This paper defends the view that one's own mental states are metaphysically privileged vis-à-vis the mental states of others, even if only subjectively so. This is an instance of a more general view called Subjectivism, according to which reality is only subjectively the way it is. After characterizing Subjectivism in analogy to two relatively familiar views in the metaphysics of modality and time, I compare the Subjectivist View of the Mental with Egocentric Presentism, a version of Subjectivism recently advocated by (...) Caspar Hare. I argue that the Subjectivist View of the Mental goes a considerable way towards solving certain long-standing philosophical puzzles having to do with the unity of consciousness, the contents of self-awareness and the intransmissibility of experiential knowledge through testimony. (shrink)

Moral subjectivism is not self-defeating, contrary to what moral objectivists claim. Ockham’s Razor favors moral subjectivism over moral objectivism. It is circular for moral objectivists to say that since we construct sound and cogent arguments out of moral statements, moral statements are true. Moral subjectivism acknowledges the role that arguments play in our moral lives, contrary to what moral objectivists contend. The way in which moral objectivists attempt to establish moral objectivism ironically supports moral subjectivism.

The theory of technological mediation aims to take technological artifacts seriously, recognizing the constitutive role they play in how we experience the world, act in it, and how we are constituted as (moral) subjects. Its quest for a compatible ethics has led it to Foucault’s “care of the self,” i.e., a transformation of the self by oneself through self-discipline. In this regard, technologies have been interpreted as power structures to which one can relate through Foucaultian “technologies of the self” or (...) ascetic practices. However, this leaves unexplored how concrete technologies can actuallysupportthe process of self-care. This paper explores this possibility by examining one such technology: a gamified To-Do list app. Doing so, it first shows that despite the apparent straightforwardness of gamification, confrontation and shame play an important role in how the app motivates me to do better. Second, inspired by Ihde’s schema of human-technology relations, it presents different ways in which the app may confront me with myself. Subsequently, it accounts for the motivation and shame that this technologically mediated confrontation with myself invokes through a Levinasian account of ethical subjectivity. In so doing, it also shows how Levinas’ phenomenology implies a responsibility for self-care and how nonhuman, technological others may still call me to responsibility. It concludes with a reflection on the role of gamification in technologically mediated subjectivation and some implications for design. (shrink)

Subjectivism about well-being holds that ϕ is intrinsically good for x if and only if, and to the extent that, ϕ is valued, under the proper conditions, by x. Given this statement of the view, there is room for intramural dissent among subjectivists. One important source of dispute is the phrase “under the proper conditions”: Should the proper conditions of valuing be actual or idealized? What sort of idealization is appropriate? And so forth. Though these concerns are of the first (...) importance, this essay focuses on a second source of dispute. As stated, subjectivists must account for what it means for an individual x to value ϕ under any conditions. Though there has been some disagreement, most subjectivists hold that x values ϕ if and only if x desires ϕ. This essay argues that subjectivists have erred in accepting a desiderative theory of valuing. Instead, it argues that subjectivists should hold that x values ϕ to the extent that x judges or believes that ϕ is good for x. The resulting “judgment subjectivism” is intuitively superior to, and maintains important structural advantages over, its desiderative rival. (shrink)

Wellbeing describes how good life is for the person living it. Wellbeing comes in degrees. Subjective theories of wellbeing maintain that for objects or states of affairs to benefit us, we need to have a positive attitude towards these objects or states of affairs: the Resonance Constraint. In this article, we investigate to what extent subjectivism can plausibly account for degrees of wellbeing. There is a vast literature on whether preference-satisfaction theory – one particular subjective theory – can account for (...) degrees of wellbeing. This is generally taken to be problematic. However, other subjective theories – namely, desire-satisfaction, judgment- and value-fulfillment theories – do not suffer from the same difficulties. We introduce two models of degrees of wellbeing a subjectivist can employ: the Relative and the Absolute Model, and defend the claim that both models face difficulties. In particular, we argue that a subjectivist theory should describe instances of depression as instances of low degrees of wellbeing. We also argue that a reduction of desires may sometimes improve one’s degree of wellbeing, an idea we call the Epicurean Intuition. We then argue that the Relative Model fails to account for the disbenefit of certain types of depression, while the Absolute Model fails to meet a central commitment of subjectivism – the Resonance Constraint – and is unable to accommodate the Epicurean Intuition. The upshot of the paper is that subjectivist theories cannot account for degrees of well-being in a plausible way. (shrink)

The recently rising field of Critical Data Studies is still facing fundamental questions. Among these is the enigma of digital subjectivation. Who are the subjects of Big Data? A field where this question is particularly pressing is finance. Since the 1990s traders have been steadily integrated into computerized data assemblages, which calls for an ontology that eliminates the distinction between human sovereign subjects and non-human instrumental objects. The latter subjectivize traders in pre-conscious ways, because human consciousness runs too slow (...) to follow the volatility of the market. In response to this conundrum Social Studies of Finance has drawn on Actor-Network Theory to interpret financial markets as technically constructed networks of human and non-human actors. I argue that in order to develop an explicitly critical data study it might be advantageous to refer to Maurizio Lazzarato’s theory of machinic subjugation instead. Although both accounts describe financial digital subjectivation similarly, Lazzarato has the advantage of coupling his description to a clear critique of and resistance to finance. (shrink)

