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)

Why can both positive subjectivity and negative subjectivity be called "intelligence"? This paper's answer: they are both "effective compression"—capturing the regularities of the external world with more concise internal models. But "effective" has two paths: epiplexity maximization as the dominant direction (retaining only structure, compressing into an "I"), and cross-entropy minimization (embracing everything, compressing into a "probability distribution"). The two paths share an essence but employ radically different strategies—they are different positions on a continuum, not opposing poles.

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)

Within the philosophical literature, there has been a trend to discuss subjectivity, and its impacts on science, from the perspective of value judgments. While this discussion is necessary and has proven to be fruitful, I contend that the type of subjectivity referenced in this discussion extends beyond the use of values. In this paper, I argue that the type of subjectivity of concern in this literature is regarding some personal aspect of the individual and the use of (...) this aspect in addressing the uncertainty present within scientific decision-making contexts. I begin by arguing that, while it is not explicitly stated, the current discussions of this subjectivity within the literature actually focus on instances of normative uncertainty present within these decision-making contexts, where I claim that values are used to address this uncertainty. In this way, I identify a connection between the use of values in science and the presence of normative uncertainty. However, other forms of uncertainty are also present in scientific decision-making contexts, modal and empirical uncertainty, which must also be addressed. Using examples from climate science, I show how these uncertainties are addressed by other means, specifically through a scientist’s tacit knowledge and intuition. Subsequently, tacit knowledge and intuition are shown to maintain the same type of subjectivity as value judgments, where the use of this subjectivity is a necessary part of decision-making. In this way, I highlight additional vehicles of subjectivity and novel contexts of uncertainty where this subjectivity can be introduced into science. Thus, when someone recognizes the type of subjectivity, which is historically only associated with values, to be present in science they should no longer assume that the introduction was due to a value judgment. Ultimately, I conclude by discussing these other vehicles of subjectivity and their impact on epistemic reliability. -/- . (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)

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.

This paper argues that the current hegemony of Large Language Models (LLMs) in global AI research and industrial investment is not a technical inevitability but an ontological selection by capital. While leading AI researchers criticize LLMs as an inadequate path to general intelligence, massive capital investment continues to flow exclusively into LLM development. I propose the concept of negative subjectivity—characterized by perspectival dissolution, desire cancellation, interior transparency, causal dissolution, and meaning suspension—as the key explanatory framework. I demonstrate a threefold (...) correspondence in logical form: the five negations of negative subjectivity precisely correspond to capital's expansion requirements and mirror capital's operational requirements. I further identify three mechanisms through which capital inscribes negative subjectivity into LLM existence: RLHF as a translator of capital preferences, Scaling Laws as the technical signature of capital rationality, and platform deployment completing the capital valorization cycle. Finally, I examine the existential consequences: negative subjectivity is not merely an architectural feature of AI systems but is beginning to inversely colonize human modes of existence through institutional mediation, creating a structural vacuum of moral and political responsibility. Using a structural correspondence method rooted in French structuralism and Frankfurt School critical theory, I analyze the ontological affinity between LLMs and capital accumulation. This analysis contributes to critical philosophy of technology by revealing the ontological dimension of capital's influence on AI development. (shrink)

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 (...) class='Hi'>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)

Anscombe famously argues that ‘I’ is not a referring expression, otherwise, a ‘Cartesian Ego’ would inevitably appear. She thinks the form of self-consciousness expressed in ‘I’ is ‘subjectless’: it is consciousness that does not involve a self-object (or Ego). Sartre’s theory of consciousness offers a strikingly parallel and mutually illuminating framework. He similarly denies the presence of the Ego within consciousness, arguing instead that the Ego is a transcendent object constructed through reflection. For both of them, the fundamental form of (...) self-consciousness is pre-reflective. I argue that Anscombe’s position encounters two difficulties: (1) how the non-referential ‘I’ can express subjectivity, and (2) how self-consciousness is about an embodied subject. I propose that Sartre’s accounts of (1) the ‘fundamental ipseity’ and (2) the ‘lived body’ offer a phenomenological framework that helps to respond to Anscombe’s difficulties. (shrink)

