Beyond Neo-Kantianism and Phenomenology: A Signo-Interpretationally Inspired Account of Objectivity

The present paper aims to explore the possibility of rethinking the concept of objectivity by abandoning the idea that it cannot be defined except by its opposition to subjectivity. The leading idea is that such a dependence upon the contrast to the subjective dimension has impoverished the investigation prospects on the concept of objectivity. In order to propose this new way to look at the concept of objectivity, we will start from the early twentieth- century debate between Neo-Kantianism (Natorp) and Phenomenology (Husserl). This is a meaningful example of the way in which objectivity depends on subjectivity, and even more on the relationship between subjectivity and temporality. Then we will refer to G. Abel’s philosophy of signs and interpretation, as a very perspicuous perspective, which allows to disentangle the subject from temporality within the process that brings to the construction of what we call «objective reality». This methodological paradigm’s overturning sets the stage for an idea of objectivity, which relies on the basic assumption that, in a sense, the objects can be taken as having their own life.