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Dieter Freundlieb
To cite this article: Dieter Freundlieb (2000) Why Subjectivity Matters: Critical Theory and the
Philosophy of the Subject, Critical Horizons, 1:2, 229-245
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CH/art17/229-245 11/21/00 2:21 PM Page 229
Dieter Freundlieb
Why Subjectivity Matters: Critical Theory and the
Philosophy of the Subject
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ABSTRACT
subject, or, as JŸrgen Habermas sometimes prefers to call it, the Ômentalist
paradigmÕ. Subjectivity as a grounding principle for all philosophical system
building, especially for all knowledge claims, was subsequently made the
focal point by both Kant and the post-Kantian idealists Fichte and Schelling,
though both Fichte and Schelling later discovered the limitations of any phi-
losophy that relies entirely on the subject as ultimate ground. With HegelÕs
move from subjective to objective idealism the role of subjectivity became
more complicated and less clear than in SchellingÕs and FichteÕs systems.1
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With the collapse of German Idealism around the middle of the 19th century,
the subsequent rise of positivism and, in the early 20th century, of analytic
philosophy, subjectivity was removed from centre stage. It had retained some
of its centrality, of course, in neo-Kantianism and moved to the forefront again
in HusserlÕs phenomenology. But this revival was short-lived. Soon Heidegger
was to interpret the philosophy of subjectivity as a central part of the history
of Western metaphysics, a history Heidegger wanted to overcome. Its focus
on the subject was seen as a manifestation of the subjectÕs preoccupation with
self-preservation (Selbsterhaltung) and self-empowerment (SelbstermŠchtigung)
which prevented it from addressing the prior and ultimately more important
question of Being. Today it is often argued that Heidegger and the Ôlinguis-
tic turnÕ have once and for all made the philosophy of the subject obsolete.
Interestingly, this view is shared by two otherwise opposed contemporary
schools of thought: postmodern philosophy and Critical Theory. The once
fashionable dictum about the Ôdeath of the subjectÕ was never quite true, of
course, and philosophers such as Jacques Derrida always claimed to be re-
configuring the subject, not abandoning it altogether. Nonetheless, in both
postmodern philosophy and Critical Theory the subject is usually thought
of as somehow ÔconstitutedÕ by language, albeit in different ways and by
different mechanisms.
In spite of the strong anti-subjectivist currents that have reigned since the
end of German Idealism, there are now signs that the philosophical sensi-
bility is shifting. After some early attempts in the late 1960s the last twenty
years or so have seen a genuine return to the subject and to subjectivity as
a focus of philosophical interest. This has occurred in at least two areas: ana-
lytic philosophy of mind3 and in the work of Manfred Frank and Dieter
subjectivity matters for Critical Theory, let me briefly indicate why analytic
philosophers have focussed on subjectivity and why they have found that it
cannot be reduced to something else, either naturalistically or linguistically.
And such perceptions are always fallible. But in the case of a subject being
aware of itself, observational fallibility is impossible. We can be mistaken in
many ways when we look at ourselves as persons with certain attributes, but
we cannot be mistaken about our own identity as thinking subjects. Thus in
his essay ÒPersonal Identity: A MaterialistÕs Account,Ó Shoemaker had argued
that perceptual self-knowledge always presupposes non-perceptual acquain-
tance with oneself.10
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It is obvious even from this very brief sketch that the philosophy of subjec-
tivity is alive and well within contemporary analytic philosophy. This is why
HabermasÕ view according to which the mentalist paradigm has become obso-
lete as a consequence of the linguistic turn simply does not stand up to
scrutiny. On the contrary, there are many signs that a return to subjectivity
as a philosophical issue is still on the increase.11 But why did Habermas reject
what he calls the philosophy of the subject in the first place? For Habermas
(who, it seems to me, is only now beginning to address the relevant issues)12
the philosophy of the subject is primarily associated with the metaphysical
program of German Idealism, though his critique is directed at virtually all
its continental varieties. His critique basically focuses on two aspects. The
first one is his rejection of the philosophy of the subject as a foundationalist
program. Even in very recent work he argues that the philosophy of the sub-
ject is wedded to the ideal of epistemic certainty. In his 1996 essay on Richard
Rorty, for example, he writes:
Ð That we know our own mental states better than anything else;
Ð That the acquisition of knowledge proceeds essentially on the basis of the
representation of objects;
Ð And that the truth of judgements is supported by apodictic evidences.13
Now the first point to be made about HabermasÕ comment here is that in its
generality this characterisation of the philosophy of the subject is simply
incorrect. The incorrigibility of self-reference does not entail that the philos-
ophy of the subject is committed to the ideal of epistemic certainty. HabermasÕ
description seems to fit late 19th century positivism much better than the
philosophy of the subject. Even as a description of the admittedly founda-
tionalist program of German Idealism HabermasÕ statements are very ques-
tionable. In any case, in a sense Habermas is tilting at windmills here because
his critique of German Idealism as a form of foundationalism is widely
accepted by his critics. Philosophers like Dieter Henrich and Manfred Frank,
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HabermasÕ second, and in our context more important point, is that he believes
that the idealist philosophy of self-consciousness is tied to a subject-object
model of knowledge and that it cannot, therefore, account for the kind of
non-objectifying knowledge the critical social sciences aim for. What Habermas
calls the Ôperformative attitudeÕ, that is, the attitude of a communicating sub-
ject to another subject, is non-objectifying but crucial for the entire Habermas-
ian project. This is where the real differences between Habermas and his
critics arise. Habermas thinks he can show that the whole of Kantian and
post-Kantian philosophy of the subject is caught in a certain network of con-
cepts from which it cannot escape and which makes it impossible to conceive
of the performative attitude adopted by subjects oriented towards mutual
understanding.
