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Dieter Freundlieb
Why Subjectivity Matters: Critical Theory and the
Philosophy of the Subject

ABSTRACT

In this paper it is argued that Habermas’ critique of


German Idealism is misguided and that his rejection of
the philosophy of the subject is unjustified. Critical Theory
needs to recognise the importance of subjectivity for all
social philosophy if its theoretical aims are to be achieved.
In order to demonstrate the relevance of subjectivity to
Critical Theory the essay draws on analytic philosophy
of mind and on the work of Manfred Frank and Dieter
Henrich.

KEY WORDS: critical theory, subjectivity, intersubjectiv-


ity, German Idealism, philosophy of mind

The significance of subjectivity for philoso-


phy was not discovered for the first time by
RenŽ Descartes. St. Augustine and even ear-
lier Greek philosophers in the Stoic tradition
had already explored subjectivity to a certain
extent. But it is widely accepted today that it
was Descartes who launched a new paradigm
in philosophy, a paradigm often referred to
as either the philosophy of consciousness
(Bewu§tseinsphilosophie), the philosophy of the

Critical Horizons 1:2 (2000)


© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2000
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subject, or, as JŸrgen Habermas sometimes prefers to call it, the Ômentalist
paradigmÕ. Subjectivity as a grounding principle for all philosophical system
building, especially for all knowledge claims, was subsequently made the
focal point by both Kant and the post-Kantian idealists Fichte and Schelling,
though both Fichte and Schelling later discovered the limitations of any phi-
losophy that relies entirely on the subject as ultimate ground. With HegelÕs
move from subjective to objective idealism the role of subjectivity became
more complicated and less clear than in SchellingÕs and FichteÕs systems.1
There is no need, however, to address this difficult issue in this paper.2

With the collapse of German Idealism around the middle of the 19th century,
the subsequent rise of positivism and, in the early 20th century, of analytic
philosophy, subjectivity was removed from centre stage. It had retained some
of its centrality, of course, in neo-Kantianism and moved to the forefront again
in HusserlÕs phenomenology. But this revival was short-lived. Soon Heidegger
was to interpret the philosophy of subjectivity as a central part of the history
of Western metaphysics, a history Heidegger wanted to overcome. Its focus
on the subject was seen as a manifestation of the subjectÕs preoccupation with
self-preservation (Selbsterhaltung) and self-empowerment (SelbstermŠchtigung)
which prevented it from addressing the prior and ultimately more important
question of Being. Today it is often argued that Heidegger and the Ôlinguis-
tic turnÕ have once and for all made the philosophy of the subject obsolete.
Interestingly, this view is shared by two otherwise opposed contemporary
schools of thought: postmodern philosophy and Critical Theory. The once
fashionable dictum about the Ôdeath of the subjectÕ was never quite true, of
course, and philosophers such as Jacques Derrida always claimed to be re-
configuring the subject, not abandoning it altogether. Nonetheless, in both
postmodern philosophy and Critical Theory the subject is usually thought
of as somehow ÔconstitutedÕ by language, albeit in different ways and by
different mechanisms.

In spite of the strong anti-subjectivist currents that have reigned since the
end of German Idealism, there are now signs that the philosophical sensi-
bility is shifting. After some early attempts in the late 1960s the last twenty
years or so have seen a genuine return to the subject and to subjectivity as
a focus of philosophical interest. This has occurred in at least two areas: ana-
lytic philosophy of mind3 and in the work of Manfred Frank and Dieter

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Henrich, two major German philosophers engaged in the exploration of the


connections between German Idealism and analytic philosophy of mind.4 In
my paper I will draw freely on their work because I believe it is of crucial
importance for the future of Critical Theory and for social philosophy in gen-
eral. In fact, both Frank and Henrich have already begun to investigate some
of the consequences of the return to subjectivity for Critical Theory,5 but fur-
ther work needs to be done if the full implications of the new approach are
to be drawn out and recognised. Before I begin to show in some detail why
subjectivity matters for Critical Theory, let me briefly indicate why analytic
philosophers have focussed on subjectivity and why they have found that it
cannot be reduced to something else, either naturalistically or linguistically.

