Are all things either objective or subjective?
No. This distinction may be sufficient for everyday use. But when we want to explain a cultural phenomenon, this dichotomy is too simplistic, because cultural entities are socially constructed, they are neither objective nor subjective, but something in between.
An objective phenomenon exists independently of human consciousness and human beliefs (be it an individual or the whole of humanity). Example: Measles is caused by a virus, tuberculosis is caused by bacteria. These are facts, representations of a reality "out there", whether we believe or know this reality or not.
The subjective is something that exists depending on the consciousness and beliefs of an individual. My political opinion, my personal tastes, my memories... all these "things" are subjective, they depend on a subject, in this case it is "me". If I think that "Life of Brian" is the funniest movie ever, so be it, nobody can prove my wrong.
But most cultural "things" are inter-subjective:
"The inter-subjective is something that exists within the communication network linking the subjective consciousness of many individuals. Inter-subjective phenomena are neither malevolent frauds nor insignificant charades. They exist in a different way from physical phenomena such as radioactivity, but their impact on the world may still be enormous. Many of history’s most important drivers are inter-subjective: law, money, gods, nations.
Similarly, the dollar, human rights and the United States of America exist in the shared imagination of billions, and no single individual can threaten their existence. If I alone were to stop believing in the dollar, in human rights, or in the United States, it wouldn’t much matter. These imagined orders are inter-subjective, so in order to change them we must simultaneously change the consciousness of billions of people, which is not easy." (from "Sapiens" by Yuval Noah Harari)
Take for example law or language (e.g. the meaning of words): It is obvious that they are not objective, because they depend on the minds of human beings. And they change, be it slowly and unintentionally, or per fiat (a legislative authority promulgates a new law or changes an existing law). But they are not "subjective" because a given subject cannot change them (unless we espouse the rather mystical idea that a whole society is a "subject" ). From the point of view of individual subjects (the only kind of subjects that exist), laws or the meanings of words (or grammatical structures) are "quasi-objective", they exist "out there" and they continue to exist even if I stop believing in them, because they exist in the minds of thousands, maybe millions or billions of other people.
The realm of inter-subjective entities, or "imagined orders", as Harari calls them, is the sphere of cultural conflicts, because what is "objective" for group A is "subjective" for group B. Religions are the best examples for this kind of conflict. Countries are another example. Before a dedicated group of like-minded men created the United States of America, this "thing" did not exist. Their challenge was to convince enough other individuals of their belief. If they had failed and if the idea of an independent country called USA never had taken root in the minds of a critical mass of other men and women, the USA would not exist. But this idea did take root in the mind of billions of people (is there anyone who denies its existence?), and therefore its existence is quasi-objective; not really objective, because countries - unlike true facts - can cease to exist (Soviet Union, Yugoslavia...). Mostly these "imagined orders" do not simply vanish but are replaced by another imagined order (the Deutsche Mark ceased, but was replaced by the Euro)
Therefore it would be a great progress if everybody acknowledged that the dichotomy objective/subjective is dangerously simplistic and cannot be applied to everything (to every thing), but that a lot of "things" we are talking, discussing, arguing, fighting about are neither nor, but inter-subjective.
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9 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.I agree completely with your point and that of Harari's. One thing that I think it is important to understand about inter-subjectivity as Harari describes it is that it requires an infrastructure of shared narrative. That's a point that I think you might have missed emphasizing in your description and what is causing some confusion in the discussion of this topic by others. If a change is made by fiat, the reason why this becomes an inter-subjective fact is that all the people who it affects already believe in the narrative that they should accept the results of the fiat, and the change exists in a continuum of other changes that have already occurred, and so makes sense.
The proof of this is that if you went to a primitive island culture unconnected from everyone else and started telling them that they have to start using money like everyone else (as an example of a fiat) they would look at you like you have five heads. They wouldn't even know what money is, much less accept anything you had to say about it. It would be total fairy tale to them. There is nothing whatsoever objective about money, but it is also not just a personal fantasy. It is a collective fantasy that we all agree to share because we share an overarching narrative about nations, economic systems, who gets to control it, how the tokens receive their value, etc. We could try to unilaterally deny it, of course, but then we just would be unable to participate in exchange with others who accept the useful fiction.
ejbman
Level 7
Jan 30, 2019
0
@Matias You make excellent points. Regarding fiat specifically, check out the current situation in Venezuela: despite the putative authority of the dictator, they are about to oust him (hopefully).
You might be interested in mapping Harari's concept of intersubjective reality onto Richard Dawkins concept of the meme (as originally described in The Selfish Gene in the late 1970s). The theory very nicely offers a granular view of cultural evolution.
The idea of intersubjectivity is interesting and useful, but I don’t see it as any new kind of “reality”.
If I have a dream, that dream is subjective, but the fact that I had the dream is objective. If every human on earth has the same dream at the same time, besides being a very strange event, all of those dreams are still 100% subjective, and the fact that everyone had it is still 100% objective. I don’t see any hybrid “reality”. When the majority of the population was convinced the earth was flat, that idea was subjective. That the earth was really spherical was, through it all, an objective fact. It mattered not at all how many people held subjective imagery to the contrary.