Subjectivism about welfare is the view that something is basically good for you if and only if, and to the extent that, you have the right kind of favorable attitude toward it under the right conditions. I make a presumptive case for the falsity of subjectivism by arguing against nearly every extant version of the view. My arguments share a common theme: theories of welfare should be tested for what they imply about newborn infants. Even if a theory is intended (...) to apply only to adults, the fact that it is false of newborns may give us sufficient reason to reject it. (shrink)

Epistemic subjectivism, as I am using the term, is a view in the same spirit as relativism, rooted in skepticism about the objectivity or universality of epistemic norms. I explore some ways that we might motivate subjectivism drawing from some common themes in analytic epistemology. Without diagnosing where the arguments go wrong, I argue that the resulting position is untenable.

There is a family of metaethical views according to which (i) there are no objectively correct moral standards and (ii) whether a given moral claim is true depends in some way on moral standards accepted by either an individual (forms of subjectivism) or a community (forms of relativism). This chapter outlines the three most important versions of this type of theories: old-fashioned subjectivism and relativism, contextualism and new wave subjectivism and relativism. It also explores the main advantages of these views (...) and the key objections to them. (shrink)

In this chapter, I show that there is at least one crucial, non-short, argument, which does not involve arguments about spatiotemporality, why Kant’s subjectivism about the possibility of knowledge, argued in the Transcendental Deduction, must lead to idealism. This has to do with the fact that given the implications of the discursivity thesis, namely, that the domain of possible determination of objects is characterised by limitation, judgements of experience can never reach the completely determined individual, i.e. the thing in itself (...) or the unlimited real, but only objects as objects of possible experience. As such, it can be shown by reference to a key argument from Kant, that Hegel’s famous criticism that Kant is not licensed, on the basis of his core arguments concerning the original-synthetic unity of apperception, to restrict our knowledge to appearances, is mistaken on purely systematic grounds. More specifically, I argue that idealism follows already from the constraints that the use of the categories, in particular the categories of quality, places on the very conceivability of things in themselves. My claim is that, although it is not only possible but also necessary to think things in themselves, it does not follow that by merely thinking them we have a full grasp of the nature of things in themselves, as some important commentators claim we have. We must therefore distinguish between two kinds of conceiving of things in themselves: conceiving in the standard sense of ‘forming the notion of’, and conceiving in the narrow sense of ‘having a determinate intellectual grasp’. So although we must be able notionally to think things in themselves, as the grounds of their appearances, we cannot even conceive, through pure concepts, of how they are in themselves in any determinate, even if merely intellectual, sense. To put it differently, we cannot have a positive conception of things in themselves (this is in line with Kant’s distinction between noumena in the negative and positive senses; cf. B307–9). For support, I resort to a much overlooked chapter in the Critique, concerning the transcendental Ideal, where Kant discusses what it is for a thing to be a thing in itself proper, namely, something that is thoroughly determined. This concerns the real ontological conditions of things, which are not satisfied by the modal categories alone, namely, their existence conditions. I claim that the chief reason why, given Kant’s view of determinative judgement, we cannot determine a thing in itself is because of two connected reasons: (1) a thing in itself is already fully determined and therefore not further determinable and (2) we cannot possibly determine all of the thing’s possible determinations. In this context, I also discuss the notion of material (not: empirical) synthesis—of which Kant speaks in the chapter on the transcendental Ideal—which must be presupposed as the ground of the formal a priori synthesis that grounds possible experience. This material synthesis, which is an idea of reason that defines a thing as thoroughly determined with regard to all of its possible predicates and has mere regulative status, can by implication not be determined by the forms of the understanding, which synthesise only a limited set of predicates. As a result, given this definition of ‘thing in itself’, any object (appearance) as at best44 a limited set of determinations of the thing can never be numerically identical to the thing in itself as thoroughly determined individual. This undercuts a standard assumption about the identity relation between appearances and things in themselves in many contemporary interpretations of Kant’s transcendental idealism. (shrink)

Based on a analysis of Bon Iver’s pop-folk song 715-CRΣΣKS, this paper critically deconstructs the figure of the artist as one of modernity’s own modes of individual subjectivation, taken up and radicalized in postmodernity. A mode of subjectivation that on the one hand heroically consecrates the individual through his creative potential, but on the other builds him around a sense of anguish, as well as anxiety, in the face of the aesthetico-affective shocks of (post)modern life, which lost its (...) “tragic” dimension, in the classical sense of the word. By studying the technical and creative processes involved in the production of this piece of music, we can identify, in Bon Iver’s artistic practice, veritable “dividual machines” (Raunig) that could help us deconstruct such a modern understanding of the figure of the artist as a mode of subjectivation. Taking up the definition of “dividual” that Deleuze elaborates in relation to cinematic images as well as the vocal lines of operatic characters, we will extend this same notion of the work of art to the artist himself, proposing to think of the artist’s dividuation as a critical and potentially therapeutic modality of non-individual subjectivation. To do so, we will understand dividuation as a modular aesthetic-affective phenomenon, conceptualized on the basis of the sonic and “echo-logical” mechanism of resonance. The sonic figure of Echo, as an emblematic modality of resonance, will be central to the conception of a non-individual, non-dominant subjectivity, inseparable from its environment. A modality not limited to artists, of course, but which still finds privileged expressions in these liminal figures. The artist’s dividuation thus presents itself both as a creative practice of expression and subjectivation, but also as a potentially therapeutic practice in relation to the aesthetic-affective and existential shocks of (post)modernity, and the anxiety that affects it. (shrink)

My favorite thing about this paper is that I think I usefully explicate and then mess with Bernard Williams's attempt to explain how his internalism is compatible with our ordinary practices of blame. There are a surprising number of things wrong with Williams's position. Of course that leaves my own favored subjectivism in a pickle, but still...

