Humanistic Constructionism in the Analysis of Subjectivity

A sociologist who has to confront him/herself with social change cannot avoid running into subjectivity, which is seen as a clear indicator of the most recent tendencies that are going through contemporary society. The demand for subjectivity, generically considered as self-consciousness and the need for self-fulfilment, is undoubtedly a distinguishing feature of our age. The central role this concept has gained within recent sociological literature, however, coincides with the rise of a postmodern sociology, which tends to put forward a precise image of subjectivity that I would call “minimalist.” Through its call for subjectivity, postmodern sociology intends to celebrate indeed a radical freeing from the ethical, social, and relational constraints that would have oppressed human beings during modernity, which was characterized by a high degree of sociocentrism. Although I share all the contentions that aim at underlining the positive achievements of subjectivity over the constrictions and the de-personalizing forces that distressed the so-called homo sociologicus, I think we need nonetheless to distance ourselves from this new reductionism, which levels out subjectivity to its postmodern conception, and to underline instead the existence of a dual aspect in contemporary subjectivity. As a matter of fact, along with its minimalist and disengaged aspect, conceptualized in the homo psychologicus, another possible expression, called “significant subjectivity” is emerging, which is a typical feature of the kind of human I propose to define civicus, a human who distinguishes him/herself because of the ability to become the bearer of an authentic form of responsible freedom. Consequently, we can identify two different aspects, at least, in contemporary subjectivity, notably a minimalist and a significant aspect.     

Care and the self: biotechnology,reproduction, and the good life

This paper explores a novel philosophy of ethical care in the face of burgeoning biomedical technologies. I respond to a serious challenge facing traditional bioethics with its roots in analytic philosophy. The hallmarks of these traditional approaches are reason and autonomy, founded on a belief in the liberal humanist subject. In recent years, however, there have been mounting challenges to this view of human subjectivity, emerging from poststructuralist critiques, such as Michel Foucault's, but increasingly also as a result of advances in biotechnology itself. In the face of these developments, I argue that the theoretical relevance and practical application of mainstream bioethics is increasingly under strain. Traditionalists will undoubtedly resist. Together, professional philosopher-bioethicists, public health policymakers, and the global commercial healthcare industry tend to respond conservatively by shoring up the liberal humanist subject as the foundation for medical ethics and consumer decision-making, appealing to the familiar tropes of reason, autonomy, and freedom.     

Reflexivity,Subjectivity, and the Constructed Self: A Buddhist Model

The aim of this article is to take up three closely connected questions. First, does consciousness essentially involve subjectivity? Second, what is the connection, if any, between pre-reflective self-consciousness and subjectivity? And, third, does consciousness necessarily involve an ego or self? I will draw on the Yogācāra–Madhyamaka synthesis of ?āntarak?ita (eighth century common era) to develop an account of the relation between consciousness, subjectivity, and the self. I will argue, first, that phenomenal consciousness is reflexive or self-illuminating (svaprakā?ya). Second, I will argue that consciousness necessarily involves minimal subjectivity. Third, I will argue that neither the reflexivity nor the subjectivity of consciousness implies that there is any entity such as the self or ego over and above reflexive consciousness. Fourth, I will argue that what we normally think of as ‘the self’ is best understood as a complex, multi-layered process (aha?kāra, ‘I-making’) that emerges within the pre-egoic flow of subjective consciousness.     

The patient's transference experience of the analyst's gender: Projection,factuality, interpretation,or construction

The constructivist/relational perspective has challenged the analyst's emotional superiority, her omniscience, and her relative removal from the psychoanalytic dialogue. It at first appears to be antithetical to treatment approaches that emphasize the analyst's holding functions. In this essay I examine the holding model and its resolution from a relational perspective. I propose that the current discomfort with the holding function is related to its apparent, but not necessarily real, implications. I discuss the analyst's and patient's subjectivity during periods of holding. I believe that the holding process is essential when the patient has intensely toxic reactions to “knowing”; the analyst and is therefore not yet able to stand a mutual analytic experience. During holding, the patient experiences an illusion of analytictic attunement. This requires that the analyst's dysjunctive subjectivity be contained within the analyst, but not that it be abandoned. Ultimately, it is the transition from the holding position toward collaborative interchange that will allow analyst and patient explicitly to address and ultimately to integrate dependence and mutuality within the psychoanalytic setting and thereby engage in an intersubjective dialogue. The movement toward mutuality will require that the analyst of the holding situation begin to fail in ways that increasingly expose her externality and thus her subjectivity to the patient.     

