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If we define purpose as the reason for which something exists.

Can there be an objective purpose for something?

macco
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absolutely.

This answer has an objective purpose.

It exists to answer the question you asked.

The same can be said of a large number of artifacts (here meaning things that people make). Some objects will have compound objective purposes.

E.g., the chair exist so that someone can sit in it. (that's a type of reason). But it also exists because the chair maker made it to make money (a different type of reason).

Arguably this answer fulfills multiple and complex purposes as well. I answer it because I enjoy answering questions. I answer them on SE because SE has a good system where the answers are free to see. I enjoy answering questions about philosophy, because I have 4 degrees in it. I enjoy answering this question because I think a good deal about related issues in Hegel and Aristotle.

A harder variant on your question would be, can something exist which has only one purpose for its existence? Here, many artifacts will have trouble qualifying since they fulfill multiple purposes. And to get a definitive answer to this question is going to be difficult and somewhat opinion-based, because (a) atheists are going to reject that anything exists for a reason God gave it, (b) we can debate whether someone gave something a singular purpose or always has multiple purposes (see for instance the debate about whether one can have a pure maxim of the will -- Marcia Baron, Kantian Ethics Almost without Apology and Hegel's various critiques of Kant), (c) whether we accept teleology or natural kinds, and (d) whether we grant evolutionary purposes as objective purposes (why does the flying squirrel have membranes? because they enable it to glide from tree to tree and thus survive while getting food).