From the late 1960s a number of analytic philosophers became convinced of


the irreducibility of subjectivity when they applied their linguistic analysis
to deictic expressions such as ÔhereÕ, ÔthisÕ, and ÔnowÕ, including, in particu-
lar, the personal pronoun ÔIÕ and the peculiar kind of self-reference it makes
possible. It quickly became obvious that indexicals such as ÔhereÕ and ÔnowÕ
can only be fully understood in relation to a first-person perspective, that is,
a consciousness with regard to which something is physically or temporally
close. Furthermore, analytic philosophers of mind such as Hector-Neri
Casta–eda argued that knowledge of the self cannot be analysed in terms of
concepts we use to refer to objects. He also maintained that reference to objects
is only possible on the basis of a previous acquaintance with ourselves in
self-consciousness, a point Fichte had made more than a hundred and fifty
years earlier.6 This knowledge by the self of itself as subject is not the re-
sult of an identification but a form of direct and incorrigible awareness or
knowledge. As Manfred Frank has pointed out, from the early 1980s a num-
ber of analytic philosophers (for example, Gareth Evans) realised that not all
philosophical problems can be reformulated as problems of language. Several
analytic philosophers of mind acknowledged that self-consciousness is pre-
propositional and that knowledge of the self as self cannot be reduced, to
use more technical terms, to either de re or de dicto attitudes.7 Rather, as David
Lewis, in spite of his materialist leanings, argued, self-consciousness must be
conceived as a de se attitude.8 Self-consciousness is not knowledge of an object
and it is pre-propositional. As early as 1968, Sydney Shoemaker had main-
tained that self-reference cannot proceed on the basis of the perception model
of knowledge because perception requires a subject that perceives an object.9

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And such perceptions are always fallible. But in the case of a subject being
aware of itself, observational fallibility is impossible. We can be mistaken in
many ways when we look at ourselves as persons with certain attributes, but
we cannot be mistaken about our own identity as thinking subjects. Thus in
his essay ÒPersonal Identity: A MaterialistÕs Account,Ó Shoemaker had argued
that perceptual self-knowledge always presupposes non-perceptual acquain-
tance with oneself.10

It is obvious even from this very brief sketch that the philosophy of subjec-
tivity is alive and well within contemporary analytic philosophy. This is why
HabermasÕ view according to which the mentalist paradigm has become obso-
lete as a consequence of the linguistic turn simply does not stand up to
scrutiny. On the contrary, there are many signs that a return to subjectivity
as a philosophical issue is still on the increase.11 But why did Habermas reject
what he calls the philosophy of the subject in the first place? For Habermas
(who, it seems to me, is only now beginning to address the relevant issues)12
the philosophy of the subject is primarily associated with the metaphysical
program of German Idealism, though his critique is directed at virtually all
its continental varieties. His critique basically focuses on two aspects. The
first one is his rejection of the philosophy of the subject as a foundationalist
program. Even in very recent work he argues that the philosophy of the sub-
ject is wedded to the ideal of epistemic certainty. In his 1996 essay on Richard
Rorty, for example, he writes:

The ideas of Òself-consciousnessÓ and ÒsubjectivityÓ imply that the know-


ing subject can disclose for itself a sphere of immediately accessible and
absolutely certain experiences if, rather than focussing directly on objects,
it turns its attention, in an indirect fashion, to its own representations of
objects. . . . The epistemic authority of the first-person perspective is sus-
tained by three paradigmatic assumptions:

Ð That we know our own mental states better than anything else;
Ð That the acquisition of knowledge proceeds essentially on the basis of the
representation of objects;
Ð And that the truth of judgements is supported by apodictic evidences.13

Now the first point to be made about HabermasÕ comment here is that in its
generality this characterisation of the philosophy of the subject is simply

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incorrect. The incorrigibility of self-reference does not entail that the philos-
ophy of the subject is committed to the ideal of epistemic certainty. HabermasÕ
description seems to fit late 19th century positivism much better than the
philosophy of the subject. Even as a description of the admittedly founda-
tionalist program of German Idealism HabermasÕ statements are very ques-
tionable. In any case, in a sense Habermas is tilting at windmills here because
his critique of German Idealism as a form of foundationalism is widely
accepted by his critics. Philosophers like Dieter Henrich and Manfred Frank,
while drawing extensively on German Idealism for their own philosophy of
subjectivity, have been arguing all along that the renewal of a philosophy of
the subject is not necessarily linked to any foundationalism and should in
fact abandon any such attempt. As Frank has demonstrated in great detail,
the early Romantic philosophers and writers, especially Hšlderlin, Friedrich
Schlegel, and Novalis, never subscribed to the foundationalist program
launched by Fichte.14

HabermasÕ second, and in our context more important point, is that he believes
that the idealist philosophy of self-consciousness is tied to a subject-object
model of knowledge and that it cannot, therefore, account for the kind of
non-objectifying knowledge the critical social sciences aim for. What Habermas
calls the Ôperformative attitudeÕ, that is, the attitude of a communicating sub-
ject to another subject, is non-objectifying but crucial for the entire Habermas-
ian project. This is where the real differences between Habermas and his
critics arise. Habermas thinks he can show that the whole of Kantian and
post-Kantian philosophy of the subject is caught in a certain network of con-
cepts from which it cannot escape and which makes it impossible to conceive
of the performative attitude adopted by subjects oriented towards mutual
understanding.

