From a December, 1985 journal entry.
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Why does Søren Kierkegaard maintain that truth is subjectivity, and in the Danish equivalents of those very words? What could he mean by such a strange assertion?
To rehearse the obvious: S. K. does not mean that truth is subjective or relative, varying with persons, places, times, perspectives, or any other index. The Dane presupposes that truth is objective. But then what could the central claim of Concluding Unscientific Postscript, "truth is subjectivity," mean?
Since Kierkegaard assumes the objective truth of Christianity, and does so without question or caveat, the only issue for him is the subjective appropriation of Christian truth. To appropriate is to make one's own, and the one in question is not the abstract one in general, but in every case the concrete existing individual. S. K.'s greatness is his honesty in expounding the demands that genuine Christianity makes on the would-be Christian and in exposing the state-sponsored Christianity Inc. of his day. Given the tacit presupposition of Christianity's truth, it makes sense for S. K. to say that truth is subjectivity. For it is not the objective truth of Christianity that is an issue for him, but the individual, and thus necessarily subjective, task of becoming a Christian. That is my charitable reading of the famous dictum.
But to be precise in our use of terms, truth is by its very nature objective, not subjective; what is subjective is truthfulness. Only a person can correctly be said to be truthful in the primary sense of the term. It would make no sense to describe propositions as truthful any more than it would make sense to say that persons have truth-values or stand in entailment relations or correspond to reality.
Objective truth and subjective truthfulness, though distinct, are related. (It is worth noting that 'objective and 'subjective' in the immediately preceding sentence are redundant qualifiers: truth would not be what it is if it were not objective, and truthfulness would not be what it is if if were not a personal attribute.) They are related in that one can be truthful only by respecting the truth, by living in accordance with it, by refraining from lying, deceit, and deception, by telling the truth.
Subjective, lived, existential truth is entirely vacuous if disengaged from objective truth; at the limit subjective truth thus disengaged is indistinguishable from vicious self-will. It then becomes what in contemporary parlance is called 'my truth.' But there is no such thing as my truth; truth by its very nature is objective. What is mine can only be my appropriation or non-appropriation of the truth, truth that cannot be mine. One cannot appropriate and live the truth unless there is truth to be appropriated.
I said that truth and truthfulness are related. But I don't want to give the impression that while truthfulness requires truth, truth can subsist without truthfulness. That may be, but it is not obvious and may be reasonably controverted. So I now take a further step by stating that truth and truthfulness are mutually implicative. They are, if you will, 'dialectically related:' no one without the other, and no other without the one. It is clear that truthfulness implies truth; less clear, but arguable is that truth implies truthfulness. That is to say: there cannot be objective truth without subjectivity, without a truthful subject. Can I prove it? No. But I can make a case for it, a case that renders the thesis reasonable to believe.
Truth is made for the mind at least in this sense: Objective truth is necessarily such that is it possibly recognized by someone. Truth mediates between mind and reality. Truth is the truth of reality in both the objective and subjective senses of the genitive. Truth is about reality, but it is also reality's truth. Reality's truth is reality's intelligibility, its aptness to be understood. So if it is objectively true that Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, then that truth, that true proposition, is necessarily such that it is possibly recognized or known by someone. But it cannot be possibly known unless there actually exists someone who can know it. Now what is really possible must be grounded in the abilities and powers of actual agents. But there are many truths that are not possibly known by any finite agent. And yet they too are possibly known because knowability is an essential property of every truth. Therefore, their knowability is grounded in the actual power to know of an actual being. "And this all men call God."
Now that was rather quick, wasn't it? But I meant it merely as a sketch for an argument to be laid out rigorously. (The modal moves I made invite close scrutiny.) So laid out, the argument still won't be rationally compelling, but then no substantive argument in philosophy or theology for that matter is rationally compelling. But many such arguments do supply grounds for reasoned belief which all that is available to us here below.
So suppose God exists. He is the truthful subjective source of all objective truth. In God, truthfulness and truth are one, the subjective and the objective coalesce. The mutually implicative relation of truthfulness and truth is as tightly grounded as could be. This is exactly what we should expect give the divine simplicity for which there many arguments.
To sum up. Truthfulness for us here below is a matter of the subjective appropriation of objective truth. Read in this sense, S. K. 's dictum is defensible. It is not truth that is subjective, but truthfulness.
There is no truthfulness without truth. This is well-nigh evident if not self-evident. That there is no truth without truthfulness is less clear but arguable as above.
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