The flesh of the forest: Wild being in Merleau-Ponty and Werner Herzog

The history of the sublime within aesthetics has tended to focus on the natural world. Within this history, the sublime has been a category reserved for awe-inspiring and overwhelming experiences, in which the finite subject is dwarfed by a more expansive force. Despite subjectivity being foremost in this topic, what has been overlooked, is the role the body plays in being the centre of aesthetic experience. In this paper, I will turn the tide on this omission and thematize the role of the body within the experience of the sublime. My plan for reconsidering this movement is to unite Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972) with the late thought of Merleau-Ponty, especially his enigmatic notion of "flesh" (Merleau-Ponty, 1968). In both Herzog and Merleau-Ponty, a philosophy of nature exists which challenges the dichotomy between the autonomous self encountering the objective realm of wilderness. In each case, an ambiguity undercuts the idea of wilderness existing "there" while human subjectivity remains placed "here." I will "read" the film as an instant of the chiasmatic relation between nature and humanity. Doing so, I will suggest that the reversibility between the body and the environment can be seen as an amplification of Merleau-Ponty’s notion of "wild being" (l’etre sauvage).     

Influence of personal therapy on learning and development of psychotherapeutic skills

The aim of the present study was to investigate psychodynamic psychotherapists’ experience of the influence of personal therapy on professional growth during training with a focus on the acquisition of knowledge and the development of psychotherapeutic skills. Thematic analysis was conducted on interviews with former students (N=10) at two training institutes for psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The resulting theme “professional subjectivity” indicated that personal therapy was experienced as having a positive effect on learning and growth of professional skill by facilitating the development of a theory- and knowledge-based professional subjectivity, a personally founded, professional attitude. Important elements of this development are “shared experience,” “personal influence,” and “knowledge integration.” The emergence of professional subjectivity proved to be an important factor in terms of professional advancement for future psychotherapists. Finding and relating to their own subjectivity was crucial in the process of developing a personally founded, professional attitude in the clinical work.     

On Following Commands: A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Governing Values of Swedish Early Childhood Education

In this article I will investigate a perceived tension in Swedish early childhood education (ECE) policy between reevaluating certain foundational claims on the one hand and following universal moral commands on the other. I ask the question; how is it that certain commonly held assumptions are being debunked and others left undisturbed in this particular context? To this end, I look at some of the preconditions of framing the educational practice by universal moral commands so as to make visible some of its underlying ontological assumptions. Correspondingly, I look at some necessary epistemological and ontological prerequisites for understanding knowledge formation as essentially relational, such as it is construed in the policy documents concerned. I connect this with a broader trend in educational philosophy and theory, one where the destabilizing of a Cartesian notion of subjectivity has opened up for more relational conceptions of subjectivity. Next, I will take a closer look at some key passages from the policy documents where the appeal to moral universalism runs parallel with an appeal to a relational ontology. Having done so, I point to some epistemological problems with combining these two conflicting approaches on a policy level. To conclude, I formulate some final thoughts regarding how one might begin to resolve this tension within the discourse of Swedish ECE by coming to terms with what kind of ontological and epistemological foundation to rely upon. I do this by trying out the notion of a pedagogy of dosage.     

The Ghostly Other: Understanding Racism from Confucian and Enlightenment Models of Subjectivity

The overwhelming motif of nineteenth century anti-Semitic discourse is the metaphor of the Jew as a ghost. In all cultures, the ghost represents the antithesis of what is categorically human: it represents the other par excellence. By using the heuristic of the ghost to interpret how Enlightenment discourse has dealt with the other, this article will argue that the Enlightenment model of the self and its relation to others was a contributing factor to Modern Racism. Enlightenment discourse on subjectivity finds its counterpart in Confucian notions of subjectivity. By looking at how ghosts are understood within Confucian discourse and how they are evoked in popular literature, I argue that Confucian philosophy’s model of subjectivity contributed to the success of the Chinese empire’s assimilation project.     

