intersubjectivity

Domingo, Renz Joelle C.

Holy Spirit Academy of Malolos
WHY DO PEOPLE
NEED
OTHER PEOPLE?
Abraham Maslow’s
Hierarchy of Needs
Intersubjectivity of Human Beings
• Presupposes human being’s connectivity with other human
beings
• the
different ways by which embodied spirits relate to one
another.
 Intersubjectivity of Human Beings
• We share the same situations wherein we can create
shared meanings. These meanings become bases for our
collective actions and beliefs. Nonetheless, these shared
meanings do not eliminate our own individuality. Though
share meanings become channels of collective actions,
they do not demand uniformity of expressions of these
actions.
WHAT IF PEOPLE
LIVE IN
ISOLATION?
THE DIMENSIONS
OF A
NONRELATIONAL
SELF
“Man cannot become himself
in isolation.”
Karl Jaspers
The Self in Isolation
• When one does not recognize the existence of other
human beings—lives in a community but doesn’t
establish vocative situation with others and doesn’t
establish relational interaction that leads to open
communication with others.
• Human being who is not in communion with other tries to
grasp his/her life alone, when this becomes absolute, there
is a danger of making a judgment and using it as basis of the
understanding of realities around him. Human being
demands acceptance for what he thinks and says but he
can’t find himself in this way.
The Self in Isolation
•I can only realize itself in the face of the other; without the
encounter with an other, the I will not be aware of its
uniqueness. To say I is already to acknowledge the other.
• It
is in open communication that human being’s true self can
manifest himself to other human beings and experiences self-
realization.
DIMENSIONS OF I YOU
A NON-
RELATIONAL
SELF
ISOLATION  X
 Relating to Others
Towards Self-Consciousness
• “Self-consciousness can never be achieved in isolation; it is
a product of our interaction with the world.” (Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel)
• Self-consciousness is always shown by an outward
movement, directing our consciousness to an object and
then directing the consciousness back to the self. We are
aware of others first before being aware of ourselves.
Relating to Others
Towards Self-Consciousness

• Itis through an experience of lack that we desire

something; and this desire brings the consciousness back to
ourselves.
• Full
self-consciousness can be achieved by a desire that is
uniquely human—desire to be desired.
Relating to Others
Towards Self-Consciousness

• Self-consciousness is a product of intersubjective relations which

involves mutual recognition among the conscious subjects. It is
from being recognized as a person by other persons that we establish
our consciousness of who we are: of our worth, dignity, self-esteem,
pride, and self-respect.
Relating to Others
Towards Self-Consciousness

• This
however, is not readily given. Self-recognition is a struggle for
which one is prepared to put his life and freedom at stake.
HOW NOT TO BE
TRULY
RECOGNIZED?
The Self in the Realm of Pretentions
• Deception is a hindrance toward the establishment of
communicative situation or dialogue between or among
human beings. It emerges and distorts a possible
communication when a human being projects his false image
of himself to other human beings. Buber observes that human
being pretends to be another person to be accepted by
others. He pretends to be someone other than himself which
he is not.
The Self in the Realm of Pretentions

