Leaping Ahead of Heidegger: Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity in Being and Time

Abstract

This article challenges Honneth’s reading of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right in The Pathologies of Individual Freedom: Hegel’s Social Theory (2001/2010). Focusing on Hegel’s method, I argue that this text hardly offers support for the theory of mutual recognition that Honneth purports to derive from it. After critically considering Honneth’s interpretation of Hegel’s account of the family and civil society, I argue that Hegel’s text does not warrant Honneth’s tacit identification of mutual recognition with symmetrical instances of mutual recognition, let alone his subsequent projection of symmetrical forms of mutual recognition onto the various spheres of the Philosophy of Right as a whole. I conclude by indicating an alternative way in which Hegel’s text might be used to understand contemporary society.     

Representation and the First-Person Perspective

The orthodox view in the study of representation is that a strictly third-person objective methodology must be employed. The acceptance of this methodology is shown to be a fundamental and debilitating error. Toward this end I defend what I call “the particularity requirement, ”discuss an important distinction between representers and information bearers, and identify what I call “the fundamental fact of representation” I argue that any theory of representation must accommodate these, but that any theory that also is based upon a strictly third-person methodology lacks the resources to provide for any of them. It is shown that this failure extends to teleological accounts of representation, despite appearances to the contrary. In the course of this, I argue for the acceptance of a methodological principle, methodological chauvinism, and I show how it implicates a restricted use of the first-person perspective in the study of representation. I explain a nonphenomenal first-person concept, minimal content, which I have introduced and defended more fully elsewhere, the features of which lead to the recognition of a unique intentional state that I call the fundamental intentional state. It is so called since “normal” intentional states presuppose it. Importantly, the logical structure of this state is different from all other intentional states. Lastly, I argue that the expanded methodology I adopt is neither unscientific nor anthropomorphic, despite its employment of a first-person perspective. Ironically, it is the exclusive use of third-person methodologies that leads to anthropomorphism in the study of representation.     

Avowals and First-Person Privilege

When people avow their present feelings, sensations, thoughts, etc., they enjoy what may be called "first-person privilege." If I now said: "I have a headache," or "I'm thinking about Venice," I would be taken at my word: I would normally not be challenged. According to one prominent approach, this privilege is due to a special epistemic access we have to our own present states of mind. On an alternative, deflationary approach the privilege merely reflects a socio-linguistic convention governing avowals. We reject both approaches. On our proposed account, a full explanation of the privilege must recognize avowals as expressive performances, which can be taken to reveal directly the subject's present mental condition. We are able to improve on special access accounts and deflationary accounts, as well as familiar expressive accounts, by explaining both the asymmetries and the continuities between avowals and other pronouncements, and by locating a genuine though non-epistemic source for first-person privilege.     

Social Externalism and First-Person Authority

Social Externalism is the thesis that many of our thoughts are individuated in part by the linguistic and social practices of the thinker’s community. After defending Social Externalism and arguing for its broad application, I turn to the kind of defeasible first-person authority that we have over our own thoughts. Then, I present and refute an argument that uses first-person authority to disprove Social Externalism. Finally, I argue briefly that Social Externalism—far from being incompatible with first-person authority—provides a check on first-personal pronouncements and thus saves first-person authority from being simply a matter of social convention and from collapsing into the subjectivity of “what seems right is right.”

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Puzzles of Discourse in Being and Time: Minding Gaps in Understanding

Abstract

This paper takes issue with Heidegger’s claim that discourse and understanding are equally basic in the constitution of our making sense of the world. I argue that Heidegger cannot consistently establish this claim, and that discourse can be thought of as being more basic than understanding. The proposed line of thinking has the advantage of shedding light on both the finitude and the normativity of our making sense of the world. Thus, by setting up an exchange with the later Wittgenstein’s discussion of rule‐following makes it possible to develop an approach to the normativity of meaning which was not readily available on Heidegger’s account. Further, the paper offers an inquiry into a certain aspect of our finite sense of the world which, in spite of Heidegger’s marked attention to finitude, was obscured by his approach to discourse. The implications of the argument might be far‐reaching. The view of a basic role of discourse can put into question Heidegger’s guiding vision according to which time alone is ultimately the fundamental constituent of our sense of what there is. The engagement with Wittgenstein indicates, in conjunction with other themes of the paper, that there are certain perspectives and issues in phenomenology which are much closer to aspects of the analytic tradition than is usually granted.     

Heidegger's formal indication: A question of method in Being and Time

For Heidegger, phenomenological investigation is carried out by formal indication, the name given to the methodical approach he assumes in Being and Time. This paper attempts to draw attention to the nature of formal indication in light of the fact that it has been largely lost upon American scholarship (mainly due to its inconsistent translation). The roots of the concept of formal indication are shown in two ways. First, its thematic treatment in Heidegger's 1921/22 Winter Semester course, Phenomenological Investigations into Aristotle, is examined to make clear what Heidegger silently assumes in Being and Time. Second, Heidegger's adaptation of Husserl's use of the term, indication, is outlined to clarify the concept even more. The enhanced understanding of formal indication granted by these two points leads to a better grasp of Heidegger's concept of truth, for formal indication and truth are mutually implied for Heidegger. Finally, it is suggested that the reader of Being and Time, on the basis of what formal indication demands, approach the work not as a doctrine to be learned but as a task always requiring further completion.     

从《存在与时间》到《哲学论稿》:海德格尔前后期思想关系疏解

<哲学论稿>是海德格尔在30年代的重要手稿,与晚期思想关系密切.如何解说<哲学论稿>与前期代表作<存在与时间>的关系,成为疏通海德格尔前后期思想联系的关键.这个疏通工作把Befragtes的问题作为引导性问题,以之为追问的线索,考察了两个问题:一、以此在为Befragtes如何决定了<存在与时间>必须以此在的生存现象学描述为主体内容;而直接"从Ereignis而来"如何决定了<从Ereignis而来>向哲学的投稿贡献是Ereignis的自行发生成文?二、是否借助一个Befragtes或以什么存在者为Befragtes在多大程度上决定了思想成文时的结构?     

The Subjectivity of Certainty and the Subjectivity of Uncertainty

Based on the acknowledgment of what I have designated as cracks in our theoretical models, I have advanced some hypotheses that account for the constitution of social, familial, and individual subjectivity. I have attributed great significance to the concept of the unforeseeable. The unforeseeable is tied to uncertainty, which is related in turn to the flow of interpersonal relations. I have also discussed new forms of suffering that stem from conditions imposed by the social context, in this case, the expulsion from one's territory. I chose this phenomenon because of the importance I attach both to the feeling of social belonging and to subjects' need to create stable places in a world in constant flux. Some clinical vignettes illustrated these reflections.     

论构成的主体性与意动的主体性

先验主体性与客体性尽管在概念上相互对峙,但作为人类经验与实践的出发点,它们在运作上却从一开始就是浑然一体的。构成主体性是让在时空中对象化了的客体呈现在主体面前并获得意义的意向结构,意动主体性却是让主体获得目的性并将目的在与客体的相互作用中对象化的意向结构。在构成主体性和意动主体性之间的互动中协辩理性的介入,是使规范伦理学有可能在交互主体性的平台上展开的先决条件。