Table Of ContentINTERSUBJECTIVITY
PHILOSOPHY & SOCIAL CRITICISM
Series Editor: David M. Rasmussen, Boston College
This series presents an interdisciplinary range of theory and critique
emphasizing the interrelation of continental and Anglo-American
scholarship as it affects contemporary discourses. Books in the series are
aimed at an international audience, focusing on contemporary debates in
philosophy and ethics, politics and social theory, feminism, law, critical
theory, postmodernism and hermeneutics.
Other books in this series
David Owen, Nietzsche, Politics and Modernity
Richard Kearney (ed.), Paul Ricoeur: The Hermeneutics of Action
Mathieu Deflem (ed.), Habermas, Modernity and Law
INTERSUBJECTIVITY
The Fabric of Social Becoming
Nick Crossley
SAGE Publications
London · Thousand Oaks · New Delhi
©Nick Crossley 1996
First published 1996
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library.
ISBN 0 8039 7903 7
ISBN 0 8039 7904 5 (pbk)
Library of Congress catalog record available
Typeset by Type Study, Scarborough, North Yorkshire
For Michèle
Contents
Preface: A Book About Intersubjectivity viii
Acknowledgements χ
1 Dimensions of Intersubjectivity 1
2 Subjectivity, Alterity and Between: On Radical
Intersubjectivity 24
3 Imagination, Self and Other: On Egological Intersubjectivity 49
4 Concrete Intersubjectivity and the Lifeworld: On Alfred Schutz 73
5 System, Lifeworld and Communicative Action 99
6 Intersubjectivity and Power 127
7 Citizens of the Lifeworld 150
Conclusion: The Fabric of Social Becoming 173
Bibliography 175
Index 182
Preface
A Book About Intersubjectivity
Intersubjectivity' is a complex and multilayered concept. There are many
quite different understandings and theories of it. It is also a popular concept
which, for many writers, forms a central linchpin in the work in which they,
as philosophers or social scientists, are engaged (Giddens 1993; Honneth
1995; Joas 1985). Furthermore, it is an interdisciplinary concept. It appeals
to philosophers, sociologists, psychologists and political thinkers alike,
seemingly offering them insights into both their specific discipline and the
connections between that discipline and others.
For these reasons alone a book on intersubjectivity is both justified and
warranted. Its different versions need to be explored and perhaps com-
bined. Certainly they need to be introduced in a comprehensible form to
students. Moreover, the interdisciplinary potential of the concept needs to
be tested out in some way. We need to consider or to demonstrate how and
in what ways different disciplines can engage with the idea, what they may
contribute to our understanding of it and what they may wish to take from it.
This book will, I hope, do all of these things to the reader's satisfaction. It
aims to provide a comprehensive map of intersubjectivity, outlining the key
theories in the intersubjectivist tradition and, importantly, putting forward
the many arguments in favour of intersubjectivism in philosophy and social
science.
In addition to these introductory functions the book offers a systematic
attempt to join the various theories of intersubjectivity that it considers into
a common perspective, or, rather, a system of interlocking perspectives.
Specifically it traces a common path through the work of Merleau-Ponty,
Wittgenstein, Mead, Schutz and Habermas and it considers their work
against a background formed by the work of Husserl, Buber and Hegel. This
is not an arbitary eclecticism or a postmodern shopping spree in the
supermarket of ideas. Despite their often very different contexts and
methods, all of the theorists whom I discuss are united in their intersubjecti-
vism and in their rejection of the subjectivist and objectivist alternatives to it.
Even if their versions of intersubjectivity are different, even if they don't use
the word, the writers whom I discuss are all groping towards a common
ground, as is evidenced in the many studies which have compared them
separately (Coulter 1979; Habermas 1987a, 1991a; Heinzig 1987; Roche
1973; Rosenthal and Bourgeois 1991; Spurling 1977). What I am doing in
constructing a theory of intersubjectivity is explicating this common ground,
showing where paths or at least interests and concerns overlap, where one
theory takes over from another.
Preface ix
My final purpose in writing the book has been to introduce an element of
critique and coherence where I feel it is needed and to develop some of the
points raised by the various theorists. I have entered into dialogue with the
theorists whom I have discussed, replying to the questions which their
theories raise and responding to those points which have provoked me. This
dialogicality constitutes the book's own intersubjective situation and I can
only hope it will be continued by you. Books are acts of communication.
They are designed to convey, convince and provoke. And they call for a
response.
The Plan
It is usual at the beginning of a study, to provide some definition of the
central concepts to be used and to map out the structure which it will adopt.
In the present case this is not possible. Defining intersubjectivity' is partly
what the main body of the book as a whole is about. I do offer three
definitions of 'intersubjectivity' in my first chapter, however, each of which
represents an important statement in the history of the concept. These
should suffice to give the reader a preliminary sense of 'intersubjectivity'. I
have also deferred my exposition of the plan of the book to the first chapter.
The plan is easier to follow when the various definitions of the concept have
been discussed because the book itself is based around these definitions, or
at least around my engagement with them.
