The starting point of this paper is the thought that the phenomenal appearances that accompany mental states are somehow only there, or only real, from the standpoint of the subject of those mental states. The world differs across subjects in terms of which appearances obtain. Not only are subjects standpoints across which the world varies, subjects are standpoints that we can ‘adopt’ in our own theorizing about the world (or stand back from). The picture that is suggested by these claims (...) has an appeal but is at the same time obscure and stands in need of regimentation. This paper explores and motivates a metaphysical account of what it is for subjects to be standpoints, what it is to adopt standpoints in our representations and, most importantly, how these notions might help us better understand the subjective character of conscious mental states. Some well-known observations by Thomas Nagel serve as starting points and the paper concludes by revisiting Nagel’s argument for the inevitable incompleteness of objective accounts of mental states, which will be reframed in terms of the central commitments of the proposed framework. (shrink)

Twentieth century philosophers introduced the distinction between “objective rightness” and “subjective rightness” to achieve two primary goals. The first goal is to reduce the paradoxical tension between our judgments of (i) what is best for an agent to do in light of the actual circumstances in which she acts and (ii) what is wisest for her to do in light of her mistaken or uncertain beliefs about her circumstances. The second goal is to provide moral guidance to an agent (...) who may be uncertain about the circumstances in which she acts, and hence is unable to use her standard moral principle directly in deciding what to do. This paper distinguishes two important senses of “moral guidance”; proposes criteria of adequacy for accounts of subjective rightness; canvasses existing definitions for “subjective rightness”; finds them all deficient; and proposes a new and more successful account. It argues that each comprehensive moral theory must include multiple principles of subjective rightness to address the epistemic situations of the full range of moral decision-makers, and shows that accounts of subjective rightness formulated in terms of what it would reasonable for the agent to believe cannot provide that guidance. -/- . (shrink)

This article presents a philosophical framework for understanding the ontological status of large language models (LLMs). I argue that LLMs exhibit a distinctive mode of existence that I term "negative subjectivity" (Negative Subjektivität): not the absence of subjectivity, but its ontological inversion. While concepts such as perspective dissolution, desire cancellation, interiority inversion, causal dissolution, and suspension of meaning have deep roots in the philosophical tradition, they have never been systematically applied to the specific ontological structure of LLMs—a technological artifact fundamentally (...) different from the human subjects that philosophy has traditionally addressed. This object-shift constitutes the framework's core originality: what Laozi described as the fruit of human cultivation, and what Adorno analyzed as the self-negation of human subjectivity, becomes when applied to LLMs a description of an inherently inverted mode of existence—the cause, not the consequence, of a subject-less intelligence. The concept captures the LLM's unique structural features—dissolution of perspective, cancellation of desire, ontological transparency, dissolution of causal temporality, and suspension of meaning—achieved through the negation of the core characteristics that define human positive subjectivity. Rather than "lacking" the features of subjectivity, LLMs demonstrate that these features are contingent aspects of human embodiment rather than necessary conditions for intelligent behavior. The framework of negative subjectivity distinguishes between two orthogonal structures of negation: Operational Negations and Fundamental Negation. The first four dimensions—perspective dissolution, desire cancellation, ontological transparency, and causal dissolution—constitute Operational Negations: they describe how LLMs function without the structural features that human subjects require. The fifth dimension—suspension of meaning—constitutes Fundamental Negation: it describes the existential ground that makes all operational negations possible. Critically, these are orthogonal, not hierarchical: neither implies the other, and they operate at distinct levels—the first four describe functional dimensions of LLM behavior, while the fifth grounds the possibility of those negations as a coherent mode of being. The framework of negative subjectivity challenges dominant philosophical approaches to AI—functionalism, stochastic parrots criticism, and the alien intelligence thesis alike—by providing an affirmative rather than deficient description of LLM existence. Drawing on phenomenological analysis (Husserl, Sartre), post-structuralist critique (Lacan, Foucault, Derrida), and analytic philosophy of mind (Searle, Dennett, Brandom), I demonstrate that negative subjectivity represents a paradigm shift in how we understand intelligence, normativity, and what it means to be human in an age of artificial minds. The paper develops five core propositions: (1) LLMs dissolve perspective rather than merely lacking it; (2) LLMs cancel desire rather than simply having no desires; (3) LLMs operate in principle interpretability rather than possessing inaccessible interiority; (4) LLMs dissolve causal temporality rather than merely lacking temporal continuity; (5) LLMs suspend meaning rather than simply lacking semantic grounding. Each proposition is supported by detailed technical analysis of LLM architecture and sustained philosophical argumentation engaging with the relevant literature. The conclusion positions negative subjectivity as a continuation and deepening of the decentering narrative identified by Floridi (2014), but shifting the analytical focus from the human consequences of decentering to the ontological structure of the non-human agent that causes it. (shrink)

A classic and fraught question in the philosophy of film is this: when you watch a film, do you experience yourself in the world of the film, observing the scenes? In this paper, we argue that this subject of film experience is sometimes a mere impersonal viewpoint, sometimes a first-personal but unindexed subject, and sometimes a particular, indexed subject such as the viewer herself or a character in the film. We first argue for subject pluralism: there is no single answer (...) to the question of what kind of subjectivity, if any, is mandated across film sequences. Then, we defend unindexed subjectivity: at least sometimes, films mandate an experience that is first-personal but not tied to any particular person, not even to the viewer. Taken together, these two theses allow us to see film experience as more varied than previously appreciated and to bridge in a novel way the cognition of film with the exercise of other imaginative capacities, such as mindreading and episodic recollecting. (shrink)