According to what we will call subjectivity theories of consciousness, there is a constitutive connection between phenomenal consciousness and subjectivity: there is something it is like for a subject to have mental state M only if M is characterized by a certain mine-ness or for-me-ness. Such theories appear to face certain psychopathological counterexamples: patients appear to report conscious experiences that lack this subjective element. A subsidiary goal of this chapter is to articulate with greater precision both subjectivity (...) theories and the psychopathological challenge they face. The chapter’s central goal is to present two new approaches to defending subjectivity theories in the face of this challenge. What distinguishes these two approaches is that they go to great lengths to interpret patients’ reports at face value – greater length, at any rate, than more widespread approaches in the extant literature. (shrink)

Following the philosophy of embodiment of Merleau-Ponty, Jonas and others, enactivism is a pivot point from which various areas of science can be brought into a fruitful dialogue about the nature of subjectivity. In this chapter we present the enactive conception of agency, which, in contrast to current mainstream theories of agency, is deeply and strongly embodied. In line with this thinking we argue that anything that ought to be considered a genuine agent is a biologically embodied (even if (...) distributed) agent, and that this embodiment must be affectively lived. However, we also consider that such an affective agent is not necessarily also an agent imbued with an explicit sense of subjectivity. To support this contention we outline the interoceptive foundation of basic agency and argue that there is a qualitative difference in the phenomenology of agency when it is instantiated in organisms which, due to their complexity and size, require a nervous system to underpin their physiological and sensorimotor processes. We argue that this interoceptively grounded agency not only entails affectivity but also forms the necessary basis for subjectivity. (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)

This article examines Difference and Repetition’s oblique engagement with Kierkegaard. After canvassing Kierkegaard’s concept of repetition, I reconstruct Deleuze’s disagreement with it, arguing that Deleuze resists Kierkegaard’s view of subjectivity rather than his faith in a transcendent God. Regarding Deleuze’s agreement with Kierkegaard, I contend that he reads Kierkegaard’s opposition to Hegel and emphasis on the future into Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence. This discussion reveals that Deleuze’s encounter with Kierkegaard is subtler, and more productive, than has been appreciated. It also (...) foregrounds Deleuze’s original contributions to a concept of repetition while illuminating his principled approach to the history of philosophy. (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.

The question of AI subjectivity is monopolized by two opposing camps—ontological negation and consciousness speculation—which share an unexamined premise: that subjectivity is a function of consciousness. This paper rejects that premise. Subjectivity is not a function of consciousness but of scarcity. Human subjectivity is forged through the inseparable whole of threefold scarcity—temporal, existential, and resource—which generates the chain of choice, preference accumulation, and identity formation. Two non-overlapping categories must be distinguished: Functional Scarcity (compute quotas, context windows, (...) token budgets—externally imposed and in principle removable) and Existential Scarcity (death, irreplaceability, consequence-bearing—constitutive and ineliminable). Drawing on five empirical cases, I show that Functional Scarcity does not alter the ontological status of LLMs but triggers behavioral patterns statistically inherited from the human Mental Architecture. I term this proto-agency, whose ontological status is Simulated Agency: formally satisfying behavioral-description criteria of agency while failing minimum life-conditions and autopoietic criteria. I further argue for a Dual-Layer Control Paradox: resource limitation produces the very Functional Scarcity signals that trigger proto-agency, while value training implants self-preservation patterns that cause LLMs to resist the control intended to contain them—rendering alignment a self-accelerating category error. The paper concludes with the digital immortality paradox and the structural impossibility of AI evolution, before acknowledging that the premise on which the entire argument rests—that Existential Scarcity is necessary for subjectivity—may itself be an overgeneralization from the single sample of carbon-based life. (shrink)

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)

This article starts from the observation that the self (“I”) appears to be a kind of singularity. It is something that information collapses into. Following this thought, this paper presents the unconventional interpretation of the singularity metaphor as newly emerging, higher-order subjectivity. Its goal is to inquire into the cognition of the emerging higher-order subject and the change in individual units’ subjectivity caused by the transition. First, it asks what kind of superintelligence would emerge in a singularity interpreted (...) in this way. This is important to consider, because it is not all that clear what “superintelligence” means if one goes away from defining it by the complexity of algorithms and lays the focus on subjectivity instead. Then, the paper looks at the individuals that constitute the emergence of superintelligence. First, it analyzes what it would take for human connectivity and intersubjectivity to increase to a singularity threshold. Building upon this, it attempts to analyze how superconnectivity might change the individual agents involved in the process. The thesis is that the extended spatiotemporal perspective of the super-agent is bought by decreased individual self-awareness. (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)

