Joanna: Part of the problem, indeed, may be that the subjective has
been irrevocably blurred with the objective.
Karl:To say that "the subjective has been irrevocably blurred by the
objective" suggests that there was a time when the subjective was not
blurred by the objective. If this is true then it needs to be
explained why or how this happend? If there existed a radical divorce
between subject and object why and how did the subjective become
irrevocably blurred by the object? And if it became blurred by the
other why is "the poor unfortunate" subjective now <irrevocably>
blurred by the objective? If at one point there was a divorce why then
can there not be a return to this condition?
Even the language used by you is questionable: "blurred". What does
this mean?
Joanna: I think Adorno said as much in an essay entitled 'Subject,
Object'. A very intersting source on a socially constructed
objectivity is Helen Longino. In her book, _Science as Social
Knowledge_, she shows in a very rigorious way how objectivity can
incorporate a great deal of subjectivity, and still come up with lots
of facts.
Karl: Does she? How wonderful. Aren't you the clever boots to have
spotted this?
Joanna: This, however, is a very different objectivity than the one
demanding a god's eye point of view, one that refuses to see how the
observer can influence what is observed.
Karl: But your very initial observation is "a god's eye point of
view": "Part of the problem, indeed, may be that the subjective has
been irrevocably blurred with the objective." You are being
metaphysical in making this transendental statement concerning the
state of being or reality or whatever you want to call it. (Some
might use cetian longwinded postmodernist shibboleths to try to
describe it. Occam's razor is not fashionable in Gulliver's Laputa
List).
Joannna: While I think that Longino bases her reading of Foucault too
much on what Dreyfus and Rabinow have to say, he project seems to be
very friendly to his kind of critique.
Karl: So what!
Joanna: Just trying to stay on the topic and avoid those pesky
ad hominem attacks, as 'Karl' has so patiently advised.
Karl: Perhaps you ought to stick to the latter since it merely
requires neanderthal intellectual skills.
Crypto racists on this List beware!
'TIS ME Karl Carlile
Yours etc.,
Karl