These criticisms are rather surprising because surely Habermas is aware that
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of Habermas. But first I would like to look at one more aspect of HabermasÕ
criticisms.
In line with German Idealism, but without attempting to renew the idealist
program of ultimate foundations, Henrich argues that philosophical reflec-
tion needs to start from an analysis of subjectivity because a philosophically
tenable understanding of ourselves and our place in the world, of truth and
objectivity, must first engage in an analysis of the subjective presuppositions
of knowledge. So, what he proposes is obviously a version of transcenden-
tal philosophy. But while Kant had identified transcendental apperception,
that is, the ÔIch denkeÕ, as the Ôhighest pointÕ in his epistemology, he had failed,
according to Henrich, to analyse sufficiently the intrinsically and irreducibly
complex structure of the knowing self-relation, even if we have to concede
KantÕs point that the epistemic self-relation cannot be fully explained theo-
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retically, and that our attempts at its elucidation cannot avoid getting caught
in a certain kind of circularity. Henrich claims that such an elucidation shows
the epistemic priority of the self-relation in which the subject is aware of its
identity with itself. Its identity is in fact constituted by the irrefutable iden-
tity, over time, of its ÔIÕ-thoughts (Ich-Gedanken). Henrich also points out that
in the case of ÔIÕ-thoughts thinking and being coincide, that is, the ÔIÕ exists
as a thinking self. In other words, it is normally always possible that what I
think about does not exist. But this is not possible in the case of ÔIÕ-thoughts.
Henrich also argues, following Leibniz and Kant, that our sense of what is
real in the world is in fact derived from the immediate experience of the real-
ity of our own existence. This is what ultimately supports and from which
we derive our sense of what else is real, apart from our own self. As a con-
sequence, he believes that an analysis of the self-relation shows that the objec-
tive world can never be conceived of as entirely independent of ÔIÕ-thoughts,
that is, that we cannot refer to objects in the world except on the basis of a
prior self-consciousness, a point made by Fichte but also, as Manfred Frank
has pointed out and as I mentioned earlier, by analytic philosophers of mind
such as Hector-Neri Casta–eda.25 In this sense, our account of the world con-
tains an irreducibly idealist moment. At the same time, however, our striv-
ing for knowledge always goes beyond a world of objects whose basic structure
is constituted by subjective conditions of knowledge. Here Henrich sides with
post-Kantians such as Schelling who likewise argued that we need to go
beyond KantÕs view that we can only know a world of phenomena.
mere extension of the self.26 This is the indispensably realist aspect of HenrichÕs
philosophy, a characteristic that sets it off against the radical idealism of the
early Fichte.
At the same time, as embodied subjects, we know that we are not just a sub-
ject but a spatio-temporally situated person in the world and thus an object
among all other objects in the world, even though we know that the relation
between the subject and its bodily existence as a person is not of the same
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kind as the relation between the subject and external objects. But, as is the
norm in the case of external objects, we normally do not have privileged
knowledge of what we are as persons with bodies. Also, since we know our-
selves as individual subjects, we know that there can be other such subjects.
Subjectivity and intersubjectivity are therefore co-terminous.