Habermas reiterates this critique on numerous occasions, but the following


examples will suffice to illustrate the point. The philosophy of consciousness,
he claims, is based Òon an epistemic model oriented towards the perception
and representation of objects,Ó and it operates with a concept of the subject
that is Òdirected towards objects and that turns itself into an object through
reflection.Ó15 Similarly, he claims that in FichteÕs philosophy subjects can only
be conceived as Òobjects for themselvesÓ16 and that Fichte dissolves inter-
subjective relations into Òsubject-object relations.Ó17 In a very recent paper he

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combines the critique of the alleged foundationalism of the mentalist para-


digm with his critique of the subject-object model. He describes self-reflection
as the subjectÕs representing of its own representations of objects through
introspection and argues that this search for the origins and conditions of
knowledge operates with a concept of truth as Òsubjective evidence or
certainty.Ó18

These criticisms are rather surprising because surely Habermas is aware that
even in Kant the transcendental self is not and cannot be conceived of as an
object of knowledge since it is precisely this Ôhighest pointÕ in KantÕs archi-
tectonic which makes knowledge of objects possible for a unitary subject. But
Habermas seems to assume that the philosophy of the subject is somehow
wedded to the subject-object model because it just cannot say how the sub-
ject itself is knowable and therefore has no other choice than to fall back on
the subject-object model. To be sure, Habermas points to a real problem here
because it is true to say that Kant has great difficulties in trying to explain,
in what he calls a Ôtranscendental deductionÕ, how we can know the subjec-
tive conditions of factual knowledge. Habermas seems to assume that the
philosophy of the subject is faced with a dilemma: it is committed to a reflec-
tion model of self-consciousness, that is to say, to a model according to which
the self knows itself by turning back on itself. But this means that it looks at
itself as an object, which by definition it is not, and which it could not even
recognise as itself if it were not already acquainted with itself in some other
way before bending back on itself. Habermas claims that this dilemma only
became obvious in FichteÕs Wissenschaftslehre. Thus he writes: ÒIf the repre-
sentation of an object is the only mode in which we can gain knowledge, a
self-reflection that operates as a representation of my own representings could
not but turn the transcendental spontaneity that escapes all objectification
into an object.Ó19

Post-Kantian philosophers, including Fichte, tried to solve this problem by


postulating, at various points in their intellectual careers, what they called
Ôintellectual intuitionÕ, that is, a non-sensory but at the same time non-
conceptual access to the self by itself, that is to say, a form of knowledge that
is not a mode of representing. We will have to come back to this question of
how the self can know itself in a moment because it is crucial for a critique

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of Habermas. But first I would like to look at one more aspect of HabermasÕ
criticisms.

He argues that the philosophy of the subject is committed to an inherently


paradoxical dualist ontology. There is the knowing subject that stands over
against a world of objects. But at the same time the subject is itself an object
in the world. This dual position of the subject has been dealt with in two
ways. Attempts have been made to either reduce it naturalistically, as has
happened in the empiricist tradition from Hume to Quine, or else it can
remain in its paradoxical position as both immanent and world-transcending
as is characteristic of the idealist tradition of transcendental philosophy from
Kant to the present. Habermas claims that Dieter Henrich is committed to
this second alternative, but like his idealist predecessors he is unable to solve
its inherent problems.20 Habermas is obviously alerting us to a conundrum
here that has plagued transcendental philosophy from its inception. How can
we solve the problem arising from KantÕs doctrine of the two realms, the
realm of the phenomenal and the realm of the noumenal that according to
Kant we simultaneously inhabit? According to Habermas we can only solve,
or rather dissolve, the problem by switching paradigms. We need to aban-
don the philosophy of the subject and move on to the linguistic paradigm.
But is this the only option we have? And does it really get rid of the prob-
lems we want to get rid of?

