OBJECTIVITY

[Readers will notice some overlap in this essay with my piece on  "What Is Truly Rational?"  I anticipate these two essays will eventually merge.]

There is no such thing as non-fiction; only points of view.

Douglas Rushkoff, Cyberia

The Russian-American novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982) has an improving reputation. With our distance from the controversies surrounding her philosophy constantly increasing, I think we can begin to question some of her essential concepts.

Perhaps the most important is "objectivity."

Rand used to talk a great deal about "objectivity." She defined objectivity vis-à-vis values in her essay "What is Capitalism?" in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal:

By "philosophically objective," I mean a value estimated from the standpoint of the best possible to man, I.e., by the criterion of the most rational mind possessing the greatest knowledge, in a given category, in a given period, and in a defined context (nothing can be estimated in an undefined context). For instance, it can be rationally proved that the airplane is objectively of immeasurably greater value to man than the (to man at his best) than the bicycle -- and that the works of Victor Hugo are objectively of immeasurably greater value than true-confession magazines.¹

By calling something "objective" Rand seems to have meant (or implied) a congeries of at least four associated meanings, which she confused:

1. that a thing was real;
2. that a thing was publicly observable (under appropriate conditions);
3. that a thing was publicly (that is, commonly) observed to exist;
4. that an idea was correct.

Note that these are different meanings, not necessarily entailed by each other. That is, something could perhaps be 1) but not 2), etc.

Rand did not, I think, realize that she was not often clear which meaning she intended. She often confused these meanings.

For example, in discussing the human need for government (Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, "The Nature of Government") she speaks about "objective laws." What would they be? What meaning did she intend here for the word "objective"? Did she mean that the laws were correct in reason, or publicly verifiable in some way?

Something like this is probably what she meant, but I am not sure.

Whatever Rand meant by objectivity, it was obviously closely tied to reason and a Good Thing. Rand tended to think of her own opinions about philosophical and cultural matters as rational and objective, those of her opponents as irrational and subjective. The truth was more complicated.

# # #

In Philip Wheelwright's The Burning Fountain is the best description of objectivity and subjectivity I have found. Wheelwright describes the difference as follows (this is an excerpt from a long discussion):

Subjective vs. objective is a relative not an absolute differentiation, and shifts somewhat according to the occasion and the point of view adopted. We reach out toward the objective in one way or another, but our grasp of it is never as firm as we like to think, for our vision is always colored by some degree of subjectivity, whether privately obtruded or publicly agreed on. There are, to be sure, limiting cases. At the one extreme there are symbols which are taken by an individual as goad or prop to his private contemplation. A bereaved lover may keep a lock of his beloved's hair or a batch of her letters as symbols of the happiness that has vanished: they are private symbols, inasmuch as he cannot fully share their meaning for him with anyone else, and probably does not want to. Indeed, they are perhaps on the border of what I have called associative stimuli, differing from them only insofar as elevated to symbolic status by a kind of ritual observance. At the other extreme there are the sharply objective symbols of logic and mathematics. Within the framework of mathematics the meaning of any number is determined solely by its place in the homogeneous numerical series. The most drastic limitations have been imposed before mathematical thought even begins. "2" and "3" have perfectly objective meanings just because of our willingness to abide by these limitations and not inject questions about the special qualities of what is being counted. Apples or atoms or love affairs or days of the week -- it does not matter. Two of them plus three of them always make five of them. But between the extremes of subjective soliloquy on the one hand and mathematical objectivity on the other there lie most of the areas of large human concern. Objectivity in matters of religion, of poetry, of moral judgments and personal relationships is something to be constantly striven for rather than securely attained, and is hazardous and tentative at best.²

Wheelwright's distinction between the subjective and the objective seems to illuminate our problem. All claimed "objective" phenomena are perceived by someone, and are simultaneously subjective to that person. For example, in Rand's example, the "objective" greater importance of the airplane as opposed to the bicycle is perceived, presumably, by Rand's ideal rational observer. For that person (but who is that person anyway, and who perceives that that person is an objective observer, anyway?), it is "objectively" as well as subjectively understood that the airplane is superior to the bicycle.

Once again, as so often in Rand, we are tangled up in words. Why is that?

Words often have connotations and secondary meanings. And these can shade and entangle us with other words. Connotations and secondary meanings can confuse the projection of the meanings of statements.

And that is what happens so often when Rand uses the words "objective" and "subjective."

For instance, one of the secondary meanings of "subjective" is "irrational." Rand uses this meaning heavily and often, to disparage ideas of which she disapproves.

[To Be Continued and Revised]

Notes

¹ Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Signet Books paperback edition, p. 24.

² The Burning Fountain, p. 24.

Relevant Books

Wheelwright, Philip. The Burning Fountain. Indiana University Press:      Bloomington, Indiana. 1954.

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