According to Henrich, all philosophy which rightfully bears this name arises
from and, once developed, should reconnect with existential questions and
uncertainties that emerge from the incompatibilities of the ontologies we are
confronted with in our ÔnaturalÕ understanding of the world. By doing this,
philosophy should be able to give our lives guidance and orientation, though
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without imposing any particular doctrine upon us. And while conflicting but
equally legitimate orientations and tendencies arise unavoidably from within
our natural understandings of the relation between the self and the world,
it is the task of philosophy to attempt to reconcile or at least come to a final
assessment of the conflicts that arise from within Ôconscious lifeÕ (bewu§tes
Leben), that is, a life led by and in accordance with (regulative) ideas in a
Kantian sense. Historically, the major religions of the world have offered such
existential orientation, but they have always given priority to only one of the
conflicting tendencies and are therefore inherently unstable. A naturalistic
scientific worldview, on the other hand, cannot make the whole of reality
intelligible either. An all-encompassing naturalism such as the one underly-
ing most of analytic philosophy (paradigmatically manifest in the work of
Quine) must be taken seriously, but it cannot possibly give a complete account
of the world (especially not of naturalism itself as an explanatory approach
to the world). Only philosophy, if anything, will enable us to analyse and
assess the conflicting tendencies and to give an account of how that which
naturalism leaves out of consideration can be accommodated within a more
comprehensive understanding.
any validity, HabermasÕ paradigm shift is neither justified nor does it solve
the problems it is intended to solve. For a start, Critical Theory, unlike some
postmodern conceptions of the subject, needs an autonomous subject qua
social agent. But there is no systematic account in HabermasÕ work of such
a subject because for Habermas the subject is a product of social interaction.
When he tries to explain the constitution of the subject, intersubjectivity takes
priority over subjectivity. He believes subjectivity to be the result of a pro-
cess of a communicative exchange with other persons. But this is getting
things the wrong way around. His attempt to analyse the emergence of self-
consciousness and the subject on the basis of George Herbert MeadÕs theory
of social interaction cannot succeed, even if MeadÕs theory is refined in the
way Habermas suggests it must be. As Frank has shown, such attempts always
presuppose the notion of a subject that is already familiar with itself before
it can understand and adopt the perspective of a co-subject with whom it
interacts through communication.27 Just as the subject cannot identify itself
by looking at its image in a mirror unless it already knows itself as an iden-
tical subject, the subject cannot first learn that it is a subject by being approached
by another subject. Subjectivity is not reducible to the effect of a commu-
nicative exchange with others. The development of a personal identity in
the social-psychological sense of this term is of course very much dependent
on our interaction with others. But this development can only proceed on
the basis of a sense of identity that cannot be learned from being exposed to
others. This also means that the Ôperformative attitudeÕ which Habermas
believes he can somehow deduce from an analysis of basic presuppositions
of speech acts is ultimately explicable only from within the philosophy of the
subject that Habermas rejects. Only a subject standing in the kind of know-
ing self-relation that Henrich has been trying to elucidate is capable of adopt-
ing a performative attitude. That it is being addressed as a subject, is again,
not something the subject can learn by listening to the speech acts performed
by others, even if they are directed at him or herself.
The notion of the recognition of and by other subjects that plays such a pro-
minent role in HabermasÕ (and Axel HonnethÕs) social philosophy is then also
only intelligible if it is anchored in a theory of the subject, that is, a subject
that is both capable and in need of recognition. What needs to be recognised
is a subject of a certain kind. And if recognition is to be ethically meaning-
ful, it must be of a subject that knows itself as not entirely socially consti-
tuted but also as not entirely self-created.
perhaps, the subject which has to lead its life and which therefore needs to
arrive at a reasonably stable self-interpretation, even if much of its life might
be taken up with trying to arrive at such a self-interpretation, will not be able
to do so if it sees itself as no more than a social agent. It will want to know
how it can conceive of itself as occupying a meaningful place not just in its
social environment but as a human being in a cosmological environment of
which it will always have a very limited understanding. It is in this sense,
too, that subjectivity matters to social philosophy.
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Perhaps we must look out not just for pathologies of the social but for patholo-
gies of social philosophies. Habermas regards the differentiation of reason
into different domain-specific rationalities as a cognitive gain of modernity.
But he does not offer a plausible way in which a higher, reunified reason can
adjudicate between competing rationalities. Henrich is not in a position to
provide any easy solution to this problem either. But it must be acknowl-
edged that he has seen the problem with great clarity. In a rather bold move,
he even hints that we may not be able to make much progress unless we
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rethink the idealist notion of the Absolute as a grounding concept for an over-
arching monistic ontology.29 Whatever we might think of this move - and so
far it remains undeveloped in HenrichÕs work - it seems to point in the right
direction. Habermas has not been able to avoid the problem of incompatible
ontologies built into his own conceptual framework. And his commitment to
what he calls the postmetaphysical role of contemporary philosophy prevents
him, it seems, from even addressing the issue.
