Subjectivism

“ Subjectivism, in that it proposes to conceive the whole of reality as consciousness, must attempt to reduce physical, moral, and logical relations to that co-presence in consciousness from which they are so sharply distinguished in their very definition. ”

“ Objectivism and Subjectivism. It always has been, and still is, the firm conviction of unbiassed men,—a conviction which irresistibly forces itself upon us,—that in our intellectual perception and thought we grasp an objective, exterior order of things, an existence distinct from our thought; of this objective reality we reproduce an image in our minds, and thus grasp it intellectually. Cognitio est similitudo rei, says the old school; that is, Knowledge is [pg 034] the reproduction of an objective reality, which thus becomes the criterion of cognition. ”

“ Its favourite formula are expressions such as, “We know only the modifications of our own consciousness,” “All we know is our own perceptions,” “Nothing exists but states of consciousness.” These formulæ are not all obviously identical in meaning, but the exponents of Subjectivism seem to use them without any conscious distinction, and we shall probably do the theory no injustice if we criticise it on the assumption that the expressions are meant to be of identical signification. ”

“ But we have found that this objective, or the whole external universe, cannot become a thought at all, unless we blend and identify with it the subjective, or the whole mind of man. And we have also found that this subjective, or the whole mind of man, cannot become a thought at all, unless we blend and identify with it the objective, or the whole external universe. So that—instead of the question as it originally stood, What is the nature of the connexion which subsists between the mind of man and the external world?—in other words, between the subjective and the objective of perception? ”

“ If, on the other hand, we consider subjectivity, we find that subjective knowledge and will is thought. But by the very act of thoughtful cognition and volition, I will the universal object—the substance of absolute Reason. We observe, therefore, an essential union between the objective side—the Idea, and the subjective side—the personality that conceives and wills it. The objective existence of this union is the State, which is therefore the basis and centre of the other concrete elements of the life of a people—of art, of law, of morals, of religion, of science. ”

“ The objective statement, however true, is no measure of subjective fact, but this twisting of subjective fact to correspond with objective order is so embedded in language and common thought that it will perhaps always remain the form of ordinary thinking, like common-sense realism and geocentric appearance. ”

“ If such a suggestion were effectively impressed upon our subjective mind, then by the fundamental law of our nature our subjective mind would act in strict accordance with this suggestion, with the result that the objective mind would no longer be separated from it, and that we should carry with us into the unseen our whole mentality, both subjective and objective, and so be able to exercise our inductive powers of selection and initiative as well there as here. ”

“ But the highly advanced individuals of whom I am now speaking have passed over with a true knowledge of the Law of the relation between subjective and objective mind and have therefore brought with them a subjective knowledge of this truth; and therefore, however otherwise in a certain sense happy, they must still be conscious of a fundamental limitation which prevents their further advance. ”

“ All objective is immediately reduced by man, by subconscious or conscious process, into subjective, so that we may for the sake of convenience talk of subjective and objective phases of reality, the subjective being human, partial, progressive, the objective being divine, absolute, and final. ”

“ It becomes, therefore, the most important of all considerations with what character we invest the Universal Mind; for since our relation to it is purely subjective it will infallibly bear to us exactly that character which we impress upon it; in other words it will be to us exactly what we believe it to be. This is simply a logical inference from the fact that, as subjective mind, our primary relation to it can only be on the subjective plane, and indirectly our objective relations must also spring from the same source. ”

“ In the notion of the absolute subjectivity, on the contrary, this opposition between substantive universality and personality is inherent, an opposition, whose consummated mediation the subjective ideality perfects with its substance, exalting thereby the substantive presence to the articulate and absolute subject of self-knowledge and volition. ”

“ Hence it has been said,
By Hui Tzŭ. 'The objective emanates from the subjective; the subjective is consequent upon the objective. This is the Alternation Theory.' Nevertheless, when one is born, the other dies. ”

“ If, indeed, the tendency of these remarks is justifiable, then unavoidably the subjective element, which is beauty, must coalesce with the objective, which is truth; and sociology mast be neither art simply, nor science in the narrow meaning of the word at all, but knowledge rendered imaginatively, and with an element of personality that is to say, in the highest sense of the term, literature. ”

“ But the objective plus the subjective constitutes such a unit or minimum: because if the objective part be entirely removed from the object of our knowledge, and if the mind be left with no thing or thought before it, it can have no cognition—so if the subjective part, or itself, be entirely removed from the mind's observation, the cognition equally disappears, to whatever extent we may suppose the mere objective part of the presentation to be still before us. ”

“ Yet men speak of the subjective point of view. But this subjective point of view will not bear the test. It is a point of knowledge we cannot reach.
Individual standards are fallacious. What is subjective from one point of view is objective from another. ”

“ And further such subjectivity regarded as itself wholly ideal is nothing more than a one-sided and abstract presentment of it, which as such retains a something else, an opposed other over against it, namely, objectivity, and only becomes subjectivity in the profounder significance of its truth, in so far as it enters into this opposing other-than-itself, overcomes it and resolves it. And for this reason in the world of reality it is to the higher natures that power is given to endure the pain of that fundamental contradiction of conscious life and to overcome it. ”

