ABSTRACT
In section 5 of In Defence of Objectivity (2003: 166-169), Andrew Collier sketches out a distinction between two types of objectivity which leads to the centre both of his own thinking and of the issues at stake between realist and related positions on the one hand and relativistic, deconstructionist or antifoundationalist positions on the other. As Kate Soper and other contributors to this volume have noted, one of the key elements of Collier’s thinking is his stress on a selfdistancing relation to objects.1 This emphasis, paralleled by, for example, the quotations from Macmurray in section 4 of In Defence of Objectivity, or Adorno’s frequent reference to ‘what the object has by itself ’, as distinct from our subjectivistic or, worse, narcissistic relation to it, gives Collier an interesting and sensitive angle of approach to existentialist thought, sharing elements of its critique of excessive reflection and what Kierkegaard called calculation, while wishing to curb its excessively voluntaristic approach to knowledge and practice.
