myth of objectivism is particularly insidious in this way. Not only does it purport not to be a myth, but it makes both myths and metaphors objects of belittlement and scorn: according to the objectivist myth, myths and metaphors cannot be taken seriously because they are not objectively true. As we will see, the myth of objectivism is itself not objectively true. But this does not make it something to be scorned or ridiculed. The myth of objectivism is part of the everyday functioning of every member of this culture. It needs to be examined and understood. We also think it needs to be supplemented--- not by its opposite, the myth of subjectivism, but by a new experientialist myth, which we think better fits the realities of our experience. In order to get clear about what an experientialist alternative would be like, we first need to examine the myths of objectivism and subjectivism in detail.
The myth of objectivism says that:
1. The world is made up of objects. They have properties independent of any people or other beings who experience them. For example, take a rock. It's a separate object and it's hard. Even if no people or other beings existed in the universe, it would still be a separate object and it would still be hard.
1. We get our knowledge of the world by experiencing the objects in it and getting to know what properties the objects have and how these objects are related to one another. For example, we find out that a rock is a separate object by looking at it, feeling it, moving it around, etc. We find out that it's hard by touching it, trying to squeeze it, kicking it, banging it against something softer, etc.
p.187
3. We understand the objects in our world in terms of categories and concepts. These categories and concepts correspond to properties the objects have in themselves (inherently) and to the relationships among the objects. Thus, we have a word "rock," which corresponds to a concept rock. Given a rock, we can tell that it is in the category rock and that a piano, a tree, or a tiger would not be. Rocks have inherent properties independent of any beings: they're solid, hard, dense, occur in nature, etc. We understand what a "rock" is in terms of these properties.
4. There is an objective reality, and we can say things that are objectively, absolutely, and unconditionally true and false about it. But, as human beings, we are subject to human error, that is, illusions, errors of perception, errors of judgment, emotions, and personal and cultural biases. We cannot rely upon the subjective judgments of individual people. Science provides us with a methodology that allows us to rise above our subjective limitations and to achieve understanding from a universally valid and unbiased point of view. Science can ultimately give a correct, definitive, and general account of reality, and, through its methodology, it is constantly progressing toward that goal.
5. Words have fixed meanings. That is, our language expresses the concepts and categories that we think in terms of. To describe reality correctly, we need words whose meanings are clear and precise, words that fit reality. These may be words that arise naturally, or they may be technical terms in a scientific theory.
6. People can be objective and can speak objectively, but they can do so only if they use language that is clearly and precisely defined, that is straightforward and direct, and that can fit reality. Only by speaking in this way can people communicate precisely about the external world and make statements that can be judged objectively to be true or false.
7. Metaphor and other kinds of poetic, fanciful, rhetorical, or figurative language can always be avoided in speaking objectively, and they should be avoided, since their
p.188
meanings are not clear and precise and do not fit reality in any obvious way.
8. Being objective is generally a good thing. Only objective knowledge is really knowledge. Only from an objective, unconditional point of view can we really understand ourselves, others, and the external world. Objectivity allows us to rise above personal prejudice and bias, to be fair, and to take an unbiased view of the world.
9. To be objective is to be rational; to be subjective is to be irrational and to give in to the emotions.
10. Subjectivity can be dangerous, since it can lead to losing touch with reality. Subjectivity can be unfair, since it takes a personal point of view and can, therefore, be biased. Subjectivity is self-indulgent, since it exaggerates the importance of the individual.
The Myth of Subjectivism
The myth of subjectivism says that:
1. In most of our everyday practical activities we rely on our senses and develop intuitions we can trust. When important issues arise, regardless of what others may say, our own senses and intuitions are our best guides for action.
2. The most important things in our lives are our feelings, aesthetic sensibilities, moral practices, and spiritual awareness. These are purely subjective. None of these is purely rational or objective.
3. Art and poetry transcend rationality and objectivity and put us in touch with the more important reality of our feelings and intuitions. We gain this awareness through imagination rather than reason.
4. The language of the imagination, especially metaphor, is necessary for expressing the unique and most personally significant aspects of our experience. In matters of personal understanding the ordinary agreed-upon meanings that words have will not do.
5. Objectivity can be dangerous, because it misses what
OBJECTIVISM AND SUBJECTIVISM 189
is most important and meaningful to individual people. Objectivity can be unfair, since it must ignore the most relevant realms of our experience in favor of the abstract, universal, and impersonal. For the same reason, objectivity can be inhuman. There are no objective and rational means for getting at our feelings, our aesthetic sensibilities, etc. Science is of no use when it comes to the most important things in our lives.