Psychoanalysis as a vocation

Psychoanalysis may be seen as caught between two different trends of disenchanted modernity: rationalization, which leads to the framing of our work as a professional discipline subordinate to the dictates of instrumental rationality, and self‐analysis, which frees us from the dictates of orthodoxy, inequality, and authority. But a further difficulty lies within the aspect of enlightenment, which has not only provided a greater role for our subjectivity but disguised relations of authority, conformity, and objectiflcation in our work. Psychoanalysis has objectified the other while idealizing its knowledge as objective, has paradoxically denied the very subjectivity that must serve as the source of the analyst's knowledge. However, the reaction against this condition, which may tend to produce counter‐ideals of not‐knowing and mutuality, must also be carefully deconstructed. Differences in the meaning given by different schools to the use of the analyst's subjectivity suggest that pluralism will make new knowledge demands on psychoanalysts. Analytic training should include the development of critical abilities that help to meet these demands within a context of education as a collaborative, democratic process. Knowledge itself can be used homeo‐pathically as an antidote to the old ideal of the knowing authority.     

Reflecting on self-care practices during clinical psychology training and beyond

In this paper, I will discuss the concept of self-care and its importance for clinical psychologists, both during training and post-qualification. I will review the pertinent literature in this area covering the concept of self-care and its meaning, the personal and professional impact of a lack of self-care for clinical psychologists, and discuss some of the barriers to implementing self-care practices. Throughout the discussion of barriers to self-care, I will intersperse three reflective pieces on my own experiences throughout clinical psychology training, which will allow for a more in-depth exploration of the issues. My conclusion will highlight the personal, professional and systemic barriers to self-care in clinical psychologists, and in other helping professionals, and suggest possible ways of tackling these barriers and promoting greater utilisation of self-care during clinical training and beyond and across different professional groups.     

RETRACTED ARTICLE: On the illuminationist approach to imaginal power: outline of a perspective

Imagination has always been a mysterious issue for modern philosophy and psychology. In this paper, however, I will not deal with modern theories of imagination; instead, I will suggest an alternative notion of imaginal power by stepping back toward Persian illuminative thought within which we may glimpse a hint of a transcendent concept of imagination as the source of human subjectivity and its power to create the object and the world. My objective here is to extend some noetic aspects of this concept and extract further conclusions theoretically. To this end, I will first introduce a brief account of the noetic characteristic of the Illuminationist perspective of the imagination, then I outline aspects of its efficiency which may shed some light on the modern debate on the subject and its relation to the object.

A political action role for APGA

APGA needs to consider what its appropriate political role will be. In this article the author suggests that APGA adopt the role of declaring its professional position when professional concerns will be influenced by political decisions. The mechanism he describes for implementing such a role allows each member of APGA to participate in the political actions of the organization.     

Aesthetics of Surrender: Levinas and the Disruption of Agency in Moral Education

Education has long been charged with the taskof forming and shaping subjectivity andidentity. However, the prevailing view ofeducation as a project of producing rationalautonomous subjects has been challenged bypostmodern and poststructuralist critiques ofsubstantial subjectivity. In a similar vein,Emmanuel Levinas inverts the traditionalconception of subjectivity, claiming that weare constituted as subjects only in respondingto the other. In other words, subjectivity isderivative of an existentially priorresponsibility to and for the other. Hisconception of ethical responsibility is thusalso a radical departure from the prevailingview of what it means to be a responsible moralagent. In this paper, I use jazz improvisationas a metaphor to focus on three interrelatedaspects of ethical responsibility on Levinas'saccount: passivity, heteronomy, andinescapability. I then point toward some waysin which reframing responsibility andsubjectivity along this line might offer newpossibilities for conceiving subjectivity andmoral agency in education.     

The fundamentality of existence and the subjectivity of quiddity

It would not be an overstatement to say that Mulla Sadra’s metaphysical system—commonly known as transcendent philosophy or transcendent wisdom (hikmat muta‘aliyyah)—is founded on the fundamentality of existence and the subjectivity of quiddity or whatness. I will begin this essay by drawing a rather simple picture of this principle under the title “A Common Error.” Then I will proceed by explaining its background and the reasoning supporting it, while offering a more detailed elucidation of the problem. The essay will end by examining two recent interpretations that have gone to extremes in describing quiddity’s subjective nature. This article was written in Farsi specifically for this edition of Topoi and was translated by D. D. Sodagar and Muhammad Legenhausen.

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Sensations as Representations in Kant

This paper defends an interpretation of the representational function of sensation in Kant's theory of empirical cognition. Against those who argue that sensations are ‘subjective representations’ and hence can only represent the sensory state of the subject, I argue that Kant appeals to different notions of subjectivity, and that the subjectivity of sensations is consistent with sensations representing external, spatial objects. Against those who claim that sensations cannot be representational at all, because sensations are not cognitively sophisticated enough to possess intentionality, I argue that Kant does not use the term ‘Vorstellung’ to refer to intentional mental states exclusively. Sensations do not possess their own intentionality, but they nevertheless perform a representational function in virtue of their role as the matter of empirical intuition. In empirical intuition, the sensory qualities given in sensation are combined with the representation of space to constitute the intuited appearance. The representational function of sensation consists in sensation being the medium out of which intuited appearances are constituted: the qualities of sensations stand in for what the understanding will judge (conceptualize) as material substance.     

