Resolution to a Paradox of Objectivity

When judging objectively we act as sovereigns, but also as subjects: we command, but must also obey.  Put less tersely: when we judge objectively we are making a claim against the judgment of all, yet if our judgment is not open to the trial of all it fails its claim to objectivity.  Being a sovereign and also a subject is a paradoxical condition, and so it may seem we act in a contradictory manner when pursuing objective knowledge.

One thing that may be suggested about this paradox is to accept that we cannot judge objectively, and that each submits his subjective judgment to the community.  We may then say it is the community that advances objectively.  However, even in this case we find a problem: if an individual cannot judge what would at least be a candidate for objectivity then there is no way to legitimate a conversion of a collection of subjective judgments into objective ones.  

The distinction between objective candidacy and objectivity can help us develop some insights.  When we judge something objectively, and so demand universal agreement, we always produce at minimum a candidate for objectivity.  This is to say we really demand universal agreement for the judgment of candidacy for objectivity.  This tells us something interesting about objectivity itself: even though we judge particular characteristics of objects to be objective, the objectivity of the judgment does not depend on these characteristics, instead it depends upon some capacity in our own judging that recognizes these characteristics as universally affirmable.  Because this universal affirmability thought in the objective judgment comes before the actual trial it is thought a priori and provides a reflection of how we think others (i.e. humans) relative to the conditions of our own judgments.  Put briefly: judging something as objective submits a characteristic to be approved, but also contains an a priori judgment of candidacy for objectivity which is the same time a judgment of what it is to be a subject.  (Those familiar with Kant will gain in understanding by reflecting on the categories of the understanding, or the apprehension of the beautiful.)

Typically the consideration of what it is to be a subject per se is not considered in objective investigations.  This should be entirely expected, since it is a strict pre-condition of such investigations.  However, when we find difficulties, and conflicts, in our attempt to advance in our objective judgments it would be a good exercise to return to the foundations and form of the judgments themselves and to investigate if we are having a conflict in the same kind of judgment, or really in two different kinds of judgments under the same name (objective).

Philosophy (critical philosophy) should seek an agreement about the characterization of judgments generally.  In our case with judgments concerning the candidacy of objectivity, we are seeking agreement in how to talk about ourselves and our relationships to each other in judging, and to lay a stronger foundation for universal communicability and for the understanding (read: science, or morals).  Wherever we find a priori rules at work we should seek to understand how those things condition our universal judgments, but also how they condition the understanding of ourselves.  Agreement in terms on these matters would be no small gain for culture and the advance of humanity.

My Problem as a Transcendental Philosopher

   This post is on a personal level rather than a scholarly one.  There are difficulties I face in life because of my decision (fate?) to become a transcendental philosopher, and to pursue philosophy generally.  I am writing this to share the experience I have had of it, and conclusions that I have come to.  Perhaps they can be worth while to those who may face the same difficulties, and have not yet clarified them for themselves.  Perhaps there are those who can help me make the next move through suggesting another layer of the dialectic.

   As someone who considers himself a fellow worker of Kant, I engage in pure philosophy as a pursuit worthy of special development.  This continual engagement in life leads me to constantly be directed out of life towards the clarifying of its form, its possibility, its a priori ground.  Once I had grown accustomed to this procedure, and found the great sense of clarity, command, and peacefulness that it brings (and which accompanies any activity where we find confidence in our powers) the tendency to bring things into their clarity took over in a manner that led to a continual tendency to retreat from life; this is a tendency with which I struggle constantly.

   I do not regret, but feel greatly rewarded by my work as a transcendental philosopher.  When I see others faced with complex problems of life, I see a tendency in them to defer to someone  else, or find something to help them forget, or make light of the issue; sometimes the result is that they lash out blindly.  When I am faced with a problem I have a tendency to enter into a critical analysis.  Here, the anxiety is lessened, and I find myself in control; I carefully evaluate the concern into principles and secure my stability and orientation to the problem.  Since every problem has a form, there is no problem which I cannot evaluate and bring under my power.  This I count as a great blessing.  However, merely attaining to stability does not solve the problems analyzed; nothing gets done with regard to the problems so far as I merely analyze them into principles.

   There are disciplines which work much closer to problem domains faced in life, and pure philosophy has its place in relation to all of them, but not directly in relation to their solutions.  This can make me appear useless (and at times feel useless), so far as the solutions to problems always are legitimately accredited to something else.  This means that for me to contribute to solutions, I must also develop skill and understanding in a narrow domain or I must present a legitimate claim to provide assistance in relation to problems.  These options do not exclude each other, but there are reasons why the first option is more difficult for me.

   The legitimacy of transcendental philosophy in relation to all problem domains is in the removal of confusion surrounding the problems.  Any removal of errors, misunderstanding, or confusion, even if it is only a negative contribution, is in the end a positive contribution towards the goal of resolving the problem.  This is how transcendental philosophy's merely negative relation of analysis is ultimately productive for all disciplines.  However, I find that having the tendencies of a transcendental philosopher makes it difficult for me to commit myself to one problem among others, since I can just as well be clarifying the principles that underly natural science at one moment, and in the next transition seamlessly into the principles that ground civil law.

