Subjecting and objecting: An essay in objectivity

by Max Deutscher

The material in this work, and the writer's viewpoint, are both original and stimulating. Discovering new philosophical topics is difficult, but Professor Deutscher's position is much more radically critical of familiar topics than that of many of his fellow thinkers. Therefore, Subjecting and Objecting will not only be simply refreshing but to many will even prove therapeutic.

Professor Deutscher's aim is to show to what extent certain kinds of objectivity are possible, once it is accepted that only limited forms of detachment from our personal and cultural circumstances are practicable. Objectivity is described as "a characteristic of one's approach or attitude to things, such that one's understanding of and opinion about things are drawn from and worked out in continual interchange with it". It is thus a concept of "tact" and involved maintaining a balance between liberality and commitment, between being confidence and being questioning, and between maintaining various forms of privacy and also of public dealings.

281 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983