I think the article [the piece in Commentary by Gary Saul Morson] does a good job of encapsulating a major problem in society, one that I see on both the left and the right.
It’s the idea that the subjective somehow doesn’t count. The religious tell us that morality is meaningless unless it comes from some objective source. And the liberal arts professors aren’t happy unless their works teach objective lessons through some ill-defined “way of knowing”. These people seem to miss the idea that morality and art matter BECAUSE they are subjective.
Subjective and Objective are two sides of the same coin. One is reality, and the other is how we react to reality. Both are vital. Without knowing the facts, we won’t know how to react. And without a reaction, then what good are the facts? Too many people think that things that are subjective are subordinate to things that are objective. But unlike religion and science, they are truly non-overlapping majesteria. It’s the belief that the subjective is subordinate to the objective that makes the liberal arts want to declare their work as being ways of knowing. In trying to sell up their importance, they throw the actual feelings and emotion that is the soul of art under the bus.
High School literature classes actually crushed a love of reading I had as a child, and for some of the reasons listed here. It wasn’t until the internet critics of the last few years that I was able to find people dissecting works for why they were so good (or why they were so bad), and for why they made us feel the way they did. It’s telling that the people whose love of stories makes them want to share the joy with others are those who talk about how the work makes them feel, and not those who look for hidden symbolism around every corner, or tout literature as ‘ways of knowing’.
All I want to say is that I continue to assert the value of the humanities in the way Geoff mentions above, though I think it’s demeaning for scientists—most of whom know a lot more about literature, art, and music than most people think—to be forced to continually defend themselves this way.
Instead, I am putting up Geoff’s post for readers to parse, agree with, or criticize. I happen to agree with it.
“High School literature classes actually crushed a love of reading I had as a child”
I agree so much with this. It’s like reading my biography. I used to read a lot too, but I haven’t read a single piece of literature since secondary school. It’s simply not enjoyable anymore. And Dutch literature nowadays is utter rubbish. It’s always about the Second World War, as if nothing else happened in the past 70 years.
You seem annoyed that much of contemporary Dutch literature deals with World War II. But, this emphasis, perhaps obsession on this event is not surprising and not necessarily a bad thing. My guess is that much of European literature focuses in on both World War I and World War II. An analogy can be drawn to a person who suffers a serious illness, overcomes it, but is not fully recovered, and then in short order suffers a second major illness that is also overcome, but lasting emotional scars remain. This person may have to endure a form of PTSD and the same is for the countries of Europe. The United States after the Civil War, the Jews after the Holocaust, and the Armenians after the genocide committed by the Turks starting in World War I suffered similarly. Sometimes it takes centuries, and sometimes it never happens, for nations or groups not to be haunted by traumatic events.
Through fiction and non-fiction nations try to confront, understand, and eventually overcome the damage done to the national psyche by horrific events. So, I doubt that the flood of literature about World War II is likely to diminish soon. In this context, seventy years is a short time.
I think you’re absolutely correct and I don’t question the usefulness of literature in trying to deal with the past. However, I do think the market has been saturated. The Volkskrant (a Dutch newspaper) recently had an article saying that there are too many books about WW II. That has been my impression for a long time.
Cees Nooteboom is far from rubbish.
I haven’t read him. Perhaps I should say then that Dutch literature is generally rubbish.
I take it you’re not a fan of Arnon Grunberg, then?
That’s correct. I haven’t read Grunberg’s books either, but I have read what they’re about. The topics of Grunberg’s books are simply not appealing to me.
According to you you haven’t read a single piece of literature since you left high school. You don’t indicate how long ago that was but if it was more than a few years ago how do you find yourself able to assert that Dutch literature nowadays is utter rubbish? Perhaps you have found some new “way of knowing” that we should be told about?
It was about 5 and a half years ago that I left high school. I get my information from literary critics, from other people who do read and from reading summaries of books.
