Lakoff and Johnson: The Myth of Objectivism

Once again I am confronted with the notion of neutrality in politics, as if there is a completely objective, factual truth in any given situation. These excerpts from Metaphors We Live By (Chapters 25, 26 and 27) might (and might not) provide some context to such claims.

"The myth of objectivism says that:

1. The world is made up of objects. They have properties independent of any people or other beings who experience them. For example, take a rock. It's a separate object and it's hard. Even if no people or other beings existed in the universe, it would still be a separate object and it would still be hard.

2. We get our knowledge of the world by experiencing the objects in it and getting to know what properties the objects have and how these objects are related to one another. For example, we find out that a rock is a separate object by looking at it, feeling it, moving it around, etc. We find out that it's hard by touching it, trying to squeeze it, kicking it, banging it against something softer, etc.

3. We understand the objects in our world in terms of categories and concepts. These categories and concepts correspond to properties the objects have in themselves (inherently) and to the relationships among the objects. Thus, we have a word "rock," which corresponds to a concept ROCK. Given a rock, we can tell that it is in the category ROCK and that a piano, a tree, or a tiger would not be. Rocks have inherent properties independent of any beings: they're solid, hard, dense, occur in nature, etc. We understand what a "rock" is in terms of these properties.

4. There is an objective reality, and we can say things that are objectively, absolutely, and unconditionally true and false about it. But, as human beings, we are subject to human error, that is, illusions, errors of perception, errors of judgment, emotions, and personal and cultural biases. We cannot rely upon the subjective judgments of individual people. Science provides us with a methodology that allows us to rise above our subjective limitations and to achieve understanding from a universally valid and unbiased point of view. Science can ultimately give a correct, definitive, and general account of reality, and, through its methodology, it is constantly progressing toward that goal.

5. Words have fixed meanings. That is, our language ex-presses the concepts and categories that we think in terms of. To describe reality correctly, we need words whose meanings are clear and precise, words that fit reality. These may be words that arise naturally, or they may be technical terms in a scientific theory.

6. People can be objective and can speak objectively, but they can do so only if they use language that is clearly and precisely defined, that is straightforward and direct, and that can fit reality. Only by speaking in this way can people communicate precisely about the external world and make statements that can be judged objectively to be true or false.

7. Metaphor and other kinds of poetic, fanciful, rhetorical, or figurative language can always be avoided in speaking objectively, and they should be avoided, since their meanings are not clear and precise and do not fit reality in any obvious way.

8. Being objective is generally a good thing. Only objective knowledge is really knowledge. Only from an objective, unconditional point of view can we really understand ourselves, others, and the external world. Objectivity allows us to rise above personal prejudice and bias, to be fair, and to take an unbiased view of the world.

9. To be objective is to be rational; to be subjective is to be irrational and to give in to the emotions.

10. Subjectivity can be dangerous, since it can lead to losing touch with reality. Subjectivity can be unfair, since it takes a personal point of view and can, therefore, be biased. Subjectivity is self-indulgent, since it exaggerates the importance of the individual. " [...]

"According to the myth of objectivism, the world is made up of objects; they have well-defined inherent properties, in-dependent of any being who experiences them, and there are fixed relations holding among them at any given point in time. These aspects of the myth of objectivism give rise to a building-block theory of meaning. If the world is made up of well-defined objects, we can give them names in a language. If the objects have well-defined inherent properties, we can have a language with one-place predicates corresponding to each of those properties. And if the objects stand in fixed relations to one another (at least at any given instant), we can have a language with many-place predicates corresponding to each relation.

"Assuming that the world is this way and that we have such a language, we can, using the syntax of this language, construct sentences that can correspond directly to any situation in the world. The meaning of the whole sentence will be its truth conditions, that is, the conditions under which the sentence can be fitted to some situation. The meaning of the whole sentence will depend entirely on the meanings of its parts and how they fit together. The meanings of the parts will specify what names can pick out what objects and what predicates can pick out what properties and relations.
Objectivist theories of meaning are all compositional in nature—that is, they are all building-block theories—and they have to be. The reason is that, for the objectivist, the world is made up of building blocks: definable objects and clearly delineated inherent properties and relations." [...]

"Thus, the objectivist account of meaning is completely at odds with everything we have claimed in this book. This view of meaning and of metaphor has been with us since the time of the Greeks. It fits the CONDUIT metaphor ('The meaning is right there in the words') and it fits the myth of objectivism." [...]

"The heart of the objectivist tradition in philosophy comes directly out of the myth of objectivism: the world is made up of distinct objects, with inherent properties and fixed relations among them at any instant. We argue, on the basis of linguistic evidence (especially metaphor), that the objectivist philosophy fails to account for the way we understand our experience, our thoughts, and our language. An adequate account, we argue, requires —viewing objects only as entities relative to our interactions with the world and our projections on it —viewing properties as interactional rather than inherent —viewing categories as experiential gestalts defined via pro-totype instead of viewing them as rigidly fixed and defined via set theory."