Habermas knows that reflective theories of self-consciousness are circular,


but he refuses to countenance the possibility that the knowledge the self has
of itself might be a genuine form of knowledge but nonetheless escape the
subject-object model, a form of knowledge that is pre-propositional and in
fact the necessary epistemological basis for any further propositional knowl-
edge of the self and the external world. This is precisely HenrichÕs and FrankÕs
point. Since we cannot possibly deny the fact that there is self-consciousness,
and since reflection theories are inescapably circular, we must postulate a
basic epistemic self-relation which is sui generis in the sense that it cannot be
conceived of within the subject-object model of knowledge. This is, of course,
what the German Idealists had in mind when they talked about intellectual
intuition. Habermas refuses to consider the possibility of such a subjective
basis for knowledge because he is convinced that all knowledge must be

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propositional or conceptual. He probably fears that if we abandon the idea


of the linguistic nature of all knowledge his crucial concept of communica-
tive rationality is at risk of suffering serious damage. For Habermas sees ratio-
nality and rational justification as reason giving, and reason giving can only
be performed through making statements. Like Donald Davidson he thinks
that Ònothing can count as a reason for holding a belief except another belief.Ó21
And beliefs are always considered to be propositional.

This conception of reason giving is unacceptable, however, because it suffers


from a fatal flaw: it cannot explain what the validity of those statements or
beliefs consist of which function as the ultimate premises of an argument.
This is why several analytic philosophers have recently argued that state-
ments expressing beliefs must be grounded in pre-propositional perceptual
knowledge.22 And such knowledge always has its basis in subjective experi-
ence and is therefore only accessible from a first-person perspective.23 An
appeal to publicly available linguistic entities like propositions or statements
does not help since their validity (or at least the recognition of their valid-
ity) depends on both a unitary subject and its pre-propositional experience.
Habermas has always claimed that the move from the mentalist to the lin-
guistic paradigm brought with it the methodological advantage that it replaces
subjective evidence with publicly available linguistic entities.24 But this has
turned out to be an illusion. The validity of statements must be recognised
by individual subjects whose judgement crucially depends on their own expe-
riences. A first conclusion we can draw, then, is that subjectivity matters to
Critical Theory because it shows that the epistemic validity claims that fig-
ure so prominently in theoretical discourses must be anchored in the subject.
What it means to make a knowledge claim and how it can be validated can-
not be explicated at the level of pragmatics because any such attempt pre-
supposes cognising subjects with privileged access to their own subjectivity.
But let me now turn to Dieter Henrich for whom subjectivity can still func-
tion as a philosophical principle as long as we avoid the foundationalism
that was once associated with this idea. Let me give you a brief outline of
his philosophy of subjectivity.

In line with German Idealism, but without attempting to renew the idealist
program of ultimate foundations, Henrich argues that philosophical reflec-
tion needs to start from an analysis of subjectivity because a philosophically

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tenable understanding of ourselves and our place in the world, of truth and
objectivity, must first engage in an analysis of the subjective presuppositions
of knowledge. So, what he proposes is obviously a version of transcenden-
tal philosophy. But while Kant had identified transcendental apperception,
that is, the ÔIch denkeÕ, as the Ôhighest pointÕ in his epistemology, he had failed,
according to Henrich, to analyse sufficiently the intrinsically and irreducibly
complex structure of the knowing self-relation, even if we have to concede
KantÕs point that the epistemic self-relation cannot be fully explained theo-
retically, and that our attempts at its elucidation cannot avoid getting caught
in a certain kind of circularity. Henrich claims that such an elucidation shows
the epistemic priority of the self-relation in which the subject is aware of its
identity with itself. Its identity is in fact constituted by the irrefutable iden-
tity, over time, of its ÔIÕ-thoughts (Ich-Gedanken). Henrich also points out that
in the case of ÔIÕ-thoughts thinking and being coincide, that is, the ÔIÕ exists
as a thinking self. In other words, it is normally always possible that what I
think about does not exist. But this is not possible in the case of ÔIÕ-thoughts.

Henrich also argues, following Leibniz and Kant, that our sense of what is
real in the world is in fact derived from the immediate experience of the real-
ity of our own existence. This is what ultimately supports and from which
we derive our sense of what else is real, apart from our own self. As a con-
sequence, he believes that an analysis of the self-relation shows that the objec-
tive world can never be conceived of as entirely independent of ÔIÕ-thoughts,
that is, that we cannot refer to objects in the world except on the basis of a
prior self-consciousness, a point made by Fichte but also, as Manfred Frank
has pointed out and as I mentioned earlier, by analytic philosophers of mind
such as Hector-Neri Casta–eda.25 In this sense, our account of the world con-
tains an irreducibly idealist moment. At the same time, however, our striv-
ing for knowledge always goes beyond a world of objects whose basic structure
is constituted by subjective conditions of knowledge. Here Henrich sides with
post-Kantians such as Schelling who likewise argued that we need to go
beyond KantÕs view that we can only know a world of phenomena.

