CHAPTER 6: INTERSUBJECTIVITY

The most fundamental manifestation of human consciousness is being deeply engaged in a

mutual relationship with the other person. To be with the other is a vocation for everyone. To be
with another person in a dialogical engagement of giving the self is one of the greatest joys of a
capable human being, i.e. the giving of oneself to and for the sake of the other. Thus,
intersubjectivity focus’ is the second-person, the “you” – not the “I” and “it.”
This chapter is intended to discuss the notion of intersubjectivity, in the context of the
relationship of the “I” and the “Other.”. The development of the concept of intersubjectivity can
be drawn from the “I” and “Thou” relationship of the Jewish philosopher-theologian Martin
Buber (1878-1965), as well as from the philosophical-social psychology of George Herbert
Mead (1863-1931) that explains how the knowledge of “me” as an offshoot of internalizing some
external “you” is conceived. Likewise, Jürgen Habermas (1929-present), a German sociologist
and philosopher, also developed a detailed account of the intersubjective-social basis for
consciousness in his renowned “theory of communicative action.” These three, though are not
the only thinkers who have addressed this philosophical thought; however, they have been
regarded to have a significant contribution in the understanding of the problem of
intersubjectivity. In conclusion, it is but as well important to have a deliberate discourse on
Levinas’ infinite responsibility of the “I” for the “Other” – i.e. the ethics of the “face.”

__          I.            The Philosophical Concept of Intersubjectivity

Intersubjectivity refers to the inter-human relationship of the two human beings.

The “I” and “Thou” Relationship

The most readily linked notion connected to intersubjectivity, as mutual engagement of
interior presence, is instituted in Martin Buber’s “I” and “Thou” relationship. In this relationship,
Martin Buber himself confessed that this idea came from an insight of the prominent philosopher
Ludwig Feuerbach:
The individual man does not contain in himself the essence of man either in so far as he is a moral
being or in so far as he is a thinking being. the essence of man is contained only in the community,
in the unity of man and man – a unity which rests upon the reality of the difference between “I”
and “Thou.”[1]
For Buber, this intuition was analogous to the Copernican revolution that suggests a new way
of thinking about the nature of the human being – a paradigm shift not merely on the
epistemological importance but one that is likewise ontologically illuminating. To be more
precise, he presented an ontological status quo to the “between” – referring to “presence” in
which the encounter of the other self is experienced. Through the “Thou” a man becomes
“I.”[2] Hence, the essence of human being is relationship. To further validate this claim, Martin
Buber expresses:
Spirit is not in the “I,” but between “I” and “You.” It is not like the blood that circulates you, but
like the air in which you breathe. Man lives in the spirit, if he is able to respond to his “Thou.” He
is able to, if he enters into relation with his whole being. Only in virtue of his power to enter into
relation is he able to live in the spirit.[3]
When the “I” respond to “you,” the self transcends itself. According to him, “human beings
have two responses available to the world: to relate to what is present either as an object (“I-it”
relationship) or as another responsible being (“I-Thou” relationship).[4] When we engage with
the “other” as “I-Thou,” relationship becomes reciprocity. The ontological status of the
relationship, the ‘between,’ is emphasized by Buber when he refers to “I-Thou” as ‘one word,’
representing a fundamental human reality of mutuality.”[5] Moreover, Wheelwright sums up
Martin Buber's argument in Between Man and Man, which gives the impression to support this
outlook: “By nature each person is a single being, finding himself in company with other single
beings; to be single is not to be isolated, however, and by vocation each one is to find and realize
his proper focus by entering into relationship with others.”[6] Thus, to be truly a human being is
to be with others; because, “love is between ‘I’ and ‘Thou.’ Love is responsibility of an ‘I’ for a
‘Thou.’”[7]

