Subjects, Objects, Data and Values

Abstract

The title, “Subjects, Objects, Data and Values,” concerns the central theme of the Einstein meets Magritte conference—the meeting of art and science. Science is all about subjects and objects and particularly data, but it excludes values. Art is concerned primarily with values but doesn’t really pay much attention to scientific data and sometimes excludes objects. My own work has been concerned with a Metaphysics of Quality that can cross over this division with a single overall rational framework. A suitable subtitle could be, “Some Connections Between the Metaphysics of Quality and Niels Bohr’s Philosophy of Complementarity.” As I see it, Bohr’s Complementarity and the Metaphysics of Quality stand midway between Einstein and Magritte. I have concentrated on Bohr’s work as a way of making the larger connection. Although Bohr’s stature in science is somewhat diminished from its dominance in the 1920’s and 1930’s and his metaphysical ideas are all but forgotten, the negative blow he dealt to the supremacy of objectivity in science is still with us today.