Intersubjectivity
Encyclopedia
Intersubjectivity is a term used in philosophy, psychology, sociology and anthropology to describe a condition somewhere between subjectivity and objectivity, one in which a phenomenon is personally experienced (subjectively) but by more than one subject
.
The term is used in three ways:
Intersubjectivity emphasizes that shared cognition and consensus is essential in the shaping of our ideas and relations. Language, quintessentially, is viewed as communal rather than private. Therefore, it is problematic to view the individual as partaking in a private world, one which has a meaning defined apart from any other subjects. But in our shared divergence from a commonly understood experience, these private worlds of semi-solipsism naturally emerge.
Intersubjectivity can also be understood as the process of psychological energy moving between two or more subjects. In a room where someone is lying on their deathbed, for example, the room can appear to be enveloped in a shroud of gloom for other people interacting with the dying person. The psychological weight of one subject comes to bear on the minds of others depending on how they react to it, thereby creating an intersubjective experience that, without multiple consciousnesses interacting with each other, would be otherwise strictly solitary. Love
is a prime example of intersubjectivity that implies a shared feeling of care and affection, among others.
, where it has found application to the theory of the interrelations between analyst
and analysand. Adopting an intersubjective perspective in psychoanalysis means, above all, to give up what Robert Stolorow
and George E. Atwood define as "the myth of isolated mind." In Stolorow, Atwood, and Orange's "intersubjective-systems theory," "intersubjective" refers not to the sharing of subjective states but to the constitution of psychological systems or fields in the interplay of differently organized experiential worlds. In their view, emotional experience always takes form within such intersubjective systems.
Among the early authors who explored this conception in psychoanalysis, in an explicit or implicit way, were Heinz Kohut
, Robert Stolorow
, George E. Atwood, Jessica Benjamin
in the United States and Silvia Montefoschi in Italy.
Since the late 1980s, a direction in psychoanalysis often referred to as relational psychoanalysis
or just relational theory has developed. A central person figure in the theory is Daniel Stern
. Empirically, the intersubjective school is inspired by research on the non-verbal communication of infants, young children, and their parents. A central question is how relational issues are communicated at a very fast pace in a non-verbal fashion. Scholars also stress the importance of real relationships between two equivalent partners. The journal Psychoanalytic Dialogues is devoted to relational psychoanalysis.
, for example, deals with how one should act and what one owes in an intersubjective experience where there is an identifiable other.
, which in phenomenology involves experiencing another person as a subject rather than just as an object among objects. In so doing, one experiences oneself as seen by the Other
, and the world in general as a shared world instead of one only available to oneself.
Early studies on the phenomenology of intersubjectivity were done by Edmund Husserl
, the founder of phenomenology. His student, Edith Stein
, extended the concept and its basis in empathy in her 1917 doctoral dissertation On the Problem of Empathy (Zum Problem der Einfühlung).
Intersubjectivity also helps in the constitution of objectivity: in the experience of the world as available not only to oneself, but also to the Other, there is a bridge between the personal and the shared, the self and the Others.
Intersubjectivity and philosophy:
Intersubjectivity in psychoanalysis:
Subject (philosophy)
In philosophy, a subject is a being that has subjective experiences, subjective consciousness or a relationship with another entity . A subject is an observer and an object is a thing observed...
.
Definition
Thomas Scheff defines intersubjectivity as "the sharing of subjective states by two or more individuals."The term is used in three ways:
- First, in its weakest sense intersubjectivity refers to agreement. There is intersubjectivity between people if they agree on a given set of meanings or a definition of the situation.
- Second, and more subtly intersubjectivity refers to the "common-senseCommon senseCommon sense is defined by Merriam-Webster as, "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts." Thus, "common sense" equates to the knowledge and experience which most people already have, or which the person using the term believes that they do or should have...
," shared meanings constructed by people in their interactions with each other and used as an everyday resource to interpret the meaning of elements of social and cultural life. If people share common sense, then they share a definition of the situation. - Third, the term has been used to refer to shared (or partially shared) divergences of meaning. Self-presentation, lying, practical jokes, and social emotions, for example, all entail not a shared definition of the situation, but partially shared divergences of meaning. Someone who is telling a lie is engaged in an intersubjective act because they are working with two different definitions of the situation. Lying is thus genuinely inter-subjective (in the sense of operating between two subjective definitions of reality).