The book deals with the complex notion of process worked out by Alfred N. Whitehead, a notion that includes his deep revision of the concepts of time and space. Throughout his whole career, Whitehead emphasized the importance of process for the account of reality. The book discusses Whitehead's concept of process starting from his works in mathematics, logic and epistemology of the natural sciences, in order to pave the way for a better understanding of Whitehead's speculative philosophy. The focus is (...) on the relationship between concrescence and transition, seen as deeply correlated and reciprocally determined. In this perspective, the book offers a reinterpretation of Whitehead's most enigmatic proposal: the event of subjectivity interpreted as a process of subjectivation. This poses the problem of the endurance of subjectivity. The book suggests that this problem is solved by Whitehead through is appropriation of Plato's notion of chora, seen as the "place" of a processual subject. (shrink)

Subjectivism about well-being holds that an object contributes to one's well-being to the extent that one has a pro-attitude toward this object under certain conditions. Most subjectivists have contended that these conditions should be ideal. One reason in favor of this idea is that when people adapt their pro-attitudes to situations of oppression, the levels of well-being they may attain is diminished. Nevertheless, I first argue that appealing to idealized conditions of autonomy or any other condition to erase or replace (...) adaptive pro-attitudes is mistaken. Second, I show that the most natural version of subjectivism that does not appeal to any such idealizing condition can explain why the well-being of people having adaptive pro-attitudes should not be restricted to the fulfillment of these pro-attitudes. In sum, the existence of adaptive preferences does not militate in favor of the introduction of conditions of idealization but against it. (shrink)

The Subjectivism/Objectivism debate is a debate about the facts the an action’s moral status is grounded in. Subjectivists maintain that an action’s moral status is grounded in the subjective circumstances of the agent at the time of its performance. Objectivists deny this. This chapter defends the Objectivist view against a recent argument against it by championing a picture of moral conscientiousness which is at odds with a central premise of that argument. The picture of moral conscientiousness defended is one that (...) crucially sees the morally conscientious person’s concern not to act wrongly as degreed and sensitive to the degrees of wrongness of the options facing the morally conscientious agent. After motivating this particular conception of moral conscientiousness and defending Objectivism against the argument against it, the chapter further develops the Objectivist picture of the moral status of actions and explains the Objectivist’s conception of the relation between moral wrongness and what a morally conscientious person ought to do in her choice situation. (shrink)

The notion of style is not an explicit concept in Michel Foucault’s works, although it appears regularly in his books and papers. In his introduction to Binswanger’s Dream and Existence, Foucault is still strongly influenced by phenomenology and existentialism: style is defined as the moment where expression is addressed to someone in order to be understood. Foucault’s definition of style is still phenomenological: it is an expression of a subjectivity or a being-in-the-world. On the contrary, in his structuralist period, especially (...) in The Order of Things and in The Archaeology of Knowledge, style strictly characterizes an anonymous historical a priori. But how can one understand that some individuals invent new styles of knowledge and discourse? Foucault does not completely resolve this difficulty in his paper on the author at the Société française de philosophie. In the History of sexuality, Foucault finally links critic and genealogy of subjectivity, thanks to a new definition of style: in the stylistic of existence, style is neither the expression of a subjectivity, nor an anonymous and collective mark, but the operator of a subjectivation process through the quest for an ethical and substantial excellence. This foucaldian conceptualisation of style, in the 1980s, is completely understood having in mind the struggle for gay rights in 1970s and the 1980s. In different militant texts, Foucault explained that the quest for a homosexual style of life is politically as important as gay rights themselves. (shrink)

Welfare subjectivists face a dilemma. On the one hand, traditional subjectivist theories—such as the desire-fulfillment theory—are too permissive to account for the well-being of typical mature human beings. On the other hand, more “refined” theories—such as the life-satisfaction theory—are too restrictive to account for the well-being of various welfare subjects, including newborns, those with profound cognitive impairments, or non-human animals. This paper examines a class of welfare subjectivism that addresses this dilemma with sensitivity to the diversity in welfare subjects. First, (...) the most-sophisticated-attitude view (MSA) is introduced. MSA holds that an object, $$x$$ x, is good for a subject, $$S$$ S, in proportion to the strength of $$S$$ S ’s pro-attitude towards $$x$$ x if and only if the pro-attitude at issue is $$S$$ S ’s most sophisticated type. Typically, the well-being of typical mature human beings is assessed in terms of one’s authentic whole-life satisfaction, whereas that of human newborns is assessed in terms of something less sophisticated such as pleasure. MSA offers the rationale for this difference based on an underexplored version of perfectionism: procedural perfectionism. Next, provided that MSA may involve an implausibly strong claim, this paper examines two moderate variations of MSA that accept the partial relevance of less sophisticated types of valenced attitude. Finally, it is illustrated how MSA and its variations have plausible implications regarding the well-being of enhanced or dis-enhanced people. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to indagate the profound changes of the human environments, which arising from the “Digital revolution”. In the first part, the author compares two “ontological” perspectives: respectively, the “Infosphere” and the “Docusphere”. Afterward, taking into account the contemporary processes of subjectivation, he distinguishes between two emerging patterns of political power: “Surveillance capitalism” and “Societies of control”. In the light of the distinction between surveillance and control, the author discusses the elements of each pattern which (...) seem to be useful for understanding the political life in digital societies. (shrink)

