Thomas Nagel, (333-340)
Subjective and Objective
Teaches at New York University, Professor of Philosophy and Law
Born 1937
Famous essay: "What Is it like to Be a Bat?"
Answer: we don't know.
1987 book: The View from Nowhere
Opposing points of view: generally, subjective is regarded as inferior to objective.
Question: why is that so?
Nagel points out: there is no one objective or one subjective view:
Rather: a polarity: some views more subjective, some more objective
Subjective: point of view of a particular individual
to more objective: point of view of humans in general.
To MORE objective: a point of view of physical science
Example: Metaphysical Question: Free will v. determinism:
Campbell: a subjective point of view: inner experience
We have a feeling of free will
Ayer, Flanagan, D'Holbach-an objective point of view
We can see the causes of a particular action
Nagel mentions: mind-body problem, consequentialism in ethics
Nagel: subjectivity and objectivity are not a matter of private and public
Can have a public subjective: Intersubjective
We can all agree on some things.
The Objective view: typified by a kind of detachment.
329-330
The attempt is made to view the world not from a place within it, or from the vantage point of a special type of life and awareness, but from nowhere in particular and no form of life in particular at all.
Question: can we have this kind of "view from no where?
Objectivity's goal: a detachment from our own point of view.
Advantages to objectivity:
We are not dependant on a particular point of view
Problem with Subjective view: one's own view is distorted in a number of ways
Objectivity: trying to remove the distortion.
330
To compensate for these distortions it is necessary either to reduce dependence on those forms of perception or judgement in which they are most marked, or to analyze the mechanisms of distortion and discount for them explicitly.
The subjective comes to be defined by contrast with this development of objectivity.
Situation: Objectivity good
Subjectivity bad
But subjectivity hard to eliminate
Question: how might we strive for a less distorted view of things?
If we want to find out "the way things really are" we have to get away from the position of an individual observer.
Science: emphasis on precise measurements-those that a creature not sharing our human senses could also use.
Departing from a specifically human, even mammalian viewpoint.
Progress toward getting "truer to reality" (330 c2)
330 c2
And if there is such a thing as the correct view, it is certainly not going to be the unedited view from wherever one happens to be in the world. … The true view of things can no more be the way they naturally appear to human beings than the way they look from [the detached point of view]
Question: does it make sense to talk about a "true view of things"?
To get to objectivity we have to transcend our individual selves, even our type.
We're not even trying to see things from "another's point of view" but the true view.
Detachable even from a mode of representation.
Nagel says this is a good goal, but trying to achieve it brings about problems.
First: what happens when objectivity runs into something, revealed subjectively, that it cannot accommodate.
Question here might be something like: what does the color red really look like?
Is there an objective answer to this question?
That's a factual question.
What about a value question: what is the meaning of life?
Nagel says that for these recalcitrant subjective aspects, objectivity is left with three strategies:
Reduction, Elimination, Annexation
1. Reduction: transform something subjective into something objective
Save the appearances as much as possible by accommodating them under an objective interpretation.
Looking at experience in terms of behavioral criteria
Allowable forms of self-interest in an ethical system.
2. Elimination: get rid of the subjective thing
Dismissing the deliverance of a subjective viewpoint as an illusion.
Perhaps explaining how the illusion arises.
Free will does not exist.
Mind does not exist.
3. Annexation Expand what is covered by objective reality
Invent a new element of "objective reality" especially for the purpose of including a recalcitrant element:
The will, the ego, the soul, the command of God.
Nagel thinks annexation is the least successful strategy.
Question: do we always need things to be objective?
One possibility: admit that everything can't be made objective.
331 c2
Perhaps the best or truest view is not obtained by transcending oneself as far as possible.
Perhaps reality should not be identified with objective reality.
Problem there: is to explain why objectivity is inadequate.
Going this way means, in some sense, giving up on the ultimate pursuit of the truth.
Would this mean that there are no facts or objective values?!
Nagel looks at the Idealist tradition including contemporary Phenomenology.
(Campbell our best example here)
Here subjective points are taken as basic,
There is a denial of an irreducible objective reality.
Nagel's reply 332 c1
I find the idealist solution unacceptable for the same reason: objective reality cannot be analyzed or shut out of existence any more than subjective reality can. Even if not everything is something from no point of view, some things are.
Question: do you agree with this claim?
Nagel's solution: recognize objectivity, but also recognize that some things are merely subjective
332 c1-c2
Reality is not just objective reality, and the pursuit of objectivity is not an equally effective method reaching the truth about everything.
Nagel concludes: he is arguing for a form of "Romanticism," but not an extreme form.
We have to live with the two poles of objectivity and subjectivity: we can't get rid of either one.
Closes 332 c2
The coexistence of conflicting points of view, varying in detachment from the contingent self, is not just a practically necessary illusion but an irreducible fact of life.
Question: this makes sense: we have both objective and subjective. Can we live without complete objectivity?
