Often philosophers waste lots of time arguing distinctions between the subjective and objective. Perhaps a word with a transcendent definition can help organize our thoughts into an ontological compromise?
Transjectivity - transcending the distinction between subjective and objective, or referring to a property not of the subject or the environment but a relatedness co-created between them in an agent-arena relationship, or referring to a concept that has both subjective and objective properties.
Transjectivity is often not captured from a first-person perspective (subjective), nor a third-person perspective (objective), but more from a second-person perspective (relational).
John Vervaeke's lecture that introduces tranjectivity (@29:16) - https://youtu.be/YoPEtuQpiT4
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1408546319260687/posts/5996822280433045/
INTERLOCUTOR:
Transjective is merely interpretation of reality by the subjective mind?
No.
TRANSCENDENT PHILOSOPHY:
No.
INTERLOCUTOR:
no what? Present some depth, please.
TRANSCENDENT PHILOSOPHY:
Transjectivity is a claim that a concept has both subjective and objective properties. It is not merely an interpretation of reality by a subjective mind.
INTERLOCUTOR:
Only a mind can make a claim. All claims themselves are subjective interpretations of data.
In other words, all reality is already filtered through subjective interpretation.
The objective only exists by subjective agreement of multiple minds.
There is no need for a third option.
TRANSCENDENT PHILOSOPHY:
Yes, so under your linguistic paradigm, all concepts reduce to subjective interpretations of data, and hence your comment isn't a statement about transjectivity per se, but rather a statement about all concepts.
INTERLOCUTOR:
More like an observation of the undeniable facts. I've stated nothing new.
TRANSCENDENT PHILOSOPHY:
That's very debatable actually.
INTERLOCUTOR:
Then debate it. Enlighten us.
Do we not interpret all data in our minds? Yes or no?
TRANSCENDENT PHILOSOPHY:
In my opinion you are confusing epistemology with ontology. This is how I would frame your argument. Feel free to correct me if you don't feel this maps onto what you are trying to say.
P1) All epistemology depends on subjectivity
P2) All ontology depends on epistemology
C) All ontology depends on subjectivity.
I take issue with both P2 and C. Reality exists independently of whether or not we have the epistemology to understand it with our subjectivity.
INTERLOCUTOR:
You didn't answer my question.
TRANSCENDENT PHILOSOPHY:
The answer to your question is "yes" as I already confirmed via tacit agreement with your P1.
INTERLOCUTOR:
P1 isn't what I stated. Nothing depends upon "subjectivity." All concepts themselves are subject to the mind's interpretation.
The mind is the will. Only a will can think. A thinker interprets all data. That's it. You are making it overly complicated.
Objectivity is itself subject to multiple minds that agree on a common interpretation, the closest we can get to a shared reality.
Does this trouble you that our perception of the universe is entirely subjective and there is no way around this axiomatic truth?
TRANSCENDENT PHILOSOPHY:
No, it doesn't trouble me, I basically agree with everything you are saying.
The only area I take issue with is what you said earlier - "The objective only exists by subjective agreement of multiple minds."
Existence is an ontological property. You seem to be using the word "objective" in both the ontological sense and the epistemological sense. These cannot be conflated.
"Objective" epistemology may indeed be limited to subjective agreement. "Objective" ontology is not limited to subjective agreement.
INTERLOCUTOR:
Thank you for explaining. I will have a more thoughtful response soon as I appreciate this level of thought. I'll be back soon.
So there is what I would call a false dichotomy here in philosophy. Like many concepts, especially free will, it's based on false premises in the first place. Objective and subjective here are merely pushed back further to another false categorization, ontology and epistemology.
Existence is itself, a concept. Everything in the universe from the perspective of will, is subjective. There is no possible way to study "existence" or anything we want to believe is real, regardless of human experience.
I suspect a deeper issue here. One of authority to influence others. Not intentionally, but definitely a problem in our current society that attempts to reduce everything to scientific terms. As if one branch of philosophy, the Philosophy of Science, can exist independently of all other philosophical tools necessary to help the individual make sense of the world. This error is common everywhere now.
The bias is that too many people want some "outside" authority to rely on to tell them, what is real, and what is truth.
But at the end of the day, there is no avoiding it. Each individual is the final, and absolute, arbiter of truth and reality. Those with an authoritarian bias, or fear of not having an outside source to rely on, tend corrupt the debate. I hope that is not what is happening here.
TRANSCENDENT PHILOSOPHY:
Thank you for your thoughtful reponse. Remind me to respond if I dont get back to this in a day or two.
Are you familiar with Integral Theory / Spiral Dynamics?
TRANSCENDENT PHILOSOPHY:
I noticed your "fear of authoritarianism" and associated that with the Green postmodern stage of consciousness. In my meta-ethical framework, I explicitly repudiate the notion of authority, and I expose how the concept of authority gets smuggled into things like "oughts". Linguistically, I often vigorously challenge those who assert that certain words have innate immutable definitions, as I view this as also smuggling in linguistic authority. So, in a large way, we are both on the same page in this regard.
Yet, at the same time, I think problem with Green postmodern philosophy is that the relativize things to the point where they lose track of reality. I think the project of skepticism is useful for debunking traditional notions of authority, but I don't think this is a good place to make your philosophic resting place. Like Descartes, we have to claw our way back to reality after applying our exercises in skepticism.
So, if we apply ultimate skepticism we land on solipsism. But is there a way to claw our way back to reality? Well every individual who "thinks" coherently must inevitably use a language for the purpose of thinking. Where did that language come from? It was taught to us. This means that there was an external agent who had the mental capacity for language and was subsequently able to transmit that to us. So we can strongly infer that solipsism is wrong - our own subjective nature contains evidence of elements from external entities. If the external world was arbitrarily subjective then there would be no useful patterns that occur independently of our subjectivity. Yet our brain seems to be a pattern recognition machine constantly mapping out the external patterns in the world. This is why our common sense tells us there is an external reality - because we know we aren't the cause of these patterns, we are learning these patterns. The ultimate fulfillment of this pattern recognition project is the scientific enterprise. Science has found ways to confirm our pattern recognition with such accuracy that we can make complex predictions and they will turn out to be true. If there was no external reality, whence cometh these reliable patterns? If there was no external reality, why do our predictions never work when we apply them subjectively and they only work when we apply them objectively? What else is our pattern recognition mapping onto if not a valid and consistent external reality?
INTERLOCUTOR QUOTES:
"Objective and subjective here are merely pushed back further to another false categorization, ontology and epistemology."
"The objective only exists by subjective agreement of multiple minds."
"Everything in the universe from the perspective of will, is subjective."
"There is no possible way to study "existence" or anything we want to believe is real, regardless of human experience."
TRANSCENDENT PHILOSOPHY:
You claim that objective/subjective and epistemology/ontology are false dichotomies. The only way this is true is if we grant that there is no external world. This is an extremely fringe position. Within a culture, we operate on mutually assumed axioms. When people use the word "existence", they are operating on the premise that an external world ontologically exists in an objective manner. When you reduce objectivity to subjectivity, you seem to be presupposing metaphysical idealism and forcing that paradigm upon the definition of the word objectivity. I think that the reason people land on this conclusion is that they have an over reliance on deductive epistemologies and an under-reliance on inductive epistemologies. If we embrace the inductive then we can easily conclude that the world is objectively and ontologically real.
In the end, even if the word "objective" or "existence" is an intersubjective linguistic phenomenon, those words, despite being innately subjective, are pointing to something objective. The subjective origination of a word doesn't nullify the objectivity of the object the subjective word is pointing at.