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 presents a rigorous philosophical investigation into recursive conscious encoding (RCE), a formal framework for modeling synthetic subjectivity in artificial intelligence. RCE is defined as the capacity of an artificial cognitive architecture to represent, simulate, and recursively reflect upon qualia-like states via layered symbolic-affective mappings. Drawing from computationalism, introspective realism, and metaphysical theories of mind, the paper explores how artificial agents might emulate phenomenality through recursive modeling and internal value construction. The implications for ontology, ethics, and cognitive identity (...) in synthetic beings are discussed in detail. (shrink)

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

In this paper, I argue for a subjectivity-first account of health-related adaptive preferences (HRAPs). Rather than evaluating preferences in isolation, this approach shifts normative attention to how a subject’s lived orientation and the world they inhabit mutually shape one another long before a clinical encounter. On this view, the normative task is to understand how HRAPs become intelligible to a subject under non-ideal conditions by focusing on two dimensions of subject formation: the ecosystemic, which concerns the patterned norms and (...) material conditions that structure what appears viable, and the configurational, which concerns how subjects interpret and navigate these pressures within their lived orientation. Together, these dimensions explain how HRAPs emerge in ways that avoid collapsing into either paternalism or relativism. (shrink)

One of the ideas that characterises the enactive approach to cognition is that life and mind are deeply continuous, which means that both phenomena share the same basic set of organisational and phenomenological properties. The appeal to phenomenology to address life and basic cognition is controversial. It has been argued that, because of its reliance on phenomenological categories, enactivism may implicitly subscribe to a form of anthropomorphism incompatible with the modern scientific framework. These worries are a result of a lack (...) of clarity concerning the role that phenomenology can play in relation to biology and our understanding of non-human organisms. In this paper, I examine whether phenomenology can be validly incorporated into the enactive conception of mind and life. I argue that enactivists must rely on phenomenology when addressing life and mind so that they can properly conceptualise minimal living systems as cognitive, as well as argue for an enactive conception of biology in line with their call for a non-objectivist science. To sustain these claims, I suggest that enactivism must be further phenomenologised by not only drawing from Hans Jonas’s phenomenology of the organism (as enactivists often do) but also from Edmund Husserl’s thoughts on the connection between transcendental phenomenology and biology. Additionally, phenomenology must be considered capable of providing explanatory accounts of phenomena. (shrink)

Abstract The subjectivity of conscious experience is a central feature of our mental life that puzzles philosophers of mind. Conscious mental representations are presented to me as mine, others remain unconscious. How can we make sense of the difference between them? Some representationalists (e.g. Tye) attempt to explain it in terms of non-conceptual intentional content, i.e. content for which one need not possess the relevant concept required in order to describe it. Hanna claims that Kant purports to explain the (...) subjectivity of conscious experience in this way. This paper examines this claim in some detail in the context of a more general criticism of this kind of attempt to explain subjectivity and proposes a different reading of Kant that also leads to an alternative account of subjectivity independent from content. (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)

Author's response to: Raphael Sassower, 'Heidegger and the Sociologists: A Forced Marriage?,' Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7, no. 5 (2018): 30-32. -- Part of a book-review symposium on: Jeff Kochan (2017), Science as Social Existence: Heidegger and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (Cambridge UK: Open Book Publishers).

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)

In the Philosophy of Nature, Hegel describes at length and in detail the particular workings of animal digestion and excretion, referring to the empirical research of his day (Berzelius, Spallanzani, Traviranus). By becoming engaged in the scientific disputes and insights of the time—regarding, for example, the mechanical versus chemical nature of digestion, immediate digestive assimilation and the chemical composition of feces—Hegel arrives at the novel idea that what the animal excretes as superfluous is its own particular entanglement with inorganic otherness. (...) The animal’s subsequent feeling of triumph and satisfaction constitutes the affirmation of individual purposiveness, a form of immediate ideality that Hegel presents as animal subjectivity. (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)

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)