Intersubjectivity Quotes

Our normal sense of the person as a lonely island of consciousness, is a dramatic illusion based on theological imagery.

A thing in itself never expresses anything. It is the relation between things that gives meaning to them and that formulates a thought. A thought functions only as a fragmentary part in the formulation of an idea.

My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.

But it can also happen, if will and grace are joined, that as I contemplate the tree I am drawn into a relation, and the tree ceases to be an It. . . . Does the tree then have consciousness, similar to our own? I have no experience of that. But thinking that you have brought this off in your own case, must you again divide the indivisible? What I encounter is neither the soul of a tree nor a dryad, but the tree itself.

One cannot conceive of objectivity without subjectivity.

My own eyes are not enough for me...I will see through the eyes of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many is not enough...I will see what others have invented. Even the eyes of all humanity are not enough. I regret that the brutes cannot write books. Very gladly would I learn what face things present to a mouse or a bee. More gladly still would I perceive the olfactory world charged with all the information and emotion it carries for a dog.

There is intersubjectivity woven into the very fabric of the Kosmos at all levels.

Well, think of what I’m doing to you right now. For me I’m the self, and you’re the object. For you, of course, it’s the exact opposite—you’re the self to you and I’m the object. And by exchanging self and object, we can project ourselves onto the other and gain self-consciousness. Volitionally.” “I still don’t get it, but it sure feels good.” “That’s the whole idea,” the girl said.

The appearance of the other in the world corresponds therefore to a congealed sliding of the whole universe.

True reflection presents me to myself not as idle and inaccessible subjectivity, but as identical with my presence in the world and to others, as I am now realizing it: I am all that I see, I am an intersubjective field, not despite my body and historical situation, but, on the contrary, by being this body and this situation, and through them, all the rest.

Reaching and understanding is the process of bringing about an agreement on the presupposed basis of validity claims that are mutually recognized.

The subject who speaks is situated in relation to the other. This privilege of the other ceases to be incomprehensible once we admit that the first fact of existence is neither being in itself nor being for itself but being for the other, in other words, that human existence is a creature. By offering a word, the subject putting himself forward lays himself open and, in a sense, prays.

The idea is that the object has a language unto itself.

The task of universal pragmatics is to identify and reconstruct universal conditions of possible mutual understanding.

Include the knower in the known.

Since each person, as an individual, is the not-being of the other, it is never possible to eliminate non-understanding completely.