The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Subjectivism

a world view that ignores the objective approach to reality and denies the existence of objective laws of nature and society. Subjectivism is one of the main epistemological sources of idealism. In essence, it grants primacy to the role played by the subject in various spheres of activity and in the cognitive process above all. The concomitant abstraction of thought, which does not correspond to the nature of objects, leads ultimately to a divorce from reality, subjective blindness, agnosticism, and relativism (see V. I. Lenin, Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 29, p. 322).

Subjectivism has been expounded by such philosophers as G. Berkeley, D. Hume, and J. G. Fichte; the philosophy of I. Kant is also marked by subjectivist concepts. In the bourgeois philosophy of the 19th and 20th centuries, subjectivism has been a basic principle of such idealist schools of thought as neo-Kan-tianism, empiriocriticism, philosophy of life, pragmatism, neopositivism, and existentialism.

According to Marxist philosophy, which rejects subjectivism, the subject’s active role in practical life and in the cognitive process presupposes the existence of a dialectical relationship between subject and object as well as the existence of an objective reality that has its own laws and is independent of consciousness. Various distortions of Marxism-Leninism have their foundations in subjectivism. Right-wing revisionism, proceeding from a subjectivist understanding of practice, eclectically attempts to combine the principles of Marxist philosophy with subjectivist philosophical conceptions, such as existentialism and pragmatism. The left-wing revision of Marxism-Leninism is an attempt to replace its creative theory with a system of subjectively interpreted dogmas that serve as a justification for voluntarism.

In the political sphere, subjectivism is reflected in policy decisions based on arbitrary, unscientific principles, a contemptuous attitude toward the laws of society, and a belief in the omnipotence of administrative decisions. Genuinely scientific policymaking combines a strictly objective approach to reality with recognition of activism and initiative displayed by the masses, by social classes, and by individuals. This approach is a guarantee against subjectivism in any form.

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References in periodicals archive

Clearly the full-on subjectivist will not resist my thesis.

THE CASE FOR STANCE-DEPENDENT REASONS

Arguably, Hayek's claim about Mises leading the advance of subjectivism may not be mistaken per se, however, Mises's approach to grounding economic theory on a proper subjectivist foundation differed dramatically from that of Wieser and his followers.

THE PLACE OF ECONOMIC CALCULATION IN THE ECONOMIC THEORY OF LUDWIG VON MISES

Subjectivist theory asserts that the behaviors associated with an entrepreneurial orientation emphasize the primacy of individual ideas, beliefs, values, and expectations which tend to be highly varied (Butos and Koppl, 1997; Covin and Lumpkin, 2011; Endres and Woods, 2007; Yu, 2003; Kirzner, 1973; Mahoney and Michael, 2005), perhaps infinitely varied.

Observe, Orient, Decide, Act: A Subjectivist Model of Entrepreneurial Decision Making

The objectivist may point out, however, that this subjectivist view of moral and even political judgments would, if consistently invoked, make it impossible to say of any system of guidelines--e.g., a constitution--that it is better than others.

Can people obtain objective knowledge?

(7) As methodological individualists, and Austrian subjectivists, we acknowledge that one person's horror is another man's boredom, or joy, or indifference.

Animal torture: A critique of thick libertarianism

accounts are typically divided between the "subjectivists" and

Criminal attempts

This article highlights the similar way both responded to the deficiencies of subjectivist epistemology and the role of freedom in this.

Popper's view of modern science: in the footsteps of schelling

I dub the proponents of the first view subjectivists, and those of the latter view objectivists.

Objectivity and subjectivity in theories of well-being

The chapters in this volume are not at all even in terms of their treatment of objectivist and subjectivist themes.

Yukihiro Ikeda and Kiichiro Yagi (eds). Subjectivism and Objectivism in the History of Economic Thought

He considers both what he calls objectivist and subjectivist approaches, which respectively indicate whether one sees Capital-as-supersubject or human agency as sources of Marx's alternative to capitalism.

Marx's concept of the alternative to capitalism

A perfectly legitimate, justified subjective or purely optional element can enter basically objective moral decisions, being human by itself imposes certain broad restraints on what is justified for one to do, and the subjectivist position crumbles from within because it cannot be deployed in support of itself.

Grounding spatial theory in social justice

Secondly, paradigmatic trends in the social sciences have tended to favor subjectivist explanations and problematize the importance of structural causality (see Beck 2002; also Steinmetz, 1999, 1-50).

Teaching social structure in a poststructural classroom: A (mild) defense of an economic deterministic approach