Comparing the experience of two people in the same situation, some elements of the experience will be identical, some different but compatible, some different and conflicting.

Those elements of experience that are reliably identical across experiences are interpreted as attributes of objects, and we call objective. Those elements that are reliably different across experiences we call subjective, and are interpreted as attributes of subjects.

In the end, however, all comparisons are made by subjects between subjects, through the essentially intersubjective medium of language, and they deal with experiences had by subjects. Objectivity is a subset of subjectivity with a very blurry edge and perhaps nothing but blurry edge around a point-of-approach suggesting a metaphysical existence. And other subjects are essentially different from one’s own. We are comparing unlike beings as though they are like, through language and phenomenal reference points — so the subjectivity of others is also a point-of-approach suggesting a metaphysical existence.

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To think of objectivity as somehow more real than subjectivity, and subjectivity as more real than intersubjectivity is to take what is furthest for what is nearest, and it has disastrous practical implications, as does taking objectivity to be unreal and invalid.