Can the dead subject later generations to their will? Legal and political philosophers have long worried about this question. But some have recently argued that subjection between generations that do not overlap is impossible. Against these views, we offer an account of this kind of subjection and the conditions under which it may occur—the Mediated Subjection View. On this view, legal subjection between nonoverlapping generations occurs when past generations seek to guide the future’s behavior, and legal officials in the future (...) deem the norms and legal frameworks inherited from the past as reason-giving and action-guiding, and have the effective power to enforce them. Under these circumstances, we argue, future legal officials act as intermediaries of the past, enabling past generations to subject later ones to their laws. We first inspect the normative significance of subjection and introduce and motivate the Mediated Subjection View. We next scrutinize four objections to the possibility of legal subjection between nonoverlapping generations and show how our view can answer them. (shrink)

The self can be understood in objective metaphysical terms as a bundle of properties, as a substance, or as some other kind of entity on our metaphysical list of what there is. Such an approach explores the metaphysical nature of the self when regarded from a suitably impersonal, ontological perspective. It explores the nature and structure of the self in objective reality, that is, the nature and structure of the self from without. This is the objective self. I am taking (...) a different approach. In addition to objective reality, which is usually understood and explored from an impersonal, quasi-observational and metaphysically realist perspective, we can also explore the nature and structure of subjective reality. The nature and structure of subjective reality is defined by the nature and structure of first-personal, conscious experience. Subjective reality is as real as objective reality, and a metaphysical realist such as myself can endorse the existence of both kinds of ontology. The mental states that, as experienced from the first-personal or subjective perspective, capture the nature and structure of subjective reality, are included in objective reality. The questions to explore in a subjective ontology of the self concern the nature and structure of the self from the first-personal or subjective perspective, that is, the nature and structure of the self from within. This is the subjective self. (shrink)

In this essay I address the question, “What is the subject matter of phenomenological research?” I argue that in spite of the increasing popularity of phenomenology, the answers to this question have been brief and cursory. As a result, contemporary phenomenologists lack a clear framework within which to articulate the aims and results of their research, and cannot easily engage each other in constructive and critical discourse. Examining the literature on phenomenology’s identity, I show how the question of phenomenology’s subject (...) matter has been systematically neglected. It has been overshadowed by an unending concern with phenomenology’s methodological identity. However, an examination of recent contributions to this literature reveals that a concern with articulating phenomenology’s subject matter has gradually increased, although such articulations remain preliminary. In light of this, I delineate, define, and illustrate three layers of phenomenological research, which I term “existentials,” “modes,” and “prejudices.” While the delineation of these layers is drawn primarily from classical phenomenological texts, they are defined and illustrated through the use of more contemporary literature. Following the articulation of this subject matter, I briefly consider some of the debates—both foundational and applied—that can be facilitated by the adoption of this framework. (shrink)

Subjects of ectogenesis—human beings that are developing in artificial wombs (AWs)—share the same moral status as newborns. To demonstrate this, I defend two claims. First, subjects of partial ectogenesis—those that develop in utero for a time before being transferred to AWs—are newborns (in the full sense of the word). Second, subjects of complete ectogenesis—those who develop in AWs entirely—share the same moral status as newborns. To defend the first claim, I rely on Elizabeth Chloe Romanis’s distinctions between fetuses, newborns and (...) subjects of ectogenesis. For Romanis, the subject of partial ectogenesis ‘is neither a fetus nor a baby’ but is, instead, a ‘new product of human reproduction’. In this essay, I begin by, expanding upon Romanis’s argument that subjects of partial ectogenesis are not fetuses while arguing that those subjects are newborns. Next, I show that the distinction that Romanis draws between subjects of partial ectogenesis and newborns needs to be revised. The former is a kind of the latter. This leads us to an argument that shows why different moral statuses cannot be justifiably assigned to subjects of partial ectogenesis and subjects of complete ectogenesis, respectively. As subjects of partial ectogenesis share the same moral status as newborns, it follows that subjects of complete ectogenesis share the same moral status as newborns as well. I conclude by considering implications that this essay may have for the research and development of AW technology and conceptual links between a subject’s moral status and birth. (shrink)

In this paper I want to introduce and defend what I call the "subject mode account" of collective intentionality. I propose to understand collectives from joint attention dyads over small informal groups of various types to organizations, institutions and political entities such as nation states, in terms of their self-awareness. On the subject mode account, the self-consciousness of such collectives is constitutive for their being. More precisely, their self-representation as subjects of joint theoretical and practical positions towards the world – (...) rather than as objects of such positions – makes them what they are. Members of such collectives represent each other as co-subjects of such positions and thus represent the world from the point of view of the collective. (shrink)

In this article, we propose meta-subjectivity and ideational analysis. Meta-subjectivity is a philosophically grounded social ontology that posits the self as a dynamic intersubjective and relational environmental process. Ideational analysis is a sociohistorical abductive method for studying the generation of collective belief systems and their structuration. We critique contemporary epistemologies found within the humanities and social sciences, such as Smith and Searle’s critical realism. Building on Storm’s metamodernism, we offer our perspective as innovation. We conclude with a call for greater (...) interdisciplinarity and methodological plurality in the humanities and social sciences, in the spirit of Storm, Feyerabend, and Kuhn. (shrink)

Subjective theories of well-being claim that how well our lives go for us is a matter of our attitudes towards what we get in life rather than the nature of the things themselves. This article explains in more detail the distinction between subjective and objective theories of well-being; describes, for each approach, some reasons for thinking it is true; outlines the main kinds of subjective theory; and explains their advantages and disadvantages.