According to Henrich, as we have just seen, an analysis of the knowing self-


relation shows that ÔIÕ-thoughts imply a belief in the existence of a world of
objects. In other words, the epistemic self-relation is inconceivable without a
simultaneous relation to an already (partially) disclosed world that is not a

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mere extension of the self.26 This is the indispensably realist aspect of HenrichÕs
philosophy, a characteristic that sets it off against the radical idealism of the
early Fichte.

At the same time, as embodied subjects, we know that we are not just a sub-
ject but a spatio-temporally situated person in the world and thus an object
among all other objects in the world, even though we know that the relation
between the subject and its bodily existence as a person is not of the same
kind as the relation between the subject and external objects. But, as is the
norm in the case of external objects, we normally do not have privileged
knowledge of what we are as persons with bodies. Also, since we know our-
selves as individual subjects, we know that there can be other such subjects.
Subjectivity and intersubjectivity are therefore co-terminous.

Far from being self-sufficient or completely transparent to itself, the subject


is aware that it has not created itself and is dependent on a ground that sup-
ports its existence. This ground, however, cannot be conceived on the basis
of a materialist or purely naturalist ontology. In other words, the reality of
the subject for the subject cannot be understood entirely as that of a mater-
ial object in the world. The ground we depend upon can therefore not be
conceived of as the (material) cause of our existence. An analysis of the know-
ing self-relation makes us aware of the ground. But at the same time the
ground remains beyond our cognitive reach in the sense that while it can be
thought, it cannot become an object of (objectifying) knowledge (Wissen).

An analysis of the self-relation makes us realise that we are not at home in


the world in the sense that our ÔnaturalÕ, philosophically unaided, under-
standing of the world does not make available an internally consistent ontol-
ogy but presents us with incompatible ontologies, especially the ontology of
subjectivity and free agency, on the one hand, and that of things or objects
and their relations in the external world, on the other. In HenrichÕs view, this
is one of the main reasons for the need for philosophy. Once we recognise
that our situation in the world is inherently precarious and lacks clear ori-
entation and full intelligibility, the need for a revisionary metaphysics (in
StrawsonÕs sense) and a certain kind of speculative thinking becomes in-
escapable. In a sense, what we need is a new kind of Vereinigungsphilosophie
as it was postulated by Hšlderlin and the early Hegel, a philosophy that can

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unify what seem to be incompatible ontologies and the conflicting tenden-


cies of life they give rise to.

According to Henrich, all philosophy which rightfully bears this name arises
from and, once developed, should reconnect with existential questions and
uncertainties that emerge from the incompatibilities of the ontologies we are
confronted with in our ÔnaturalÕ understanding of the world. By doing this,
philosophy should be able to give our lives guidance and orientation, though
without imposing any particular doctrine upon us. And while conflicting but
equally legitimate orientations and tendencies arise unavoidably from within
our natural understandings of the relation between the self and the world,
it is the task of philosophy to attempt to reconcile or at least come to a final
assessment of the conflicts that arise from within Ôconscious lifeÕ (bewu§tes
Leben), that is, a life led by and in accordance with (regulative) ideas in a
Kantian sense. Historically, the major religions of the world have offered such
existential orientation, but they have always given priority to only one of the
conflicting tendencies and are therefore inherently unstable. A naturalistic
scientific worldview, on the other hand, cannot make the whole of reality
intelligible either. An all-encompassing naturalism such as the one underly-
ing most of analytic philosophy (paradigmatically manifest in the work of
Quine) must be taken seriously, but it cannot possibly give a complete account
of the world (especially not of naturalism itself as an explanatory approach
to the world). Only philosophy, if anything, will enable us to analyse and
assess the conflicting tendencies and to give an account of how that which
naturalism leaves out of consideration can be accommodated within a more
comprehensive understanding.

What is required then, according to Henrich, is a philosophy which is monis-


tic in its ontology and guided by the neo-Platonic idea of the Ôhen kai panÕ,
that is, the notion that the diversity and multiplicity of the world ultimately
derives from an all-encompassing unity of which everything is and remains
a part. Only such a monistic ontology would allow us to see ourselves as
actually belonging to and having a meaningful place within the world. And
he sees the enduring achievement and contemporary relevance of German
Idealism in its attempt to develop new conceptual frameworks (Begriffsformen)
and a monistic ontology that could make our precarious and intellectually
puzzling place in the world intelligible. As in the case of German Idealism,

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a contemporary version of such a philosophy has to be metaphysical in the


sense that it needs to develop a speculative form of thinking which tran-
scends and unites existing but incompatible ontologies.