“ Now my thinking, my reason, is not something specially belonging to me, but something common to all rational beings, something universal; so far therefore as I proceed as a rational and thinking person, my subjectivity is an universal subjectivity. Every thinking person has the consciousness that what he regards as right, duty, good, evil, &c., presents itself not merely to him as such, but also to every rational person, and that, consequently, his judgment possesses the character of universality, universal validity: in one word, Objectivity. ”

“ There is, I am aware, a disposition to believe that a person who sees in moral obligation a transcendental fact, an objective reality belonging to the province of "Things in themselves," is likely to be more obedient to it than one who believes it to be entirely subjective, having its seat in human consciousness only. But whatever a person's opinion may be on this point of Ontology, the force he is really urged by is his own subjective feeling, and is exactly measured by its strength. ”

“ The objective, on the contrary, contains the foundation of its being within itself; it is in and for itself,—it is, as it is, because it is. The subjective appears as the still and passive mirror of the objective ”

“ And inasmuch as the subjective is also objective, and the objective also subjective, and as the contraries under each are indistinguishably blended, does it not become impossible for us to say whether subjective and objective really exist at all? ”

“ Conceptions rooted in the very elements of our being, in our senses, intellect, and imagination, which had shaped themselves through many generations under a constant fire of observation and disillusion, these were to be called subjective, not only in the sense in which all knowledge must obviously be so, since it is knowledge that someone possesses and has gained, but subjective in a disparaging sense, and in contrast to some better form of knowledge. ”

“ No man ever before possessed the subjective power that he did. And yet, unlike most of those of modern times who are exceptionally endowed with that power, his objective faculties and his subjective powers seem to have been harmoniously balanced and developed. This is shown by his perfect moral character and attributes. It is demonstrated by the fact that his subjective mind was always under the perfect control of his reason. In these respects he presents a most striking contrast to the great majority of persons, especially of the present day, who are in possession of great subjective powers. ”

“ Subject and object are set over against each other, and the question is how they can be brought into agreement. Hence arises the fruitless attempt to clothe purely subjective phenomena with objective reality. ”

“ It is ‘objective;’ and this means that it does not stand over against the outer world as mere ‘subject’ confronted by mere ‘object.’ In that sense of the words it is neither merely ‘objective’ nor merely ‘subjective;’ but it is that real identity of subject and object, which, as we have seen, is the only thing that satisfies our desires. ”

“ The subjective idea as original and objective determinateness, and as a simple uniform content, is the Good. Its impulse towards self-realisation is in its behaviour the reverse of the idea of truth, and rather directed towards moulding the world it finds before it into a shape conformable to its purposed End.—This Volition has, on the one hand, the certitude of the nothingness of the pre-supposed object; but, on the other, as finite, it at the same time pre-supposes the purposed End of the Good to be a mere subjective idea, and the object to be independent. ”

“ Such a conflict between the subjective content and the objective, reality which confronts it, no less than the mere impulse to transcend the opposition, is a universal characteristic of the determination of all self-conscious life [182] . Even that aspect of human life which we call physical, and still more that world of man's spiritual aims and interests depends on this necessity to carry forward that which is at first purely subjective and ideal into the objective world, that a fuller satisfaction in its essential substance may be realized. ”

“ With what organ of knowledge is this contradiction established?...
The fact that a world which is accessible to our organs is also understood to be dependent upon these organs, and the fact that we should understand a world as subjectively conditioned, are no proofs of the actual possibility of an objective world. Who urges us to believe that subjectivity is real or essential? ”

“ Thought in general becomes the absolute mind, and experience in general its content. The thing-in-itself drops out as having no meaning. The objectivity to which it testified is provided for in the completeness and self-sufficiency which is attributed to the absolute experience. Indeed, an altogether new definition of subjective and objective replaces the old. ”

“ Nowadays we popularly distinguish between objective and subjective; and further, we regard the two worlds as in some sense opposed. To the objective world we commonly attribute some reality independent of consciousness, while we think of the subjective as dependent for its existence on the mind. ”

“ The subjective perception is made objective, viz., is assigned time and place in the outer world and given a name. The investigation of the processes by which this objectivication is performed is a function of philosophy. ”

“ To entertain that error in the face of its correction would be subjective. A result of this interpretation is that the theories are abstracted from the world and regarded as something outside it. It is assumed that the theories are mental or subjective and change while the facts remain unchanged. Even when it is assumed that theories and facts agree, men speak of a correspondence or parallelism between idea and the reality to which it refers. ”

“ Or suppose, again, that the character is known, and the environment the same as others of which we have had experience, yet even here the question arises, Are you able to generalize laws of the action and reaction of character and circumstances, when character does not mean disposition or temperament (the man is more than these) ? If you can not class characters, so as to deduce particulars from them, then even the premises we have supposed you to possess are useless to you. ”

“ Control by the subjective mind nearly always produces in the subject either a feeling of dual personality, in which two egos are realized, each distinct from the other—the old me and the new me—or else the subjective mind is identified with a totally distinct, extrinsic and usually superior individual ”

“ The phenomena of purely subjective mental action, are, however, of little practical importance to mankind when compared with the action of the subjective mind modified by the co-ordinate power of the objective intelligence. ”