Dans cet article l’auteur a souhaité étudier le travail de subjectivation des liens familiaux chez un auteur de violence sexuelle dans le cadre du dispositif pénal qu’est l’injonction de soins. À partir d’une recherche clinique menée sur un mode longitudinal, il propose de montrer comment le génogramme (en test, re-test) peut être un révélateur de la mise en œuvre du processus de subjectivation. Ce procédé permet de relever deux différences notables entre les deux génogrammes : dans le passage (...) d’une place fantasmatique dans les liens (celle d’un « enfant ») à celle d’une position instituée concomitante avec une affiliation intersubjective ; la présence ou l’absence de nom sur les icônes parentales. Des différences favorisées, selon nous, par le dispositif d’injonction de soins. (shrink)

S’il est un savoir contre lequel la pensée de Michel Foucault a sans cesse buté, c’est bien la psychanalyse. La plupart des commentateurs s’entendent à qualifier d’ambivalente l’attitude de Foucault à l’égard de celle-ci. Plutôt que de discuter des difficultés que cela suscite quant à la cohérence du projet foucaldien, l’ambition de ce texte est d’étudier le fonctionnement concret de la psychanalyse à travers une grille conceptuelle combinant deux notions fondamentales, soit celles de « dispositif » et de « mode (...) de subjectivation », grâce auxquelles l’articulation entre subjectivité, pouvoir et vérité pourra démontrer sa fécondité heuristique. (shrink)

La notion de déprise joue un rôle central dans le traitement de la subjectivité chez Michel Foucault. Notre objectif est d’établir que cette notion ne peut pas être réduite à une économie du soi, comme il est communement admis par les commentateurs de son oeuvre. Dans ce sens, il faudrait la distinguer à la fois du souci de soi et de la pratique de la sagesse. De manière positive, il s’agit de montrer que la déprise joue plutôt comme modalité politique (...) de désubjectivation. L’analyse de la stultitia chez Sénèque nous permettra de montrer que la déprise est investie non pas comme modalité de subjectivation, mais comme pratique de disqualification de soi. (shrink)

La recherche actuelle cherche à démontrer qu'il existe une sociologie chez Foucault et l'oeuvre foucaldienne est aussi une oeuvre sociologique. L'oeuvre de Foucault offre plusieurs avantages conceptuels à la pensée sociologique et sa pensée peut être entendue comme une expérience qui nous conduira aussi à une pratique autoréflexive de la sociologie. Mais ce qui rapproche le plus Foucault des sociologues, c'est toujours sa tentative de comprendre le sujet à travers un social qui est devenu historique et cette Histoire nous revient (...) à chaque fois en tant que forme culturelle. La question centrale de Foucault est ce social qui occupe une place considérable dans la constitution de l'individu, pourtant l'individu n'est jamais complètement contraint. Les grandes lignes de la pensée foucaldienne consistent à élaborer une pensée critique, une pensée qui est parvenue finalement à réunir l'objectivation et la subjectivation. La sociologie foucaldienne a pour objectif de mettre en lumière la question "qui sommes-nous en train de devenir?" pour construire un diagnostic sociologique d'une modernité paradoxale. (shrink)

Il y a une énigme chez Foucault : la mise en plan de l’histoire de la sexualité en faveur d’un retour au sujet s’explique plutôt mal. Qui plus est, le projet d’élaborer une subjectivité sans sujet n’était pas sans poser quelques problèmes. Dans cet article, nous mettons en contexte ces difficultés afin de montrer qu’une autre forme de subjectivité était malgré tout possible. Pour ce faire, nous solutionnons une part de l’énigme en justifiant le recours à des formations historiques de (...) longue durée dès 1978 (I). Nous décrivons ensuite la subjectivation qui, dans le cadre d’une esthétique de l’existence, répond aux critères d’une subjectivité sans sujet (II). Et pour illustrer comment Foucault dépasse le sujet moderne, nous introduisons la parrêsia qui, dans le cours de 1982, rattache le sujet et la vérité de manière à offrir une résistance au pouvoir (III). En conclusion, nous tentons de cerner l’originalité méthodologique de Foucault sur cette question en précisant le sens d’une approche poststructuraliste de la signification. (shrink)

