Abstract
Subjectivity is a slippery entity for psychology for which a conceptual framework is, subsequently, undeveloped. Subjectivity processes include evolving experience episodes and its unifying thinking core. The inquiry presented in this study targeted the structure of experience, its relation to an I, its relation to thinking, and its intersubjective nature. A proposed outline of the processes of subjectivity presented are derived from William James, Hector Neri Castañeda, and Lynne Rudder Baker. The resulting subjectivity structure is empirically developed from linguistic indexical references which are used to map processes with which a person receives experience and intersubjectively shares it. Experience and thinking are shown to be entwined in a stream of experience by an internal reflexivity of first-person perspective which constitutes a person and a corresponding system of I-strands. Experience is tied to a doxastic matrix, mind in an other vocabulary, in a relation that integrates an experience-thinking episode to the accretions of past experiences and beliefs which prepares continuing thinking and action. It is proposed that a noumenal I outside the world constructs the world from internal experience to counter Cartesian radical doubt which makes the sensory world uncertain and in which only one’s experience is reliably one’s own.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Baars, B. J. (1997). In the theater of consciousness: The workspace of the mind. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Baker, L. R. (2013). Naturalism and the first-person perspective. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Breazeale, D. (2014, Spring). Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. E. P. Zalta (Ed.). Stanford, California. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/johann-fichte/
Brinck, I., Reddy, V., & Zahavi, D. (2017). The primacy of the “we”? In T. F. C. Durt & C. Tewes (Eds.), Embodiement, enaction, and culture: Investigating the constitution of the shared world. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Buber, M. (1958). I and Thou. (R. G. Smith, Trans) (p. 137). New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company.
Castañeda, H.-N. (1999). In J. G. Hart & T. Kapitan (Eds.), The phenomeno-logic of the I: Essays on self-consciousness (Xi, p. 313). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Cerbone, D. R. (2012). Phenomenological method: Reflection, introspection, and skepticism. In D. Zahavi (Ed.), Oxford handbook of contemporary phenomenology (pp. 7–24). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Churchland, P. S. (2002). Brainwise: Studies in neurophilosophy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Churchland, P. S. (2011). Braintrust: What neuroscience tells us about morality [Hardcover] (p. 288). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Churchland, P. M. (1995). The engine of reason, the seat of the soul: A philosophical journey into the brain (Xii, p. 329). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Darwall, S. (2006). The second-person standpoint: Morality, respect, and accountability. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
de Quincey, C. (1999). Intersubjectivity: Exploring consciousness from a second-person perspective. In S. R. Hameroff & A. W. Kaszniak (Eds.), Towards a science of consciousness III: The third tucson discussions and debates (Vol. 3) (pp. 407–416). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Dewey, J. (1891). Psychology. (First published 1886). New York, NY: American Book Company.
Gallagher, S., & Zahavi, D. (2008). The phenomenological mind: An introduction to philosophy of mind and cognitive science [Paperback] (p. 256). Routledge.
Gallese, V. (2017). Mirroring, a liberated embodied simulation and aesthetic experience. In Mirror images: Reflections in art and medicine (pp. 27–37).
Ganeri, J. (2012). The self: Naturalism, consciousness, and the first-person stance (Xii, 374 p). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Goldman, A. I. (2006). Simulating minds. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Gopnik, A., & Wellman, H. M. (1992,. Spring & Summer). Why the child’s theory of mind really is a theory. Mind and Language, 7(1 & 2), 145–171.
Gopnik, A., & Wellman, H. M. (2012). Reconstructing constructivism: Causal models, Bayesian learning mechanisms and the theory of theory. Psychological Bulletin, 138(6), 1085–1108.
Hermans, H. J. M., & Salgado, J. (2010). The dialogical self as a minisociety. In S. R. Kirschner & J. Martin (Eds.), The sociocultural turn in psychology: The contextual emergence of mind and self (pp. 183–204). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology (1983) (p. 1302). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
James, W. (1912). Essays in radical empiricism [2010 Echo Library] (p. 111). Fairford, Glos. AL7 4BX: Echo Library. Retrieved from www..echo-library.com
Kagan, J. (1981). The second year: The emergence of self-awareness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univerisity Press.
Kapitan, T. (1999). First-person reference. In James G. Hart and Tomis Kapitan (Eds.), The phenomeno-logic of the I: Essays on self-consciousness by Hector-Neri Castañeda (pp. 3–16). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. (313)
Levinas, E. (1969). Totality and Infinity: An essay on exteriority (Alphonso Lingis) (1st published in French in 1961) (p. 314). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.
Levinas, E. (1978). Existence and existents (A. Lingis, Trans., R. Bernasconi, Foreword) (Xxvii, p. 113). The Hague, NL: Nijhoff.
Levinas, E. (1981). Otherwise than being or beyond essence. (A. Lingis, Trans.) [1998, paperback] (Xlviii, p. 205). Dordrecht, NL: M. Nijhoff.
Levinas, E. (1999). Alterity and Transcendence [Paperback] (224 pp). (M. B. Smith). New York, NY :Columbia University Press.
McDermott, J. J. (Ed.). (1981). The philosophy of John Dewey. Volume I: The structure of experience; Volume II: The lived experience (J. J. McDermott, and commentary by) (Xli, 723 p). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist (1962). (p. 401). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Natsoulas, T. (2013). Consciousness and perceptual experience: An ecological and phenomenological approach. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Ricoeur, P. (1992). Oneself as another (K. Blamey, Trans.) (p. 374). Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press.
Rochat, P. (2009). Others in mind: Social origins of self-consciousness (X, p. 253). Cambridge, MA\New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Schmid, H. B. (2017, March 3). The subject of “We intend”. Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences, p. No pagination specified.
Stern, D. N. (1985). The interpersonal world of the infant: A view from psychoanalysis and developmental psychology (X, p. 304). New York, NY: Basic Books.
Stern, R. (2017). Transcendental arguments. In E. N. Zalta, Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Retrieved from URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/transcendental-arguments/>.
Sugarman, J., & Martin, J. (2010). Agentive hermeneutics. In S. R. Kirschner & J. Martin (Eds.), The sociocultural turn in psychology: The contextual emergence of mind and self (pp. 158–179). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Szanto, T., & Moran, D. (2016). In T. Szanto & D. Moran (Eds.), Phenomenology of sociality: Discovering the we. New York, NY: Routledge.
Taylor, C. (1989). Sources of the self: The making of the modern identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Zahavi, D. (1999). Self-awareness and alterity: A phenomenological investigation (Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology & Existential Philosophy) (p. 291). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Zahavi, D. (2003). Husserl’s phenomenology (Viii, p. 178). Cultural memory in the present). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Zahavi, D. (2008). Subjectivity and selfhood: Investigating the first-person perspective (Bradford Books) [Paperback]. (Original 2005) (p. 273). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Zahavi, D. (2011). Intersubjectivity. In S. Luft & O. Overgaard (Eds.), The Routledge companion to phenomenonlogy (pp. 180–189). London, UK: Routledge.
Zahavi, D. (2014). Self and other: Exploring subjectivity, empathy, and shame. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Zahavi, D. (2015). You, Me, and We: The sharing of emotional experience. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 22(1–2), 84–101.
Zahavi, D. (Ed.). (2012). The oxford handbook of contemporary phenomenology (p. 619). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Duus, R.E. (2020). Seventh Study: Inquiry of Subjectivity. In: Constituting Selves. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39017-4_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39017-4_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-39016-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-39017-4
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)