And my assertion that Dutch literature is rubbish is also influenced by my age. The usual literary topics are the Second World War, children, unhappy marriage, identity (books written by immigrants deal with this) and death. None of these topics are relevant to a twenty-something like me.
Gawd you’re young!
I read – a lot. Detective stories, science fiction, non-fiction books on science and other topics (railway history in particular).
But I decided, from what I encountered at school, that ‘literature’ (the English variety) was either written by people long since dead (Dickens in particular), or was horribly depressing (Graham Greene), or in some other way unreadable. Shakespeare was the only exception. I discovered Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes and historical novels) for myself, also Damon Runyon whose idiosyncratic style one either loves or hates, and many others.
It seemed to me, though, that to qualify as ‘literature’, a book had to be sufficiently weighty, pompous and unreadable that the literary cognoscenti could prat on endlessly about its more obscure attributes with no danger of being contradicted by some yahoo who just found it a jolly good read. That may be a biassed point of view.
But there’s plenty of stuff out there to read (bearing in mind that 95% of everything is crap – Sturgeon’s Law). Some of it may even be considered literature. Some authors have a vivid turn of phrase that make me chuckle with delight when I come across it – as often in non-fiction as fiction, I might add.
So just – read stuff you like. You don’t owe it to anybody to read something that somebody else has decided is ‘literature’.
cr
Very good comment, and I agree.
Morality is, quite blatantly, entirely subjective. But you try telling people that and they react with horror as though you’re saying that morality is unimportant and disposable.
But it is not saying that! As above:
“One is reality, and the other is how we react to reality. Both are vital.”
“Morality is, quite blatantly, entirely subjective.”
Nonsense.
Some of my ancestors lived in Connecticut in the 1600s. They thought it was “moral” to hang women who were accused of witchcraft.
We don’t do that any more because we’ve decided that our society functions better if we don’t give in to such superstitious beliefs. Decisions like that are not “entirely subjective.” They are based on several logical principles that seem to work well in maximizing happiness and the common good.
Morality is defined by society and culture. What we consider to be right and wrong is shaped by the people around us and it’s the product of collective decisions. Yes, there’s subjectivity involved, but a lot of those decisions are much more rational than most people are willing to believe – unless they are based entirely on religion.
You’re saying that objective facts and reasoning feed into what we consider to be moral. Yes, I agree, you’re right.
That doesn’t stop our judgements of what is right and wrong being entirely subjective — in the sense that they are our judgements, made by our brains. There isn’t anything other than our brains making moral judgements. In that sense, morality is entirely subjective.
(In contrast to the idea of “objective” morality which suggests that moral judgements can somehow be independent of humans.)
Your example demonstrates that morality is, quite blatantly, entirely subjective. Society and culture are entirely subjective. Rationality doesn’t do away with subjectivity.
The distinction between knowledge (truth) and feelings is more important than Geoff Howe is willing to admit. Furthermore, Jerry seems to muddle the distinction by assuming that it’s the same as the difference between the sciences and the humanities.
I’m on the side of the author who wrote the book “Faith versus Fact.” He argues that science is a way of knowing that encompasses the humanities (page 186).
“I will argue that insofar as some of these [humanities] disciplines can indeed yield knowledge, they do so only to the degree that their methods involve what I’ll describe as ‘science broadly construed’: the same combination of doubt, reason, and empirical testing used by professional scientists.”
Should “subjectivity” be taken as seriously as true knowledge? Of course not. You may learn that I like Turner better than Rembrandt and that’s relatively harmless. You know that it’s mostly subjective, and you know that it’s a product of my culture and upbringing.
If I had been born in Xi’an, and lived all my life there, I would probably have a different opinion about art. The fact that my subjectivity is innocuous in this case (unless you are passionate about Rembrandt) is no proof that subjectivity and knowledge are on an equal footing.
There are many subjective views that are simply wrong and/or harmful to society. Just because you feel safe and powerful with a gun in your belt is not an argument against gun control, for example. If you want to oppose gun control then your “feelings” don’t count for anything. You have to make a case based on science as broadly defined by Jerry Coyne, and me, and lots of other people.
