Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

by Steven Pinker

In The Last Word, the philosopher Thomas Nagel drives home the point that subjectivity and relativism regarding logic and reality are incoherent, because “one can’t criticize something with nothing”: The claim “Everything is subjective” must be nonsense, for it would itself have to be either subjective or objective. But it can’t be objective, since in that case it would be false if true. And it can’t be subjective, because then it would not rule out any objective claim, including the claim that it is objectively false. There may be some subjectivists, perhaps styling themselves as pragmatists, who present subjectivism as applying even to itself. But then it does not call for a reply, since it is just a report of what the subjectivist finds it agreeable to say. If he also invites us to join him, we need not offer any reason for declining, since he has offered us no reason to accept.