RESUME L'œuvre de Michel Foucault est caractérisée par un déplacement continu, particulièrement entre les deux axes qui constituent d'un côté le pouvoir-savoir, et de l'autre la subjectivation. Foucault introduit une nouvelle pensée dans sa philosophie, selon laquelle le sujet même joue un rôle actif dans sa propre constitution en tant que tel. Le concept de transgression, qui provient de Georges Bataille, constitue une clé de compréhension de ce troisième Foucault et permet de saisir et de donner forme à ce (...) qu'on appelle, suivant Emmanuel Kant, une attitude moderne. ABSTRACT Michel Foucault's work is marked by a continual displacement. In particular between two axes: power-knowledge on one side, subjectivation on the other. Foucault introduces a new line of thought in his philosophy, in which the subject takes up an active role in his own constitution as such. The concept of transgression, taken from Georges Bataille, is key to understanding this third Foucault and allows for a better understanding and shaping of what may be called, following Immanuel Kant, a modern attitude. (shrink)

À partir d’une analyse de la matérialité linguistique, cet article explore les processus de subjectivation et d’identification qui constituent le(s) sujet(s) des différentes pratiques urbaines, par rapport à l’espace de la rue et dans le cadre de disputes visant à l’affirmation d’identités socialement légitimées. Le corpus constitué pour ma recherche est de nature hétérogène, aussi bien dans sa matérialité symbolique que du point de vue de son inscription institutionnelle et de sa circulation sociale.

Epistemic objectivists and epistemic subjectivists might agree that inquiry pursues epistemic virtues (truth, knowledge, reason, or rationality) while disagreeing over their objectivity. Objectivists will evaluate this disagreement in terms of the epistemic virtues objectively construed, while subjectivists will not. This raises a rhetorical problem: objectivists will fault subjectivism for lacking some objective epistemic virtue, whereas subjectivists, by rejecting objectivity, won’t see this as a fault. My goal is to end this impasse by offering a new solution to the rhetorical problem. (...) My strategy is to identify a common-ground virtue valuable to objectivists and subjectivists but unavailable to subjectivism. The virtue is usefulness. Subjectivism can be useful only if it relies upon the very objective epistemic virtues it rejects; so it cannot be useful. Whether or not subjectivism has any objective epistemic virtues, it may be rejected as pointless. (shrink)

In this article I consider when the question of whether entities exist subjectively (only in the minds of subjects) or objectively (in themselves, independently of the minds of subjects) is important, both theoretically and practically. I argue that when it comes to the metaphysics underlying three types of moral questions, broadly conceived, the subjectivity question does not matter practically, although it is widely thought to matter. Subjectivism does not matter in these moral questions in the same way(s) it matters in (...) some nonmoral metaphysical issues. The moral questions I consider are the meaning of life, normative ethics, and the free‐will problem. The nonmoral issues I address are the existence of God, the traditional mind/body problem, and personal identity. I explain the difference by noting that certain metaphysical issues on the fact side of the fact/value distinction impinge on persons' lives more prominently than do the metaphysics behind the three moral questions. (shrink)

Individual relativism, also known as ethical subjectivism, is an attractive theory about morality. It argues that morality is a matter relative to the individual in a way akin to personal taste. For example, subjectivists regard the ethical judgment ‘Stealing is wrong’ as comparable with the judgment of taste ‘I dislike Brussels sprouts’. Yet, subjectivism is not nihilism. While nihilism denies the existence of moral value, duties, principles and truths, subjectivism claims that they exist, but they are subjective like taste. In (...) this paper, I argue that ethical subjectivism ought to be rejected as it is an incoherent, undefendable, and a pernicious position. (shrink)

This chapter probes Barry Stroud's steadfast opposition to metaphysical subjectivism about value. Stroud argues in his work that global subjectivism about evaluative matters is literally untenable: the chapter shows how this starting conclusion emerges from three key aspects of evaluative thought pressed by Stroud. The cognitivism, irreducibility, and indispensability of evaluative thought seem together to rule out noncognitivist, error-theoretic, and reductive response-dependent construals of the evaluative domain, thereby closing off a wide variety of routes to value subjectivism. The chapter suggests, (...) however, that the conviction that evaluative matters somehow constitutively depend on us may survive Stroud's determined attempts at excision. The chapter also considers the relation of Stroud's work to mainstream contemporary metaethics, noting that—contrary to what one might suppose—Stroud does not see his arguments as supporting moral realism. In fact, Stroud's negative conclusion about value subjectivism is liable to unsettle both poles of contemporary metaethical debate. (shrink)

Engaging with the account of pathic subjectivation developed by Félix Guattari, this article explores the ways in which his thinking about the production of subjectivity takes up and transforms the concept of the pathic dimension of experience that emerges from the rich tradition of existential-phenomenological psychiatry and the thematisation of contact it entails. Explicitly foregrounding the link made within that tradition between aesthetics and existence, this article considers the origins of Guattari’s conception of pathic subjectivation in his work (...) on Proust, the experimental understanding of the semiotic transformations of sensory experience it entails and the practical role it plays in catalysing the creative emergence of new modes of (embodied) existence. (shrink)