This does not mean that “feelings” aren’t important. What it does mean is that we will construct a better society if we base our decisions on knowledge and truth rather than subjective feelings.
I think Geoff had a good insight about why artists try to overreach, and I think he is correct that artists should not undervalue the subjectivity inherent in what they do.
But I (as a musician!) agree with you that subjectivity and objectivity are not equal sides of the same coin. There is a reason objectivity has the reputation it does. Objectivity, that is, aligning our perceptions as closely as we can with reality, is often a matter of life and death in a way that subjective reactions to art is not. If I had to choose between having vaccines and having the music of Mozart, I would choose vaccines in a heartbeat.
But without subjective desires, then why would you get the vaccine? It’s not just about Mozart, it’s about desires, period. Without reason and science, I would live a much shorter life. But without subjective experiences through art and emotion, I wouldn’t care.
You provide the example of Medicine vs. Music, as a dichotomy of objective and subjective. But let me try another example. You can die peacefully surrounded by your loved ones, happy of the life you have led, or you can continue to live in pain and agony for many more years. Objectively, you have life and death. Subjectively, you have feelings of happiness or misery. Now, which is the better choice?
Most people would prefer the peaceful death over the agonizing life, choosing the better subjective experience over the objective preference for life.
We can certainly discuss how much art you’d sacrifice for a scientific gain, or vice versa. Perhaps some people would be willing to sacrifice every book written or piece of music ever composed to live in a world where there was no violence. Others might call that terrible, that peace is not worth the abandonment of what makes life worth living.
But the point is that, no matter how you value the objective or the subjective relative to another, both of them are needed. Without emotions, there is no more value in life than in death, because there is literally no value. And without knowledge, then we can do nothing to control our emotions, for we’d have no idea whether our actions would cause joy or misery.
Perhaps my hypothetical choice have the wrong impression. It’s not that I think we have to weigh “objectivity units” against “subjectivity units” and see what we should choose. I’d choose a peaceful death over a miserable life, too. It’s just that the pursuit of the objective can and often does result in life-saving medicine/therapy/technology while the pursuit of the subjective doesn’t. Maybe an individual’s life isn’t always worth saving based on the individual’s subjective experience, but it’s more important to have established those life-saving measures so that they are at least available than it is to establish life-enriching subjective experiences. And I say this as a musician to whom music is incomprehesibly meaningful. I still recognize that objective knowledge has more import in this world.
have = gave
It’s almost like you’ve confused knowledge and truth with facts.
Why use “true” as a modifier to knowledge? If knowledge is truth is factual then it automatically includes “true” as an attribute. That tells me that you differentiate between shades of knowledge, degrees of truth, aspects of facts — which I have to reject. Something is true or not, and that’s quite binary.
I’m inclined to agree, although I do think Geoff Howe’s comment has a great deal of merit, I do not agree that subjectivity and objectivity are two sides of the same coin. As the possessor of a Liberal Arts degree, I am painfully aware that there is a very real, brick and mortar, putting food on the table, difference between an education in a STEM field vs an education in the Humanities. There has scarecly been a day since May 5th of 2000 that I haven’t wished I’d forgone college all together, rather than wasted four years and nearly six figures on a BA in Communications. In four years of college I got basically nothing but useless post-modern theory with no practical application whatsoever in any relevant field such as Journalism or TV/Film production. The result is a $90,000 cocktail napkin pinned to my wall, that I’m still paying for 15 years later, even after filing for chapter 7, with no job to pay for said cocktail napkin. I realize that theory and critique have their place in a well rounded education, but not in leiu of objective facts or actual training in a craft.
I understand that one could very easily argue that I’m missing the point, I’m too inextricably caught-up in my own experience, that I can’t see the forest through the trees as it were, but imagine how little any of that means to me or the thousands of other poeple in my situation having walked acroos the stage at graduation, only to reach the other side with not one marketable skill that we can go trade for money.