The Intersubjective Alter Ego

Another perspective is from George Herbert, i.e. from a sociological viewpoint of
communities and language. Since the time of the Cartesian cogito – alone, insulated, individual
thinking ego; and, the Kantian noumenon that is employing the transcendental ego beyond
knowledge, the talk about the “I” in relation to the “You” becomes contentious. Martin Buber, on
the one hand, stresses the “between” of “I” and “you;” while George Herbert Mead, on the other
hand, presented the critical component of the second person, i.e. an approach of joining the gap
separating the “I” from “it.”[8] He revealed the possibility of the self to know by mirroring into
the object-reflection itself – referring to the alter ego. At this instant, the self is not reflected to
be a third-person object; but, conceived as interconnecting sense of self reflecting the image to
each other. Christian de Quincey beautifully describes this concept of alter ego following the
line of thought of George Herbert Mead in this way:
My self, then, is perceived as the alter ego to your alter ego. I am "other," as a self, to you as
another self: an encounter of mutually acknowledging selves. I perceive you as a subject in the
second person and "me" as your subject in the second person. From the second-person view, who I
am – the self; I experience myself to be – is shaped, or informed, by being with you.[9]
It is in opportune time that the self encounters an alter ego – the moment when the "I"
encounter the "you" – then, the concrete manifestation of relationship takes place. The self
becomes aware of his social responsibilities. “The self, as that which can be an object to itself, is
essentially a social structure, and it arises in social experience”[10] In the words of Jürgen
Habermas, the self, according to him, is “first encountered as a subject in the moment when
communicative relations are established between organisms.”[11]
Moreover, in the social encounter, it is but important to distinguish the “I” from the “me.”
“The ‘I’ is the response of the organism to the attitudes of the others; the ‘me’ is the organized
set of attitudes of others which one himself assumes.”[12] In distinguishing the “I” from the
“me,” we can think of a twofold movement: outward and inward. The outward movement is
when the “I” reacts to what’s happening on the outside, i.e. “I” in relation to “you;” while, the
inward movement refers to the comments given to me by the other person, i.e. the “you” in
relation to “me.” Thus, to be in a relationship of intersubjectivity, these twofold movements – the
“I” in relation to “you,” and the “you” in relation to “me” – must always be considered.

The Theory of Communicative Action

Jürgen Habermas’s work towards a new social theory gained so much attention in his
remarkable magnum opus, The Theory of Communicative Action, which was initially published
in German in 1981 as a two-volume publication. Jürgen Habermas emphasizes that the
development of the individual self depends on the process of a post-conventional identity – a
subject who simultaneously is shaped in intersubjective communicative action and who
transcends the otherwise binding norms of that linguistic society.[13] Nevertheless, this claim
rests on our recognition (though not automatically the acceptance) of others, but by the
imaginative act of projecting a “universal community of all possible alter egos” introduced by
George Herbert Mead, the conscious human subject realistically maintains his independence –
retaining the self in the interior creative web of intersubjectivity. “The idealizing supposition of a
universalistic form of life, in which everyone can take up the perspective of everyone else and
can count on reciprocal recognition by everybody, makes it possible for individuated beings to
exist within a community-individualism as the flip-side of universalism.”[14] In other words,
Habermas is concerned on how each individual, as part of the community, must be recognized.
In as much as Habermas has given so much attention on the role-played of language, as a
medium of shared communication, in shaping the “I” in becoming as he truly is. But, let us be
reminded that he is not referring on its mere usage only and its very structure; he goes beyond
this by stressing on the performative aspect of language, i.e. focusing on the way we use
language in our day-to-day communicative experience. In the process of communication,
speakers and hearers engage in a meaningful dialogue in a way that both of them reciprocally
participates and risks themselves in a conversation. To put it simply, human consciousness
interconnectedly creates and reveals itself in the process of communication.
According to Christian de Quincey, we can identify three central elements of Habermas'
work – the three "P’s": first, the emphasis on practice away from theory; second, the public or
intersubjective origin and role of language and meaning; and third, the performative function of
language.[15] Firstly, in his emphasis on practice, Habermas is concerned that philosophy must
be put into practice rather than merely an abstractions in the mind, for in order for language to
have any value and meaning, philosophy must engage with the world. Secondly, in the public
sphere, Habermas reveals what has become a consistent theme throughout all of his
philosophical enterprise that language is, in the first place, a public or social enterprise – it must
be a product of a public discourse or debate. Lastly, as a communicative action, the meaning
within language must originate from the interaction of intersubjective communication – i.e.
“language and meaning is revealed in the ‘dialogical’ reciprocity of ‘I-speakers’ and ‘you-
listeners.’”[16] Christian de Quincey beautifully explains it in this way:
Language and meaning are products of the "public sphere," not the creation of individual subjects
operating on their own. Habermas' central concern is to argue that all language involves a
performative function. That is, language does not merely describe the world but engages the
subject with the world through the listener.[17]
And so, the focal point of Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action is that the conditions
for “interpretant relations” (i.e. meaning) are dependent on conditions of intersubjective
communication oriented toward mutual understanding.[18] Hence, language, as a medium of
communicating and relating with others, is very essential in intersubjective relations.

