Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Merleau-Ponty’s (1945/1962, 1968) project on intersubjectivity was mainly focused on his conceptualisation of intercorporeality, perceptual consciousness, and self-alterity. His notion of the intercorporeal in relating to others was fundamental for establishing that intersubjectivity is a concrete relationship and suggests that our existence in relation to others is something corporeal (Csordas, 2008).Merleau-Ponty was not interested in the body as an object in its biological terms but in the lived body as a subject, as a being-in-the-world, as open and reflexive, which interacts dynamically with the world and others in a reciprocal way. His explanation of incorporeal intersubjectivity was investigated through the role of perception, speech, gesture, and emotion. As Diamond (1966) has suggested in light of Merleau-Ponty’s project on intersubjectivity, emotional bonds among people are possible because we live primarily in the other’s gestures and responses. This seems relevant to the psychological and psychotherapeutic literature on emotion regulation and embodiment (e.g. Schore, 2003). This conceptualisation of the body condemns the Husserlian view of self-enclosed viewpoints and suggests an intersubjective constitution of the body and its consciousness. Merleau-Ponty’s concept of intercorporeality emphasised the social nature of the body and the bodily nature of social relationships. Along these lines, Weiss (1999) highlighted that “The experience of being embodied is never a private affair, but is always mediated by our continual interactions with other human and nonhuman bodies” (p. 5).
Merleau-Ponty’s extended project on perception and intentionality (e.g. (1945/1962), included all perceptual processes and their interconnections. It asserted that we are constantly in the world of perception, and consciousness is, therefore, a perceptual consciousness. Crossley (1996) commenting on Merleau-Ponty’s approach to perception asserted that it is an “(…) originary process, rooted in the dialectical relationship of the organism and its environment, which gives birth to both the subject and the object of perception” (p.27). Perception in this sense is not only an experience of objects and subjects but also a meaningful association of them. This “(…)
perceptual consciousness or perceptual field forms in the space between perceiver and perceived by means of the active engagement of the two” (Crossley, 1996, p.29). This intersubjective understanding suggests that perceptions and their intentionality are not located inside the perceiver but outside of her, opening her into that world and connecting her to the world and others. Likewise, emotions are dialogically established and not strictly inner states but intersubjectively definable states, which become manifested in the way we act, and this clearly questions the notion of ‘inner’ life and ‘outer’ reality prominent in the mainstream understanding of psychosis. Crossley (1996) further commented on this and suggested that not only mental events are visible from the outside as from within but also “…it follows from this that we become aware of our own mental states in the same way that we become aware of the mental events of others. Thus, our mental states are, in principle, always intersubjectively available by way of our performances” (p. 34). Merleau-Ponty advocated that when exploring perception we should be interested in a person’s familiarity with the lived world and how the perception of objects consisting of that intersubjective world depends on a sense of being affected by and belonging to it.
Merleau-Ponty’s conceptualisation of otherness challenged the solipsistic notion of private perceptual worlds. Furthermore, it went a step further to suggest that subjectivity and therefore its consciousness is defined not only as an opening onto alterity of the other but also as an alterity of the self. This is, according to Zahavi (2001), the most significant characteristic of Merleau-Ponty's conceptualisation of intersubjectivity. In other words, before a subject is open and available to the other, she is already an Other to herself. As Zahavi (2001) articulated: “I can only encounter the other if I am beyond myself from the very beginning; thus I can only experience the other if I am already a possible other in relation to myself, and could always appear to myself as an Other” (p. 159). In a similar fashion, Levinas (1961/1969), in his conception of otherness, claimed that in every encounter with an Other there will always be an element of the other that will be ungraspable. Expecting a total understanding of the other and therefore, a total understanding of self is problematic as this objectifies the other’s autonomy and misses something of the other’s humanity. Merleau-Ponty clearly claimed that self-experience must enclose an aspect of otherness; otherwise, intersubjectivity would not be possible. He assumed that
exteriority is the common denominator between self-awareness and awareness of others (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962, p. 354):
In the experience of dialogue, there is constituted between the other person and myself a common ground; my thoughts and his are interwoven into a single fabric, my words and those of my interlocutor are called forth by the state of the discussion, and they are inserted into a shared operation of which neither of us is the creator.
