Opher Kutner writes:

> I submited my ideas of subjectivity about a month ago,
> extensivly on June 18th.  (For the benefit of those
> then absent, I include them at the end of this 
> letter.) Apart from two, nobody saw it fit to respond
> to my thoughts. ...

I thank Opher Kutner for mailing a copy of his
earlier letter, which for one reason or another
I had overlooked.

Giving offense and being offended are, I think 
integral to religious experience; and surely the
humiliation of giving offense is an unavoidable
concomitant of even the most insignificant pretense
to the imitatio Christi. "et beatus est quicumque
non fuerit scandalizatus in me." (Luke 7:23) is integral
to the Judaic-Christian experience. All who incite
controversy deserve our gratitude, because controversy
and contumely gives us otherwise unobtainable images of
ourselves as individuals and as a society. Imagine
Shakespeare's dramas without controversy.

Which consideration brings me to a point Opher made that
I deem of much importance, namely the distinction between 
intuition and communication. It is, of course, very much
the case, that we are except in rare instances unable to
give adequate expression to what we feel.  Neither rhetoric
nor logic suffice.  The objectivation of the subjective is,
I think, the unique function of art; which is why, as I 
understand him, Kierkegaard claimed to be, more than anything
else, an artist.

As corollary of Opher's observation, I suspect that the purported
"truth" of objectivity, by which so many of the contributors to
this list seem to have been taken in, is not in the comprehension
of some ultimate reality, nor in the correspondence of the
object to some metaphysical idealized Ding an sich.
The purported "truth" of objectivity is a reflection of the
reliability and efficacy of communication. A proposition is
objectively "true" if it can be reliably counted on to receive
consistent interpretation, if it has a fixed and definite meaning
to the greatest number of mathematicians, physicists, chemists,
professors, Privatdozenten, high school teachers and newspaper
columnists.  It is the uniform interpretation of mathematical
and logical statements which makes possible the intellectual
monstrosities of modern technology; and it is modern technology
which defines objective truth. But we, all of us are starved
for *subjective* truth, and that is why we read Kierkegaard.

Insufficiency of communication is attributable not only
of the source, i.e. to the writer's inability to express
what is within him/her; it afflicts also the intended destination,
where for whatever reason, the recipient of the communication
misunderstands. If Opher received no response at all to his
writings would be in good company.

Kierkegaard reports:

    "... I dare nevertheless affirm one thing, and that
    with confidence, about the fate of the little book
    (Philosophical Fragments): It has created no sensation,
    absolutely none. Undisturbed, and in compliance with
    his own motto: "Better well hung than ill wed," the 
    well-hung author has been left hanging. No one has asked
    him, not even in jest, for whom or for what purpose he
    hung. Better so, better well hung than by an unfortunate
    marriage to be brought in systematic relationship 
    (Svogerskab: pregnancy) with all the world."

Preface to the Concluding Unscientific Postscript
(Swenson-Lowrie translation) I note that the squeamish
translators rendered "Svogerskab" as "relationship";
but I think it means "pregnancy". Never trust the
translation.

Ernst Meyer
review@netcom.com