Now let me return to Habermas and Critical Theory. As we have seen,


Habermas assumes that the problems of the philosophy of the subject can be
avoided by moving from the mentalist to the linguistic paradigm. But if what
both analytic philosophers of mind and Frank and Henrich are saying has
any validity, HabermasÕ paradigm shift is neither justified nor does it solve
the problems it is intended to solve. For a start, Critical Theory, unlike some
postmodern conceptions of the subject, needs an autonomous subject qua
social agent. But there is no systematic account in HabermasÕ work of such
a subject because for Habermas the subject is a product of social interaction.
When he tries to explain the constitution of the subject, intersubjectivity takes
priority over subjectivity. He believes subjectivity to be the result of a pro-
cess of a communicative exchange with other persons. But this is getting
things the wrong way around. His attempt to analyse the emergence of self-
consciousness and the subject on the basis of George Herbert MeadÕs theory
of social interaction cannot succeed, even if MeadÕs theory is refined in the
way Habermas suggests it must be. As Frank has shown, such attempts always
presuppose the notion of a subject that is already familiar with itself before
it can understand and adopt the perspective of a co-subject with whom it
interacts through communication.27 Just as the subject cannot identify itself
by looking at its image in a mirror unless it already knows itself as an iden-
tical subject, the subject cannot first learn that it is a subject by being approached
by another subject. Subjectivity is not reducible to the effect of a commu-
nicative exchange with others. The development of a personal identity in
the social-psychological sense of this term is of course very much dependent
on our interaction with others. But this development can only proceed on
the basis of a sense of identity that cannot be learned from being exposed to
others. This also means that the Ôperformative attitudeÕ which Habermas
believes he can somehow deduce from an analysis of basic presuppositions
of speech acts is ultimately explicable only from within the philosophy of the
subject that Habermas rejects. Only a subject standing in the kind of know-
ing self-relation that Henrich has been trying to elucidate is capable of adopt-
ing a performative attitude. That it is being addressed as a subject, is again,

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not something the subject can learn by listening to the speech acts performed
by others, even if they are directed at him or herself.

In a similar way it can be argued that subjectivity matters in the field of


ethics, including the discourse ethics developed by Critical Theorists. The
subject knows itself as an agent who can act on the basis of freely accepted
norms. It cannot conceive of itself as a mere object in a material world gov-
erned by natural laws. The basic principles of HabermasÕ discourse ethics,
which again he claims can be rationally reconstructed from the presupposi-
tions of communication, would be unintelligible to a subject that does not
already understand itself as free and therefore acting within a space of norms
and reasons, not the space of natural laws. In this sense Kant was right when
he talked about a Ôfact of reasonÕ that is not open to any further explanation.
In fact, one could argue that both our sense of what is real and our sense of
what ought to be are part of a basic self-understanding that makes factual
and normative knowledge possible. They are conditions of possibility and
hence not reducible to a result of social learning.

The notion of the recognition of and by other subjects that plays such a pro-
minent role in HabermasÕ (and Axel HonnethÕs) social philosophy is then also
only intelligible if it is anchored in a theory of the subject, that is, a subject
that is both capable and in need of recognition. What needs to be recognised
is a subject of a certain kind. And if recognition is to be ethically meaning-
ful, it must be of a subject that knows itself as not entirely socially consti-
tuted but also as not entirely self-created.

This becomes clearer once we take some of HenrichÕs further considerations


into account. As we have seen, Henrich argues that the subject is faced with
a fundamental uncertainty about its origin as well as an uncertainty about
how it can make its own position in the world intelligible given that it encoun-
ters several incompatible ontologies. The Ôknowing self-relationÕ (wissende
Selbstbeziehung) as Henrich calls it opens up different and equally valid pos-
sibilities of leading a meaningful life. And the irreducible self-reflexivity of
the subject allows the subject, at least in principle, to distance itself from any
conceivable self-interpretation. The formation of a personal identity, which
of course, always proceeds within the context of an ongoing interaction with
others, must be seen as both self- and other-directed. Even more importantly

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perhaps, the subject which has to lead its life and which therefore needs to
arrive at a reasonably stable self-interpretation, even if much of its life might
be taken up with trying to arrive at such a self-interpretation, will not be able
to do so if it sees itself as no more than a social agent. It will want to know
how it can conceive of itself as occupying a meaningful place not just in its
social environment but as a human being in a cosmological environment of
which it will always have a very limited understanding. It is in this sense,
too, that subjectivity matters to social philosophy.

