INTERSUBJECTIVITY
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TOPIC FOR THESE CHAPTER
•THE PROBLEM OF OTHER
MINDS
•SELF-RECOGNITION
•RECOGNIZING OTHERS
The Problem of Other Minds
Do you know the gravity of the
problem created by the Cartesian
Dualism?
The Problem of Other
Minds
Cartesian Dualism
Formation of the internal and external world
Everything that is delivered by the senses are regarded as false
Implication of the Cartesian Dualism
As the thinking thing establish its existence, the QUESTION concerning its outside
world is more pronounced.
The thinking thing has trapped itself into its inner world that it appears hopeless
for it to recover the realities of its outside world.
How can the thinking thing establish that the world is real if the senses are
the only way by which he can relate to it?
The Problem of Other
Minds
How the thinking I is related to its world?
How does the thinking I relate to other
thinking I’s?
The Problem of Other
Minds
How can I prove, as a conscious
being or as a thinking I, that
other persons are conscious
being as well?
The Problem of Other
Minds
The question whether there are other minds is a
significant question because the answer to this
question will have grave consequences on the different
aspects of our lives.
How we establish truths
How we set ethical guidelines
How we arrive at a set of practices, beliefs,
standards, values and ideals that we call culture.
Husserl’s Phenomenology
EDMUND HUSSERL is a
German Philosopher
influenced by the
Cartesian Dualism in the
formulation of his own
philosophical method
known as
PHENOMENOLOGY.
Husserl’s Phenomenology
PHENOMENOLOGY comes from the Greek word
PHAINOMENON= that which appears
LOGOS= study
A study of that which appears
The philosophical approaches during that time were going beyond that
which appears.
Husserl’s Phenomenology
He claims that we normally approach reality by going beyond that
which appears.
Natural Attitude the way we treat our experiences will generally
involve presuppositions.
Stereotyping is also a way of looking at things beyond that which
appears
“Thus, what happens is that we already add something to our
experiences and we move beyond the things as they appear to us.”
Husserl’s Phenomenology
Husserl’s critique to Cartesian Dualism:
“…even if we consider our experiences as an illusion and that those
experiences do not refer to reality outside our consciousness, THE TRUTH
STILL REMAINS THAT WE ARE EXPERIENCING SOMETHING IN OUR
CONSCIOUSNESS, AND THE DOUBTING OF Descartes cannot change anything
in this conscious experience.”
Husserl claims: “The world is nothing but the world of our conscious
experience. We can’t really know if there is a world beyond our conscious
experience—and if there is such a world, then we can never know what that
world is like.”
Husserl’s Phenomenology
Husserl’s conclusion:
Therefore, consciousness will always be a
consciousness and it can never be empty including the
thinking thing of Descartes which is pure
consciousness.
And so phenomenology will look at anything that
appears to consciousness as a whole and as valid
objects of investigation.
Husserl’s Phenomenology
• BRACKETING—suspension of judgments
concerning the reality and existence of the
world.
• NATURAL ATTITUDE—is our orientation to the
world which involves our biases, preconception,
and unquestioned established knowledge of the
world.
Husserl’s Phenomenology
Transcendental Reduction is looking at the phenomenon as a whole
and finding what is essential to the experience.
Simply put, reducing the experience to your experience.
Husserl claims:
The objects present in the consciousness are meaningful to the one
intending those objects.
It is the subject, the transcendental ego, which gives meaning to the
contents of its consciousness.
Husserl’s Phenomenology
In his PHENOMENOLOGY, Husserl brought back the investigation of
phenomena to the actual experience of the phenomena—that is as we
experience them.
The experience of the world becomes MY EXPERIENCE of the world; for
it is the conscious subject who is experiencing something not anyone
else.
The Problematic Aspect of Husserl’s Method
SOLIPSISM
solus=alone
ipse=self
It is a philosophical perspective that considers the self alone as the
only thing certain and the only basis of reality.
Husserl’s TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM may make one reduce everything
to one’s own experience.
Worst case scenario:
Reducing the other conscious subjects to my consciousness of them.
Husserl’s Solution to the Solipsistic Criticism
INTERSUBJECTIVITY
Husserl argued that his PHENOMENOLOGY does not reduce the
other as mere reductions of the transcendental ego’s perception, and
that intersubjective relations are very important as exhibited in three
levels:
ETHICAL
Ethical agreement can only happen if I consider others as
independent conscious subject.
Husserl’s Solution to the Solipsistic Criticism
EPISTEMOLOGY
The objectivity of knowledge requires the perspective of others.
Knowledge is the product of agreement and confirmation of
others.
SOCIAL
Culture, society, or community is collective in nature.
Life-World is an existing collective presuppositions which guide or
influence the way we perceive.
Assignment
Recall a past experience where you can
employ Husserl’s phenomenology as a way of
reflecting on your experience. Include your
natural attitude and your reductions from
your experience.
Rubric for Scoring
SCORE INDICATOR 1 INDICATOR 3
30 Natural attitude and reductions Explained clearly and adequately
were identified in the experience
25 Natural attitude or reductions were Explained clearly adequately
identified in the experience
20 Natural attitude or reductions were Deficient explanation
identified in the experience
Self-Recognition
GEORGE WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL
GERMAN PHILOSOPHER
Self-Consciousness
“Self-consciousness can never be achieved in isolation; rather, it is a
product of our interaction with the world.”
