Start
End
Transforming the Subjective and the Objective: With and Beyond Amartya Sen’s Positional Objectivity
To be delivered by:
Prof. Ananta Kumar Giri
Vishwaneedam Center for Asian Blossoming
Former Professor, Madras Institute of Development Studies
Chair:
Prof. C. Veeramani
RBI Chair Professor & Director, CDS
Abstract:
Objectivity in social sciences has been much discussed, and much water has flowed in our rivers of understanding from Max Weber to Michel Foucault. To this complex field of critique and reflections, Amartya Sen has offered his perspective of what he calls ‘positional objectivity’: “[…] positionally dependent observations, beliefs, and actions are central to our knowledge and practical reason. The nature of objectivity in epistemology, decision theory and ethics has to take note of the parametric dependence of observation and observation on the position of the observer” . But the objectivity here is that of an observer, but agents in a field of life as well as subjects and objects of understanding are not only observers but also participants. There is a privileging of the observer here which is similar to other positions such as that of Andre Beteille, who also privileges the standpoint of an observer rather than explores pathways of emergent objectivity beginning with the experiential perspective of participants. Sen talks about the need for transpositional scrutiny, but transpositional scrutiny is not adequate for the challenges at hand; we need to cultivate transpositional movements. Sen talks about the need for positional objectivity, but once the agents are not only observers but also participants, the objectivity that emerges is not only objective but also subjective, intersubjective and transsubjective. So we need to explore transpositional subjectobjectivity—one which emerges out of pluralization of the subjects, border-crossing transmutations among positions and transformative cultivation of the objective and the subjective, including intersubjective and transubjective. It calls for transformation of the subjectivity and objectivity as we know including transformation of these from nouns to verbs and realises that as verbs they are not only activistic but also meditative, embodying and aspiring for what can be called meditative verbs of pluralisation. It also involves rethinking and transforming the dualism between the epistemic and the ontological, which resonates with the dualism of the subjective and the objective and the primacy of the epistemic to the neglect of the ontological in modernity. It also calls for transformation of the epistemological and the ontological and cultivating non-dual visions and practices of what I have elsewhere called the ontological epistemology of participation and what Bruno Latour calls ‘post-epistemological moves’. But transpositional subjectobjectivity also calls for a new pragmatics of self and social communication, social dialogues and contestations. For example, it involves communication of contested positions and the emergent subjectobjectivity that emerges from such sharing and struggles. The lecture explores some of these issues.