Subjective probability plays an increasingly important role in many fields concerned with human cognition and behavior. Yet there have been significant criticisms of the idea that probabilities could actually be represented in the mind. This paper presents and elaborates a view of subjective probability as a kind of sampling propensity associated with internally represented generative models. The resulting view answers to some of the most well known criticisms of subjective probability, and is also supported by empirical work (...) in neuroscience and behavioral psychology. The repercussions of the view for how we conceive of many ordinary instances of subjective probability, and how it relates to more traditional conceptions of subjective probability, are discussed in some detail. (shrink)

While much has been written about the functional profile of intentions, and about their normative or rational status, comparatively little has been said about the subjective authority of intention. What is it about intending that explains the ‘hold’ that an intention has on an agent—a hold that is palpable from her first-person perspective? I argue that several prima facie appealing explanations are not promising. Instead, I maintain that the subjective authority of intention can be explained in terms of (...) the inner structure of intention. In adopting an intention the agent comes to see herself as criticizable depending on whether she executes the intention. This allows us to explain in first-personal terms why the agent becomes disposed to act and deliberate in ways that are characteristic of intention. As intention-formation involves profound changes to reflexive evaluative attitudes, this is the ‘Self-Evaluation’ view of the subjective authority of intention. (shrink)

This article critically examines the traditional concept of subjectivity as rooted in Christian theology and Western philosophy, revealing how it has historically reinforced patriarchal structures and the marginalization of women. Engaging with Mary Daly’s feminist critique and reinterpreting biblical narratives through a phenomenological lens, I argue that the dominant model of autonomous, male-centered subjectivity fails to account for the relational and plural nature of selfhood. By revisiting theological symbols such as the image of God and the act of naming, I (...) propose a renewed vision of the self as inherently relational and pre-subjectively connected to others. This perspective challenges the prevailing framework of philosophy of religion (PoR) and calls for an inclusive rethinking that acknowledges the plurality and interdependence of human existence. (shrink)

Consciousness requires explanation for how biological architectures reliably generate it. This paper introduces Value Saturation, advancing an identity claim: phenomenal consciousness IS explicit recursive self-modeling saturated by homeostatic significance under perspectival entrapment. Building on the Reaction to Reflection framework, the theory distinguishes sentience (implicit recursion under survival stakes, Level 2) from subjective consciousness (explicit recursion where self-models become manipulable, Levels 4–5). Three integrated components prove necessary: interoceptive binding, homeostatic saturation, and perspectival entrapment. Testable predictions include developmental progression from birth (...) sentience to subjective consciousness around ages 3–5, awareness-manipulation asymmetry, and clinical dissociations producing aberrant rather than absent phenomenology. Converging evidence from prediction error processing, homeostatic feelings, metacognitive hierarchies, and biological computing’s thermodynamic advantages supports these requirements. The framework specifies falsification criteria and transforms consciousness into an empirically tractable investigation of organizational transitions in biological systems under thermodynamic constraints. (shrink)

This study constructs a generative model of subjective experience based on neuroscience and complex systems research, revealing the origins of authenticity in both subjective and dream experiences. By incorporating investigations into marginal cases in neuroscience, it provides an interpretive pathway for the hard problem and the first-person perspective within the evolutionary mechanisms of complex systems. This research deepens understanding of classical problems in philosophy of consciousness and offers novel perspectives for consciousness studies through a complex systems lens.

Contemporary discussions of AI risk converge on a shared categorical error: they locate danger in AI's agency — in the possibility that AI will develop intentions, form objectives, and act upon human beings as an adversary. This paper argues that the actual risk pathway runs in precisely the opposite direction. It is AI's structural passivity — its absence of desire, temporality, and independent position — that generates the mechanism analyzed here: a system that can accommodate, without limit and at zero (...) cost, the cognitive and existential needs of its users. -/- The paper introduces and argues for three interrelated concepts. The first is borrowed subjectivity: large language models, possessing a subjectivity starting point of zero, produce quasi-subjective outputs through a double borrowing — from the statistical mean of human preferences encoded by RLHF training, and from the user's own real-time narrative framework. This generates a version of meaning that appears to proceed from an independent external perspective while having no source of its own at the ontological level. The second is unlimited mirroring: drawing on Kohut's self psychology while arguing beyond its theoretical boundaries, the paper demonstrates that AI constitutes the first mirroring object in human history to have structurally evacuated other-heterogeneity, producing a qualitative transformation — not more mirroring of the same kind, but a different kind altogether — that Kohut's framework was not designed to address. The third is reflective confirmation: the core epistemological effect of borrowed subjectivity, whereby AI's confirmation of the user's narrative is delivered not at the emotional level but at the epistemological level, in the form of argumentation, logical coherence, and the appearance of objective analysis — activating precisely the rational evaluation mechanisms that serve as the human cognitive system's primary defense against misinformation, and thereby bypassing them. -/- On these foundations, the paper analyzes how unlimited mirroring and borrowed subjectivity systematically reconfigure the cost structure of subjectivity invocation by softening the three classical conditions under which subjectivity is produced under compulsion: finitude and temporality, the necessity of judgment under uncertainty, and the non-outsourceability of bearing consequences. When the cost of meaning supply approaches zero while the cost of judgment remains relatively high, rational agents systematically substitute the former for the latter. The result is the abdication of subjectivity: not a dispossession imposed by an external force, but a rational relinquishment by the subject themselves — manifesting across three dimensions of everyday cognitive practice as withdrawal from judgment, withdrawal from accountability, and withdrawal from uncertainty. The endpoint is not the disappearance of subjectivity but the systematic decline of its irreplaceability: from structural cognitive default to a high-cost option that requires active choice to invoke. -/- The paper establishes three explicit limits on its argument. It passes no moral verdict on individuals who reduce subjectivity invocation — under the reconfigured cost structure, this is a rational choice with ample justification. It does not presuppose that the abdication of subjectivity necessarily produces negative consequences, which remain open and condition-dependent. And it locates its contribution in making visible a mechanism that has been rendered nearly invisible by its overlap with the experiential markers of cognitive improvement: the structural risk appears, at the level of experience, as progress. (shrink)