Examples:
A child attracted to the spinning blade of a fan
A teenager playing a computer game.
There are also times that our consciousness are never regained.
Examples:
Being addicted to prohibited drugs
Being addicted to gambling
Self-Consciousness
It is through an experience of lack that we become partly aware of
ourselves.
It is through the experience of lack that we desire something; and this
desire brings our consciousness back to ourselves.
We share these with animals
But humans are different because self-consciousness does not require
desire on just anything…
The desire to be
desired.
Master and Slave
•One of the oldest relationships that
exist in the history of humanity.
•Through out our history we see
relationship defined by
DOMINATION.
Two Important Aspects in the Master-Slave
Relationship
• EQUALITY
• The master also suffers from a lack of recognition in
his relationship with the slave.
• True recognition can only come from another
conscious subject—an equal consciousness
• Because the recognition is coming only from a slave
who is not a co-equal, the master did not attain
true recognition
Two Important Aspects in the Master-Slave
Relationship
• Work
• The master cannot be a master of nature.
• He becomes dependent upon the slave and
his becomes detached from nature.
• He is then not truly free.
• The product of labor serves as a mirror from
which self-recognition may be attained.
What conclusion can we
make after studying Hegel’s
notion of self-recognition?
We eventually gain an
understanding of who we are
as persons as we relate with
others, treated as persons
and not as mere means or
objects.
True Recognition: Against Domination and
Possession
Newer Forms of Master-Slave Relationship
• Relationships of Domination
• This type of relationship show a false appearance that the one
dominating is the one enjoying power.
• Power may come in the form of WEALTH, SOCIAL RANK, GOOD
LOOKS etc..
• Examples:
• Bully-bullied
• Superior-Subordinate
• Goodlooking-less attractive
Relationship of Possession
• The essential element of this relationship is in the possession of another
• The master-slave relationship can still be found In any type of relationship
where we find one party treating the other party as a property possessed.
• Here, the master once again uses his strength either to possess someone or
keep his possession.
• Examples:
• A rich man ordering his bride online
• An employer rejecting the resignation of an outstanding employee
using black mail
• A boyfriend forbidding his girlfriend to talk with other men.
• Parents preventing their children to have conversations with other
children
• A coach prohibiting his players to have interactions with players from
other teams.
Mediated Recognition
• This type of desire for recognition is mediated by
objects.
• Examples:
• The desire for gold in a sporting event in school.
• The desire to get a big house.
• The desire to own a car.
• The desire to obtain the latest model of smart
phone.
• The desire to obtain a high level in online games.
We are tempted to coerce others
to recognize us through the use
of force, consequently reducing
the other into mere means for
our self-recognition.
Now we know better
that the use of force to
acquire self-recognition
does not yield true
recognition.
To achieve true and full
self-consciousness, we
must treat others as human
persons, and not as mere
objects or slaves.
Closure Activity
• Give your own examples of ONE relationship of domination and ONE
relationship of possession. Explain the elements that make the
relationship a relationship of domination.
RUBRIC
SCORE INDICATORS INDICATORS
30 Identified one relationship of Explained clearly and adequately
domination and one relationship of why the relationships are as such
possession
25 Identified one relationship of Explained fairly why the
domination and one relationship of relationships are as such
possession
20 Identified one relationship of Reasonable explanation which
domination or one relationship of makes the relationship as such
possession
Recognizing Others
The idea of the self is a product of our
relationship with others.
• Martin Buber claims that the ‘I’ can only realize
itself in the face of the other.
Thus to say ‘I’ is already to acknowledge the
other.
Categories of Relating to Others
• I-I type of relationship
• This type of relationship is maintained by people:
• whose world revolves around their own selves,
• who have no real interest in other people and
things,
• who can’t find anything appealing in others,
• who don’t listen what other’s are saying,
• who have fixed ideas
• Who transform others into their likeness
• ‘I-It’ type of relationship
• This is the kind of relationship
maintained by people who:
• Reduced the status of others into an
object.
• Have the tendency of reducing the
other to a mere It.
• ‘I-Thou’ Type of Relationship
• This is the most ideal type of relationship
• The ‘I’ here:
• Treat other people genuinely
• Do not reduce people into their own self
or into the status of an object
• Treats the person as thou or as another
person who is different from the ‘I’
• Takes a stance of openness and sincerity
Dialogue
• Real dialogue only happens when the ‘I’
recognizes the other as distinct person.
• It is only through accepting the otherness of
the other that allows us to enter into
dialogue because true dialogue is not
defined by speaking but by listening and
sensitivity.
Empathy
• Husserl concluded that we do have access to the
consciousness of the other through our
consciousness.
• He claimed that we can imagine what the other
is experiencing by putting ourselves into their
own place.
Responsibility
• Emmanuel Levinas, a French Philosopher, argues that the face of the
other compels us to respond to his needs.
• We substitute ourselves for the other.
• Substitution means to bear the weight of what the other is
experiencing.
I Other I Other
