Reality: Objective or Subjective?/The Object

[Stríbog]

Do you believe that reality exists objectively regardless of what we perceive and feel? Or is reality unique to each individual and defined entirely by their perceptions? Does Kant's Ding an Sich really exist? What about the Platonic ideal? Do we really view life as shadows on the wall of a cave? I tend to believe that reality is subjective and that our experiences are quite possibly unique to us. For example, my entire life to this point could be a dream or vision, and I could wake up tomorrow as someone else. Taken to the logical extreme, we have no way of proving that anyone else we encounter even exists. They could be products of our thought. Without being in the minds of others, we can only confirm our own consciousness. This is of course higly debatable and is an argument as old as human consciousness. What do you think?

[Ederico]

I voted that both are true to some extent. While I believe in an Absolute Objective Truth, I also tend to believe that our sense perceptions and rationality shapes our vision of the world. Objective Reality versus Subjective Reality is a conflict that should not exist, it is an Oppositional Binary Dualism that must be solved through Synthesis. Perhaps it is the way we perceive Objectivity which makes it Subjective? Or is this a contradictory oxymoron? Are we the flawed link to Objectivity and Absolutism in Truth which makes reality Subjective? I am inclined to believe so, than perhaps reality is Objective, only we as flawed beings make it Subjective, but it is only our perception that is Subjective, reality might be really Objective. What does everyone think?

[Moody]

If our own personal realities were unique to each individual, then we would not be able to communicate with each other on a basis of understanding.

That we can communicate suggests that there are certain archetypes shared by various orders of living creatures which are 'hard wired'.

I would also suggest that certain laws of nature are true across the Universe and are therefore objective to humans.

However, subjectivism is important; ask yourself - 'what will the world be like without me in it?'

[Ederico]

What is Solipisism?

[Moody]

'Solipsism' is the view that reality is completely subjective.

In modern Western Philosophy this view probably derives from Descartes 'cogito ergo sum' [I think therefore I am], and was taken to extremes by Berkeley's 'esse est percipi' [to exist is to be perceived], and the German Romantic philosophers like Fichte with Absolute Idealism.

The idea that we are all unique and the world is a mere figment of our minds is tempting, but is laid to rest by the 'private language argument' that I give in my previous post.

[Ederico]

Would you mind explaining Fichte's Absolute Idealism in some detail, what are the main concepts behind it?

This interests me a lot.

[torrent]

solipsism is an extreme idealism. there is no other reality than human mind and perception. virginia woolf once criticized the russian writers that they were too materialistic and obscessed in the environmental details and wrote the book "to the lighthouse" and told the story through the perception and eyes of the characters. this eccentric book was hard too read but it was found interesting.
on the personal basis, what is the absolute reality? is it my mind or your mind? i think one absolute necessity of solipsism is the lack of personal consciousness in other words it indicates the anonimity of conscience.

[Bastine]

I am an Animist.
I believe that reality is SUBJECTIVE in that one creates their own world through their individual actions.
I also believe reality is OBJECTIVE because there are natural laws that cannot be superceded.

[Moody]

As I've indicated above, the main concept derives from Descartes' 'I think therefore I am', and its implicit mind/body dualism.
In his search for certain knowledge, Descartes arrived at the conclusion that the only thing certain was 'I'.
Or to be more precise, 'My thinking I'.

The world outside me, and my body itself may all be a figment of my [or God's] imagination; all I can be certain of is that I think this.

This concept set off a whole train of philosophising in the West.

To Fichte, this certain thinking, or idealising 'I' was 'Absolute';

"In the statement 'I=I' we have a bedrock. Here is a necessary truth that presupposes nothing.
The self-positing of the self is the true ground of knowledge. All knowledge begins from self-knowledge, and self is the centre of its world".
[R.Scruton, Guide to Philosophy]

This approach to philosophy was incredibly influential, continuing through Hegel to Heidegger.

Fichte might have meditated on Shakespeare's "the eye sees not itself" as he grappled with his Absolute Idealism.
As Nazzjonalist asked for some detail, allow Scruton to outline the labyrinthine reasoning that it entails;

"What I 'posit' is an OBJECT of knowledge, and an object is not a subject.
To have determinate knowledge of the subject is impossible: the self knows itself as subject only 'immediately' - that is to say, without concepts, so that nothing can be said about WHAT is known.
To have determinate knowledge of the self as subject would be like seeing the point of view from which you see the world.

The subject is TRANSCENDENTAL: it lies at the perimeter of the world, observing but unobservable.
Hence that which comes before me in determinate self-knowledge is understood as not-self.
The self is known in two ways - immediately, as self; and 'determinately', as not-self...

In the not-self, however, the self is passive.
As such it can be organised by concepts of space, time and causality, so as to constitute the order of nature.
As subject, however, the self is active and also free, since concepts do not apply to it, and nothing that it does can be described as the effect of some cause.

The transference from self to not-self is also an 'alienation' of the self in the not-self, and leads to 'determination' of the self by the not-self.
This 'self-determination' (Selbstbestimmung) is the highest form of self-knowledge, achieved through alienation, but leading at least to a supreme act of 'self-realization', in which subjective freedom becomes an objective fact ...

Underlying knowledge, yet outside its purview, is the free and self-producing subject.
The destiny of the subject is to know itself by 'determining' itself, and thereby to realise its freedom in an objective world.
This great adventure is possible only through the OBJECT, which the subject posits, but to which it stands opposed as its negation.
The relation between subject and object is one of oppostion: thesis meets antithesis, and from their clash a synthesis [knowledge] emerges.
Every venture outwards is also an alienation of the self, which achieves freedom and self-knowledge only after a long toil of self-sundering ...

The mind, according to this picture, is essentially 'inner', revealed to itself alone, and connected only contingently with 'outer' circumstance".
[Scruton, ib.,]

[Ederico]

I have not yet grasped the Scruton part, Philosophy requires numerous reads to arrive to its logics. Right now I would like to focus on the Philosophical relationship of the Object and the Subject.

Here I have the Philosophical definitions of Object and Subject

Object

• Something intelligible or perceptible by the mind.

Subject

• The essential nature or substance of something as distinguished from its attributes.
• The mind or thinking part as distinguished from the object of thought.

If I understood correctly these definitions an Object involves our perception and thus it is linked to it, while a Subject is like a Class of Objects, is this correct?

If this is correct, what is not perceived does not exist to us and therefore is not part of our reality, or not?

Does a Subject exist in an Absolute Un-Subjective manner, or does the Object exist in such a manner?

We should focus on the discussion of Object and Subject in the Philosophical realm for the time being in my opinion, at least till we shed some light on this matter.