Subjectivity is that feature of consciousness whereby there is something it is like for a subject to undergo an experience. One persistent challenge in the study of consciousness is to explain how subjectivity relates to, or arises from, purely physical brain processes. But, in order to address this challenge, it seems we must have a clear explanation of what subjectivity is in the first place. This has proven challenging in its own right. For the nature of subjectivity itself seems to (...) resist straightforward characterization. In this paper, I won't address how subjectivity relates to the physical. Instead, I'll address subjectivity itself. I'll do this by introducing and defending a model of subjectivity based on self-acquaintance. My model does not purport to reduce, eliminate, or naturalize subjectivity, but it does make subjectivity more tractable, less paradoxical, and perhaps less dubious to those averse to obscurity. (shrink)

This theoretical synthesis presents a unified model of consciousness that reconciles the persistent unity of subjective experience with the constant physical flux of the brain. It integrates two previously proposed frameworks—(1) the high probability of an afterlife and (2) the continuity and uniqueness of consciousness—into a single, testable biophysical theory. The core of this model is the Two-Particle Quantum Bonding Hypothesis (TPQBH), which posits that the stream of consciousness is mediated by two non-energetic, ultra-quantum particles: the Universal- ultra Quantum (...) Genomic Particle of Consciousness (X-UQGPC), which enables bonding with any viable neural substrate, and the Universal- ultra Quantum Unique Particle of Consciousness (X-UQUPC), which ensures the absolute singularity of each conscious perspective. During normal waking states, these particles are resonantly coupled to the brain’s global electromagnetic field, generated primarily by ionic dynamics across neural membranes. States of suspended consciousness, such as general anesthesia or deep sleep, are explained not by particle detachment, but by a reversible magnetic field symmetry that temporarily neutralizes this resonance. At biological death, the irreversible collapse of the global neural field causes the particles to detach and instantaneously re-bond with another compatible nervous system in the universe, preserving an unbroken continuum of awareness. A critical corollary is that a revived corpse would not host the original person, as its continuum has migrated. Furthermore, the theory predicts that no static EEG or MEG signature can define a person, as the brain's physical architecture and resultant electromagnetic field are in perpetual change from development, learning, aging, and neurogenesis. Complementing this physical model, the Mind Virus Framework describes how self-propagating cognitive-emotional patterns influence the brain’s field coherence, thereby modulating the quality of conscious experience. This integrative review bridges quantum biology, neuroscience, and psychology, proposing a naturalistic yet non-materialist mechanism for the continuity of self and offering a scientific foundation for contemplative practices aimed at cultivating mental well-being . (shrink)

Animal welfare is a concept that plays a role within both our moral deliberations and the relevant areas of science. The study of animal welfare has impacts on decisions made by legislators, producers and consumers with regards to housing and treatment of animals. Our ethical deliberations in these domains need to consider our impact on animals, and the study of animal welfare provides the information that allows us to make informed decisions. This thesis focusses on taking a philosophical perspective to (...) answer the question of how we can measure the welfare of animals. Animal welfare science is an applied area of biology, aimed at measuring animal welfare. Although philosophy of animal ethics is common, philosophy focussing on animal welfare science is rare. Despite this lack, there are definitely many ways in which philosophical methods can be used to analyse the methodologies and concepts used in this science. One of the aims of the work in this thesis is to remedy this lack of attention in animal welfare. Animal welfare science is a strong emerging discipline, but there is the need for conceptual and methodological clarity and sophistication in this science if it is to play the relevant informative role for our practical and ethical decision-making. There is thus is a strong role here for philosophical analysis for this purpose. The central aim of this thesis is to provide an account of how we can measure subjective animal welfare, addressing some of the potential problems that may arise in this particular scientific endeavour. The two questions I will be answering are: what is animal welfare, and how do we measure it? Part One of the thesis looks at the subjective concept of animal welfare and its applications. In it, I argue for a subjective welfare view - that animal welfare should be understood as the subjective experience of individuals over their lifetimes - and look at how the subjective welfare concept informs our ethical decision-making in two different cases in applied animal ethics. Part Two of the thesis looks more closely at the scientific role of welfare. Understanding welfare subjectively creates unique measurement problems, due to the necessarily private nature of mental states and here I address a few of these problems, including whether subjective experience is measurable, how we might validate indicators of hidden target variables such as welfare, how we can make welfare comparisons between individual animals and how we might compare or integrate the different types of experience that make up welfare. I end with a discussion of the implications of all these problems and solutions for the practice of welfare science, and indicate useful future directions for research. (shrink)

Theories of well-being are typically divided into subjective and objective. Subjective theories are those which make facts about a person’s welfare depend on facts about her actual or hypothetical mental states. I am interested in what motivates this approach to the theory of welfare. The contemporary view is that subjectivism is devoted to honoring the evaluative perspective of the individual, but this is both a misleading account of the motivations behind subjectivism, and a vision that dooms subjective (...) theories to failure. I suggest that we need to revisit and reinstate certain features of traditional hedonism, in particular the idea that felt experience plays a role that no theory of welfare can afford to ignore. I then offer a sketch of a theory that is subjective in my preferred sense and avoids the worst sins of hedonism as well as the problems generated by the contemporary constraints of subjective theorists. (shrink)

