Kierkegaard felt that subjective reflection was more crucial to the individual life than objective reflection because it focused on passion and human existence instead of logic and impersonal truth. The objective world is the world of facts and truth independent of the perceptions of humans. Objective reflection focuses on what actually is, in the objective world. Objective reflection centers on the things and ideas in the world that can give meaning to life. The subjective world is the world of human thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. It focuses on the relationship between people and their thoughts, feelings, and perceptions in respect to their lives. It centers on how meaning in life is viewed subjectively, or how humans find meaning in their lives. So, basically what he is saying is, it is the relationship to what a person values in life. One major difference I noticed in the reading, between the objective and subjective realms, is in regards to ‘being’ versus ‘becoming’. Kierkegaard stated the objective world is as it is: being. The subjective world is always ‘becoming’ something else through internal conflicts and struggle. However, the latter difference then kind of creates a chain as another difference arises between the two realms. The objective world is based in reason, while the subjective world is based in passion. Kierkegaard believed that subjective reflection was the key understanding meaning in life. He kind of complains with the objective reflection stating that it is impersonal and an indifferent relation to existence. As a matter of fact, this terminology as I shall call it, defines just what the objective world and objective reflection is: being independent of any human subjectivity. Subjective reflection naturally focuses on human existence in a personal, inward way without ‘detachment’ as Kierkegaard put it. Kierkegaard goes on to use th...