IMO, it’s the inability to make an epistemic distinction between an objetcive fact and a subjective opinion that is a far greater and more frequent problem for humanity than the subjugation of the subjective to the objective.
Bob, I sympathise with your circumstances.
But I think you’re confusing subjective/objective with arts-vs-technical education.
I see no reason why your degree couldn’t have been entirely focussed on, as you said, journalism or film-making. It would still have been considered an arts (rather than science) degree, even if its output was 100% practical and marketable. In fact if your college wasted your time on po-mo they weren’t doing their job. There may also be people in the sciences who find their degrees were all too theoretical and there are no openings for theorists – I don’t know.
My degree was in engineering – very marketable in those days, though these days engineers feel themselves distinctly subservient to Managers and bean counters (and all the career minded ones are dashing off getting bloody MBA’s. I finished my career, not doing any engineering except by stealth, but as a bloody project manager). But I always knew that what was important to the job was objective (will this thing stand up – though there’s a surprising amount of individual judgement involved in assessing that – and most of that got learned on-the-job post-graduation!) BUT what was important to me was subjective. I am interested in what interests me, not what interests someone else. People subjectively decide what interests them. A lot of people are – subjectively – interested in Tolkien or Harry Potter (I’m not), but their collective subjective opinions are what make those best sellers.
So I agree with Geoff on that score. But I think it’s orthogonal to your degree woes.
cr
An environment in which epistemological distinctions between the purely theoretical and the objectively obsereved were not clearly made is the environemt in which I was educated and it lead to an education nearly devoid of useful information or instruction.
I acknowlege that I am arguing a very specific point wihtin the context of a larger argument, but I strongly disagree that the failure to pioritize verifiable fact over philosophical construct is irrelevant to my problem. If for no other reason than, it’s far form just my problem. Over 80% of US college students pursue degrees in the Humanities. We’ve created an intellectual environment that is cranking out battallions of post-modern critics ata when both the students and society as a whole would benefit from increasing and diversifying the pupils ion STEM fields.
Speaking to the broader point, as Musical Beef stated earlier in the thread, “If I had to choose between having vaccines and having the music of Mozart, I would choose vaccines in a heartbeat.” If the universe were a Ford Mustang, the Huaminites would be the seat cushions, air-conditioner, paint, media package and speakers. Not having them greatly diminshes the value of the car, you really wouldn’t want to drive it. But, the Sciences would be the tires, brakes, engine, transmission, differential and seatbelts. Without them, the car has no value at all and cannot be safely operated.
(Please try not to dwell on the fact that I just argued for placing greater value on objective knowlege by making an entirely theoretical point via metaphor.)
Hmmm, I’m about to launch a metaphor of my own. Which is to say that, IMO, the study of any work of (what is broadly defined as) the Arts, has to steer between the Scylla of total subjectivity and the Charybdis of an assumed objectivity. Total subjectivity essentially means that my opinion is as good as yours, there are no standards, no ‘good’ or ‘bad’, nothing can be determined. ‘Objectivity’ means, I think, that we will analyse this work to death, losing sight of the wood while counting the trees, and never stopping to ask “Is it any good?”.
An arts course could, I think, admirably avoid both extremes and deal with its subject in exemplary fashion – and still produce graduates with no marketable skills. That’s why I said the question was ‘orthogonal’ to your circumstances.
Can the technical side suffer from the same things? Well yes. Less likely to veer into subjectivity, but the Charybdis of excessive spurious objectivity is always there. “We’ll test the patient for motor skills, balance impairment, neurological disorder” all the while failing to notice the reason he can’t walk straight is that he has one leg an inch shorter than the other. Or in management, measure everything (because we can), put numbers (totally subjective!) on a plethora of dubious attributes, plug it all into a spreadsheet and the numbers will make your decision for you. Thus the illusion of objectivity is maintained, even though the process was subjective as hell. We can’t just appoint the best contractor because we know (from experience) he’s far the best for this particular job, ‘transparency’ demands that we go through some assessment process – so we just fudge the figures for all the (totally subjective and largely irrelevant) criteria to make sure they add up to the contractor we wanted.
