subjectivity – Not Entirely Pyrrhonian

Not Entirely Pyrrhonian

"I agree with the pragmatists that apparent objective truth is not the whole matter; that there is an authoritative need to believe the things that are necessary to the human mind. But I say that one of those necessities precisely is a belief in objective truth. The pragmatist tells a man to think what he must think and never mind the Absolute. But precisely one of the things that he must think is the Absolute. This philosophy, indeed, is a kind of verbal paradox. Pragmatism is a matter of human needs; and one of the first of human needs is to be something more than a pragmatist. Extreme pragmatism is just as inhuman as the determinism it so powerfully attacks. The determinist (who, to do him justice, does not pretend to be a human being) makes nonsense of the human sense of actual choice. The pragmatist, who professes to be specially human, makes nonsense of the human sense of actual fact… A brilliant anarchist like Mr. John Davidson feels an irritation against ordinary morality, and therefore he invokes will—will to anything. He only wants humanity to want something. But humanity does want something. It wants ordinary morality. He rebels against the law and tells us to will something or anything. But we have willed something. We have willed the law against which he rebels."- G.K. Chesterton

February 10, 2020November 12, 2020

Choosing to Believe in the Objectivity of Ethics: Cognitivism from Noncognitivism with Kierkegaard

The ethical position advocated by Judge Wilhelm in “Equilibrium Between the Aesthetic and the Ethical in the Composition of Personality” (Either-Or II) is a peculiar mix of cognitivism and noncognitivism. The metaethics or normative ethics are cognitivist, laying down various necessary conditions for ethically correct action. These conditions include: the necessity of choosing seriously and …

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August 11, 2019August 12, 2019

Do “I” Even Exist? Can Anything Be True? Irrealism, Realism, and Nietzsche

In a 1986 article entitled “The Crisis of Subjectivity from Nietzsche to Heidegger”, Gianni Vattimo, a philosopher counted as an ally by the likes of Richard Rorty, nicely brings together a number of quotations and writings from Nietzsche. Particularly of interest, I think, are two. First, Nietzsche on the “subject”: Pseudo-egoism. - Whatever they may …

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