Now the opposite word. In the will, “objective” also means three things.

First: the will that matches its core. It wants freedom, that is, what it really is. Such a will is objective in the highest sense. In this sense, we also call a will objective when it wants the good and the ethical.

Second: the will that loses itself entirely in something else. Think of a child that simply trusts its parents and does what they say. Or think of a slave who never even thinks that he could be free. Or of a person who lives wholly inside his superstition. This also includes anyone who merely follows the customs of his people without being present in them himself. This will follows a foreign lead. Strictly speaking, it is a will without a will of its own.

Third: what exists out there in the world. A plan becomes objective when I carry it out. Then it stands before everyone’s eyes, however self-willed it may be.

Now comes something strange. For our thinking, many pairs of words stay firmly apart, for example up and down. With subjective and objective, this does not work. They turn into each other.

Let us look at the first two meanings. The free will is wholly itself, and so wholly subjective. For exactly this reason, it is also objective in the highest sense. We call the slave’s will objective, by contrast, because it is wholly stuck in what is foreign. But it lacks precisely the subjective part, the knowledge of itself.

From this follows a rule for everything that comes next. Only the context tells us what “subjective” or “objective” means each time. Whoever does not pay attention to this mixes up the meanings without noticing.

Summary: Objective means: in line with its own core, sunk in something foreign, or made real out in the world. In the will, subjective and objective pass over into each other. So we must pay attention to the context each time.