Editing Subjectivism (section)

== Metaphysical subjectivism ==
Subjectivism is a label used to denote the philosophical tenet that "our own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience."<ref name="Richardson1983p553">Richardson, Alan and Bowden, John (1983) [https://books.google.com/books?id=TFRYGphPQh4C&pg=PA553 ''A new dictionary of Christian theology''] pp.552-3</ref> While [[Thomas Hobbes]] was an early proponent of subjectivism,<ref name="Tripathi 1979 p. "/><ref name="Kraus 2002 p. 102"/> the success of this position is historically attributed to [[Descartes]] and his [[methodic doubt]].<ref name="Richardson1983p553"/> Subjectivism has historically been condemned by Christian theologians, which oppose to it the objective authority of the church, the Christian dogma, and the revealed truth of the Bible.<ref name="Richardson1983p553"/><ref name="Dallmayr1989p188">Dallmayr, Fred Reinhard (1989) [https://books.google.com/books?id=lhffXhoB9v8C&pg=PA188 ''Margins of political discourse''] p.188</ref> Christian theologians, and [[Karl Barth]] in particular, have also condemned [[anthropocentrism]] as a form of subjectivism.<ref name="Richardson1983p553"/><ref>Michael Kunzler (2001) [https://books.google.com/books?id=TObDrbvQFT4C&pg=PA3 ''Church's Liturgy''] p.3</ref>

Metaphysical subjectivism is the theory that reality is what we perceive to be real, and that there is no underlying true reality that exists independently of perception. One can also hold that it is [[consciousness]] rather than perception that is reality ([[idealism]]). This is in contrast to [[Objectivity (philosophy)#Objectivism|metaphysical objectivism]] and [[philosophical realism]], which assert that there is an underlying 'objective' reality which is perceived in different ways.

This viewpoint should not be confused with the stance that "all is illusion" or that "there is no such thing as reality." Metaphysical subjectivists hold that reality is real enough. They conceive, however, that the nature of reality as related to a given consciousness is dependent on that consciousness. This has its philosophical basis in the writings of [[Descartes]] (see ''[[cogito ergo sum]]''), and forms a cornerstone of [[Søren Kierkegaard]]'s philosophy.

=== Modern versions ===
Recently, more modest versions of metaphysical subjectivism have been explored. For example, I might hold that it is a ''fact'' that chocolate is tasty, even though I recognize that it is not tasty to everyone. This would imply that there are facts that are ''subjective''. (Analogously, one might hold that it is a fact that it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, even though this is not always the case, implying that some facts are ''temporary''.) Giovanni Merlo has developed a specific version of metaphysical subjectivism, under which subjective facts always concern ''mental'' properties.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Merlo|first=Giovanni|title=Subjectivism and the Mental|journal=Dialectica|year=2016|volume=70|issue=3|pages=311–342|doi=10.1111/1746-8361.12153}}</ref> With Giulia Pravato, he has argued that his version of subjectivism provides a natural way to be both a [[Philosophical realism|realist]] and a [[Relativism|relativist]] about, for example, the proposition that chocolate is tasty—it is part of reality (a subjective fact) that chocolate is tasty, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily true from another's point of view.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Merlo|first1=Giovanni|last2=Pravato|first2=Giulia|title=Relativism, realism, and subjective facts|journal=Synthese|year=2020|volume=198|issue=9|pages=8149–8165|doi=10.1007/s11229-020-02562-x|s2cid=211053829|url=https://philarchive.org/rec/MERRRA-2 }}</ref> [[Caspar John Hare|Caspar Hare]]'s theory of [[egocentric presentism]] is another, closely related example.

=== Subjectivism and panpsychism ===
One possible extension of subjectivist thought is that conscious experience is available to all objectively perceivable substrates. Upon viewing images produced by a camera on the rocking side of an erupting volcano, one might suppose that their relative motion followed from a subjective conscious within the volcano. These properties might also be attributed to the camera or its various components as well.

In this way, though, subjectivism morphs into a related doctrine, [[panpsychism]], the belief that every objective entity (or event) has an inward or subjective aspect.