Saturday, August 10, 2024

FT24015: Subjectivity is for the Individual

     Subjectivity opens the world to many interpretations. This contrasts with objectivity which one hopes to reduce the possibilities to something single. Our hopes to achieve objectivity can be seen in our language when we reduce names to something specific. Example: indexed nomenclature to name a star rather than using mythological names. Language is so important because we are trying to isolate something specific and share it. This barrier only exists when ideas need to be shared and we want to partake in objectivity.

    When we are isolated as a single thinker the terms we use for our own thoughts matters little. If we obscure the meaning of something in multiple ways it is a product of muddled thoughts that wouldn't benefit with a precise name. Many philosophies that promote the individual acknowledge precision is pointless and see reality as the manifestation of the will.

    This odd feature contradicts the philosopher who abhors the mob trope that you can see in thinkers like Plato and Kierkegaard. Objectivity seems to be a particular type of mob that agrees on all the definitions and premises that logic reasoning will start with. 

    There is also the trope of the free-thinking individual who sees things clearly and doesn't integrate to a group setting because the group is misled. When one chooses this path they are often seen as neurotic and irrational because the established starting points do not apply to them. Philosophies of the individual often appropriate this neuroticism as what is most real. 

    One illustration of this is how existentialism lacks a clearly defined book of ethics like Kant's "Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals" or Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics." Seeing reality as the song we sing much like Nietzsche does leads not only to subjectivity but also to irrationality in the way Lukacs formulates.

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