Intersubjectivity emphasizes that shared cognition and consensus is essential in the shaping of our ideas and relations. Language, quintessentially, is viewed as communal rather than private. Therefore, it is problematic to view the individual as partaking in a private world, one which has a meaning defined apart from any other subjects. But in our shared divergence from a commonly understood experience, these private worlds of semi-solipsism naturally emerge.
Intersubjectivity can also be understood as the process of psychological energy moving between two or more subjects. In a room where someone is lying on their deathbed, for example, the room can appear to be enveloped in a shroud of gloom for other people interacting with the dying person. The psychological weight of one subject comes to bear on the minds of others depending on how they react to it, thereby creating an intersubjective experience that, without multiple consciousnesses interacting with each other, would be otherwise strictly solitary. Love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
is a prime example of intersubjectivity that implies a shared feeling of care and affection, among others.
In psychoanalysis
Intersubjectivity is an important concept in modern schools of psychoanalysisPsychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
, where it has found application to the theory of the interrelations between analyst
Analyst
Analyst generally is a term for an individual of whom or which the primary function is a deep examination of a specific, limited area and may mean:* Accounting analyst, an accounting analyst evaluates and interprets public company financial statements...
and analysand. Adopting an intersubjective perspective in psychoanalysis means, above all, to give up what Robert Stolorow
Robert Stolorow
Robert D. Stolorow is a psychoanalyst, well known for his works on intersubjectivity theory. Important books include: Faces in a Cloud , Structures of Subjectivity , Psychoanalytic Treatment: An Intersubjective Approach , Contexts of Being , Working Intersubjectively , Worlds of Experience , and...
and George E. Atwood define as "the myth of isolated mind." In Stolorow, Atwood, and Orange's "intersubjective-systems theory," "intersubjective" refers not to the sharing of subjective states but to the constitution of psychological systems or fields in the interplay of differently organized experiential worlds. In their view, emotional experience always takes form within such intersubjective systems.
Among the early authors who explored this conception in psychoanalysis, in an explicit or implicit way, were Heinz Kohut
Heinz Kohut
Heinz Kohut was an Austrian-born American psychoanalyst best known for his development of Self psychology, an influential school of thought within psychodynamic/psychoanalytic theory which helped transform the modern practice of analytic and dynamic treatment approaches.-Early life:Kohut was born...
, Robert Stolorow
Robert Stolorow
Robert D. Stolorow is a psychoanalyst, well known for his works on intersubjectivity theory. Important books include: Faces in a Cloud , Structures of Subjectivity , Psychoanalytic Treatment: An Intersubjective Approach , Contexts of Being , Working Intersubjectively , Worlds of Experience , and...
, George E. Atwood, Jessica Benjamin
Jessica Benjamin
Jessica Benjamin is an American psychoanalyst and feminist.She is currently on the faculty of New York University's Postdoctoral Psychology Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy...
in the United States and Silvia Montefoschi in Italy.
Since the late 1980s, a direction in psychoanalysis often referred to as relational psychoanalysis
Relational psychoanalysis
Relational psychoanalysis is a school of psychoanalysis in the United States that emphasizes the role of real and imagined relationships with others in mental disorder and psychotherapy...
or just relational theory has developed. A central person figure in the theory is Daniel Stern
Daniel Stern (psychologist)
Daniel N. Stern is a prominent psychiatrist and psychoanalytic theorist, specializing in infant development, on which he has written a number of books - most notably The Interpersonal World of the Infant ....
. Empirically, the intersubjective school is inspired by research on the non-verbal communication of infants, young children, and their parents. A central question is how relational issues are communicated at a very fast pace in a non-verbal fashion. Scholars also stress the importance of real relationships between two equivalent partners. The journal Psychoanalytic Dialogues is devoted to relational psychoanalysis.
In philosophy
Intersubjectivity is a major topic in philosophy. The duality of self and other has long been contemplated by philosophers, and what it means to have an intersubjective experience, and what sort of lessons can be drawn from them. EthicsEthics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
, for example, deals with how one should act and what one owes in an intersubjective experience where there is an identifiable other.
Phenomenology
In phenomenology, intersubjectivity performs many functions. It allows empathyEmpathy
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
, which in phenomenology involves experiencing another person as a subject rather than just as an object among objects. In so doing, one experiences oneself as seen by the Other
Other
The Other or Constitutive Other is a key concept in continental philosophy; it opposes the Same. The Other refers, or attempts to refer, to that which is Other than the initial concept being considered...
