Can Subjectivity Dominate?

Once reality is divided into subjective and objective parts their interrelation becomes problematic . . . in what way are they connected, and do they define each other's existence necessarily? For its part, the West has developed a long tradition of understanding the conscious ego as something essentially disconnected from its outer/exterior objects.[1] Even before Descartes, the unified cosmos, which had held subjects and objects together in balance since antiquity, had begun to be replaced with an egalitarian construction in which the subject dominates. This construction can best be described as a neutral field within which the intending subject can exercise its fullest effects. For its part, philosophy has been busy generating a subject, newly self-conscious, which would be up to the task. The result has been a subject which primarily sees itself as an agent of control. Through its scepticism of orthodoxy, its refusal of authority, its commitment to progress, and most importantly, its confidence in its own powers of judgement; the relationship between the subjective and objective has increasingly become understood through this single particular category, its action and its exercise. At its most profound level, understanding reality based upon the requirements of keeping it under control, reduces the essence of things to mere depositories of potential content. They remain impenetrable save for their capacity to enter the subject-driven realm of experience and manipulation. This condition sets up the material foundation of reality as an object of experience, knowledge, desire. As such it stands in opposition, even frustration, to the nature of the subject; but it does so in a passive way, through its muteness and difference. I equivocate concerning whether this is a good or bad development. On one hand, it speaks of an existence out of balance. But perhaps this is temporary, and indicative of a limited understanding of what our dominant position fully entails . . . especially concerning responsibilities. On the other hand, this model incorporates its own latent forces of balance. In it, epistemology is not limited to the description of states of affairs relative to the attainment of knowledge, but includes our active (motivated) engagement of our objective context. The alienation of a world of cold facts is hereby potentially undone. In modernity’s alienation of subjects from objects there lies a seed of unity. The philosophical battle pitting the contemplative spirit (the true home of philosophy's original impulse to speculate and doubt) against overwhelming pragmatic spirit of calculative control was introduced to cultural practice precisely when positivism tried to throw it out. Our folly was always inherently exposed . . . as if we could ever replace the position once conceived of for the gods.

[1] It must be noted that there are very different approaches in other cultures. In India, the ego is scorned as a delusion. Instead of domination (by the subject), the experienced duality of existence is closed through contemplative union with, and submission to, the infinite.