This article defends the theoretical centrality of Michel Foucault’s account of subjectivation for critical responses to neoliberalism against those Marxist critics who claim that his focus on the subject pushed the Left into the fraught terrain of identity politics. A key contention is that a theoretically sophisticated account of subjectivation is a requisite for any philosophically coherent and politically effective theorization of resistance against neoliberalism. Critical accounts of neoliberal subjectivation must be recognized as indispensable for understanding the (...) conditions of possibility for class struggle and not as an alternative theoretical frame to it. The article also relates Foucault’s and Karl Marx’s thought on the question of power and its relationship to the subject. It presents a reading of Foucault as a post-Marxist who modified, rejuvenated, and extended Marx’s views on power and subjectivation. While Foucault developed his understanding of subjectivation as a critical response to the problems he identified in the French Marxist accounts of his time—particularly in the work of Louis Althusser—his appropriation of Marx should be recognized as decisive for the development of his account of productive power and the concomitant understanding of the subject. (shrink)

Este artigo discute a noção de governamentalidade algorítmica, investigando como os algoritmos são específicos em dispositivos de poder e subjetivação na sociedade contemporânea. A partir de Michel Foucault e das leituras de Gilles Deleuze, Giorgio Agamben, Antoinette Rouvroy e Thomas Berns, analisa-se de que modo os sistemas algorítmicos ultrapassam a função técnica de processamento de dados, convertendo-se em mecanismos de regulação social e produção de subjetividades. Esses sistemas modelam comportamentos, organizam fluxos informacionais e induzem práticas cotidianas, incidindo diretamente sobre as (...) experiências individuais e coletivas. O texto articula a perspectiva foucaultiana da governamentalidade com abordagens contemporâneas sobre inteligência artificial e datificação, evidenciando os impactos dos algoritmos na constituição de novas formas de poder e controle. Em diálogo com Mendonça, Filgueiras e Almeida, adota-se uma noção de institucionalismo algorítmico, segundo a qual os algoritmos atuam como forças institucionais capazes de estabelecer regras e estruturas sociais. Conclui-se que os algoritmos não refletem apenas racionalidades técnicas, mas instituem regimes normativos que reconfiguram o espaço social e político, exigindo uma reflexão crítica sobre seus efeitos na formação das subjetividades e na redefinição das normas que organizam a vida coletiva. (shrink)

Cet article tente d’analyser la spécificité de l’expérience improvisée du corps, notamment dans la danse, en exposant en quoi le nouvel intérêt manifesté pour la pratique de l’improvisation à partir du milieu du xx e siècle s’insère dans le paradigme relationnel de l’art contemporain. L’art contemporain témoigne en effet d’une dépersonnalisation du rapport de l’artiste à son œuvre d’art, désormais ouverte aux contextes de production, de médiation et de réception, c’est-à-dire d’une hétéronomisation des règles de l’art qui ne seraient plus (...) portées exclusivement par la figure du Génie, malgré la persistance de la singularité de chaque production artistique. De son côté, l’improvisation permet de rendre compte de la possibilité d’une dépersonnalisation du danseur par rapport à son propre corps, c’est-à-dire de la possibilité d’une hétéronomisation des mouvements de son corps dont il ne serait plus l’auteur exclusif, bien que ses mouvements soient toujours vécus singulièrement. Finalemen... (shrink)

Barry Stroud’s The Quest for Reality is a fine book that requires and repays several re-readings. Among the book’s many virtues is its appropriate skepticism towards the metaphysical ambition to treat some basic physical science as a fundamental ontology, an exhaustive account of what there is and how it hangs together. When Galileo concluded that mathematics was the key to the labyrinth of nature, he was prepared to treat all qualitative aspects of reality as sensational effects produced in us by (...) a world that was essentially quantitative in character. This subjectivization of quality, its “introjection” into the mind, was perhaps initially driven by a reluctance to examine the abstractive preconditions of developing and deploying a quantitative vocabulary. Certain topics, among them sensed qualities, had to be set aside because they were not amenable to treatment in such terms. As Stroud emphasizes, to simply go on to suppose that such sensed qualities are not to be found in the world because they are not amenable to such treatment is unmotivated metaphysics, not a simple deliverance of any physical science. (shrink)

흄에게 있어서 주체와 주체화의 문제는 자신이 주장하려고 하는 것보다 더 큰 의미를 가진다. 우리는 흄이 주장하는 주체성에서 근대를 넘어서는 사유, 현대적 주체성에 대한 관점의 선취를 본다. 그것은 주체가 주어진 것 안에서 구성된다는 것, 이 수동성이야말로 주체를 이해하는 중요한 요소이다. 우리는 마르크스나 정신분석학이 소화된 푸코나 들뢰즈와 같은 철학, 즉 현대적 주체성을 그려 보여주는 철학의 시원적 지점으로서 흄의 철학을 참고할 필요가 있다. 따라서 이 글은 흄의 주체화의 문제를 수동성의 맥락 안에서 다룬다. 이러한 흄의 주체성은 근대적 특성을 닮고 있으면서도 근대성을 넘어서는 사유의 지평을 (...) 보여준다. 그리고 우리는 근대에 이미 실천적 주체에 대한 사유를 흄을 통해서 볼 수 있다. (shrink)

