Subjectivism

SUBJECTIVISM. - Opposed to objectivism (v.), it is properly used in relation to modern philosophy as a tendency to overvalue what exists in function of the subject (v.), of consciousness (v.) and of thought (v.).

As regards classical philosophy (Greek-Christian medieval), it is improper to speak of determinations of the type subjectivism-objectivism, because only the subjectivistic tendency of modern thought, having become decisive and fully conscious, has caused the former to be qualified by contrast as objectivistic: those expressions, therefore, of classical philosophy that show points of affinity with (modern) subjectivism are rather to be regarded under other headings (skepticism, sophistry, interiority, conceptualism, nominalism, etc.).

One can distinguish a theoretical subjectivism, a subjectivism of science, an ethical subjectivism and an aesthetic subjectivism. The figure of theoretical subjectivism is historically complex; it can be considered in relation to phenomenalism (v.) from the affirmation of the "psychicality" of corporeal qualities (Locke, Descartes) up to the separation that contemporary instrumentalists (Dewey) make between (subjective) objects of everyday experience and objects of scientific experience. Within these two historical limits, central is the Kantian presupposition of the subjectivity of sensible knowledge (cf. Critique of Pure Reason. Transcendental Aesthetic), which still exercises its suggestion upon critics of science (of physics especially), philosophers and scientists. After the three great exaltations of the subject accomplished by Luther, Descartes and Rousseau (v.), there is defined, with Kant, that critical-subjectivistic idealism which expresses in the clearest way the character of modern philosophy. At the basis of theoretical subjectivism there is found, in general, one of these two suppositions: either reality conceived as pure object of experience (Berkeley, Hume), or the subject taken as the "starting point" of philosophy and of reality itself (Fichte). One speaks, moreover, of empirical subjectivism when the subject is the single historical individual, of transcendental subjectivism when the subject is the absolute and universal activity immanent in the empirical subject (idealism [v.]: but in this case, because of the immanentistic-monistic conception of reality, absolute subjectivism is also resolved into absolute objectivism). Ethical subjectivism, as an affirmation of principle, follows from all those non-finalistic conceptions of reality which fail to give an account of the objectivity and absolute value of the moral norm (v. OBLIGATION). Even ethical intuitionism (v.), by affirming that the moral norm is an immediate datum, arrives at conclusions of a subjectivistic type. Not subjectivism, however, is the affirmation of beatitude as the ultimate end (v.) of man, when it is understood as a consequence of the objective perfection attained. Ethical subjectivism too can be empirical (the norm of action depends on the arbitrary will of the individual) or transcendental (the moral norm corresponds to the exigency of every possible will). Subjectivism of behavior, from the 19th century onward, is called egoism (v.). For the social and cultural aspects of subjectivism, v. INDIVIDUALISM.

Aesthetic subjectivism, finally, which coincides in part with aesthetic hedonism, generally follows from the denial of the (classical) transcendentality of the beautiful or from the limitation of the relations of the beautiful to the affective-emotional aspect of the subject (v. AESTHETICS).

It must further be observed that modern philosophy generally affirms its tendency to subjectivism as the simple normality of a correct framing of philosophizing, and calls subjectivism "philosophy as science of the spirit", "conception of the real as immanent to the spirit" (B. Croce, Breviario di estetica, 10th ed., Bari 1951, p. 113).

Desiderio Gatti