VI. From Subjectivity to Intersubjectivity

Philosophy 157

G. J. Mattey

©2002

The Problem of Other Minds

• How can one human mind know that another exists?

• Descartes (Meditation II): I judge there to be men when all I see are hats and coats that could conceal an automaton

• Naturalistic response: if there is a brain, there is a mind

• But what if bodies depend on minds?

Monadology

• Leibniz held that human minds are “monads,” simple substances

• Monads are “worlds unto themselves”• Physical objects are harmoniously related

perceptions• The perceptions of monads proceed in

synchrony with one another, so it is as if there were a common world of objects

Husserl’s Problem

• I am a monad, an “Ego”

• My world is “constituted” by the activity of the ego

• I cannot verify the existence of another ego through a constituting activity of my ego

• It seems that I cannot constitute another ego, which would constitute its own world

Phenomenological Solution

• We must not try to solve the problem metaphysically ( as did Leibniz)

• We must instead look to the synthesizing activities of our own ego

• The key is to discover the “sense” “other ego” which the ego intends

The Experienced Other

• There is a straightforward way that another mind is given

• Another organism is found in my world

• This organism is taken as being “governed psychically” by a mind

• The other mind experiences the same world as I do

The Noematic Other

• If I exclude actuality from my experience, I consider a “reduced” object that I synthesize

• The exclusion does not make the object something “private” for me

• I am there for the other• This must be explained through a theory of

“empathy”

Ownness

• The explanation of the other and a public world cannot suppose their existence

• So, their existence must be put aside• I merely consider things as being “my own”• But this requires a contrasting conception of

an “alter-ego,” for whom things are not “my own”

• How does it make an appearance?

The Reduced World

• We must begin with a world which excludes everything mental that is not my own

• We have a “Nature” that is the most basic level of noema

• Nature contains my body, which I rule• I have kinesthetic sensations of the actions

of my body• They reveal that I govern my body

The Pure Ego

• Myself and my body are given as united in the reduced world

• But I can make a further reduction, by putting aside the “physical world”

• I am left with a pure ego, which is the “pole” of my intentional activity

• The world is “inside” this ego, so how could the ego be in it?

Constituting Myself

• The pure ego is related to the ego found in the world by constituting it

• An analogy with the constitution of a “physical” object: most of it is not given

• We project more features in space and time

• So we project more features on ourselves as given, and we count them as our own

Transcendence

• The reduced world is constituted harmoniously by me

• That world is other than my self-in-the world (transcendent), but it constituted by myself (immanent): an “immanent transcendency”

• We are looking for an absolute transcendency: an ego not at all my own that constitutes its world

Objectivity

• The key is to recognize that the sense of the reduced world is that of an objective world

• An objective world is an inter-subjective world, accessible to other egos

• Each ego constitutes a world in a way that is harmonious with my constituting activity

• This is not a metaphysical hypothesis, but rather explains the sense of my world

Access to Other Minds

• Nothing belonging to the essence of the other is given in experience (or it would be of my essence)

• Instead, it is “appresented” as accompanying a perceived body

• An analogy: when an object is viewed from the front, the back is presumed to exist

• A disanalogy: the existence of the back can be verified, but that of an ego cannot

Pairing

• We pair up the perceived organism and a governing ego

• This is not an analogical inference

• Instead, it is a mental transfer of sense

• An analogy: we make sense of ourselves only by synthesizing a harmonious stream of recollections

Intersubjectivity

• My body is located at a central “here”

• I take the other body to have its own “here”

• I can think of myself in the other body’s “here,” which is now “there” for me

• So I can think of the other body as having a “here” such that my body’s position is a “there” for it

Community of Monads

• Monadic egos seem not to be capable of assimilation by reference to the organism

• The other monadic ego constitutes its world• I can analogically give sense to that ego as

constituting as I constitute• It then constitutes what I perceive• This yields an “objectivating equalization”

and a community of monads