Self-help and the surfacing of identity: Producing the Third Culture Kid

In this paper, I argue for a need to expand our understanding of the role that self-help plays in the constitution of identities. Using the example of the Third Culture Kid (TCK) industry, I argue that self-help acts as a space of biopower through its role in managing the emotional experience of having been globally mobile as a child. To do this, the paper looks at how the TCK, as a subject, is surfaced as comfort in relation to the ascribed grief and insecurity of identity that is associated with childhood global mobility. Data are derived from a multi-sited ethnography, including a narrative analysis of TCK literature, reader discussions, participant observation at a TCK event and an online survey. The argument contributes to scholarly critiques of self-help by examining processes of production and consumption of TCK subjectivity enacted through the TCK industry. Thereby, the paper contends that in researching self-help we need a wider understanding of its production and consumption, how people are persuaded to use it, and how they respond to ideas presented within it.     

Subjective education in analytic training: drawing on values from the art academy

Abstract: Kernberg and others have observed that psychoanalytic education has tended to promote the acquisition of theoretical knowledge and clinical technique within an atmosphere of indoctrination rather than of exploration. As a corrective, he proposed four models that correspond to values in psychoanalytic education: the art academy, the technical trade school, the religious seminary and the university. He commended models of the university and art academy to our collective attention because of their combined effectiveness in providing for the objective and subjective education of candidates: the university model for its capacity to provide a critical sense of a wide range of theories in an atmosphere tolerating debate and difference, and the art academy model for its capacity to facilitate the expression of individual creativity. In this paper, I will explore the art academy model for correspondences between artistic and analytic trainings that can enhance the development of the creative subjectivity of psychoanalytic candidates. I will draw additional correspondences between analytic and artistic learning that can enhance psychoanalytic education.     

Some Questions About Divergences and Similarities Between Kleinian and Intersubjective Approaches: Reply to Commentaries

In this response I focus on some key issues raised by the different approaches of Kleinian and intersubjective clinicians. In particular, I raise questions about how the analyst's subjectivity is to be understood, given that the analyst needs to offer something that is over and above her pure subjective reaction. I also discuss projective identification and its implications for understanding the analyst's subjectivity.     

Narrative identity,practical identity and ethical subjectivity

The narrative approach to identity has developed as a sophisticated philosophical response to the complexities and ambiguities of the human, lived situation, and is not – as has been naively suggested elsewhere – the imposition of a generic form of life or the attempt to imitate a fictional character. I argue that the narrative model of identity provides a more inclusive and exhaustive account of identity than the causal models employed by mainstream theorists of personal identity. Importantly for ethical subjectivity, the narrative model gives a central and irreducible role to the first-person perspective. I will draw the connection between narrative identity and ethical subjectivity by way of an exposition of work by Paul Ricoeur and Marya Schechtman, and a brief consideration of Korsgaard’s work on practical identity and normative ethics. I argue that the first-person perspective – the reflective structure of human consciousness – arises from human embodiment, and therefore the model of identity required of embodied consciousness is more complex and irreducibly first-personal than that provided in a causal account. What is required is a self-constitution model of identity: a narrative model of identity.     

On becoming a child: Reverie in the psychotherapy of children

My aim in this paper is to examine the role of reverie in facilitating the development of the child‐subject, that is, the child's continuous motion towards subjectivity. I begin by briefly reviewing the concept of reverie and proceed with an examination of elements I believe are fundamental and common to both reverie and child psychotherapy, that is, primary thought processes and primitive impulses. I then describe and demonstrate the atmosphere created by these elements using three examples from the psychotherapy of 8 year‐old Jonathan. Next, I discuss an intersubjective parallel of Bion's reverie and a developmentally oriented version of Ogden's reverie, focusing on its relation to processes of destruction and recognition. I argue that reverie provides the recognition of the child's struggle for his own birth and growth as a subject, that is, of his child‐subject. Finally, I refer to the presence of reverie from the primary preoccupation of mother and father till the child's reverie of himself, his day‐dreaming.