virmaior
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  • What if someone were to suggest an answer was written with another purpose? (A social purpose, for example, or a social experiment, or a trollish purpose.) If there can be an argument about someone's purpose in writing an answer, then what it's purpose is might not be objectively clear, no? Or am I misreading the meaning of objective? – Dronz Dec 30 '16 at 06:11
  • I believe I addressed that in my answer specifically in the last paragraph. As worded, yes, there can be *an* objective purpose for doing something. There can arguably be *many* objective purposes for which something is done. If you're asking, can a human act for a single objective purpose, then the answer depends on what philosophical views you want to refer to. Kant believes the answer is **yes** (several text, for instance *Groundwork*). Hegel believes the answer is **no**. Aristotle believes the answer is **yes** (*Nicomachean Ethics* BK I). – virmaior Dec 30 '16 at 06:33
  • Your comment suggests that you believe the answer to `can humans act for a **single** objectively *verifiable* objective?` is **no**, but this is not the question actually asked above and largely seems to be a question we could not resolve on the SE. – virmaior Dec 30 '16 at 06:34
  • My impression was that the word "objective" is where the main question is, but I think maybe it is simply that I am not clear what that term means outside conventional meaning in non-academic philosophy. You're right that often people argue (unknowingly at cross purposes) as if there can be only a single answer, but that seems different from whether an assertion is objective or not. But I get the feeling you have a specific meaning of objective or objective purpose in mind that I don't know. – Dronz Dec 30 '16 at 06:43
  • Objective is a term with multiple definitions within philosophy (the word has actually reversed meanings with subjective between the medieval period and the modern period). But I take the most common use of "objective" in contemporary usage to be the opposite of "subjective" where subjective is taken to mean contingent on the individual and their perspective and "objective" to mean (all else equal) knowable to all. – virmaior Dec 30 '16 at 06:46
  • I think in common speech the term "subjective" means by expansion "open to debate" or "unclear" or "having no right answer". But that's not a part of its technical definition. Moreover, the OP seems to be asking "can something exist for an objective purpose?" which at least how I parse the words leads to "yes" as the obvious answer. If they meant something more subtle, they should word it more carefully, but I did my best to also address some of the more common alternatives people mean by the term. – virmaior Dec 30 '16 at 06:49
  • Thank you for the clear and detailed explanation. That is what I thought. It seems to me that the purpose is an idea and for simple situations could be granted to be objective but if being tricky or a stickler, requires some context or agreement. Your chair example is fine but isn't knowable to all if someone doesn't recognize the design, for example. But maybe that's just me being pedantic about context, or just adding that context matters. – Dronz Dec 30 '16 at 06:58
  • I think your remark, "This answer has an objective purpose...to answer the question you asked", has a flaw related to what computer programmers would call "inheritance". At best, your answer's inheriting the objective purpose of the question it's answering. That is, if the original question has no (verifiable) objective purpose, then neither can your answer. Instead, your answer has a "relative purpose", relative to the purpose of the question. But if the question is gibberish, e.g., "How many angels can fit on the head of a pin?", you can't ascribe "objective purpose" to it or to its answer. –  Dec 30 '16 at 08:18
  • It's an interesting thought, but I don't buy it. Does the letter T have to inherit something from the letter B? I don't think my answer has to inherit purpose from the question (I worked doing OOP for several years btw). Once the question exists, it can be answered without respect to any supposed purpose of the question. In other words, you haven't at all proved there's a necessary form on inheritance between questions and answers on this sort of site because they are separable entities (unlike the words of a sentence that only have meaning together or in clauses). – virmaior Dec 30 '16 at 08:23
  • Also (off-topic) but funny, your example of "gibberish" is a question on the site http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/31345/how-many-angels-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin with an objective answer. – virmaior Dec 30 '16 at 08:25
  • Well, okay, I was just speculating, and maybe "inheritance" isn't quite the right idea, as follows. Instead, consider a "truth values" analogy, where a proposition (which might be a question) that possesses "objective purpose" (whatever that is) is called T(rue), and a proposition that doesn't possess it is F(alse). And now we might further say that a Question_proposition "implies" an Answer_proposition whenever the Answer actually answers the Question, which isn't quite the classical semantics of "implies". But now, what's the truth table for this "implies" with respect to our T/F~purpose?... –  Dec 30 '16 at 12:03
  • ...ran out of chars above. The underlying point is whether or not "objective purpose" is a property of the semantics (probably wouldn't be a property of syntax) of propositions, or whether it's "in the eye of the beholder", i.e., in your own mind. If the latter, then I think that pretty much ends the discussion right there, i.e., "there's no accounting for taste" and no accounting for purpose. So any further discussion has to axiomatically introduce a semantic function (in the denotational semantics sense) from syntax into an "objective purpose domain", which might be just T/F plus bottom. –  Dec 30 '16 at 12:14
  • Re gibberish, I have it on good authority that, at this very moment, angels are busy asking each other, "How many humans can engage in pointless conversations about angels?" And now I'm off to check my Collected Works of John Milton for further relevant quotes. –  Dec 30 '16 at 12:26
  • @JohnForkosh I'm not following at all. Clearly, the objective purpose of a knife is to cut things. Or of your comments is to accomplish *something* whether that something be to disagree with me, to troll me, or something else. – virmaior Dec 30 '16 at 12:55
  • doubt the angels at least on the sort of medieval understanding that the "head of a pin" parody is meant to elicit would give the slightest thought to something like that. – virmaior Dec 30 '16 at 12:55
  • Certainly not to troll, just trying to see how a formalism might be developed. That is, "objective purpose" should be an objective property of propositions. So a semantic function mapping wff's of a language L into a two-element (plus bottom) domain just partitions L into two subsets, those wff's whose meaning possesses "objective purpose", and those that don't. Precisely how to proceed isn't clear to me. But it occurs to me that this kind of problem domain, involving some abstract true/false property, must be well-studied, with an already-existing proof theory that could be apllied here. –  Dec 30 '16 at 23:00
  • Why should "objective purpose" be the an objective property of propositions? That seems to make the large assumption that everything in existence can be explained by a propositional system with wffs. That seems like a bad assumption to me. – virmaior Dec 31 '16 at 01:33
  • Oh, only because the op said "objective purpose", i.e., not subjective. And I don't think it entails the assumption that everything can be **explained** with wff's, just that our experiences (of everything we can experience) can be **described** with wff's. So our universe of discourse would be (describable) experiences, though I'm not quite sure how to embed your "knife example" above in that universe. –  Dec 31 '16 at 05:20
  • I think you're getting confused by the various meanings of subjective and objective. Specifically, I think you're confusing "subjective" as in my-own-personal-inaccessible-to-others (common usage but not philosophical) with coming-from-an-individual subject (most common usage in post 16th century philosophy). If I make a knife in order for it to be able to cut things, then that is both my subjective purpose for it and the objective purpose of it as a knife. Things can get messy with questions of multiple purposes or of knowing purposes but I addressed that in my answer and in the comments. – virmaior Dec 31 '16 at 05:31
  • "This answer has an objective purpose." Level with us: are you an Ayn Randian? seems pretty clear to me that the OP was asking about objective in the sense of non-subjective, rather than in the sense of having a goal. otherwise "objective purpose" would be redundant. –  Jan 01 '17 at 22:18
  • No, I'm not a Randian and for the record I've only read *Atlas Shrugged* and *The Fountainhead* over 20 years ago. I have a PhD in philosophy. My philosophical leanings are largely in line with Aristotle, Kierkegaard, Hegel, and then Kant (depending on the particular issue). I'm a bit surprised as to the degree to which this answer has invited comment. – virmaior Jan 02 '17 at 08:52
  • I'm also left wondering if you read the other comments as there I explain what I mean objective purpose in more detail and I don't conflate objective or purpose. I take an objective purpose to one that can be known to others which reflects the functional orientation of that thing whether or not this functional orientation was intentionally put into the thing. – virmaior Jan 02 '17 at 08:52
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What does "objective" mean?

