SOGGETTIVISMO. – objectivism (v.), the term is properly used in relation to modern philosophy as a tendency toward the overvaluation of that which subject (v.), consciousness (v.), thought (v.).
With regard to classical philosophy (medieval Greco-Christian philosophy), it is improper to speak of determinations of the s.-objectivism type, because only the subjectivistic tendency of modern thought, having become decisive and fully conscious, has led to the characterization, by contrast, of the former as objectivistic: those expressions, therefore, of classical philosophy that show points of affinity with (modern) s. are better considered under other designations (scepticism, sophistry, interiority, conceptualism, nominalism, etc.).
One may distinguish theoretical s., s. of science, ethical s., and aesthetic s. The historical configuration of theoretical s. is complex; it may be considered in relation to phenomenalism (v.), from the affirmation of the “psychical nature” of corporeal qualities (Locke, Cartesio) to the separation that contemporary instrumentalists (Dewey) make between (subjective) objects of everyday experience and objects of scientific experience. Within these two historical limits, the Kantian presupposition of the subjectivity of sensible knowledge is central (cf. Critica della ragion pura. Estetica trascendentale), and it still exerts its appeal upon critics of science (especially of physics), philosophers and scientists. After the three great exaltations of the subject accomplished by Lutero, Rousseau (v.), there emerges, with Kant, that critical-subjectivistic idealism which expresses most clearly the character of modern philosophy. At the basis of theoretical s. there is, in general, one of these two suppositions: either reality conceived as a pure object of experience (Berkeley, Hume), or the subject taken as the “starting point” of philosophy and of reality itself (Fichte). One also speaks of empirical s. when the subject is the single historical individual, and of transcendental s. 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 s. also resolves itself into absolute objectivism). Ethical s., as a principled affirmation, follows from all those non-teleological conceptions of reality that fail to account for the objectivity and absolute value of the moral norm (v. OBBLIGAZIONE). intuitionism (v.), too, by affirming that the moral norm is an immediate datum, arrives at conclusions of a subjectivistic type. It is not s., however, to ultimate end (v.) of man, when this is understood as the consequence of the objective perfection attained. Ethical s. too may be empirical (the norm of action depends upon the arbitrary will of the individual) or transcendental (the moral norm corresponds to the requirement of every possible will). S. in conduct, from the nineteenth century onward, egoism (v.). For the social and cultural aspects of s., V. INDIVIDUALISMO.
Aesthetic s., finally, which partly coincides with aesthetic hedonism, generally follows from the denial of the (classical) transcendence of the beautiful or from the limitation of the relations of the beautiful to the affective-emotional aspect of the subject (v. ESTETICA).
It should also be observed that modern philosophy generally asserts its tendency toward s. as the mere normality of a correct approach to philosophizing, and calls s. “philosophy as the science of the spirit,” “conception of reality as immanent in the spirit” (B. Croce, Breviario di estetica, 10ª ed., Bari 1951, p. 113).