Excuse my rant, but very often the illusion of ‘objectivity’ is just total subjectivity, suitably camouflaged.
I seem to have just agreed with the last sentence of your original comment –
“IMO, it’s the inability to make an epistemic distinction between an objetcive fact and a subjective opinion that is a far greater and more frequent problem for humanity than the subjugation of the subjective to the objective.”
cr
Well put, cr, especially your point about crunching the hell out of made-up numbers.
GIGO.
Well said. There are atheists, possibly many of them, who forget that a belief in God can be real to a religious person. The subjective is real to anyone and it ultimately is what we are: our consciousness perceiving and believing the world. Just because it may not be right does not mean that the thoughts are not real.
That being said, science, now more than ever is pushing and constraining the subjective in ways it never did before.
The difficulties in science fiction is definitely real. With so many more people on the planet, on average, having a much greater understanding of what is plausible, it is very hard to write creatively anymore and be believed or entertained by the belief.
“The subjective is real to anyone” — except that it isn’t. A belief that there’s a bridge spanning a chasm, created by answered prayer to your god, will not allow you to cross said chasm when in reality no god created a bridge. All the belief will not keep you from falling into the chasm. That’s the difference between the real and merely a belief in the real.
Your subjective perception of the real is always different from the real, by virtue of the limitations of your perceptions. Same for everyone.
I confess I do not understand why people who start out enjoying reading fiction were put off of it because of how it was taught in schools. I had that experience too, beginning in high school, and it did not bother me one bit. I just ignored it during my private reading.
Same here. My experiences in high school made me never want to take another lit class ever again, but that didn’t stop me reading fiction for the rest of my life, including the classics.
Agreed. I did the diagramming of sentences required to get the grade in English, but haven’t done it since. It didn’t taint me, forever putting me off reading or writing. I’m always surprised to read that it (or some other class assignment) has had that effect on someone.
+3
Didn’t like it though.
I will admit that I often wonder why we need lit crit at all.
Nowadays when I read literature I tend to let it just wash over me and i either enjoy it but when I was in school I actually enjoyed lit crit. It doesn’t need to be as crass as some of the examples given and I found it interesting and fun to analyse how a particular poem ‘works’ for example. Textual analysis can of course be overdone and there is no doubt that some lit crit is absurd (PCC has quoted some fine examples of jargon-filled clap-trap dressed up as intellectual argument) but intelligently and reasonably done I believe it can add to the enjoyment and appreciation of literature.
Nowadays when I read literature I tend to let it just wash over me and i either enjoy it OR I DONT…
“It’s the belief that the subjective is subordinate to the objective that makes the liberal arts want to declare their work as being ways of knowing.”
Hanh?
I.e., to put their work on the same playing field as the sciences. (Never mind that it’s the science “way of knowing” that let’s us know some pomo “ways of knowing” are crap.)
Many of the comments here confirm my prejudice that much of the study of literature (as against the literature itself) is worthless and probably even counterproductive. IIRC some years ago David Lodge admitted that much of it is done at the expense of the work itself.
Unfortunately lit crit just looks like another middle class make-work occupation, like management consultancy or human resources.
Mind you, they probably do less damage in lit crit than they would in management consultancy or human resources.
Completely agree.
Then there’s the big question (though not in the Templeton sense) of how literature promotes shared subjectivity via empathy. (I avoid the existentialist philosopher’s term “intersubjectivity”).
In what way is that a question? IMO that’s one of the most compelling aspects of much literature.
Though I think one could raise a bit of an objection to this, I think that this dichotomy generally holds. The larger problem is the many people who don’t grasp this. As Douglas Adams said, “All opinions are not created equal.” Labeling something as subjective is not the get out of jail free argument that so many people think it is when discussing an issue, especially when it is discussing topics such as laws, democracy and morality that are inherently subjective. We can agree or disagree on the basic principles that we want to accomplish (entirely subjective), but we are not free to then make up our own facts about what best accomplishes those principles.