The Face of the Other

Let us emphasize the essential elements, in the philosophy of the “Other” of Emmanuel
Levinas: the Face [visage] and the Other. First is the Face. “The face,” Levinas says, “is what
one cannot kill, or it is that whose meaning consists in saying: ‘thou shalt not kill.’[19] The face
communicates. It speaks something to the “I” – it is in this context that it renders possible and
begins all dialogue with the other. The face reveals an integral part of the human person because
it reflects the inner disposition of the other: for instance, mirroring the widespread poverty in our
society, reflecting on the many injustices in our country, and expressing the fundamental need to
respond to the prevalent culture of indifference. This approach to the face is the most
fundamental mode of responsibility – “I am responsible for the Other,[20] not that of reciprocal
relationship.” Another is the Other or to be precise “the responsibility for the Other.” The
problem of otherness is no small problem, nor is it unnecessary. Levinas’ notion of the Other
entails responsibility to one-another in their face-to-face encounters. The responsibility to
respond to the Other is, for Levinas, precisely the inordinate responsibility, the infinite
responsibility of being-for-the-other before oneself – the ethical revelation.[21] The moral
“ought” of each individual to respect the Other is grounded on relationships. This relationship
from person to person precedes all relationships. It is non-reciprocal, asymmetrical relationship
of the I to the Other – it emphasizes the uniqueness of the Other. In other words, Levinas’s
concept of the Other is a ‘decentered’ other, i.e., “other-centered” because the Other has primacy
over the self. The I does out for the Other simply for the Other.

Ethics as First Philosophy

Philosophy is not merely the knowledge of immanence; it is immanence itself.[22] To exist
or not to exist is not a problem; because, “before being, before the self before knowledge, there is
the indeterminate. It is not nothing and it is not being. It is otherwise than being. Being and the
self are made possible by the Other.”[23] The root of Levinas’ ethical concern is “to establish the
source of contact between persons or the source of interpersonal meaning, and in finding this
meaning Levinas finds the ethical”[24] – the dialogical encounter of the “self” and the “other.”
The relationship of the “self” and the “Other” must be founded on responsibility. Ethics is
forceful not because it opposes power with more power, […], but rather because it opposes
power with what appears to be weakness and vulnerability but is responsibility and sincerity.[25]
It is clear that Levinas was already aware in Existence and Existents that one must not lose
sight of the substantiality of the subject in order to retain a notion of responsibility.[26] Levinas
already knows, even before the publication of Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, the
importance of this responsibility for the Other. My responsibility for the Other is precisely the
non-indifference of this difference – the proximity of the Other.[27] It is the alterity of the Other.
The giving of oneself to the Other. Responsibility does not come from fraternity, but fraternity
denotes responsibility for another, antecedent to my freedom.[28] In other words, ethical
responsibility for the Other is not based on sanguinity or whatever close bond; it should be based
on one’s responsibility to communicate with the Other. Hence, ethics is “a comportment in
which the Other, who is strange and indifferent to you, who belongs neither to the order of your
interest nor to your affections, at the same time matters to you”[29] – there is individuality but
there is, at the same time, relationality. By ethics, Levinas does not mean a quest for perfection
or personal accomplishment, but the responsibility to the Other from which the ego [le moi]
cannot escape and which is the secret of its uniqueness: no one can replace me in the discharge
of this responsibility.[30]

The Ethics of the Face

In his book Totality and Infinity, Levinas argued that the rupture of the egoist I, its
reconditioning in the face of the Other, the re-orientation despite-itself of the for-itself to the for-
the-other, is effected by means of a positivity, the surplus of ethics, rather than by a negativity or
lack which the subject would then recuperate or attempt to recuperate.[31] The human face
speaks of something. It communicates an urgent need for us to respond. That’s why “the best
way of encountering the Other is not even to notice the color of his eyes! When one observes the
color of the eyes one is not in social relationship with the Other”[32] – but, to see the human face
that is speaking something to us – inviting us into a meaningful encounter. The face is what one
cannot kill, or at least it is that whose meaning consists in saying: “thou shalt not kill.”[33]
The Other is manifested in the exteriority of the face.The face is not of the order of the seen, it is
not an object, but it is he whose appearing preserves an exteriority which is also an appeal or an
imperative given to your responsibility: to encounter a face is straight-away to hear a demand
and an order.[34] It is the face that articulates expression and discourse. The face, where there is
nausea that triggers, presents violence of the face – “thou shalt not kill!” But, the face further
reveals the urgent responsibility for the Other to respond – “protect me!” And so this face obliges
me; it urges answer, aid, concern, compassion and even mercy. Ethical responsibility embarks in
the happenstance with alterity, with the human face. As a result, we derive to the expression:
responsibility for the Other. More so, ethics is not a moment of being; it is otherwise and better
than being, the very possibility of the beyond.[35]