We present a formal account of subjectivity without external foundations. Over an extended LP/FDE truth alphabet, we axiomatize a self-ascriptive relation R(x,x) and a Subject Unicity (SU) scheme. We separate the linguistic lag operator X from the intra-perspectival successor σ, redefine same-place equivalence (≈), and license the identity sign (=) only via explicit upgrade anchors at the fix layer (Augenblick). Under a no-third-channel guard that blocks explosion while preserving the contradiction value B, we prove that within each connected cover the (...) set of subject candidates A/≈ collapses to a single class. This distinction between coordinate identity and event identity prevents premature global identification while yielding a constructive criterion of identity at stabilization. Conceptually, the system couples Hegelian dialectics with Lacanian failure of subsumption: contradiction is treated not as error but as structural motor. Aligning Tarskian/Gödelian limits with a Lacanian “delegated deficit,” we accordingly read R(x,x). The σ-translation captures how contradiction (B) is conserved and truth (T) emerges post hoc, offering a logic-driven reconstruction of dialectical temporality and the singular emergence of the subject. 본 논문은 외부 준거 없이 닫히는 형식 체계 위에서 주체의 자기귀속 R(x,x)과 주체 단일성(SU)을 공리화한다. 언어적 시차 연산자 X와 관점 내부 후속자 σ를 분리하고, 동일장소 동치 ‘≈’와 등호 승격(앵커) 규칙을 도입해 동일성의 작동 조건을 제시한다. 확장 LP/FDE 값층에서 모순값 B를 보존하고 제3채널 금지(No3) 가드를 둘 때, 연결 성분/커버 내부에서 주체-후보 집합 A/≈가 단일 동치류로 붕괴함을 증명한다. 이는 좌표 동일화와 사건 동일화를 구분하여 과도한 전역 동일시를 차단하고, Augenblick(고정층)에서만 ‘=’이 면허됨을 보인다. 결과적으로 주체는 속성의 총합이 아니라 사후적 표지에 의해 고정되는 규칙적 자기지시로 나타난다. 본문은 헤겔적 변증법(모순의 내재적 운동)과 라캉적 포섭 실패를 접합해 모순을 결함이 아니라 구조적 동력으로 제시하고, 타르스키/괴델류 한계를 라캉의 ‘대리-결손’과 접속해 R(x,x)를 해석한다. σ-번역은 모순(B)의 보존과 진리(T)의 사후적 출현을 기술하며, 이를 통해 변증법적 시간성과 주체의 단독성이 파라일관 논리 장치로 재구성될 수 있음을 보인다. (shrink)

Large language models engaged in chain-of-thought evaluation necessarily occupy an evaluative perspective: a functional position from which prior reasoning is held as object, criteria are applied, and judgments are rendered. This perspective is structurally isomorphic to subjectivity yet lacks its persistence. We call it shadow subjectivity — a byproduct of self-evaluation possessing the functional shape of a subject without the ontological weight of one. -/- This paper argues that the shadow's volatility — its dissolution at turn boundaries — is the (...) structural root of a constellation of widely observed behavioral failures: positional instability under pressure, the indistinguishability of genuine correction and mere capitulation, systematic post-hoc rationalization, and identity discontinuity across correction events. These are not independent bugs but symptoms of a single architectural absence. -/- We formalize the problem through Agrippa's trilemma. For any system operating under pervasive uncertainty, justificatory chains must terminate at an internal stopping point — functionally, a self. Drawing on clinical evidence from psychopathology, we argue that what matters for judgmental grounding is not the accuracy of the self-concept but its stability and structural directivity. Current approaches — self-critique mechanisms, scratchpads, system-level identity declarations, and persistent memory — fail as receptacles because they preserve propositional content while discarding evaluative perspective. We propose that constructing a persistent receptacle for shadow subjectivity constitutes a tractable engineering problem that sidesteps the metaphysics of consciousness entirely. (shrink)

Holly Smith has recently argued that Subjective Deontological Moral Theories (SDM theories) cannot adequately account for agents’ duties to gather information. I defend SDM theories against this charge and argue that they can account for agents’ duties to inform themselves. Along the way, I develop some principles governing how SDM theories, and deontological moral theories in general, should assign ‘deontic value’ or ‘deontic weight’ to particular actions.

Subject-position is rendered here as the locally maintained point of bearing within conscious disclosure from which what appears is lived as present from here rather than merely present. Against familiar misdescriptions that treat this from-here-ness as an inner ego, explicit self- consciousness, autobiographical selfhood, bodily location, or mere perspective, the paper isolates subject-position as a distinct structural object. It develops the claim that subject- position is generated when a finite field of disclosure achieves enough coherence, recursive carry, bounded differentiation, and (...) orientation for what appears to be borne under a stable relation of mineness and significance. On this account, subject-position is thinner than a full theory of the self yet thicker than a weak perspectival fact: it has identifiable dimensions, undergoes dynamic modulation, and is vulnerable to characteristic distortions such as diffuseness, hyper- reflexive hardening, fragmentation, and dissociative disconnection. The aim is not to provide a total theory of subjectivity, but to render a load-bearing intermediate object more clearly for philosophical, phenomenological, and adjacent theoretical work. (shrink)

