On Meaning, Mathematics, and Space It has been held that a good amount of philosophy revolves around a clash or competition between subjective and objective conceptions of things.[1] For present purposes we can understand this contrast as consisting in an opposition between conceptions of things from a personal (first-person) point of view and conceptions of […]
Curious I wrote the notes for the previous four pieces on objective and subjective in Cozumel, a beautiful island with a limpid sea surrounding it. Would that they were as clear as that water! I am curious whether readers find them unusually difficult or as clear as Cozumel.
Ethical Socialism I posed the problem of the indispensability of ethics, remarking that no ethical theory I know of has a solution to it.[1] It seems that we prize ethics above even prudence, logic, and sanity; we can’t live without it. This is puzzling—surely, you don’t have to be good to be happy! Acting ethically […]
A Program Delineated I laid out the general form of a philosophical program in “Philosophy of Objective and Subjective”; here I will enumerate some instances of how this program might be pursued. Please don’t expect much beyond the suggestive and superficial, indeed list-like. The main aim will be to identify the possible subjective basis of […]
Philosophy of Objective and Subjective If concepts divide into the objective and the subjective, it should be possible to conduct a survey of them and assign them accordingly. We should be able to group and rank them according to their objective or subjective character. This would be an exercise in conceptual analysis—not analysis into components […]
A Paradox of Objectivity and Subjectivity We normally suppose that our thoughts concern an objective world. We are capable of thinking about things outside the mind. There is a mind-independent world and we can make cognitive contact with that world by deploying our concepts. I can form conceptions of things that exist outside my mind. […]
Objective and Subjective Knowledge We must first make a firm distinction between objective and subjective facts, on the one hand, and objective and subjective conceptions of facts, on the other.[1] That is, we must distinguish the application of these terms to the world (objects, properties) from their application to mental representations of the world (perceptions, […]
Brain Specialization and Cognitive Closure Is the human brain intellectually limited? How limited might it be? Is it also limited emotionally and athletically and artistically? Suppose we ask the same question about the parts of the brain, the various functional structures gathered into a single brain—are they limited? For example, can the visual cortex perform […]
It is possible to describe humankind in the objective terms favored by orthodox zoology and biology. You can describe the human being in scrupulously behavioral terms, stressing his anatomy, physiology, and evolution. It can be quite illuminating to do so, and not untrue. For example, you can describe human sexuality this way (Desmond Morris does […]
Ethical Life Here is an interesting fact about the ethical life: it is not optional. Any satisfactory ethical theory ought to explain this fact, and I’m not sure any do. It isn’t a life-style choice, or a personal preference, or even a vocation; it’s non-negotiable. You have to be moral—no ifs, ands, and buts. You […]