Social philosophy must incorporate a philosophy of the subject that conceives


of the subject as much more than a social being. If Critical Theory requires a
standard by which it evaluates the chances for self-realisation that a social
order offers its members, then that standard must take into account the fact
that subjects are in need of existential orientation. This does not mean, as
Habermas often fears, that philosophy should take on the role religion once
played and impose its own conception of the good life on the rest of the com-
munity. Rather, it means that philosophy must elucidate options for self-
realisation and self-interpretation that would not otherwise be available.
Social philosophy cannot pretend to be neutral in this regard anyway because
it will always operate with a certain conception of the subject, whether this
is made explicit or not. And whatever the open or underlying conception
might be that it fosters, its conception will inescapably have an effect on the
self-interpretation of subjects. For how we think about ourselves is in part
what we are or what we are in the process of becoming. Self-interpretations
do not leave the subject unchanged. This is another important reason why
subjectivity matters.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Critical Theory cannot rightfully ignore


conceptions of the good life and concentrate instead on procedural and uni-
versal conceptions of morality or justice. Axel Honneth, for example, has
argued that what is needed is at least a formal notion of a post-traditional
ethics ( formale Sittlichkeit).28 But if Henrich is right, it would seem to follow
that we even require a return to a certain kind of (non-foundational) meta-
physical thinking in philosophy, a philosophy that clarifies the options avail-
able to a subject seeking answers to significant and unsettling existential
questions. These options can only be developed if we overcome the incompat-
ible ontologies that prevent us from constructing a coherent self-interpretation.

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Perhaps we must look out not just for pathologies of the social but for patholo-
gies of social philosophies. Habermas regards the differentiation of reason
into different domain-specific rationalities as a cognitive gain of modernity.
But he does not offer a plausible way in which a higher, reunified reason can
adjudicate between competing rationalities. Henrich is not in a position to
provide any easy solution to this problem either. But it must be acknowl-
edged that he has seen the problem with great clarity. In a rather bold move,
he even hints that we may not be able to make much progress unless we
rethink the idealist notion of the Absolute as a grounding concept for an over-
arching monistic ontology.29 Whatever we might think of this move - and so
far it remains undeveloped in HenrichÕs work - it seems to point in the right
direction. Habermas has not been able to avoid the problem of incompatible
ontologies built into his own conceptual framework. And his commitment to
what he calls the postmetaphysical role of contemporary philosophy prevents
him, it seems, from even addressing the issue.

There is at least one thing the history of philosophy has taught us. Problems
donÕt go away by being ignored. Subjectivity and the question of how it fits
into a unifying view of the world is one of the problem areas of philosophy
and human understanding, including social philosophy, that cannot be kept
at bay for too much longer. This is especially true of Critical Theory since
without addressing these problems it cannot do what it has always aimed to
do: provide a normative standard by which society is to be judged.

* Dieter Freundlieb, School of Humanities, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia

Notes

1
See the ground-breaking work of Klaus DŸsing, Das Problem der SubjektivitŠt in
Hegels Logik, Bonn, Bouvier, 1995. See also the earlier piece by Konrad Cramer,
ÒÔErlebnis.Õ Thesen zu Hegels Theorie des Selbstbewu§tseins mit RŸcksicht of
die Aporien eines Grundbegriffs nachhegelscher Philosophie,Ó Hegel-Studien, Beiheft
11, 1974, pp. 537-603.
2
As is well known, Habermas claims that in spite of a promising initial move by
Hegel to overcome the mentalist paradigm, he never managed to leave it behind.
The most recent occasion on which Habermas makes this claim is his essay ÒFrom
Kant to Hegel and Back again - The Move Towards Detranscendentalization,Ó
European Journal of Philosopy 7, 1999, pp. 129-157.