Fear of Metaphor
Objectivism and subjectivism need each other in order to exist. Each defines itself in opposition to the other and sees the other as the enemy. Objectivism takes as its allies scientific truth, rationality, precision, fairness, and impartiality. Subjectivism takes as its allies the emotions, intuitive insight, imagination, humaneness, art, and a "higher" truth. Each is master in its own realm and views its realm as the better of the two. They coexist, but in separate domains. Each of us has a realm in his life where it is appropriate to be objective and a realm where it is appropriate to be subjective. The portions of our lives governed by objectivism and subjectivism vary greatly from person to person and from culture to culture. Some of us even attempt to live our entire lives totally by one myth or the other.
In Western culture as a whole, objectivism is by far the greater potentate, claiming to rule, at least nominally, the realms of science, law, government, journalism, morality, business, economics, and scholarship. But, as we have argued, objectivism is a myth.
Since the time of the Greeks, there has been in Western culture a tension between truth, on the one hand, and art, on the other, with art viewed as illusion and allied, via its link with poetry and theater, to the tradition of persuasive public oratory. Plato viewed poetry and rhetoric with suspicion and banned poetry from his Utopian Republic be-
p.190
cause it gives no truth of its own, stirs up the emotions, and thereby blinds mankind to the real truth. Plato, typical of persuasive writers, stated his view that truth is absolute and art mere illusion by the use of a powerful rhetorical device, his Allegory of the Cave. To this day, his metaphors dominate Western philosophy, providing subtle and elegant expression for his view that truth is absolute. Aristotle, on the other hand, saw poetry as having a positive value: "It is a great thing, indeed, to make proper use of the poetic forms,... But the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor" (Poetics 1459a); "ordinary words convey only what we know already; it is from metaphor that we can best get hold of something fresh" (Rhetoric 1410b).
But although Aristotle's theory of how metaphors work is the classic view, his praise of metaphor's ability to induce insight was never carried over into modern philosophical thought. With the rise of empirical science as a model for truth, the suspicion of poetry and rhetoric became dominant in Western thought, with metaphor and other figurative devices becoming objects of scorn once again. Hobbes, for example, finds metaphors absurd and misleadingly emotional; they are ignes fatui; and reasoning upon them is wandering amongst innumerable absurdities; and their end, contention and sedition, or contempt" (Leviathan, pt. 1, chap. 5). Hobbes finds absurdity in "the use of metaphors, tropes, and other rhetorical figures, instead of words proper. For though it be lawful to say, for example in common speech, the way goeth, or leadeth hither, or thither; the proverb says this or that, whereas ways cannot go, nor proverbs speak; yet in reckoning, and seeking of truth, such speeches are not to be admitted" (ibid.).
Locke, continuing the empiricist tradition, shows the same contempt for figurative speech, which he views as a tool of rhetoric and an enemy of truth:
... if we would speak of things as they are, we must allow that all the art of rhetoric, besides order and clearness; all the artifi-
p.191
cial and figurative application of words eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgment; and so indeed are perfect cheats: and therefore, however laudable or allowable oratory may render them in harangues and popular addresses, they are certainly, in all discourses that pretend to inform or instruct, wholly to be avoided; and where truth and knowledge are concerned, cannot but be thought a great fault, either of the language or person that makes use of them.... It is evident how much men love to deceive and be deceived, since rhetoric, that powerful instrument of error and deceit, has its established professors, is publicly taught, and has always been had in great reputation. [Essay Concerning Human Understanding, bk. 3, chap. 10]
The fear of metaphor and rhetoric in the empiricist tradition is a fear of subjectivism---a fear of emotion and the imagination. Words are viewed as having "proper senses" in terms of which truths can be expressed. To use words metaphorically is to use them in an improper sense, to stir the imagination and thereby the emotions and thus to lead us away from the truth and toward illusion. The empiricist distrust and fear of metaphor is wonderfully summed up by Samuel Parker:
All those Theories in Philosophy which are expressed only in metaphorical Termes, are not real Truths, but the meer products of Imagination, dress'd up (like Childrens babies) in a few spangled empty words.... Thus their wanton and luxuriant fancies climbing up into the Bed of Reason, do not only defile it by unchaste and illegitimate Embraces, but instead of real conceptions and notices of Things, impregnate the mind with nothing but Ayerie and Subventaneous Phantasmes. [Free and Impartial Censure of the Platonick Philosophy (1666)]
As science became more powerful via technology and the Industrial Revolution became a dehumanizing reality, there occurred a reaction among poets, artists, and occasional philosophers: the development of the Romantic tradition. Wordsworth and Coleridge gladly left reason, science, and
p.192
objectivity to the dehumanized empiricists and exalted imagination as a more humane means of achieving a higher truth, with emotion as a natural guide to self-understanding. Science, reason, and technology had alienated man from himself and his natural environment, or so the Romantics alleged; they saw poetry, art, and a return to nature as a way for man to recover his lost humanity. Art and poetry were seen, not as products of reason, but as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." The result of this Romantic view was the alienation of the artist and poet from mainstream society.
