5 - Notes on Value and Objectivity

Summary

The Long Route

Introduction

It is natural that we should be interested in the nature of objectivity in general and in the objectivity or otherwise of practical thought in particular. In one of its senses objectivity is a precondition of knowledge. It also demarcates a type of thought that is importantly different from others.

In this chapter our interest is in one way in which various types of thought differ. They are subject to different disciplines. Suppose, for example, that I say “I will be a good teacher” and you tell me: “But you have tried and failed for years,” “I may reply by saying: “So what? That does not stop me from daydreaming,” a response that is inappropriate if the thought expresses a belief. This is but one example of one aspect of what I called the different “disciplines” to which a thought or the holding of a thought can be subjected, a difference that marks the distinction between classes of thoughts and of ways of holding them. These disciplines determine whether my thought and yours, which have the same content, belong to the same type.

Of some thoughts, for example, it is possible to say, “They were mistaken,” whereas of others this is inappropriate. A closely connected mark is that having or holding some thoughts can constitute knowledge.