In response to two trenchant objections, radical subjective Bayesianism has been widely rejected. In this paper, I seek, if not to rehabilitate subjectivism, at least to show its critic what is attractive about the position. I argue that what is at stake in the subjectivism/anti-subjectivism debate is not, as is commonly thought, which norms of rationality are true, but rather, the conception of rationality that we adopt: there is an alternative approach to the widespread telic approach to rationality, which I (...) call the poric approach, on which subjectivism is an attractive position. I then argue that the poric approach—and therefore subjectivism—cannot be easily dismissed. (shrink)

Orthodox Humeans about normative reasons for action believe that there are no rational principles governing the substantive content of desire. But they also believe that desires with misinformed content should be rejected and cannot be the proper subjective sources of normative reasons for action. These two ideas, I argue, in fact stand in tension with each other: The Humean rejection of misinformed desire actually has to invoke a feasibility principle for desire, a semi-substantive rational principle that is already built into (...) the very conceptions of rationality and desire that underlie orthodox Humeanism. This rational principle then provides a new account of the substantive rationality of desire, which in turn has some interesting implications in metaethics and first-order normative theories. (shrink)

In this paper, a distinctly subjectivist analysis of the nature of relational goodness or goodness for is proposed. Like the generic subjectivist analysis of value, the proposal is to analyse value in terms of attitudes. Specifically, the proposed analysis of goodness for appeals to a special kind of attitude: namely, so-called for-someone’s-sake attitudes. Unlike other analyses in the literature that have appealed to this kind of attitude, the analysis proposed here is not a fitting-attitude analysis. Rather than appealing to for-someone’s-sake (...) attitudes that it is fitting to have or that there are reasons to have, the proposed analysis takes actually held for-someone’s-sake attitudes to ground or constitute goodness for. The analysis should be attractive to those already within the subjectivist camp. One of its appeals is that it is a special case of a general subjectivist approach to values, thus showing that subjectivism provides the resources to analyse relational values. (shrink)

Several contributors to the burgeoning literature on individual character traits have recently given their attention to a contrast between so-called objective and subjective accounts of salient features of these traits. In this paper, I tease apart two different kinds of subjectivism which have not clearly been distinguished from one another thus far in the literature: doxastic subjectivism and epistemic subjectivism. I then argue that epistemic subjectivism marks an attractivemiddle position between objectivism and doxastic subjectivism, as it is less vulnerable to (...) some of the most significant objections facing each of these alternative approaches. On this basis, I recommend that virtue theorists consider adopting epistemically subjective accounts of the features of character traits they theorize about. (shrink)

들뢰즈의 주체화 전략은 타자-되기를 꾀하는 과정이며, 주체 기능을 수행하는 행위자를 생산한다. 행위자는 본질적인 정체성을 갖지 않지만, 집단적인 행위들을 통해서 후험적으로(a posteriori) 구성되는 주체성을 지닌다. 이러한 들뢰즈의 주체화는 버틀러가『윤리적 폭력 비판:자기 자신을 설명하기』(Giving an Account of Oneself)에서 윤리적 주체를 주요하게 설명한 바와 교차한다. 버틀러는 주체화를 타자와 관계 맺는 말 걸기 구조에서 작동하며, 자기를 설명하기를 통한 자기 제작 과정으로 규명한다. 이러한 주체화의 구조에서, 나는 나를 다 설명할 수 없으며, 말 걸기의 수신자인 타자를 요청한다. 이로부터 버틀러는 책임의 출처를 나의 한계 인식과 내 안에 (...) 있는 타자성으로 설명한다. 책임은 어떤 능동적인 주체의 의지에서 비롯된 행위가 아니라, 주체화의 구조에서 비롯한 것이며, 내 안의 이질성을 승인하고 인간 조건의 취약함과 수동성에서 야기된 상황을 떠맡는 행위이다. 취약성은 우리가 확고한 경계로 철저히 분리된 존재가 아니라, 서로에게 자비를 바라는 존재임을 일깨운다. 인간 중심주의에서 벗어난 탈근대의 주체화는 자기를 완벽하게 아는 것이 아니며, 자신의 한계와 자신의 구성 조건의 맥락성을 인정하고 이해하면서 그 한계를 넘어서는 것이다. 이러한 탈근대의 주체화는 윤리적 전회를 통과하면서, 타자성과 이질성을 주체화의 내적 구조로 받아들이고, 공동체와의 연결성을 승인하면서, 새로운 윤리적 규칙을 모색하는 윤리적 주체를 형성한다. (shrink)

Subjectivism about normativity (SN) is the view that norms are never intrinsic to things but are instead always imposed from without. After clarifying what SN is, I argue against it on the basis of its implications concerning intentionality. Intentional states with the mind-to-world direction of fit are essentially norm-subservient, i.e., essentially subject to norms such as truth, coherence, and the like. SN implies that nothing is intrinsically an intentional state of the mind-to-world sort: its being such a state is only (...) a status relative to the imposition of a norm. If one rejects this view of mind-to-world states, then one has grounds for rejecting SN itself. If one accepts it, an infinite regress arises that makes it impossible for norms to be imposed, which means that SN has undermined itself. (shrink)

Subjectivism about moral wrongness is the view that the moral wrongness of an action (if and how wrong that action is) is grounded solely in facts about the agent's mental state at the time of action. Antisubjectivism is the denial of subjectivism. I offer an argument against subjectivism, and for antisubjectivism, based on an examination of the main concern of the morally conscientious person, viz., the concern to avoid acting wrongly.