Intersubjective delusions are certainly more persistent because it’s harder to educate seven billion people than to educate one, but the delusion is no less subjective.
skado
Level 9
Jan 29, 2019
0
@Matias
I don’t have a problem with the term inter-subjective, and I don’t disagree with what you’re saying here, other than I’d probably use the word practical rather than essential.
If you have ten billion mosquitoes in your house, it’s a very different “practical” issue than if you have two mosquitoes in your house, but the mosquitoes, in either case, are “essentially” the same creatures. The only difference is the numbers.
If the entire population believes something that isn’t true, you have a very different “practical” challenge on your hands than when only one person believes incorrectly. But the “essence” of beliefs is exactly the same (subjective) regardless of number.
@Matias
The only difference I see in those two scenarios is that one is the individual self having a subjective impulse and following through with an objective act, and the other is the collective self having a subjective impulse and following through with an objective act.
Feeling for the beggar is subjective. Giving the euro is objective. Your individual feelings ruled that you give the euro. A majority, feeling a tenth is an appropriate percentage to donate, is subjective. Passing a law to enforce it is objective.
In a sense, the individual is just a smaller collective. We know now that the mind is not just one thing, but a collection of connected systems, or “voices”. I may struggle with myself feeling sympathy for the beggar but remembering I need to retain enough change for the taxi ride home. There are always external practicalities that bear on moral impulses, whether individual or collective. Whether an impulse ‘comes and goes’ or ‘rules’ depends more on which voices end up with more influence, than on whether they are individual or collective. Plenty of political groundswells never reach critical mass and become law.
The two scenarios feel different. One feels like you control it and the other feels like it is coming from outside of you. And indeed the other subjective feelings do occur outside of your individual self, though not outside of your collective self. But it is the consequence of the law that you feel, and the law is indeed objective. But it was created by the collective subjective (or intersubjective if you prefer) which is no different in essence from your individual subjective other than in the fact that you aren’t the person feeling it, and that it is greater in number.
Seems like you are getting a lot of your thoughts from this Sapians book.. which would be a good example of intersubjectivity.
I personally don't think it matters. It's all about being overly anal and playing semantics. Intersubjectivity is still just subjective. I mean, sure.. people acquire and share many things with society, but it still boils down to the individual. For example, an individual can be raised by society to know that stealing is wrong. As the individual continues their life, they can alter this as the see fit. I think stealing is wrong, but have no qualms about stealing from corporations. Stealing from an individual is bad, stealing from a corporation out of necessity isn't good, but isn't bad either.
If everything about humanity just has to be either subjective or intersubjective.. we wouldn't have different sects in religions. That just proves that at one point an individual broke off from the group and formed their own set of beliefs. So really, I don't think it matters if you use subjective or intersubjective.. it's all the same shit with a different label.
FatherOfNyx
Level 7
Jan 29, 2019
2
Yes that all seems reasonable and I would go with it, although, I have to say that my usage has always been Objective, Subjective and Cultural, rather than inter-subjective. Since I can not see anything inter-subjective as you define it, which is not cultural, nor anything cultural which is not in your inter-subjective. It has also been called the great necissary lies, I do not know that we need another word adding.
Fernapple
Level 9
Jan 29, 2019
0
This is just semantics and nothing else. You can use the distinction but it doesn't add anything of value. But there are also some problems with it. How many people does it need believing in a thing to call it "intersubjective"? Is two enough?
If no, you encounter the sorites paradox.
If yes, is there not also a difference between a whole language, laws, morality ect. and a shared belief of only two people?
Dietl
Level 7
Jan 29, 2019
0
@Matias I also have some semantics for you. Here, from wiki article about subjectivity: "Some information, idea, situation, or physical thing considered true only from the perspective of a subject or subjects." Note the plural 'subjects' here. I did not conjure out of thin air that subjective is a vague term. Acting like this is a settled issue and that one usage of the word is correct and the other wrong is closed minded.
Sociology doesn't rely on exact definitions of 'group' ect. because it only wants to make general predictions not exact ones. A group is just an idea that is useful for understanding the world, to make things easier, it's a heuristic. Groups don't exist in an objective sense and there is no real reason not to call two people a group. If you want to use 'intersubjective' in that sense that's fine but don't act like there is a real and tangible difference in your distinction. Individual ideas can also be resilient, evolve, not vanish for a long time and be kept alive through communication.
I don't see any value in this terminology. Maybe you can come up with some actual arguments to change my mind instead of just dogmatically stating that it is the truth. But to be blunt considering some other arguments I had with you I won't hold my breath
Interesting. But rather than claiming that such "intersubjective things" are neither subjective nor objective, might not one say that they are neither exclusively subjective nor objective but rather a combination of both?
Wallace
Level 7
Jan 29, 2019
0
The inter-subjective category has great explanatory power; thanks for this post. What would be worth exploring further would be the conditions needed for changes in inter subjective realities. For example, in the west traditional religions are in decline and in the east they are on the rise (eg China).
Doubting
Level 6
Jan 29, 2019
1
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