Why Subjectivity Matters • 243


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3
The main figures here are Hector-Neri Casta–eda, Roderick M. Chisholm, Gareth
Evans, Thomas Nagel, John Perry, and Sydney Shoemaker. See also the volume
entitled Analytische Theorien des Selbstbewu§tseins, ed. Manfred Frank, Frankfurt
am Main, Suhrkamp, 1994.
4
Henrich is best known for his path-breaking historical analyses of German Idealist
philosophy. But he has also produced important systematic work and work that
is both historical and systematic. Frank is known in the Anglo-American world
for his critique of poststructuralism but he is now also recognised as a world
authority on the philosophy of early German Romanticism.
5
See Manfred Frank ÒWider den apriorischen Intersubjektivismus. GegenvorschlŠge
aus Sartrescher Inspiration,Ó in Micha Brumlik & Hauke Brunkhorst, hg., Gemeinschaft
und Gerechtigkeit, Frankfurt am Main, Fischer Verlag, 1993, pp. 273-289, ÒSubjektivitŠt
und IntersubjektivitŠtÓ in Frank, Selbstbewu§tsein und Selbsterkenntnis, Stuttgart,
Reclam, 1991, pp. 410-477, and ÒSelbstbewu§tsein und ArgumentationÓ Amster-
damer Spinoza-VortrŠge, July, 1995, Assen, Van Gorkum, 1997. Dieter Henrich has
openly criticised Habermas in his ÒWas ist Metaphysik - was Moderne? Zwšlf
Thesen gegen HabermasÓ in Henrich, Konzepte, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp,
1987, pp. 11-43.
6
Casta–eda, Ò ÔHeÕ: A Study in the Logic of Self-Consciousness,Ó Ratio 8, 1966, pp.
130-157; and ÒSelf-Consciousness, Demonstrative Reference, and the Self-Ascription
View of Believing,Ó in ed. James E. Tomberlin, Philosophical Perspective 1 Metaphysics,
Atascadero, Ridgeview, 1987, pp. 405-454.
7
ÒVorwort,Ó Analytische Theorien des Selbstbewu§tseins, p. 21.
8
See his ÒAttitudes de dicto and de seÓ in Lewis, Philosophical Papers, Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 1983, vol. I, pp. 133-159.
9
ÒSelf-Reference and Self-AwarenessÓ reprinted in Shoemaker, Identity, Cause, and
Mind: Philosophical Essays, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 6-18.
10
In Shoemaker and Richard Swinburne, Personal Identity, Oxford, 1984, p. 104.
11
D. Henrich has recently diagnosed the current situation in his essay ÒInflation in
SubjektivitŠt?,Ó Merkur 586, 1998, pp. 46-54.
12
Frank, personal communication.
13
J. Habermas, ÒRortyÕs pragmatische Wende,Ó Deutsche Zeitschrift fŸr Philosophie 5,
1996 (my translation).
14
M. Frank, Unendliche AnnŠherung. Die AnfŠnge der philosophischen FrŸhromantik,
Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1997.
15
ÒDie Philosophie als Platzhalter und Interpret,Ó in Moralbewu§tsein und kommu-
nikatives Handeln, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1983, p. 17.
16
J. Habermas, Nachmetaphysisches Denken, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1988,
p. 199.

244 • Dieter Freundlieb


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17
Ibid., p. 200.
18
ÒFrom Kant to Hegel and Back Again - The Move Towards Detranscendentalization,Ó
European Journal of Philosopy 7, 1999, p. 131.
19
Ibid., p. 132.
20
See Habermas, Nachmetaphysisches Denken, p. 27.
21
D. Davidson, ÒA Coherence Theory of Truth and KnowledgeÓ in Truth and
Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, hg. von Ernest
LePore, Oxford, Blackwell 1986, p. 310.
22
For example William Alston and Laurence BonJour. See William Alston, ÒPerceptual
Knowledge,Ó in The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, eds John Greco and Ernest
Sosa, Oxford, Blackwell, 1999, pp. 223-242, and Laurence BonJour ÒThe Dialectic
of Foundationalism and Coherentism,Ó pp. 117-142 in the same volume.
23
This has serious consequences for HabermasÕ consensus theory of truth.
24
For example in the recent essay by JŸrgen Habermas, ÒRichtigkeit vs. Wahrheit.
Zum Sinn der Sollgeltung moralischer Urteile und Normen,Ó Deutsche Zeitschrift
fŸr Philosophie 46, 1998, p. 189.
25
M. Frank, ÒPsychische Vertrautheit und epistemische Selbstzuschreibung,Ó in
Denken der IndividualitŠt. Festschrift fŸr Josef Simon, eds Thomas S. Hoffmann and
Stefan Majetschak, Berlin & New York, de Gruyter, 1995, p. 74.
26
In his analysis of SchellingÕs Die Weltalter, Wolfram Hogrebe argues that reference
to objects in the world is only possible on the basis of a Ôpre-semanticÕ cognitive
relation between self and world. I take this to be a similar point to HenrichÕs
argument. See Hogrebe, PrŠdikation und Genesis, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp,
1989.
27
See for example Frank, ÒSubjektivitŠt und IntersubjektivitŠtÓ in Frank Selbstbewu§tsein
und Selbsterkenntnis, pp. 410-477. See also Frank, ÒDie Wiederkehr des Subjekts in
der heutigen deutschen PhilosophieÓ in Frank, Conditio moderna, Leipzig, Reclam,
1993, pp. 115-6.
28
A. Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1994.
29
D. Henrich, ÒDie Zukunft der SubjektivitŠt,Ó p. 9, Internet http://www.geocities.
com/Athens/Forum/7501/ph/dh/e4.html.

Why Subjectivity Matters • 245

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