The primacy of subjectivity is an assumption or position from which we start within our own consciousness or subjectivity. The meanings of words, for example, are above all the images and ideas that flow through our consciousness when we hear these words. This assumption is indefensible because, in fact, it denies the very possibility of communication.
If meaning is what flows through our mind, and if our mind is for me and everyone else a black box (a place accessible only to yourself), then what you have in mind is generally inaccessible to me and for everyone else.
The insistence on the primacy of subjectivity leads to nothing more than confirmation of the image of our mind as a hermetically sealed territory.
Nothing is gained, rather much is lost, in denying the personal or inner dimensions of human experience and consciousness. But the very prefix of the word consciousness suggests that we do not begin, locked in a dark closet, we begin with (con Latin “with”) others.
Finding out what our words mean and even our feelings for others is the most important thing.
Related:
