2004
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Volume 51, Issue 2
  • ISSN: 0165-4322
  • E-ISSN: 3050-9947

Abstract

Abstract

The terms ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ are often used in an unsubtle way, in particular, so that what is not objective is qualified as subjective. Furthermore, there is a tendency in wider circles to regard science as the standard of objectivity. And by contrast, to regard faith and philosophy of life as matters of personal, subjective conviction.

The purpose of this article is to argue that science and faith cannot be played off against each other in this way, because this opposition of objective and subjective is not tenable. Among other things, there cannot be objects without subjects, and these concepts do not possess just one meaning, but exhibit a range of meanings according to the phenomena to which they relate.

If we define objectivity as doing justice to the phenomena, whereas there are very different types of phenomena, this implies that objectivity has a different meaning in those different cases. One therefore does injustice to the phenomena of social reality, literature, religion and the like by measuring them against the objectivity standard of natural science and engineering. But one takes seriously the rich diversity of human experience by respecting the special type of objectivity or intersubjective validity of each domain of phenomena.

© Koo van der Wal
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2025-06-01
2025-08-20
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Keyword(s): agency; hermeneutics; intersubjectivity; objectivity; subjectivity; types of phenomena
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