Subject Matter
A subject can use the response “That is your opinion” to protect their own subjectivity when someone else’s universal assertion is presented to them as an unconditional truth that they are obliged to accept. This is not about refuting the assertion, but about refusing to recognize its right to predetermine the boundaries of inquiry.
The Situation of Imposition
Assertions such as “Everything is matter” and “Everything is governed by natural laws” can function not only as philosophical theses but also as demands to accept a particular ontology as an ultimate foundation.
When presented in this way, the author of the thesis disappears behind its universal form: the statement is represented no longer as the position of a subject, but as reality itself, which supposedly allows no question about its own grounds.
The Method
The subject responds: “That is your opinion.”
This response performs a specific operation: it returns a universal assertion to the status of a thesis put forward by someone. A claim to universality no longer automatically entails an obligation to accept it.
Sequence:
- A thesis is presented to the subject as an unconditional foundation.
- The subject is required to think and evaluate reality within that foundation.
- The subject identifies the thesis as the position of the person presenting it: “That is your opinion.”
- In doing so, the subject refuses to recognize the thesis as obligatory and preserves the possibility of investigating its grounds, limits, and alternatives.
Formula: absolutized thesis → returning the thesis to its author → removing the imposed obligation → preserving independent inquiry.
What Exactly Is Rejected
The response does not mean “Your thesis is false,” nor does it require immediately proposing an opposing universal thesis. What is rejected is not the content of the assertion as such, but its presentation as a truth to which the subject must submit before inquiry has even begun.
The subject need not prove that “not everything is matter” in order to refuse to accept materialism as a mandatory starting premise. Rejecting an imposed foundation is not equivalent to proving its opposite.
Its Mirror Relationship to Institutional Defense
The phrase “That is your opinion” also appears in an opposite mechanism: the reduction of a fact to an opinion.
There, the system turns a verifiable assertion about its action into a discussion of the speaker’s position in order to avoid examining the event and responsibility. Here, the subject restores an imposed universal assertion to the status of a thesis, preventing it from foreclosing inquiry in advance.
The outward form of the response is the same, but the object and direction of the action differ:
- Institutional reduction: a verifiable event is removed from discussion by declaring it an opinion.
- Protection of subjectivity: the imposed unconditional status of a thesis is removed by returning it to the realm of assertions open to investigation.
The phrase itself therefore cannot be classified in advance as manipulation or defense. It is necessary to distinguish which assertion is being challenged, what obligation is attributed to it, and what happens to the possibility of further investigation.
Boundary of the Method
Calling someone else’s assertion an opinion does not yet refute its arguments or undo an event that has occurred. If a subject uses the same response to evade examination of a specific action and its consequences, they reproduce the mechanism of reducing a fact to an opinion.
The protective function arises where the response is directed against an imposed elevation of a thesis to a fundamental truth, not against another person’s right to present facts and grounds.
Conclusion
Returning an imposed thesis to the status of an opinion is one way of defending subjectivity against dogmatization. The subject retains the right not to accept someone else’s universal assertion as the obligatory foundation of their own thinking. The method establishes no new final truth: it prevents an already presented form from occupying that position without investigation.
