Future Forms

Description

Intersubjectivity is the concept of the person knowing one's self in relationship to the other. Various thinkers view this issue with varying degrees of importance. The existentialists Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Karl Jaspers, and Albert Camus will be the authors compared and contrasted for their similarities and differences on how intersubjectivity is handled in their particular viewpoints. Maurice Merleau-Ponty in his work "Phenomenology of Perception" states, "In the experience of dialogue there is constituted between the other person and myself a common ground." Merleau-Ponty describes interaction between two people as almost making a third presence; neither person is without the other in the interaction. Neither creates the discussion between the two people. He speaks of the collaboration of the people, both being receptive to a new merging. The shared perspective creates a "common" world. Once the interaction fades and Merleau-Ponty begins to recall the discussion, then he can integrate the new perspective into his perception of reality. There is a struggle to hold onto one's own being in the interaction with the other. The struggle for Merleau-Ponty is to have the other clearly recognize him and to grant to the other the definite feeling of security to be free from falsehood. The central issue of importance for this author is, "whether we are concerned with my body, the natural world, the past, birth or death, the question is always how I can be open to phenomena which transcend me, and which nevertheless exist only to the extent that I take them up and live them." For Merleau-Ponty the other person never can reach the level of importance that we have for our own existence. The present moment is all that there is for Merleau-Ponty. The present moment in which we express ourselves as a being in the world is the true reflection of the two consciousnesses of the other and the Self. Merleau-Ponty asserts "One arrives at self-knowledge only by projecting itself into the present. ... The present mediates between the For Oneself and For Others." It is the creation of the present moment that the "true reflection presents me to myself not as idle and inaccessible subjectivity, but as identical with my presence in the world and to others, as I am now realizing it..." Merleau-Ponty expresses the idea that life is a mirror reflecting back to the perceiver the perception of the self; and that the process of seeing life and all of its experiences changes the perceiver. One experiences life not in spite of one's situations and station but because of it. Only by being in the moment of the physical body and the situation of your life is union with the other made by being accessible to the other. Karl Jaspers believes that the "individual is fulfilled only in the movement of love." The individual for Jaspers is essentially invisible for those that do not love you. You are the one among the many of the crowd. Jaspers asserts that communication is the key to understanding both the self and the other. Communication with another in which there is complete understanding makes the other person irreplaceable.

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