THE RIDDLE OF OBJECTIVITY OBJECTIVITY ASSUMPTIONS AS INTERNAL PRESUPPOSITIONS

The two leading questions of this paper are: How do we have to conceive objectivity, and where does the normativity of objectivity come from? These are challenging questions because the traditional reservoirs that are required to answer them (like, e.g., ontological metaphysics and universalism) are no longer at our disposal the way they used to be. On one side the idea of objectivity plays a highly important role in our triangular I-We/You-World relations. On the other side, objectivity seems to be highly elusive and hard to grasp. The leading thesis of this paper is that we can solve the riddle of objectivity by conceiving our objectivity assumptions as internal presuppositions of our human experience, perception, speech, thought, and action. Given that this new conception of objectivity must integrate the temporal and processual nature of what counts as an object and an objectivity, we face the crucial desideratum of developing a dynamic model of objectivity.