In other words, in order to be able to experience my own subjectivity on a pre- reflective level, this very experience must enclose an anticipation of the other. Intersubjectivity is possible because the manner through which I experience my own subjectivity predicts the way I meaningfully experience the other because the other emerges on the horizon of my self-experience. From this perspective, Merleau-Ponty understood intersubjectivity as the principal union of perception with which I am familiar with others as being analogous to myself (identifying with the body of the other, her gestures, actions, emotions and so on).
Ludwig Binswanger
As has been already noted in the section of early E-P approaches to psychosis, Binswanger was a pioneer in establishing a non-reductionistic approach to human suffering and dealt with the issue of intersubjectivity in therapeutic work with psychosis. In this section, I will deal with his contributions to intersubjectivity, which are a significant alternative to the individualism of certain philosophical, psychiatric and psychoanalytical thought. Lanzoni (2003) proposed that Binswanger’s understanding of intersubjectivity in human distress contributed towards the emergence of the anti-psychiatric movement. He suggested that a subject emerges because of its relation to the other and therefore can be understood in its inter-human context. He was greatly influenced by Buber’s philosophy and his conception of the I- Thou relationship, where communal love and we-ness are considered as the only way
through which the self is revealed. Binswanger (as cited in Frie, 1997, p. 134) considered that,
The human being is only “human” in speaking-with-one-another, in the communication of I and Thou as we, on the basis of a shared linguistic world or a shared linguistic world-design. Language is not a mere medium of exchange, but a being-with-one-another in a world that makes understanding possible.
Binswanger spoke of the constitutive importance of duality, which he understood as an ontological unity that locates the person within a framework of meaning. Similarly to Heidegger, he also supported that the human being continuously changes in a shared and articulated world and that human development takes place only through dialogue with the other. Heidegger’s concept of being-in- the-world allowed Binswanger to develop a philosophical approach to psychiatry and psychopathology which put at its centre the pursuit of understanding of how a person inhabits a particular context and how she discovers meaning or not within the limits of its context. Along these lines, he considered that the main roles of psychopathology was to explore alterations in lived experience, how a person structures her world, and how she relates to her environment and others. However, he rejected Heidegger’s position that authenticity and self-realisation can be achieved in isolation. Moreover, he considered that Heidegger failed to appreciate the importance of the dialogical I- Thou for the attainment of authentic selfhood, with his fundamental ontology failing to value intersubjective relations. Binswanger instead emphasised that self-realisation could only be achieved through reciprocity in relation, which he suggested is built upon a dynamic balance between separateness and relatedness. The separateness involves the acknowledgement of the otherness, the distinctive alterity of the other and the experience of authentic selfhood. As Frie (1997, p.106) has noted,
Binswanger insists that intersubjective reciprocity must always be predicated upon acknowledgment of the other’s alterity. Without affirmation of difference, the other will become dominated and dependent, or be reduced to a mere third person, one who stands over and against
me. By elucidating the interrelation of separateness and togetherness, Binswanger provides a framework within which to understand the structure and importance of reciprocity in a love relation.
Martin Buber
Given the often described intense alienation, despair and intense self- reflection people with psychosis experience, Buber’s theory of intersubjectivity and dialogical theory are particularly meaningful because he understood that human experience, suffering, and reflection are essentially intersubjective processes. The concepts that Buber has introduced that are considered as relevant for this project are the I–Thou and I–It modes of relating, the space between, and confirmation (Buber 1947/2006, 1921/1996). According to Buber, the two available responses people have in encountering otherness are to authentically relate with the other as a subject (the I- Thou encounter) or as an object (the I-It encounter). He suggested that both responses are vital for the emergence of selfhood and the negotiation of otherness, however, he placed significant emphasis on the I-Thou mode of relating. Similarly to Merleau- Ponty, he understood subjectivity as essentially directed towards alterity (Merleau- Ponty would say that it is intentional and corporeal), which can take up either the form of I-It or I-Thou. He suggested that when engaged in I-Thou, mutuality, meaning and co-creation are possible while he attached to his I-Thou conceptualisation not only an ontic but an ontological status which he saw evident in humans’ intrinsic capacity to know and be known. The highlighted ontological primacy of relation suggested that mutuality in the I-Thou relation is manifested in the immediacy of the encounter. For Buber human existence is not a self-contained phenomenon but something that stretches beyond its own being. This is evident in his proposition that the I-Thou is a primary relationship, which enables the emergence of the self as a being-in-the-world, contingent upon grasping the being-in-the-world of another self.
