Subjectivity And Law As Thesis For Self-Subjectivity

CHAPTER TWO

SUBJECTIVITY AND TRUTH AS BASIS FOR SELF-ACTUALIZATION

The Human Subjectivity

Existentialist “protest against the dehumanization and depersonalization of man” and “hold on to the subjectivity of man: as the original center, the source of initiative, who has depth, who transcends determinations, the openness and giver of meaning to the world.” Thus, existentialist “stressed on man’s existence, on man as situated” and also, “on man’s freedom.”

For Sartre on the other hand, man makes his own self . According to Sartre, “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself,” this is existentialism’s first principle and is also what is meant by subjectivity. For Sartre it means that “there is no human nature” and that man is what “he wills

Thus, existentialism’s first movement is to make every man aware of what he is and to make the full responsibility of his existence rest on him. And when we say that a man is responsible for himself, we do not only mean that he is responsible for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men.

On the other hand, for Kierkegaard, truth is subjectivity. For Kierkegaard, as Taylor puts it, “Subjectivity indicates the process by which an individual appropriates what he thinks or constitutes his actuality by realizing his possibilities.” This seems

The aim is to attain knowledge, i.e., a correspondence of thought (idea) and being (object), which is valid independent of the particular knower conducting the investigation. This intention is only hindered by subjectivity and its interests.” Kierkegaard criticized this kind of approach for the reason that, “In the first place, there is a contradiction directly built into the ideal of objective truth. Because an objective approach to truth requires that subjectivity be excluded as far as is possible, the ideal would seem to be the complete elimination of subjectivity so that the object can be accurately known.”

Second, “Kierkegaard holds that holds that although it is correct to view truth as the conformity of thought and being, it is necessary to define the sort of being with which one is concerned. The being that objective contemplation deals with is conceptual being. Although objective contemplation may be directed to empirical reality, it can never arrive at that empirical reality.”

Kierkegaard concludes the above argument by stating that, “the unity of thought and being is a task that is posed to the existing individual and is not an accomplished