John,
I'm well aware of the usual use of the term 'objectivity'. 'Use it all the time.
But if my example of Gullah Law's objectification of 'persons' filed to strike a cord, perhaps I might cite another slightly cloeser to home: Randoid 'objectivism' as a popular movement of philosophy gone retarded. After all this is half a philosophy site, yes?
To say, 'Tuna have fins' is an objective statement, while 'I like tuna' is subjective. Yet most of what we encounter and label falls in between. In this sense, 'to objectify' means to assume subject non-dependence for the sake of a particular argument. The potential confusion therein is called 'reification'.
Another fallacy is to assume that our mental constructs are discovered rather than created...and vice versa, of course. Claims of naturalism and realism versus rationalism fall within this genre of argument. Moral realism says that we discover properties of goodness. As for furniture, this, too is clearly an example of an objectified social construct.
BH
> Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2010 12:32:46 -0400
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: ontology, transparency and the "disposable camera"
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> On 10/30/10 8:34 AM, bill harris wrote:
> > =20
> > I likewise do not believe that it's useful to define something as 'objectiv=
> > e' simply because we understand the physics of how it works. What might be =
> > said is that because photograpy can be understood as resting on principles =
> > of science=2C it has=2C by definition=2C a subject-independent basis.
> The basic notion is information-conveyment in Dretske's sense: our
> interests determine the design of an altimeter or fuel guage but the
> information just is. That is a usual use of objectivity: a moral
> realist, at least of some sorts, for example, believes that moral
> properties are objective in the sense of being part of the furniture of
> the world.
>
> I think the supposed realism of photos is overblown: we often get
> carried away by recognition so that we don't know how weird they look.
>
> j
>
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