Subjectivism

Subjectivism is a collective term for different epistemological positions, according to which all concepts, judgments and findings considerably by the respective subject - is usually meant by the individual human being - be determined and marked. Subjectivist positions are in contrast to objectivist or highly realistic positions, but do not necessarily lead to an idealism, relativism or skepticism. For this is vital as understanding the positions of truth and the accessibility to the truth.

Individualer and general subjectivism

The individuale subjectivism seen the measure of all knowledge in the single individual and his individual consciousness. The individual perception and the individual interests of each subject to determine its reality, which is required by a relative already. Each subject takes the outside world true in its own way.

The general subjectivism considers the nature of the knowing subject, as in a common to all men " human beings ", the condition of all knowledge. Different individuals subject in their recognition so because they belong to the human species, although the same law, and consequently recognize the outside world on basically the same way. Nevertheless, they can not be sure whether their knowledge is objectively correct, because from the perspective of other living beings, be they animals or fictional other life forms, the view of things might be quite different.

Subjectivism in the history of philosophy

The statement " Man is the measure of all things " is attributed to the pre-Socratic philosopher Protagoras, which is considered unsafe, so if the single individual or the human species is meant.

As a moderate form of subjectivism can apply emanating from René Descartes believed that all object knowledge of the only primarily given, the consciousness of the subject, depends. However, this was capable of because of certain logical laws, which it can not escape, at least partially objective and indubitable knowledge. Descartes formulated in this context, the principle of " I think therefore I am" ( " Cogito ergo sum " ) as not anzweifelbares foundation of every thought.

Related to the temperate Cartesian approach is advocated by Immanuel Kant approach a "critical " theory of knowledge. The things in themselves are unknowable because they always subjective perception within categories - appear - namely space and time. Kant is a representative of a general subjectivism: As the knowledge- forming instance Kant does not consider the empirical individual subject, but thinking as such, as the human species zukomme essentially moderate. Philosophy as " transcendental philosophy " have to devote just researching these laws of thought, what Kant wanted to lay with his Critique of Pure Reason and the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics a foundation. This in- the - view - of one's own cognition and the related philosophical exploration of the subject is also often referred to as a " Copernican revolution in philosophy ": No longer the world, but the self-criticism of thinking, not the outside but the inside, is at the center of attention.

Following in the footsteps of Kant understood many idealism associated German thinkers - but with the very own accent - as transcendental philosophers. Besides Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling this also applies to Edmund Husserl, the renewal of the Cartesian ideal of an absolutely justified science at the heart of its phenomenology is. The Kant - Schopenhauer postulated students:

" The world is my representation ' is a phrase that Everyone must recognize as true as soon as he understands it, if not identical, such that everyone understands when he shall hear him."

Today we group together under the term all those relativistic views that deny in principle by referring to the subject as the single instance of any knowledge the possibility of general and intersubjectively valid statements. In application to the ethics can be a consistently skeptizistischer subjectivism lead to the denial of inter-individual values ​​and assign to egoism. This is, therefore, not necessarily because inter-individual ethics for the subject also can play an important and action-guiding role when other individuals of the possession is denied of truth - from the assumption that there is no intersubjective validity for moral values, not necessarily follows that there are no moral values ​​.

" Since the Enlightenment, the man has the measure of all beings and all things collected and so set his subjectivity in the place of God's revelation. But if subjectivity is understood themselves and their thinking as truth, implies that the presuppositions and immanence of man. This results in a theory of knowledge, in the positivist manner in all knowledge of the subject is determined largely developed. The apprehension of reality is therefore of the nature of the knower as well as influenced by its a priori conditions. "

Subjectivism in the social sciences

In the social sciences, particularly in sociology and political science, the pair of opposites has subjectivism vs. Objectivism has its own meaning, which refers to the validity of the terms used by the social scientists terms such as " society", " social structure ", " social system ", " social class " or " social class ": is it in these terms are objective facts or, rather, mere, the researcher about the world " turned- " order terms?

An important and often discussed problem in this context is the question of the relationship between individual and society and subjective and objective: Is society a mere collection of subjective single individuals that are connected only loosely (such as social network or as the market ), or society has its own dynamics, its own laws and rules? Anthony Giddens ' so-called " structuration " can be seen as an attempt to connect the two currents in a metatheory together.