   So far as I am unable to put all of the special problems under one super-problem, I am faced with anxiety as a transcendental philosopher.  I feel that I possess a key to all problems, but the problems, considered by themselves, are indeterminate in relation to their ultimate contribution - the problems themselves do not dictate which comes first.  The demand for the super-problem is itself a problem I face, and is open to analysis; this analysis results in clarifying an ideal that governs all activity.  This ideal has been called many things: virtue, God (as a theoretical ideal and regulative principle), the Good (ἀγαθὸν), universal objective harmony, &c.

   Just as the analysis of more special problem domains did not lead to a solution to the problems, the analysis of the super-problem also does not lead to a solution.  However, this analysis of the super-problem does remove a road block by putting all problems into dialogue with a universal interest that guides all of them, and so a common standard for evaluating them (see post on objective harmony or the Good for more clarification).  However, this merely makes the specific problems comparable in their intended results, and does not solve a single one, nor does it remove the demand to complete even the most minor of them.  It simply allows us to evaluate where we should more properly start, and sets this evaluation as a positive task.
  Ultimately the goal of philosophy (not simply transcendental philosophy) is not to remove oneself from life, but to live life well.  This goal requires transcendental philosophy, but does not allow it to be the final end, only a stage one must pass through on the way back to life.

Understanding Destiny Transcendentally

   I have been inquiring into 'destiny' as part of a general study of 'problematic' concepts and how they are grounded in the human experience in such a way that can provide insight into the human condition, as well as works of thought in the history of philosophy.  The result is an understanding how we are destined transcendentally.  These reflections should serve as a starting point rather than an end.  In order to understand our transcendental destiny it will be good to start with a more familiar picture of destiny.

   Where there is destiny there is a story wherein something or someone is destined.  The nature of the destined is such that it is established towards something.  Sometimes things are at the end of their destiny, and the story surrounding the thing is arranged by the destiny; other times the destiny is still to be fulfilled and stretches forward arranging and canceling possibilities.

   Destiny does not mean that something will happen according to mere mechanism, but rather according to a purpose or plan; such purposes or plans are thought on analogy with something willed by an intelligence.  (This is mentioned not to say that we must grant ourselves knowledge of some intelligence that is determining destiny, but simply to characterize the way we think destiny.)  When I meet my beloved, it may feel like some being intended for this to happen; when things are shaping up poorly I may wonder if it was planned that the difficulties would emerge at precisely the decisive moment.  

   We may feel like we are being rewarded, or punished by destiny, or even that we no longer have a destiny (that we are abandoned by the gods).  But no matter what specific case of being destined, we can be sure that there is also a pure mechanism that accounts for the entire sequence of appearances, and so the destiny is not necessary for the occurrence of the events that we feel are destined.  But we may still ask what it would be for a destiny to be necessary, and from that take a view to what things may count as such a destiny.

   For a destiny to be necessary it is not enough to just say that the destiny corresponds with whatever happens in nature mechanically.  Instead, what is destined must be thought apart from the mechanism of nature.  This is why any destiny in nature is also not necessary, since it always can defer to mechanism.  This tells us that in order for a destiny to be necessary, it cannot refer to beings as natural (where nature is understood as the Kantian 'sum total of appearances').  But what can be said to happen outside of nature that is purposive?

   Kant's aesthetic and moral judgments appear to be instances where destiny is at work transcendentally.  With the aesthetic judgment (judgment of taste) we find ourselves with the purpose of thinking a specific yet undetermined thing under a concept; with the moral judgment we are commanded to act in a certain specified way, but the command is given by us, and we are revealed as free.  Destiny in the case of the judgment of taste is the reflection off of the satisfaction in an object which at the same time makes us into thinking beings; destiny in the moral judgment is the reflection off of the moral law which at the same time reveals us as free and self-governing.

   There is a peculiarity of the aesthetic and moral judgments which defy the common view of destiny which makes man appear insignificant and only playing a role set out for them.  With the aesthetic and moral judgment, the human being is first free - free to act in relation to things according to his nature as an intellect, and as an agent.  (Perhaps it is only because the human is transcendentally destined to be free that these weighty elements of our life stories can weigh on us as they do and usurp destiny transcendentally understood.)

   We can also consider Heidegger's question concerning the essence of technology.  What is destining us to order beings in terms of standing reserve?  Well, this destiny is not necessary for us transcendentally speaking - we came into our technological 'frame' only at a certain point in history - but we can understand how a certain blindness to the limitations our 'frame' puts on the world ultimately has a restriction on the way in which we come into contexts with things, and are fated to operate in certain modes with them.  How can we best understand our capacity to conceal the nature of things?