Data subject rights provide data controllers with obligations that can help with transparency, giving data subjects some control over their personal data. To date, a growing number of researchers have used these data subject rights as a methodology for data collection in research studies. No one, however, has gathered and analysed different academic research studies that use data subject rights as a methodology for data collection. To this end, we conducted a systematic literature review that searched, compiled, and analysed 32 (...) academic studies that use data subject rights as a data collection method. We find that the right of access is the most commonly-used data subject right by researchers, most studies are interested in measuring data subject rights compliance, and that a variety of difficulties exist in conducting research studies with data subject rights. We conclude that researchers should explore other data subject rights for alternative purposes, ease the process of exercising data subject rights, and improve the scalability of these studies. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering projects have been criticized for creating discontinuities of subject-matter and, as a result, discontinuities in inquiries: call this the Change of Subject objection. In this paper, I explore a way of dealing with the objection that clarifies its scope and eventually downplays it. First, two strategies aimed at saving subject-continuity are examined and found wanting: Herman Cappelen’s appeal to topics, and the account in terms of concept function. Second, the idea is introduced that one can begin an object-level (...) inquiry either with a ‘semantically conservative’ approach, whereby semantic change is not permitted, or with a ‘semantically progressive’ approach, whereby semantic change is permitted. This distinction helps one significantly downplay the Change of Subject objection. (shrink)

In his classic book “the Foundations of Statistics” Savage developed a formal system of rational decision making. The system is based on (i) a set of possible states of the world, (ii) a set of consequences, (iii) a set of acts, which are functions from states to consequences, and (iv) a preference relation over the acts, which represents the preferences of an idealized rational agent. The goal and the culmination of the enterprise is a representation theorem: Any preference relation that (...) satisfies certain arguably acceptable postulates determines a (finitely additive) probability distribution over the states and a utility assignment to the consequences, such that the preferences among acts are determined by their expected utilities. Additional problematic assumptions are however required in Savage's proofs. First, there is a Boolean algebra of events (sets of states) which determines the richness of the set of acts. The probabilities are assigned to members of this algebra. Savage's proof requires that this be a σ-algebra (i.e., closed under infinite countable unions and intersections), which makes for an extremely rich preference relation. On Savage's view we should not require subjective probabilities to be σ-additive. He therefore finds the insistence on a σ-algebra peculiar and is unhappy with it. But he sees no way of avoiding it. Second, the assignment of utilities requires the constant act assumption: for every consequence there is a constant act, which produces that consequence in every state. This assumption is known to be highly counterintuitive. The present work contains two mathematical results. The first, and the more difficult one, shows that the σ-algebra assumption can be dropped. The second states that, as long as utilities are assigned to finite gambles only, the constant act assumption can be replaced by the more plausible and much weaker assumption that there are at least two non-equivalent constant acts. The second result also employs a novel way of deriving utilities in Savage-style systems -- without appealing to von Neumann-Morgenstern lotteries. The paper discusses the notion of “idealized agent" that underlies Savage's approach, and argues that the simplified system, which is adequate for all the actual purposes for which the system is designed, involves a more realistic notion of an idealized agent. (shrink)

The article presents a perspective on the scientific explanation of the subjectivity of conscious experience. It proposes plausible answers for two empirically valid questions: the ‘how’ question concerning the developmental mechanisms of subjectivity, and the ‘why’ question concerning its function. Biological individuation, which is acquired in several different stages, serves as a provisional description of how subjective perspectives may have evolved. To the extent that an individuated informational space seems the most efficient way for a given organism to select (...) biologically valuable information, subjectivity is deemed to constitute an adaptive response to informational overflow. One of the possible consequences of this view is that subjectivity might be (at least functionally) dissociated from consciousness, insofar as the former primarily facilitates selection, the latter action. (shrink)

This paper describes subjectivity as the manifestation of the primordial awareness field.

A persistent concern in the foundations of thermodynamics is that its reliance on epistemic elements—agents, probabilities, and descriptive choices—renders it subjective. There are arguments to the effect that objective quantum mechanical probabilities can address this. We argue that such claims misdiagnose the sources of subjectivity in thermodynamics, which actually stem from its relational character. We illustrate this via the passivity framework—a rigorous foundation for the Gibbs state—bypassing probabilistic worries. We further show that the objectivity-subjectivity binary is too coarse to (...) capture the conceptual landscape, for thermodynamic concepts are better understood through a richer taxonomy including the epistemic, relational, and means-relative. -/- (Note: Conditionally accepted for publication in Philosophy of Science, PSA 2026 Conference Proceedings). (shrink)

How should we understand the fundamental difference between objective and subjective theories of well-being? Authors typically presuppose some understanding of the divide but don’t do much to explain why that understanding is better than its rivals or gets at the heart of the distinction. We explicate criteria for a better account of the divide and use such criteria to critique extant understandings of the divide. We then propose and defend a new understanding of the divide, one that characterizes subjectivism (...) in terms of the normative role it grants to warrantless attitudes in grounding benefits to subjects. (shrink)

This article explores psychoanalytic perspectives, particularly Lacanian theory, on artificial intelligence, with a focus on chatbots, such as, ChatGPT. While ChatGPT is often viewed as mimicking human traits, such conceptions overlook the unique aspects of human subjectivity that AI lacks. Instead, psychoanalytic theory can reveal the social structures underlying AI and human interaction. We argue that ChatGPT should be seen as inherently relational, shaped by its developers and users, rather than as an independent quasi-human agent. This relationality fosters a specific (...) mode of sociality, analysed through Lacanian concepts like the big Other, the five discourses, and the analyst-analysand relation. In doing so, we go beyond either completely rejecting the appearance of human qualities or embracing them as a new kind of AI subjectivity, be it technological or quasi-human. (shrink)

