The first three main divisions will be given over to establishing the
objectivity of content and function of judgments of value. The fourth
division will present a detailed analysis of the two types of judgment
of value, the ethical and economic, defining them and relating them to
each other, and correlating them in the manner just suggested with
judgment of the physical type. After considering, in the fifth part,
certain general objections to the positions thus stated, we shall
proceed in the sixth and concluding division to define the function of
the consciousness of value in the economy of life.[107]
I
The system of judgments which defines what one calls the objective order
of things is inevitably unique for each particular individual. No two
men can view the world from the standpoint of the same theoretical and
practical interests, nor can any two proceed in the work of gaining for
themselves knowledge of the world with precisely equal degrees of skill
and accuracy. Each must be prompted and guided, in the construction of
his knowledge of single things and of the system in which they have
their being, by his own particular interests and aims; and even when one
person in a measure shares in the interests and aims of another, the
rate and manner of procedure will not be the same for both, nor will the
knowledge gained be for both equally systematic in arrangement or in
interrelation of its parts. Each man lives in a world of his own--a
world, indeed, identical in certain fundamental respects with the worlds
which his fellow-men have constructed for themselves, but one
nevertheless necessarily unique through and through because each man is
a unique individual. There is, doubtless, a "social currency" of objects
which implies a certain identity of meaning in objects as experienced by
different individuals. The existence of society presupposes, and its
evolution in turn develops and extends, a system of generally accepted
objects and relations. Nevertheless, the "socially current object" is,
as such, an abstraction just as the uniform social individual is
likewise an abstraction. The only concrete object ever actually known or
in any wise experienced by any person is the object as constructed by
that person in accordance with his own aims and purposes, and in which
there is, therefore, a large and important share of meaning which is
significant to no one else.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account