But, before we deal with that, it is necessary to remark that this sentence,

If we define purpose as the reason for which something exists.

is ambiguous, and one of its meanings is false.

It is raining. Why? because water has condensated in the cooler upper atmosphere in the form of clouds. That's the reason why it is raining. It is not, however, the purpose of rain.

So let's assume that you mean "purpose as the reason for which something exists" as the intent why something exists. It is raining. Why? Because God has planned it so that the plants won't die. That would be the "purpose" of rain.

Now, back to "objective".

What is an "objective purpose"?

Again, this is ambiguous.

John intends to study Astronomy. This is a purpose. It is "objective" in the sense that it exists as an artifact of the real world; it makes John plan for taking courses, reading books, buying a telescope, etc. It is "subjective" (ie, non-objective) in the sense that it resides exclusively in John's volition; should he change his mind and decide to study pharmacology instead, the purpose ceases to exist.

If you intend it like "it is objective because it exists in the material world", then virmaior's answer applies. If you intend it like "it is objective because it is not subjective", then no; there is no purpose, no intention, without somebody's volition, and so, there is no such thing as an "objective purpose".

In other words, there is no such thing as a "final cause" outside of subjectivity. If we say that "the purpose of rain is to avoid the death of plants", we are either attributing a mind to natural phenomena (clouds, water, air, wind) or, perhaps inadvertently, creating a fictitious mind ex-nihilo (gods, devils, angels).

Luís Henrique
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From an older Alchemical view recaptured by one common theory of modality and reiterated in pyschological terms by Lacan, the answer has to be no.

A purpose is 'cardinal' or 'symbolic' information that relies upon either empathy or authority for its content. It is tied intrinsically to the person (or other entity like a tradition that we treat as a person) that the purpose serves, so it cannot be objective to some degree. It can have meaning only 'deontically' or 'cardinally', with reference to a goal, and therefore to the desire of a personality.

For Lacan, the mind lives in three worlds, which he labels Real, Ideal and Symbolic which correspond to the Astrological aspects of the Fixed, the Mutable and the Cardinal.

Real or Fixed statements are about physical objects that we experience as outside our minds. They are objective in the normal sense and take an indicative mood or an alethic modality.

At the other extreme, Ideal or Mutable statements are ideas, inside our minds. Since we can describe things to one another, and once we describe them they become independent of their source, Ideal things are also objective, in a different way. Their extreme and complete subjectivity lends them a form of objectivity. They transfer between subjects and everyone has their own view of them so no one controls them. Some of them are personal wishes, but my wish exists for you only as my wish, and not as a fact about other things. So it retains objectivity by being necessarily relativized. These take a subjunctive or optative mood or an optative modality.

But a Symbolic or Cardinal statement is a link between these two, and we are confronted right off with the fact that individuals and cultures generally map the two apparently shared realms back and forth idiosyncratically. Its contents are not objective and cannot be rendered objective unless they are explicitly relativized. They take a jussive or imperative mood or a deontic modality. (Purpose is morality for the inanimate.)

A hammer has a purpose only in a context of human usage. Without someone around who wants to beat on something with a certain level of precision, a hammer does not have a purpose. When we humans are all dead, the purpose will vanish. So it is not an objective fact, only a contexual one. A hammer may be intended for a given purpose by its creation, or its identification, but a given real hammer does not have an objective destiny to fulfill. It might hang on a hook in a store until it becomes too rusty to use, and then go to a landfill. Then in what way was there ever an objective purpose?

So it may be objective that virmiaor has a purpose for his statement, but the idea that it really has that purpose is entirely dependent upon him as a subject. This purpose can only be understood through his or someone else's eyes, by projection of oneself into someone's mind: i.e. subjectively and not objectively.