Both the description of truth as being objective and as being subjective have their strengths. It doesn't seem possible for one to reasonably reject either in its entirety. Is there, then, any means of developing some comfortable middle ground which acknowledges and makes use of the valid insights which both offer?
Independent Facts & Subjective Beliefs
Arguably, yes, such a middle ground does exist. On the one hand, it seems perverse not to accept the idea that there are facts about the world which are independent of what we humans think - even if it were just the "fact" that things are only true subjectively, not objectively. Most, though, would argue that we can go even further. Hydrogen consists of one proton and one electron, no matter how strongly a person might argue otherwise - thus, the belief that the hydrogen atom is one proton and one electron is arguably "true" in an objective sense.
At the same time, the social and psychological nature of beliefs, including true beliefs, is also just as obvious. We not only form beliefs in the context of social relationships, but beliefs are by their very nature a product of our minds - they don't exist independently of us. How then can at least some truths not be partly "relative" and "subjective," depending upon our social and psychological situations?
They key here is "some" truths and "partly" relative. It may be objectively true that the hydrogen atom has just one proton and one electron, but the true belief about that was developed relative to particular assumptions about the world and confirmed in a social context of scientific research. Because of this, even if such beliefs are "true" objectively because they correspond precisely to what the world is really like, we can also regard them as "intersubjective" because our ability to recognize them as true is dependent upon particular psychological and social processes.
Intersubjectivity and Objectivity
It is important to understand here that the concept of intersubjective is not used as an alternative to objective in the sense that the two are mutually exclusive. They are, instead, complimentary - whereas one (objective) focuses our attention on the relationship of the a belief to the external world, the other (intersubjective) focuses our attention on the relationship of a belief to the social and psychological context in which it developed.
Both are important, but very often the former is given so much weight that the latter tends to be ignored. This, I think, can often serve as an important motivation for those who offer radical, skeptical critiques of truth and knowledge. They recognize that the subjective and personal aspects involved in the acquisition of truth go unnoticed, but in rectifying that imbalance they can go too far, dismissing the possibility of objective truth at all.
Because we are enmeshed in the world around us, however, any "truths" that we develop will have to involve both objective components from that world and subjective components that come from us internally.