There is at least one thing the history of philosophy has taught us. Problems
donÕt go away by being ignored. Subjectivity and the question of how it fits
into a unifying view of the world is one of the problem areas of philosophy
and human understanding, including social philosophy, that cannot be kept
at bay for too much longer. This is especially true of Critical Theory since
without addressing these problems it cannot do what it has always aimed to
do: provide a normative standard by which society is to be judged.
Notes
1
See the ground-breaking work of Klaus DŸsing, Das Problem der SubjektivitŠt in
Hegels Logik, Bonn, Bouvier, 1995. See also the earlier piece by Konrad Cramer,
ÒÔErlebnis.Õ Thesen zu Hegels Theorie des Selbstbewu§tseins mit RŸcksicht of
die Aporien eines Grundbegriffs nachhegelscher Philosophie,Ó Hegel-Studien, Beiheft
11, 1974, pp. 537-603.
2
As is well known, Habermas claims that in spite of a promising initial move by
Hegel to overcome the mentalist paradigm, he never managed to leave it behind.
The most recent occasion on which Habermas makes this claim is his essay ÒFrom
Kant to Hegel and Back again - The Move Towards Detranscendentalization,Ó
European Journal of Philosopy 7, 1999, pp. 129-157.
3
The main figures here are Hector-Neri Casta–eda, Roderick M. Chisholm, Gareth
Evans, Thomas Nagel, John Perry, and Sydney Shoemaker. See also the volume
entitled Analytische Theorien des Selbstbewu§tseins, ed. Manfred Frank, Frankfurt
am Main, Suhrkamp, 1994.
4
Henrich is best known for his path-breaking historical analyses of German Idealist
philosophy. But he has also produced important systematic work and work that
is both historical and systematic. Frank is known in the Anglo-American world
for his critique of poststructuralism but he is now also recognised as a world
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17
Ibid., p. 200.
18
ÒFrom Kant to Hegel and Back Again - The Move Towards Detranscendentalization,Ó
European Journal of Philosopy 7, 1999, p. 131.
19
Ibid., p. 132.
20
See Habermas, Nachmetaphysisches Denken, p. 27.
21
D. Davidson, ÒA Coherence Theory of Truth and KnowledgeÓ in Truth and
Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, hg. von Ernest
LePore, Oxford, Blackwell 1986, p. 310.
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22
For example William Alston and Laurence BonJour. See William Alston, ÒPerceptual
Knowledge,Ó in The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, eds John Greco and Ernest
Sosa, Oxford, Blackwell, 1999, pp. 223-242, and Laurence BonJour ÒThe Dialectic
of Foundationalism and Coherentism,Ó pp. 117-142 in the same volume.
23
This has serious consequences for HabermasÕ consensus theory of truth.
24
For example in the recent essay by JŸrgen Habermas, ÒRichtigkeit vs. Wahrheit.
Zum Sinn der Sollgeltung moralischer Urteile und Normen,Ó Deutsche Zeitschrift
fŸr Philosophie 46, 1998, p. 189.
25
M. Frank, ÒPsychische Vertrautheit und epistemische Selbstzuschreibung,Ó in
Denken der IndividualitŠt. Festschrift fŸr Josef Simon, eds Thomas S. Hoffmann and
Stefan Majetschak, Berlin & New York, de Gruyter, 1995, p. 74.
26
In his analysis of SchellingÕs Die Weltalter, Wolfram Hogrebe argues that reference
to objects in the world is only possible on the basis of a Ôpre-semanticÕ cognitive
relation between self and world. I take this to be a similar point to HenrichÕs
argument. See Hogrebe, PrŠdikation und Genesis, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp,
1989.
27
See for example Frank, ÒSubjektivitŠt und IntersubjektivitŠtÓ in Frank Selbstbewu§tsein
und Selbsterkenntnis, pp. 410-477. See also Frank, ÒDie Wiederkehr des Subjekts in
der heutigen deutschen PhilosophieÓ in Frank, Conditio moderna, Leipzig, Reclam,
1993, pp. 115-6.
28
A. Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1994.
29
D. Henrich, ÒDie Zukunft der SubjektivitŠt,Ó p. 9, Internet http://www.geocities.
com/Athens/Forum/7501/ph/dh/e4.html.