There are not subjective “other ways of knowing” when it comes to objectively determining whether something like gun control works. It either objectively works or it doesn’t. Either side could end up getting the facts and their implications wrong, but the end result isn’t subjective. I had a conversation like this with a friend recently who feels better carrying a firearm. I objected that his subjective feeling of wellness is not reflective of the objective truth about whether this behavior actually lowers his risk of death or injury. This is a truth claim that can be objectively evaluated, at least in principle. His response was that my objection that I think more gun control makes us safer for which I provided the evidence is also subjective. Wrong; my feeling is subjective, my supporting facts are not.
I think my initial objection is satisfied if we reword the statement to say, “Subjective and Objective are two sides of the same coin. One is reality, and the other is how we should react to, rather than define reality.”
Well said. I second your amendment.
Well, objectivity might not always be so binary. It depends on your criteria for “works or not”, which may not be an agreed upon rubric.
I agree with you in principle, with the devil being in the details.
I think I’d drop the “should” from your definitions.
I come from a fine arts background, with a major in studio art. Attempting to create something that evokes powerful emotions is the usual goal in art and literature, and when successful is appreciated and treasured by many, and enriches our lives. But if that emotion is not connected to some objective reality, then it can be damaging to both individuals and society. Religious art has served the purpose of evoking strong belief in the fiction of numerous religions, and often served political purposes of maintaining power by corrupt institutions. Design and iconography served the Nazis well in rallying the public to their cause.
To acknowledge we have subjective feelings is fine, but to elevate their validity to what objective observation tells us about the world is a bad idea. And to not analyze why we feel that way gives us liberty to act on our feelings regardless of consequences, which is often a really bad idea.
Good comment. Art is communication and can be used for all the same purposes that the written and spoken word are used, such as propaganda. Hell, a significant percentage of art produced is used for advertising of one sort or another, a large percentage of which is at least moderately duplicitous.
Yes, in my professional life, I always avoided working for ad agencies or PR firms. That undoubtedly kept my bank account thin, unfortunately.
Well said.
Sub
I actually thought the same thing recently and inthink it is much deeper than Humanities folks feeling they must show objective truth. I think they are harassed constantly by all types of people and told that there is no value in what they do because it does not show us truth so they start arguing on this turf of truth showing.
Believe me, most Humanities graduates are ashamed because they have been shamed by friends, family, colleagues, interviewers, fellow colleagues at universities, the list goes on. And the criticism translates strongly into what funding is given in universities. Our entire culture does not value the Humanities so people in it try to show value. And in a science and technology culture, they show it by trying to show, incorrectly, that they too are science-y.
Now I do think they teach reason, logic and rationality but people laugh at me when I argue this. There is a tremendous amount of disdain.
Such disdain may be in evidence in the academic world, but I don’t think the broader public feels the same way, which usually reveres artists, writers and musicians more than scientists and engineers. And you see how that’s working out.
It has always been problematic to have programs such as art and creative writing at universities. I taught studio in several art departments back in the 80s and 90s, and it was always a frustrating experience because there was never any consensus on what defines good or bad art. Without that, the curriculum is just whatever each faculty member decides, based on personal sensibilities.
Interestingly, almost always the best students in my drawing classes were science majors, at least in technical ability. The art majors would disdain technique for some stab at raw emotion, which most often yielded ludicrous results. And virtually no successful artists of the past century went to art school. The same is largely true of musicians and music schools, except for those in the classical field.
I nevertheless think there’s value in students taking art and creative writing classes, but greater value in studying art history and literature, because that allows creative activities to be analyzed and placed in larger historical contexts. Again, subjectivity requires objective analysis.
Also it is important to remember that the subjective is “just” the stuff between the brain and the rest of the world, in a way. So there can be an objective study of subjectivity – vital for understanding how people form preferences, etc. There is also, in principle, a subjective expression of objectivity, in a way – arguably that’s what (say) Lucretius or the _Symphony of Science_ guys are about.
