Hello, A quick search on the etymology of the term "intersubjective" suggests it was introduced (in German) into the philosophical lexicon by Husserl, but the concept was employed by a number of philosophers in the neo-Kantian tradition. This tradition was following Kant's lead in developing a division between judgments resting on grounds that are (1) merely subjective, (2) objective, or (3) subjective and yet universally communicable to other human beings. So, for example, aesthetic judgments of taste have a validity that is intersubjective in character.
For my own part, I find the conception to have a more straightforward application to acts of cognition, in a theory of logic as semiotic, than in the realm of metaphysics as a mode of characterizing different respects in which something might be real. In Reading Peirce Reading, Richard Smyth draws on a Kantian account of the inter-subjective character of aesthetic judgment to explain the grounds of the validity of abductive inferences. John Kaag draws similar connections in his work on Kant's and Peirce's account of the imagination. The general idea is that we hold something, such as the presentation of the natural beauty of a rose or birdsong, to be appropriate or "just right", considered in itself independent of any given interest. In doing so, we have grounds for communicating to other human beings, that we hold the beauty of the rose to worthy of their attention, considered for its own sake. In an abductive inference, we communicate to others that there is something about a surprising phenomenon that is worthy of their attention. Similarly, we communicate to others that a given way of framing a question about the phenomena, or a particular way of framing a conjecture about it, is worthy of their attention, independent of any given interest. As such, we can take a disinterested pleasure or satisfaction in the experience. The point Kant is making about the intersubjective character of some cognitions is not, on his account, limited to aesthetic judgments of taste. As he makes clear in the later Lectures on Logic, our grounds for hoping that hypotheses in any area of inquiry, including the natural sciences and mathematics, are worthy of holding as a reasonable conjecture can be supported by judgments having an intersubjective character. As such, I tend to think Peirce is drawing on and further developing these Kantian insights into the grounds of our synthetic judgments and patterns of inference. What is particularly interesting, for the sake of Peirce's semiotics, is how the formal conditions satisfied in judgments that are intersubjective can be universally communicable to others. What is fundamentally communicable, on Kant's account, is a paradigm. The manner in which the judgment is made can, itself, serve as a paradigm for others--even when the general rule can't yet be stated. The paradigm can help to shape the habits of others, including their habits of seeing, listening and feeling, in ways that don't depend upon their expression in the terms of general concepts or purposes. When I find something, such as a very small insect, to be surprisingly beautiful, but others don't find it worthy of their attention, my strategy is to show them how to look at it. Quite literally, I find myself trying to show them that they need to look more closely by getting down on their hands and knees. Don't we do something similar when confronted by a surprising phenomenon that others tend to overlook? Yours, Jeff ________________________________ From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Gary Richmond <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, January 11, 2025 9:21 PM To: [email protected] <[email protected]> Cc: Gary Fuhrman <[email protected]>; Benjamin Udell <[email protected]> Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Intersubjective Reality List, Gary Fuhrman, whom I sometimes think of as a philosopher of the Anthropocene, in the course of revising a section of his online book, Turning Signs [https://gnusystems.ca/TS/], forwarded a link to that section to see what I thought of his revision (I've read TS online and in its print version, and have discussed TS often with Fuhrman off List and in his blog). In the section [linked to below] he remarks that Yuval Noah Harari posits, in addition to the objective reality and subjective reality we Peirceans are all fairly familiar with, an intersubjective reality. Fuhrman later sent me a longer quote which, I think, helps clarify exactly what Harari means by "intersubjective reality" (I'll give the shorter quote in the context of Fuhrman's comments on it a bit later) in this post. "The two levels of reality that preceded storytelling are objective reality and subjective reality. Objective reality consists of things like stones, mountains, and asteroids—things that exist whether we are aware of them or not. An asteroid hurtling toward planet Earth, for example, exists even if nobody knows it’s out there. Then there is subjective reality: things like pain, pleasure, and love that aren’t “out there” but rather “in here.” Subjective things exist in our awareness of them. An unfelt ache is an oxymoron. "But some stories are able to create a third level of reality: intersubjective reality. Whereas subjective things like pain exist in a single mind, intersubjective things like laws, gods, nations, corporations, and currencies exist in the nexus between large numbers of minds. More specifically, they exist in the stories people tell one another. The information humans exchange about intersubjective things doesn’t represent anything that had already existed prior to the exchange of information; rather, the exchange of information creates these things."—Harari, Yuval Noah. Nexus (p. 25). McClelland & Stewart. Kindle Edition. I think that Peirce, should he have accepted the concept, might include these intersubjective realities with other symbols inhabiting his Third Universe of Experience. In the quotation below I've put those that might be examples of intersubjective realities in boldface. The third Universe comprises everything whose being consists in active power to establish connections between different objects, especially between objects in different Universes. Such is everything which is essentially a Sign -- not the mere body of the Sign, which is not essentially such, but, so to speak, the Sign's Soul, which has its Being in its power of serving as intermediary between its Object and a Mind. Such, too, is a living consciousness, and such the life, the power of growth, of a plant. Such is a living constitution -- a daily newspaper, a great fortune, a social "movement." CP 6.455 In Turning Signs Fuhrman puts these in the context of language, communication, information, community, relations and, perhaps especially, dialogue -- but not truth. See: https://gnusystems.ca/TS/dlg.htm#ntrsbj Here, Fuhrman comments, then quotes Harari: Humans are social animals who have used language for millennia to cooperate with others. Without it, and without the information networks which enable communication at ever larger scales, they could not have attained the dominance over life on Earth that we now call the Anthropocene<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene>. Some information networks enable humans to learn the truth about what they call “objective” reality, which is what it is regardless of what anyone thinks about it. But every sentient being has to sense its reality on its own, separately and “subjectively.” Consequently, both communication and power relations within the community depend on intersubjective realities<https://gnusystems.ca/TS/gld.htm#ntrsb>, as Yuval Harari calls them in Nexus (2024, 25): ‘they exist in the stories people tell one another.’ Not all these stories reflect “objective” reality, but they can be ‘real powers in the world’ (Peirce<https://gnusystems.ca/TS/sdg.htm#hsabstr>), and some information networks propagate them in order to maintain or modify a social order. The objects referred to by many symbols are among the intersubjective realities which people may naively confuse with “objective” truth. "Contrary to what the naive view of information says, information has no essential link to truth, and its role in history isn’t to represent a preexisting reality. Rather, what information does is to create new realities by tying together disparate things— whether couples or empires. Its defining feature is connection rather than representation, and information is whatever connects different points into a network. Information doesn’t necessarily inform us about things. Rather, it puts things in formation." (Harari 2024, 12) One question immediately comes to mind: Is Harari’s concept of “intersubjective reality” compatible with Peircean realism? I’d be interested in hearing list members' thoughts on this question. Best, Gary R PS My first attempt at sending this email failed as the default address is the old iupui one, so was undeliverable. Ben,, is there any way to make the new iu address the default address?
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