, and the world in general as a shared world instead of one only available to oneself.
Early studies on the phenomenology of intersubjectivity were done by Edmund Husserl
Edmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
, the founder of phenomenology. His student, Edith Stein
Edith Stein
Saint Teresia Benedicta of the Cross, sometimes also known as Saint Edith Stein , was a German Roman Catholic philosopher and nun, regarded as a martyr and saint of the Roman Catholic Church...
, extended the concept and its basis in empathy in her 1917 doctoral dissertation On the Problem of Empathy (Zum Problem der Einfühlung).
Intersubjectivity also helps in the constitution of objectivity: in the experience of the world as available not only to oneself, but also to the Other, there is a bridge between the personal and the shared, the self and the Others.
See also
- Intersubjective verifiabilityIntersubjective verifiabilityIntersubjective verifiability is the capacity of a concept to be readily and accurately communicated between different individuals , and to be reproduced under varying circumstances for the purposes of verification...
- ReproducibilityReproducibilityReproducibility is the ability of an experiment or study to be accurately reproduced, or replicated, by someone else working independently...
- ObjectivityObjectivity (science)Objectivity in science is a value that informs how science is practiced and how scientific truths are created. It is the idea that scientists, in attempting to uncover truths about the natural world, must aspire to eliminate personal biases, a priori commitments, emotional involvement, etc...
- Philosophy of social sciencePhilosophy of social scienceThe philosophy of social science is the study of the logic and method of the social sciences, such as sociology, anthropology and political science...
Intersubjectivity and philosophy:
- Martin BuberMartin BuberMartin Buber was an Austrian-born Jewish philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of religious existentialism centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and the I-It relationship....
- Gabriel MarcelGabriel MarcelGabriel Honoré Marcel was a French philosopher, a leading Christian existentialist, and author of about 30 plays.He focused on the modern individual's struggle in a technologically dehumanizing society...
- DialogueDialogueDialogue is a literary and theatrical form consisting of a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people....
- Edmund HusserlEdmund HusserlEdmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
- Phenomenology
Intersubjectivity in psychoanalysis:
- Jessica BenjaminJessica BenjaminJessica Benjamin is an American psychoanalyst and feminist.She is currently on the faculty of New York University's Postdoctoral Psychology Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy...
- Robert D. Stolorow
- George E. Atwood
- Donna M. Orange
- Bernard Brandchaft
- Daniel SternDaniel Stern (psychologist)Daniel N. Stern is a prominent psychiatrist and psychoanalytic theorist, specializing in infant development, on which he has written a number of books - most notably The Interpersonal World of the Infant ....
- Beatrice Beebe
- Daniel SchechterDaniel SchechterDaniel S. Schechter is an American psychiatrist currently living in Geneva, Switzerland. He is known for his clinical work and research on intergenerational transmission or "communication" of violent trauma and related psychopathology involving parents and very young children...
In psychoanalysis
- Laplanche, J.Jean LaplancheJean Laplanche is a French author, theorist and psychoanalyst. Laplanche is best known for his work on psychosexual development and Sigmund Freud's seduction theory, and has written more than a dozen books on psychoanalytic theory...
& Pontalis, J. B. (1974). The Language of Psycho-Analysis, Edited by W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 0-393-01105-4 - Stolorow, R. D., Atwood, G. E., & Orange, D. M. (2002). Worlds of Experience: Interweaving Philosophical and Clinical Dimensions in Psychoanalysis. New York: Basic Books.
Philosophy
- Edmund HusserlEdmund HusserlEdmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass 1905-1920 - Edmund HusserlEdmund HusserlEdmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass 1921-1928 - Edmund HusserlEdmund HusserlEdmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass 1929-1935 - Edmund HusserlEdmund HusserlEdmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
Cartesian MeditationsCartesian MeditationsCartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology is a book by the philosopher Edmund Husserl, based on two two-hour lectures he gave at the Sorbonne, in the Amphithéatre Descartes on February 23 and 25, 1929. Over the next two years, he and his assistant Eugen Fink expanded and elaborated on...
, Edited by S. Strasser, 1950. ISBN 978-90-247-0068-4
External links
- Critique of intersubjectivity Article by Mats Winther
- Edmund Husserl: Empathy, intersubjectivity and lifeworld, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyStanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyThe Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a freely-accessible online encyclopedia of philosophy maintained by Stanford University. Each entry is written and maintained by an expert in the field, including professors from over 65 academic institutions worldwide...