If the other person accepts his projected false image,

communicative manifestation of the self is impossible
to unfold. The other person is unconsciously being
deceived by the person who knows that he accepts,
trusts and cares for him.
 The Self in the Realm of Pretentions
• Deception hinders true being from unveiling itself.
When human being relates with another in deception,
the content of such communication is not the true self
but the seeming and imagined self.
DIMENSIONS OF I YOU
A NON-
RELATIONAL
SELF
ISOLATION  X
PRETENTION X 
The Self in the Realm of Manipulation:
Domination and Possession
• Manipulation between or among persons occurs when one
says to the other “I create your world and you must only
think, feel and act within its boundary. Your world view
and your understanding about the world are according to
the world that I have created for you. You act according to
the image that I set. As you do it, I find satisfaction and
security.” Intersubjectivity is impossible to unfold in this
kind of relationship.
The Self in the Realm of Manipulation:
Domination and Possession
• Seeingthe person as a mere thing or “it” failing to recognize
the very being of the other. He control the other as an object.
• Relating with other for personal gain and development. “The I
objectifies the other for self-satisfaction at the expense of the
other. He can easily dispose the other as an it.” (Martin Buber)
The Self in the Realm of Manipulation:
Domination and Possession
• The freedom to express and unveil one’s uniqueness and the
truth of oneself are not manifested and shared. There is no
room and opportunity for the other to be himself and
recognize his own uniqueness and identity. One is being
absorbed by the other. The subjectivity of the other
disappears or even distorted. Human being loses the
possibility of selfhood—to find and realize oneself.
Buber’s I-It relationship
• People who develop interest in others
• Willnever attempt to reduce the other into their own
likeness—into another I; in some instances, more concerned
about other than themselves
• Thetreatment of the other is reduced into the status of an
object—an It.
• Notnecessarily evil persons with bad intentions (may actually
have good intentions most of the time): treating the other as
objects for investigation
• Others have clearly bad intent in treating others as mere It.
Buberian Dialogue : I-It relationship
•Itreats other as an object, thus, sets himself in distance from
the It
• Open to listening, but listens to others as It, an object that
needs to be addressed and understood as a things, not as
person—simply part of trying to understand the object of
study
• Some totally negate the voice of other—totally reduced into
a thing that cannot speak
DIMENSIONS OF I YOU
A NON-
RELATIONAL
SELF
ISOLATION  X
PRETENTION X 
MANIPULATION  It
(I-It Relationship)
The Self in the Realm of Selfishness
• Self-centeredness hinders the establishment of communicative
manifestation or vocative situation or dialogue between or among
human beings.
• The I sees only itself as the basis of truth and of social
existence. The I is the center of relationship.
• “Selfishness
hinders a person from sharing his being. It blinds a
person from seeing the other as a source of unique world, values
and meaning that can possibly enrich his being. It hinders the
person from opening himself and be transparent to others for true
communion of worlds, meaning, values and self-beings.” (Martin
Buber)
Buber’s I-I relationship
• People whose world revolve around their own selves
• have no real interest in other people and things
• Aim is for the other to be transformed into his
likeness—the reduction of the other to an I.
Buberian Dialogue: I-I relationship
• I-I: speech; monologue; doesn’t require others to
proceed.
• I never really hears what other is saying because it
never wants to listen; the words of other are simply
sounds heard devoid of content, value and meaning; they
only want to hear themselves talk, want other to see the
world in their perspective
DIMENSIONS OF I YOU
A NON-
RELATIONAL
SELF
ISOLATION  X
PRETENTION X 
MANIPULATION  It
SELFISHNESS  I
(I-I Relationship)
“Only in communication am I myself
not merely living but fulfilling life.”
Karl Jaspers
 RELATING WITH OTHERS:
MARTIN BUBER’S
DIALOGUE,
EDMUND HUSSERL’S
EMPATHY,
EMMANUEL
LEVINAS’ RESPONSIBILITY
Buber’s I-Thou relationship
• People who treat other people genuinely as persons
• Do not and will not reduce the other into either I or it.
The I treats the person as Thou—as another person who
is different from the I; one who may possess a different set
of interests, visions, beliefs, value system and
characteristics;
 Buber’s I-Thou relationship
• Difficult, tedious: entails effort, requires more from the I—
take stance of openness and sincerity, need for patience,
understanding, humility, compassion, etc.

• allows the discovery of I; genuine sharing of one another

takes place; dialogue, a genuine form of conversation is its
foundation
 Buberian Dialogue: I-Thou
•I recognizes the other as a distinct person, a Thou, and
not reduced to I or It.
• Accepting the otherness of the other allows us to enter into
dialogue—an exchange. Since the other presents itself as
free individual with own independent consciousness, we
await for it to reveal itself without controlling and
manipulating the revelation of the other.
Buberian Dialogue: I-Thou
• Doesn’t mean the acceptance of everything the other claims;
there are, as always, disagreements and differences of
perspectives and judgments: understand the other, and
understanding is not equal to agreement. Genuine
conversation requires listening.
Buberian Dialogue: I-Thou
• Buberclaims not that we are to consider others as Thou; but that we
are able to consider others as Thou.
• Itis a question of who is willing to give themselves, and who are
not: I-Thou is a giving of the self-opening up to the other, and
letting Thou be immersed with the I.
I You
Buberian Dialogue
 Husserlian Empathy
• Still
recognize the other as an other but we try to understand
the other by assuming that we are partly the same as we
share bodily responses to particular experiences.
• Imaginative transfer of subject’s consciousness is available
for any conscious subject: thus, an intersubjective experience.
Husserlian Empathy
•A very useful device in making decisions especially those
involving other subjects: placing oneself into situation of
another before acting helps us to be moral as it subjects us to
golden rule principle: treat others as one would like others to
treat oneself.
I You
Husserlian Empathy
Levinasian Responsibility
• Emmanuel Levinas, Jewish philosopher: The face of the
other compels us to respond to its needs.
• Theface is not simple perception of the face but seeing it
exposed and vulnerable and recognizing what it needs: it
speaks to us and it obliges us to answer its call.
• We are called to be responsible in the face of the other
because we substitute ourselves for the other.

• Substitution is more than the act of putting ourselves in the

place of others, it is to bear the weight of what the other is
experiencing and finding comfort in addressing the
weaknesses and difficulties of the other.
Levinasian Responsibility
• Empathy: starts from I, places I into the situation of
other, goes back to I and imaginatively transfer the
other, then understands what the other is experiencing.

• Substitution
doesn’t stop in the I. I will go back to the
other to address its needs, and there’s no longer a
movement back to the I.
When we respond to the call of face, we respond without
expecting anything in return from the other, or from anyone.
Our responsibility is simply for other, and if the other
doesn’t respond to us, then that is no longer our
responsibility. Reciprocity is not our responsibility. We
don’t require the other to reciprocate when we act.
Levinasian Responsibility
• We are responsible to the other even if we don’t know the
other personally.
• Thesource of our responsibility to the other is not based on
moral rules but simply on the encounter with the face of the
other; we cannot not respond to the face
• “We are all responsible for everyone else—but I am more
responsible than all the others.” (Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Brothers
Karamazov)
I You
Levinasian Responsibility