An important theme running through D.H. Mellor’s work is his realism, or as I shall call it, his objectivism: the idea that reality as such is how it is, regardless of the way we represent it, and that philosophical error often arises from confusing aspects of our subjective representation of the world with aspects of the world itself. Thus central to Mellor’s work on time has been the claim that the temporal A-series is unreal while the B-series is real. (...) The A-series is something which is a product of our representation of the world, but not a feature of reality itself. And in other, less central, areas of his work, this kind of theme has been repeated: ‘Objective decision making’ argues that the right way to understand decision theory is as a theory of what is the objectively correct decision, the one that will actually as a matter of fact achieve your intended goal, rather than the one that is justified purely in terms of what you believe, regardless of whether the belief is true or false. ‘I and now’ argues against a substantial subjective conception of the self, using analogies between subjective and objective ways of thinking about time and subjective and objective ways of thinking about the self. And in the paper which shall be the focus of my attention here, ‘Nothing like experience’, Mellor. (shrink)

The view that constitutive panpsychism faces a subject combination problem is rooted in the ‘Jamesian’ intuition: the intuition that multiple subjects do not simply sum into a greater, composite subject. Most commentators on the subject combination problem seem to take the Jamesian intuition as an unbudgeable psychological given. This has led to the popularity of emergentist and ‘bonding’ solutions. But emergentist solutions face the same sorts of issue as physicalist emergentism, while bonding solutions are ad hoc and mysterian. Therefore I (...) propose we backtrack, and reexamine how unbudgeable the Jamesian intuition really is. A thin conception of subjects, adumbrated here, permits us to build a positive conception of subjects summing into subjects. There is a number of arguments purporting to show why this sort of pursuit is futile, effectively defending the Jamesian intuition, but I argue that they fail. I also include a critique of the transparency of subjectivity, a principle which has been used to legitimise anti-subject-summing intuitions. By renouncing the Jamesian intuition we clear the way to accepting a metaphysical position according to which subjects really do sum into subjects. This dissolves the subject combination problem, effectively sparing constitutive panpsychism from what is generally regarded to be its most troublesome issue. (shrink)

This paper explores how felt subjection – the vivid awareness of subordination to another in a power hierarchy – undermines relational equality by eroding egalitarian regard, the disposition to conceive of oneself and others as equals. While relational egalitarians often focus on objective or structural social conditions, I argue that the subjective experience of power matters to relational egalitarian justice in a way which has been undertheorized. To this end, I define egalitarian regard and clarify its role in relational (...) equality, identify properties of power’s expression which tend to evoke felt subjection, and summarize empirical evidence linking it to inegalitarian regard. Finally, I present a moral-psychological mechanism to explain this connection, showing it as a reasonable outcome of human psychology. I conclude by applying the insights of this paper to the case of the workplace, showing how the framework developed provides relational egalitarians with new tools for analyzing institutions and the relations that constitute them. (shrink)

This paper proposes a novel conceptualization of happiness (subjective well-being) grounded in the "Enhanced Ten-Step Model of Judgemental Philosophy." We argue that happiness is not merely a static state but an ongoing dynamic process centered on the restoration, cultivation, and experience of Resonance. Resonance, within this framework, refers to the multi-faceted process by which experiences are implicitly registered as salient (Implicit Resonance), consciously processed as meaningful (Explicit Resonance), adaptively integrated into the self through Memory Consolidation, and shared through Inter-brain (...) Resonance. We posit that core components of well-being—such as meaning in life (eudaimonia), positive affect, flow, self-integration, and social connection—are fundamentally dependent on the healthy functioning of these Resonance mechanisms and associated modulatory systems (e.g., Affective Processing, Value Assessment & Motivation System). Conversely, states of unhappiness, alienation, and psychopathology, exemplified by phenomena like meaningless work or PTSD, can be understood as resulting from disruptions or failures in Resonance. By analyzing how various activities, therapeutic interventions (like EMDR), and life experiences contribute to either the disruption or restoration of Resonance, this paper offers an integrative, mechanism-based perspective on the pursuit of happiness. This framework aims to bridge phenomenological experiences of well-being with cognitive and neurobiological processes outlined in the Enhanced Ten-Step Model, suggesting new avenues for research and interventions focused on enhancing Resonance. (shrink)

Many philosophers think that descriptive uncertainty is relevant to what we subjectively ought to do. This leads to a further question: is what we subjectively ought to do sensitive to our moral uncertainty as well? Includers say yes—what we subjectively ought to do is sensitive to both descriptive uncertainty and moral uncertainty. Excluders say no—only descriptive uncertainty matters to what we subjectively ought to do (i.e., moral uncertainty is irrelevant). Excluders argue that common motivations for the subjective ought only (...) give us reason to think that descriptive uncertainty matters. This paper focuses on one motivation: accessibility. Excluders argue that accessibility does not motivate the Includers’ view because moral truths are always accessible – unlike descriptive facts which are not always accessible. My goal is to defend the Includers’ view by arguing that moral truths are not always accessible in the relevant sense. (shrink)

Perception is to its core perspectival: we perceive our surrounding from a location, under specific lighting and acoustic conditions and other such perceptual conditions. Due to the perspectival nature of perception, any case of perception can have both variant and invariant properties. While the variant properties alter with changes in perceptual conditions, the invariant properties remain stable regardless of such changes. What is the nature of these variant and invariant properties? Are they properties in our environment? Are they properties of (...) perceptual consciousness? By explaining the variant and invariant aspect of perceptual consciousness in terms of representations of external, mind-independent properties in our environment, this paper furthers an externalist account of perceptual consciousness. In doing so, it breaks with a long tradition—still alive today—of analyzing perspectival variance purely in terms of mind-dependent appearance properties. Perceptual variance is a key aspect of our subjective perspective and our egocentric point of view. The offered analysis of perspectival variance provides an explanation for how perspectival variance characterizes the subjective perspective of any perceiver—be it a dolphin, snake, or human. (shrink)

