Reason is not objectivity: A response to Julian Baggini's narrowly rational criteria for objectivity (original) (raw)
Related papers
Objectivity and the Space of Reasons
Why and How We Give and Ask for Reasons, 2024
This chapter explores the relation between two capacities whose development enables the kind of self-conscious thinking that we humans are capable of. (1) We can assess our judgements with a view to whether they get things right. (2) We can also assess them with a view to reasons for or against them. A common view seems to be that (1) is more basic and makes (2) possible. Michael Tomasello's recent account of their ontogeny seems to lean towards this view. I articulate three considerations that, taken together, suggest a more symmetrical account: namely, any grip on thoughts as objectively correct always already involves some grip on them as located in a space of reasons. On the view I urge, a basic grip on both correctness and reasons is embodied in discursive abilities, and both of these grips co-develop from simpler, pre-reflective forms towards increasingly complex, reflective forms of understanding.
Objectivity: its meaning, its limitations, its fateful omissions
2013
In this text, we explore the guiding thread of the volume "Objectivity after Kant" by first discussing how the main question pertaining to transcendental objectivity arose at the Centre for Critical Philosophy. This exposition takes the form of a microhistorical genealogy, from which the main ideas pursued in the research conducted at this Centre can be distilled. In the second part, we briefly sketch how the different contributors have addressed this question. Its purpose is to facilitate the reader’s navigation through the variety of topics and perspectives addressed throughout this volume, and incite further reflection on the central issue it pursues.
Objectivity: Philosophical Aspects
This article is an overview of philosophical conceptions of objectivity, and it is divided into three parts. First, it describes metaphysical objectivity, which concerns the extent to which the existence and character of some class of entities depends on the states of mind of persons. Second, it describes epistemological objectivity, which concerns the extent to which we are capable of achieving knowledge about those things that are objective. Finally, it shows that metaphysical and epistemological considerations of objectivity are also the focus of sharp critiques by post-positivist and feminist philosophers, who focus on the procedural nature of objectivity, and of an emergent historical-epistemological way of analyzing objectivity that claims to be of primary philosophical relevance.
The Objectivity of Ethics and the Unity of Practical Reason*
Ethics, 2012
Sidgwick’s defence of esoteric morality has been heavily criticized,for example in Bernard Williams’s condemnation of it as ‘Govern-mentHouseutilitarianism.’Itisalsoatoddswiththeideaofmorality defended by Kant, Rawls, Bernard Gert, Brad Hooker, and T.M.Scanlon. Yet it does seem to be an implication of consequentialismthatitissometimesrighttodoinsecretwhatitwouldnotberighttodoopenly,ortoadvocatepublicly.WedefendSidgwickonthisissue,and show that accepting the possibility of esoteric morality makesit possible to explain why we should accept consequentialism, even while we may feel disapproval towards some of its implications
Beyond Modes of Objectivity
ABSTRACT: Frege, and others who followed him, stressed the role of fallibility as a means to defining ‘objectivity.’ By defining objective judgments as fallible, these philosophers contributed to the consolidation of a theory of objectivity which suggested interpreting epistemological, as well as other judgements, as being objective. An important philosophical implication of this theory lies in its disclosure of the interrelations between truth and objectivity. In light of this insight, and based on an analysis of instances of false (epistemological and other) judgments, I show that truth and objectivity go hand-in-hand, while falsity and objectivity do not. This finding alone indicates the necessity to revise the theory of objectivity.
The irreducible complexity of objectivity
Synthese, 2004
The terms “objectivity” and “objective” are among the most used yet ill-defined terms in the philosophy of science and epistemology. Common to all the various usages is the rhetorical force of “I endorse this and you should too,” or to put it more mildly, that one should trust the outcome of the objectivity-producing process. The persuasive endorsement and call to trust provide some conceptual coherence to objectivity, but the reference to objectivity is hopefully not merely an attempt at persuasive endorsement. What, in addition to epistemological endorsement, does objectivity carry with it? Drawing on recent historical and philosophical work, I articulate eight operationally accessible and distinct senses of objectivity. While there are links among these senses, providing cohesion to the concept, I argue that none of the eight senses is strictly reducible to the others, giving objectivity its irreducible complexity.
The Emotional Life of Reason: Exploring Conceptions of Objectivity
2016
This paper extends Pinto’s (2011) “Emotions and Reasons” (in which he argued that emotions provide reasons for action in so far as the beliefs and desires which make up reasons are constitutive elements of emotions) by exploring relationships between emotions-as-reasons and in (re)conceptualizing objectivity as naturalized to address the evaluative dimension. The paper addresses the emotional character of reason with respect to subjective and normative validity by shifting analysis to socially situated practices.
Church, Communication and Culture, 2019
Objectivity weakly revisited' could be the synthesis of this huge effort to rehabilitate objectivity; an effort made by Steven Maras, Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications at the University of Sidney on 2013, a very few years before the now almost burned-out debate on fake news and post-truth had ignited. The book has been published in the collection of 'Key Concepts in Journalism' of Polity Press, a well-known publisher of valuable and critical books regarding journalistic and media issues. The structure of Maras' book is very clear, especially in its first part. I will summarize it briefly: It opens with the history of objectivity as a journalistic paradigm and/or ethical rule, until it was attacked and rejected in the 90sfor example, by Mindich in 1998and later on (Chapter 1). Then, in Chapter 2, the author presents the main objections to the notion of objectivity, objections well-articulated and displayed in an apparently irrefutable way. In Chapter 3, the author goes into to the philosophical sources of the debate, that is to the diverse epistemologies underlying the contrasting versions of the problem and their correlative answers: the model of correspondence and coherence, empiricism, positivism, pragmatism, realism, naturalism and postmodernism. Although Maras' book is not a book on the history of epistemology, his account is good enough … for the theories of knowledge of the Enlightenment. This is, in my view, the main objection to the book, as it is the missing point of any Modern attempt to establish a sound basis for connecting journalists' work with the world outside, if those attempts want to avoid arbitrarily falling into limitless subjective points of view, or even into more limited overarching 'narratives', or on the other hand to giving up to the changeable consensual truth imposed by the tyranny of the majority. Maras goes back no further than the Enlightenment. Moreover, he even forgets to present the origin of the fact/value divide: it was Hume's epistemology, whose defining division is between isjudgments and ought-judgments that shaped the terms of the debate from then on. Needless to say, the great father of the Modern objective-subjective epistemological breakfor there are other pre-Modern versions of the break, such as medieval nominalism against realism-is also missing: Descartes, whose cogito ergo sum is the turning point in the Copernican revolution in the theory of knowledge of Modern times. Chapter 4 offers the grounds on which objectivity has been defended, poorly defended as the title clearly shows: 'has been defended'. The chapter mirrors the previous one and echoes also the very same deficiencies. In my view, the conclusion of this chapter could have also been the conclusion of the book: 'What is evident [this is after his account of the arguments in favor of objectivity, arguments whose effectiveness the author does not measure] is that any simple dismissal of objectivity as impossible has been complicated. Objectivity needs not to be tied to an idea of a reality that exists independent of our mind' (emphasis is mine). Right, objectivity needs not to be tied so; truth does need it, desperately. The point is that objectivity was (and is) a poor surrogate in the place of truth. After