intersubjectivity

is anything social: Knowledge is intersubjective insofar as it involves reciprocity of perspectives, a social origin, and a social distribution.

Intersubjectivity, in a narrow, technical sense, is the simultaneous understanding of another's subjectivity and one's own consciousness. Schutz, however, tended to use intersubjectivity to refer to anything social. Knowledge, for example, is intersubjective insofar as it involves reciprocity of perspectives, a social origin, and a social distribution.' (NET)

is a phenomenological ground, not an object to be discovered. Thus, transcendental subjectivity is not, as it were, capable of discovering others, but rather it must always already be an intersubjectivity.

Merleau-Ponty's discussion of intersubjectivity begins from Husserl's work on the experience of others, yet he shifts the emphasis from the epistemic challenge of experiencing others to the existential structures of a shared world through our bodies and our cultural objects. Thus, he stresses in Phenomenology of Perception that Husserl's investigations require we recognize not that transcendental subjectivity can discover others, but that it must always already 'be an intersubjectivity' (PhP, lxxvi).

is the recognition that 'I' has meaning only if it can be contrasted with 'you' and other personal pronouns. It's just not possible to be aware of oneself without also being aware of other subjects.

is not a presupposition, it is at work in our basic structure from the very start — we all already do what anyone does. I hammer with a hammer because one hammers with hammers in our culture. I eat the way one eats, I pronounce words the way one pronounces words in our country.

Now, we've talked up to this point just about the individual human being, what Heidegger calls "Dasein", and its position in the world and all these various aspects of it that you've been spelling out. But, of course, Heidegger doesn't suppose that he's the only being that exists, and you and I when we talk about this don't suppose that you or I are the only beings that exist. The world is full of people. How do all the other people or the other Daseins come into this picture? Well, it's very important that they come in from the very start. In fact, it's a big problem for Cartesians like Descartes and Husserl--they have the same problem about other minds that they have about the external world, because they start with an individual, autonomous isolated subject. Heidegger starts in an entirely different way, closer to the phenomena and saving him from this problem. He says we all already do what anyone does. I hammer with a hammer because one hammers with hammers in our culture. I eat the way one eats, I pronounce words the way one pronounces words in our country--and you have to or you wouldn't be understood.

is at the core of subjectivity. Even when we flee from the crowd we do it the way one does it.

And, of course, "this one" doesn't mean just the masses. As Heidegger says at one point, we flee from the crowd the way one flees from the crowd. But even when we flee from the crowd we do it the way one does it.

intersubjectivity, n.Definitions

intersubjectivity