Objectivity is constituted in relation to historically situated humanity, not apart from it
Evidence
The idea of “objective” in metaphysical materialism would appear to mean an objectivity that exists even apart from man; but when one affirms that a reality would exist even if man did not, one is either speaking metaphorically or one is falling into a form of mysticism. We know reality only in relation to man, and since man is historical becoming, knowledge and reality are also a becoming and so is objectivity, etc. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1585
Categorization
- XREF: This historicized-objectivity claim prefigures the anti-essentialist constructionist epistemology that the later Islamophobia readings assume — connects to Hall’s conjunctural knowledge and the critique of Orientalist timeless essences. — connects to: Historical materialism inherits and historicizes idealism’s claim that reality is a human creation — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1570; Objectivity of concepts rests on a collective historical subject — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 764; Objectivity is historical and exists only in relation to man. (+3 more)
- DEFINE: Defines Gramsci’s historicist objectivity against metaphysical materialism’s reified objectivity.
Broader Connections
- Objectivity is historical and exists only in relation to man.
#corroborates(0.97) - Objectivity of concepts rests on a collective historical subject
#corroborates(0.95) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 764 - Knowledge and objectivity are only knowable in relation to humanity
#corroborates(0.93) - Modern society’s objectivity arises from material objects representing a separate conceptual order.
#contradicts(0.80) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 404 - Human nature is the totality of historically determined social relations, not a fixed essence.
#corroborates(0.75) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 617