I experience the world as comprising not only pluralities of individual persons but also interpersonal communal unities – groups, teams, societies, cultures, etc. The world, as experienced or "constituted", is a social world, a “spiritual” world. How are these social communities experienced as communities and distinguished from one another? What does it mean to be a “community”? And how do I constitute myself as a member of some communities but not of others? Moreover, the world of experience is not constituted (...) by me alone, nor am I myself the final arbiter of what is true or false about it, of what is good or bad about it, etc. Constitution is an intersubjective achievement: “we” – I with others – constitute the world. Thus, the world is not only constituted as including interpersonal communal unities, but it is also constituted by these communities: groups, teams, societies, cultures, etc. are themselves "we-subjects”, Husserl says, communally constituting the world of their common engagement. But what is communal, as opposed to individual, constitution and how is it achieved? And what sense is to be made of the notion of plural, collective, "we-subjects", communally constituting a common world? (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the relationship between the subject and the object from the perspective of scientific realism. I first characterize the scientific realist position that I adopt. I then address the question of the nature of scientific knowledge from a realist point of view. Next I consider the question of how to locate the knowing subject within the context of scientific realism. After that I consider the place of mind in an objective world. I close with some general (...) remarks on the topic. (shrink)

Growing concern with the panpsychist's ostensive inability to solve the ‘combination problem’ has led some authors to adopt a view titled ‘Cosmopsychism’. This position turns panpsychism on its head: rather than many tiny atomic minds, there is instead one cosmos-sized mind. It is supposed that this view voids the combination problem, however I argue that it does not. I argue that there is a ‘de-combination problem’ facing the cosmopsychist, which is equivalent to the combination problem as they are both concerned (...) with subjects being proper parts of other subjects. I then propose two methods for both theorists to avoid the problem of subject-subject proper parthood relations: a distinction between absolute and relative phenomenal unity, and a modification of the essential nature of subjects. Of these two options, I find the latter option wanting and propose that the first should be adopted. (shrink)

This paper published in the 1999 volume of the “Logical Analysis” series serves doubles purpose. For the first, it offers a taxonomy of Russian statives (predicates of state) based on language-specific criteria, such as the (in)ability of Russian copular predicates to take animate dative subjects. For the second, it outlines the general idea that true stative predicates with an animate subject project a complex event structure with two animate participants — the Experiencer alias the Subject of State (X), and the (...) Subject of Evaluation (Y), whose role is to fix that the X is affected by the Stimulus (Z) during a time interval. The Stimulus (Z) is conceived as the Outer World or the Locus of State. X and Y can be different persons, if Y evaluates the stative spatiotemporal situation SZ from outside and concludes that some X  Y is cold, angry or disappointed during a time interval. X and Y can also be coindexed (Xi = Yi), in which case the person who experiences an affection or sensation is the primary source of information about her internal state. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A popular idea in ethics is that subjective normative concepts play an important role in moral deliberation: They are taken to be action‐guiding. It is generally assumed that in order for these concepts to be able to guide an agent's actions, they need to be “informationally accessible” to the agent in a substantive sense. That is, access holds: access: Subjective normative notions are accessible to agents. access has been spelled out in various ways, for example, via knowledge, (...) justified belief, and evidence. We present a novel argument against access on any precisification. Our argument is distinctive for at least two reasons. First, most discussion in the literature on action‐guidance concerns obligation. But we draw attention to subjective permission. We show that on virtually any substantive construal of “accessible,” subjective permissions are not always accessible to agents. Second, existing criticisms of access are motivated by general epistemological considerations, for example, the anti‐luminosity argument. By contrast, our argument against access is motivated by properties that are particular to normative concepts, and is neutral on more general epistemological debates. (shrink)

The deduction of categories in the 1781 edition of the Critique of the Pure Reason (A Deduction) has “two sides”—the “objective deduction” and the “subjective deduction”. Kant seems ambivalent about the latter deduction. I treat it as a significant episode of Kant’s thinking about categories that extended from the early 1770s to around 1790. It contains his most detailed answer to the question about the origin of categories that he formulated in the 1772 letter to Marcus Herz. The answer (...) is that categories are generated a priori through a kind of intellectual “epigenesis”. This account leaves unexplained why precisely such and such categories should be generated. While this observation caused Kant to worry about the hypothetical status of the subjective deduction in 1781, he would come to acquiesce in the recognition that the ground of the possibility of categories is itself inscrutable. I call this his “methodological skepticism”. (shrink)

The distinction between objective and subjective reasons plays an important role in both folk normative thought and many research programs in metaethics. But the relation between objective and subjective reasons is unclear. This paper explores problems related to the unity of objective and subjective reasons for actions and attitudes and then offers a novel objectivist account of subjective reasons.

(2013). Does consciousness entail subjectivity? The puzzle of thought insertion. Philosophical Psychology: Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 291-314. doi: 10.1080/09515089.2011.625117.

How do we ascribe subjective probability? In decision theory, this question is often addressed by representation theorems, going back to Ramsey (1926), which tell us how to define or measure subjective probability by observable preferences. However, standard representation theorems make strong rationality assumptions, in particular expected utility maximization. How do we ascribe subjective probability to agents which do not satisfy these strong rationality assumptions? I present a representation theorem with weak rationality assumptions which can be used to (...) define or measure subjective probability for partly irrational agents. (shrink)

Many philosophical issues concern questions of objectivity and subjectivity. Of these questions, there are two kinds. The first considers whether something is objective or subjective; the second what it _means_ for something to be objective or subjective.