The Romantic tradition, by embracing subjectivism, reinforced the dichotomy between truth and reason, on the one hand, and art and imagination, on the other. By giving up on rationality, the Romantics played into the hands of the myth of objectivism, whose power has continued to increase ever since. The Romantics did, however, create a domain for themselves, where subjectivism continues to hold sway. It is an impoverished domain compared to that of objectivism. In terms of real power in our society---in science, law, government, business, and the mediathe myth of objectivism reigns supreme. Subjectivism has carved out a domain for itself in art and perhaps in religion. Most people in this culture see it as an appendage to the realm of objectivism and a retreat for the emotions and the imagination.
The Third Choice: An Experientialist Synthesis
What we are offering in the experientialist account of understanding and truth is an alternative which denies that subjectivity and objectivity are our only choices. We reject the objectivist view that there is absolute and unconditional truth without adopting the subjectivist alternative of truth as obtainable only through the imagination, unconstrained by external circumstances. The reason we have focused so
P.193
much on metaphor is that it unites reason and imagination. Reason, at the very least, involves categorization, entail-ment, and inference. Imagination, in one of its many aspects, involves seeing one kind of thing in terms of another kind of thingwhat we have called metaphorical thought. Metaphor is thus imaginative rationality. Since the categories of our everyday thought are largely metaphorical and our everyday reasoning involves metaphorical entail-ments and inferences, ordinary rationality is therefore imaginative by its very nature. Given our understanding of poetic metaphor in terms of metaphorical entailments and inferences, we can see that the products of the poetic imagination are, for the same reason, partially rational in nature.
Metaphor is one of our most important tools for trying to comprehend partially what cannot be comprehended totally: our feelings, aesthetic experiences, moral practices, and spiritual awareness. These endeavors of the imagination are not devoid of rationality; since they use metaphor, they employ an imaginative rationality.
An experientialist approach also allows us to bridge the gap between the objectivist and subjectivist myths about impartiality and the possibility of being fair and objective. The two choices offered by the myths are absolute objectivity, on the one hand, and purely subjective intuition, on the other. We have seen that truth is relative to understanding, which means that there is no absolute standpoint from which to obtain absolute objective truths about the world. This does not mean that there are no truths; it means only that truth is relative to our conceptual system, which is grounded in, and constantly tested by, our experiences and those of other members of our culture in our daily interactions with other people and with our physical and cultural environments.
Though there is no absolute objectivity, there can be a kind of objectivity relative to the conceptual system of a culture. The point of impartiality and fairness in social P.194
matters is to rise above relevant individual biases. The point of objectivity in scientific experimentation is to factor out the effects of individual illusion and error. This is not to say that we can always, or even ever, be completely successful in factoring out individual biases to achieve complete objectivity relative to a conceptual system and a cultural set of values. It is only to say that pure subjective intuition is not always our only recourse. Nor is this to say that the concepts and values of a particular culture constitute the final arbiter of fairness within the culture. There may be, and typically are, transcultural concepts and values that define a standard of fairness very different from that of a particular culture. What was fair in Nazi Germany, for example, was not fair in the eyes of the world community. Closer to home, there are court cases that constantly involve issues of fairness across subcultures with conflicting values. Here the majority culture usually gets to define fairness relative to its values, but these mainstream cultural values change over time and are often subject to criticism by other cultures.
What the myths of objectivism and subjectivism both miss is the way we understand the world through our interactions with it. What objectivism misses is the fact that understanding, and therefore truth, is necessarily relative to our cultural conceptual systems and that it cannot be framed in any absolute or neutral conceptual system. Objectivism also misses the fact that human conceptual systems are metaphorical in nature and involve an imaginative understanding of one kind of thing in terms of another. What subjectivism specifically misses is that our understanding, even our most imaginative understanding, is given in terms of a conceptual system that is grounded in our successful functioning in our physical and cultural environments. It also misses the fact that metaphorical understanding involves metaphorical entailment, which is an imaginative form of rationality.