Buber’s ontological primacy of his project rested mostly on his conceptualisation of the space between I-and-Thou. He suggested that the unity
between self and other rests on the reality of the division among them. This space in- between can never be fully understood, nevertheless it is the basis and condition for the experience of mutuality: “Spirit is not in the I but between I and You” (Buber, 1921/1996, p. 89). Intersubjectivity in Buberian terms can, therefore, be understood as the space between or the inter-human as Buber called it; an irreducible and primordial space. The space between the two embodied subjectivities calls for a mutual understanding. Even though, at first glance, someone might assume that Buber’s intersubjectivity exclusively describes aspects of concrete encounter and interaction in the second personal perspective (perspective-taking, putting oneself in another’s shoes, etc.) his understanding of intersubjectivity was deeply embedded within a transcendental relation and it is conceptually very close to the primary intersubjectivity and intercorporeality of Merleau-Ponty. It is primary exactly because it allows the subject to identify her own consciousness in the process of identifying the other’s consciousness. Crossley (1996, p.17) describes this clearly:
Only through the mediation of the consciousness of the other can consciousness turn back upon itself and identify itself: Consciousness only becomes aware of itself when and to the extent that it identifies the existence of other consciousnesses. Self-consciousness is an intersubjective phenomenon in this sense, achievable only through mutual recognition between consciousnesses.
Essential to Buber's notion of the between was the conception that subjectivity requires confirmation by the other (Buber, 1992, p. 5):
Man wishes to be confirmed, and wishes to have a presence in the being of the other. Sent forth from the natural domain of species into the hazard of the solitary category, surrounded by the air of a chaos which came into being with him, secretly and bashfully he watches for a Yes which allows him to be and which can come to him only from one human person to another. It is from one man to another that the heavenly bread of self- being is passed.
Buber, therefore, suggested that confirmation of the self is not equal with a mere acceptance of the self or the self having his existence confirmed by the Other, but for the self to also be established as an Other, for self and Other. This conception is similar to Binswanger’s understanding of mutuality as the result of an interchange between separateness and relatedness. It is important to note that for Buber, confirmation of the other does not consist of a smooth process and can also take the shape of confrontation. He asserted that we could confirm something in the other that is in conflict with other aspects of that other and this kind of confirmation can underline distress within self and other.
Max Scheler
Along similar lines with Merleau-Ponty, the phenomenologist Max Scheler’s project on intersubjectivity approached human relations as essentially connective and meaningful while it condemned the Husserlian outlook of a self-enclosed consciousness, and instead suggested an intersubjective constitution of the body and its consciousness (Scheler, 1912/1961; 1912/1970). He proposed that the nature of our self-knowledge is not purely mental but constituted between and within other people, therefore emphasising the intersubjective constitution of our self-experience. Similarly to Merleau-Ponty, he also emphasised the significance of the interaction between mind and body and proposed that our experiences of self, others and the world are not deeply hidden into our minds and isolated from others but instead are manifested and expressed in bodily gestures and actions. Scheler also emphasised the role of intuition and inter-affective exchanges for gaining access to other’s experiences, which he asserted as closely related to our felt sense and emotional states and therefore totally relevant to the field of psychotherapy. Moreover, his proposition that knowledge of the other is tightly associated with self-experience and that boundaries of the self are defined by how integrated a person feels in her community (Scheler, 1912/1970), seems greatly related to the conceptualisation of interrelational complications in the psychotic state of mind, pointing as it does towards the dynamic association between an impoverished sense of self in psychosis and intersubjective breakdowns.