One of my side projects involves the use of Q Methodology, which is a method of objective analysis of subjective reactions to both visual and written things. I’m finding it to be fairly effective in determining both individuals’ and groups’ preferences in visual design. So yes, I think one can objectively study subjectivity.
Does anyone else find it interesting that Lucretius chose to write “On the Nature of Things” as a poem?
Any objective perception processed through one’s brain surfaces in consciousness having been filtered through however many years of the individual’s prior subjective analyses of objective perceptions. In this sense, all knowledge is subjective and knowable only insofar as one human being can intelligibly communicate his/her perceptions to another human being.
I do find it interesting, but it is not the first bit of natural philosophy presented that way – Empedocles and Parmenides did the same thing hundreds of years earlier.
High school Lit class:
1. Loved Melville
2. Hated anything by the Bronte sisters, and by the way, screw Heathcliff.
3. Introduced to Claude Brown’s “Man Child in the Promised Land.” Even for a white teen with angst, this was an eye opener.
I have been a reader all my life. I started reading library books before starting school. Ever since, I have read on average 7 to 8 books a week. Since I’ve always read whatever appealed to me intellectually and/or emotionally since well before the imposition of lit crit in school, I continue to read, first and foremost, for pleasure, insight and knowledge. It’s amazing how thoughts generated by reading a book can lead one into eclectic
pursuits of knowledge.
I hate TED-talks; but this one at least explains the relationship between perception and reality in an accessible way, and the role Mother Nature has played.
“https://www.ted.com/talks/donald_hoffman_do_we_see_reality_as_it_is?language=en”
When someone mentions humanities, my brain constructs a beer-bottle.
What I read is:
There are more ways of knowing than science.
Subjective knowing has value and is a way of knowing.
I can’t help but come to the conclusion that the value of subjective knowing is highly subjective.
Do subjective values allow for cutting off hands as punishment for theft or the beating of wives who don’t obey their husbands?
Or beauty in a furnace designed to incinerate human slaves who have no value.
Child pornography, or images of naked women being murdered. Just as there are those who hate Star Trek and love soap operas, or gory slice and dice movies.
I don’t think the majority of those who like and admire science believe subjective doesn’t count. I just give it the validity it deserves in the situation. It gives me pleasure to read another person telling me why they like a book or movie I like, but I don’t credit them with the same level of accomplishment as I would say the inventor of the industrial method of fixing nitrogen.
Others may disagree. But I when I hear people saying there are more ways of knowing than science, they almost always are talking about something completely different, something that is more about woo than about appreciating art or a good book.
Often it’s spirituality, or religious philosophy, and these people often say the word scientism as someone else would say pedophile.
Reading is a major part of my life and I wouldn’t want books to be absent, but I find it hard to give art the same level of importance that I give science (even though I don’t do any science).
Without art my life would be deadly dull.
Without science I’d be dead.
I hope I’m not making a fool of myself, misunderstanding what you all are talking about. It certainly wouldn’t be the first.
Oh no, not at all. I enjoyed your comment and pretty much share the same opinions you’ve expressed eloquently.
I love reading my daughter loves reading.My son hasn’t read a book since high school,he reads about sports and i never read anything to do with sports. So it has to do with what you like .I have an entire house full of books so i always have something to read thanks to my husband . He hoards books.Right now reading Jack London and love it.
“Objective” is outside of your experience, which is entirely subjective. All objects, i.e perceptions which appear not to be “me”, are nevertheless encountered subjectively, and among them are some for which intersubjective agreement is possible. This is as confident as the “broadly scientific” approach allows us to be.
Why not rub out “subjective” altogether and search for objevtive truth wherever it can be found: in literature, high and low, science, philosophy,the arts, song,dance, music, language,fashion,architecture,design, death, hisory,love and hate, war and peace,a raindop , a flower, meditation to name a few things.