One worry about metaethical expressivism is that it reduces to some form of subjectivism. This worry is enforced by subjectivists who argue that subjectivism can explain certain phenomena thought to support expressivism equally well. Recently, authors have started to suggest that subjectivism can take away what has often been seen as expressivism's biggest explanatory advantage, namely expressivism's ability to explain the possibility of moral disagreement. In this paper, I will give a response to an argument recently given by Frank Jackson (...) to this conclusion that will show that it is false that subjectivism could explain disagreement as well as expressivism. (shrink)

In previous work, I have argued that subjectivists about well-being must turn from a preference-satisfaction to a desire-satisfaction theory of well-being in order to avoid the conceptual problem of interpersonal comparisons of well-being. In a recent paper, Van der Deijl and Brouwer agree, but object that no version of the desire-satisfaction theory can provide a plausible account of how an individual's degree of well-being depends on the satisfaction or frustration of their various desires, at least in cases involving the gain (...) or loss of desires. So subjectivists can avoid the conceptual problem of interpersonal comparisons only by adopting a substantively implausible view. In this reply, I defend subjectivism by arguing that the totalist desire-satisfaction theory avoids Van der Deijl and Brouwer's objections, and briefly suggest that it may also be able to handle the problem of adaptive desires. I conclude that subjectivists should endorse the totalist desire-satisfaction theory. (shrink)

On the basis of a reconstruction of legal theory in the tradition of Marx - a current that has been more or less silenced since the end of the 1970s - Subjectivation and Cohesion develops a critical counter-pole to the theories of law that predominate in social theory today. To this end, the works of Franz Neumann, Otto Kirchheimer, Evgeny Pashukanis, Oskar Negt, Isaac D. Balbus, the so-called 'State-derivation School', Antonio Gramsci, Nicos Poulantzas and Michel Foucault are first analysed (...) for their strengths and weaknesses, and then combined to form a new construction: a materialist legal theory that is up to date and can avoid the shortcomings of existing theories - above all their disregard for gender relations and the reductive consequences of functionalist, economic or politicist approaches to law. (shrink)

En el siguiente artículo se lleva a cabo un balance de las principales líneas de la crítica al neoliberalismo, concediendo especial importancia a las transformaciones del Estado, al workfare como nuevo modo de regulación y de prestación social, y a los discursos gerenciales, también conocidos como new management o nuevas teorías de gestión empresarial, que se han delineado en las últimas décadas como el discurso gerencial que apuntala los cambios en la organización del trabajo al servi­cio de la maximización del (...) beneficio. Como se expondrá, por el carácter híbrido y heterogéneo del neoliberalismo, se hace necesaria la conjunción de la crítica marxista que aborda este fenómeno como nuevo régimen de acumulación y las críticas de raigambre foucaultiana que lo afrontan como modo de subjetivación o forma de racionalidad. (shrink)

Ethical subjectivists hold that moral judgements are descriptions of our attitudes. Expressivists hold that they are expressions of our attitudes. These views cook with the same ingredients – the natural world, and our reactions to it – and have similar attractions. This Element assesses each of them by considering whether they can accommodate three central features of moral practice: the practicality of moral judgements, the phenomenon of moral disagreement, and the mind-independence of some moral truths. In the process, several different (...) versions of subjectivism are distinguished and key expressivist notions such as 'moral attitudes' and 'expression' are examined. Different meanings of 'subjective' and 'relative' are examined and it is considered whether subjectivism and expressivism make ethics 'subjective' or 'relative' in each of these senses. (shrink)

Derek Parfit, in On What Matters, argues that all subjective accounts of normative reasons for action are false. This chapter focuses on his “Agony Argument.” The first premise of the Agony Argument is that we necessarily have current reasons to avoid our own future agony. Its second premise is that subjective accounts cannot vindicate this fact. So, the argument concludes, subjective accounts must be rejected. This chapter accepts the first premise of this argument and that it is valid. The main (...) thesis of this chapter is that subjectivists can account for our reasons to get pleasure and avoid agony. The chapter concludes that the Agony Argument does not justify the rejection of subjective accounts. The chapter also examines Parfit's understanding of the distinction between objective and subjective theories. The chapter claims Parfit offers a surprisingly narrow understanding of subjectivism such that even if his critique were successful, this would be bad news for fewer theories than we might have thought. Finally, the chapter replies to some possible worries about the arguments of this chapter. (shrink)

The what next question for moral error theorists asks: if moral discourse is systematically error-ridden, then how, if at all, should moral error theorists continue to employ moral discourse? Recent years have seen growing numbers of moral error theorists come to endorse a wider normative error theory according to which all normative judgements are untrue. But despite this shift, the what next question for normative error theorists has received far less attention. This paper presents a novel solution to this question: (...) revolutionary normative subjectivism. Along the way, two primary contributions are advanced. First, a non-normative methodology for answering the normative error theoretic what next question is developed. Second, revolutionary normative subjectivism is presented and defended in accordance with the proposed methodology. (shrink)