#Intersubjectivity

[omegaphilosophia]

The Philosophy of Mitsein

Mitsein is a German term introduced by Martin Heidegger in his foundational work Being and Time (1927). Translated as "being-with," Mitsein describes the existential condition of always being in relation to others. It is not merely about social interaction or relationships—it is a fundamental structure of existence (Dasein), inseparable from the human way of being.

Key Concepts

1. Dasein and Intersubjectivity

Heidegger uses Dasein to mean the being that questions its own existence—typically, the human being.

Mitsein is one of Dasein’s existential structures: we are never isolated, even when we are alone. Our sense of self is formed through the world shared with others.

2. The World Is Always a Shared World

When we encounter the world, we do so in ways shaped by others’ presence, habits, norms, and tools.

Even our thoughts, language, and choices are embedded in a web of social meanings that precede us.

3. The “They” (Das Man)

Heidegger discusses the idea of the anonymous collective—“the They”—which governs much of our everyday existence.

When we say “One should do this” or “They say that...,” we are operating under the influence of this impersonal social normativity.

4. Authenticity and Inauthenticity

Mitsein is neutral—it enables both authentic existence (choosing for oneself while acknowledging others) and inauthentic existence (conforming unreflectively to the crowd).

To live authentically, one must recognize Mitsein but not be dominated by the "they."

Why It Matters

Ethics: Mitsein challenges atomistic views of the self, emphasizing relational ethics and responsibility.

Politics: It underpins theories of community, democracy, and social obligation.

Psychology: It offers insight into the development of selfhood in relation to others.

Phenomenology: Mitsein deepens our understanding of perception, as even solitude is conditioned by social meaning.

In Summary

The philosophy of Mitsein affirms that human existence is fundamentally co-existence. We are not first individuals who then enter into social contracts—we are always already with others, and our very being is shaped by that shared existence. Heidegger's insight reorients much of existential, ethical, and political thought toward the relational nature of being.

[timetravelingthroughspace]

The casual intimacy of eye contact 💫

[potemkinwords]

Intersubjectivity is a social science, psychology and linguistic term...At its heart born of philosophy. It refers to a broad range of human interaction centered around shared agreement, understanding, perspectives and assumptions.

A whopper of a concept really. I've figured out the easiest way to understand it.

The tendrils of minds spilling over into the world.

Our shared agreement with others over the very words I'm typing up right now, the way your mind slithers out and engages with the world, the way you may attribute feelings or beliefs to me - the writer - based on your prior experiences or perspectives.

The more widely used (but less artistic and philosophical ) definition is to refer to people agreeing about something.

Eg.

"There is intersubjectivity between the christians and catholics on the question of..."

means

"There is agreement between the christians and catholics on the question of..."

"There is intersubjectivity between Amy and Joe's interpretation of the conflict in the middle east"

means

"There is an agreement of perspective between Amy and Joe's interpretation of the conflict in the middle east"

[anaxerneas]

Corey Beals, Levinas and the Wisdom of Love

[bananartista]

Spruzzò heikel xafava vesikas rêvera - Entity N° 16042

Mixed media on A4 paper (21 x 29,7 cm , 350 gr.)

[stormofsyren]

"that must be a comfort. To know that you are loved, and that those who came before you are proud of you. To have your blood watch over you, and to not feel unworthy before their eyes. To fear no weakness, for their strength is part of you."

Sansûkh by determamfidd

[rotenotes]

intersubjectivity (διυποκειμενικότητα)

«Είναι με τον άνθρωπο όπως και με τα εμπορεύματα. Εφόσον δεν έρχεται στον κόσμο ούτε με έναν καθρέφτη στο χέρι, ούτε ως ένας Φιχτιανός φιλόσοφος, στον οποίο αρκεί το «εγώ είμαι εγώ», ο άνθρωπος πρώτα βλέπει και αναγνωρίζει τον εαυτό του στους άλλους ανθρώπους. Ο Πέτρος δημιουργεί τη δική του ταυτότητα ως ένας άνθρωπος, συγκρίνοντας πρώτα τον εαυτό του με τον Παύλο ως κάποιον του ίδιου είδους. Και…

[opstandelse]

intersubjectivity (διυποκειμενικότητα)

«Είναι με τον άνθρωπο όπως και με τα εμπορεύματα. Εφόσον δεν έρχεται στον κόσμο ούτε με έναν καθρέφτη στο χέρι, ούτε ως ένας Φιχτιανός φιλόσοφος, στον οποίο αρκεί το «εγώ είμαι εγώ», ο άνθρωπος πρώτα βλέπει και αναγνωρίζει τον εαυτό του στους άλλους ανθρώπους. Ο Πέτρος δημιουργεί τη δική του ταυτότητα ως ένας άνθρωπος, συγκρίνοντας πρώτα τον εαυτό του με τον Παύλο ως κάποιον του ίδιου είδους. Και…

[zzhxzhczxx]

intersubjectivity is such an interesting concept to me because it's LITERALLY the secret 3rd option

[omegaphilosophia]

The Philosophy of "You"

The philosophy of "you" turns the focus outward from the self to the other—the person being addressed. It explores relational identity, recognition, intersubjectivity, and the ethical implications of encountering another consciousness.

Where “I” is about selfhood, “you” is about relationship. It introduces dialogue, intimacy, accountability, and the irreducible mystery of the other person.

Core Themes in the Philosophy of "You":

1. Ethics of the Other

Emmanuel Levinas argued that the face of the Other ("you") calls the self to moral responsibility.

“You” is not just another object in the world—it is an ethical demand, a presence that interrupts self-centeredness.

2. Second-Person Perspective

“You” involves a direct address. Unlike third-person observation or first-person introspection, “you” assumes interaction.

This perspective is central to child development, communication, love, and moral engagement.

3. Dialogue and Reciprocity

Martin Buber distinguished between “I-It” (objectifying relationship) and “I-You” (authentic presence).

True dialogue happens only when the other is acknowledged not as a role or category, but as a person.

4. Recognition and Identity

Philosophers like Hegel emphasized that the self becomes self-conscious only through being recognized by a “you.”

Identity is thus co-constructed through mutual acknowledgment.

5. Alterity and Mystery

The Other is fundamentally unknowable. You can never fully grasp another’s subjectivity.

Yet, encountering the other (“you”) expands the limits of the self’s understanding.

6. Language and "You"

In language, “you” is context-dependent and shiftable—the person referred to changes with each speaker.

This reflects how relational identity is fluid and situational.

Representative Ideas and Thinkers:

Levinas: Ethics begins with the face of the Other—“you” as the origin of responsibility.

Buber: “I-You” is a sacred relation; “I-It” reduces others to things.

Hegel: Self-consciousness arises through being recognized by another subject—“you” is essential for “I.”

Sartre: The gaze of the Other objectifies me; “you” can alienate as well as affirm.

Wittgenstein: Language use in the second person reflects social life and interaction.

Philosophical Questions About "You":

What does it mean to truly see another person as you rather than an object?

Can "you" ever be known, or only encountered?

Is “you” a mirror of “I,” or something radically other?

How does the existence of “you” shape morality, love, and communication?

Why It Matters:

Every conversation, relationship, and ethical decision hinges on how we treat the "you" in our lives.

The philosophy of “you” reveals that we are not alone, and that personhood is a shared, ethical, and dialogical experience.

[timetravelingthroughspace]

Dissociation and hallucinations in dyads engaged through interpersonal gazing

Giovanni B Caputo. Psychiatry Res. 2015.

Abstract

Interpersonal gazing in dyads, when the two individuals in the dyad stare at each other in the eyes, is investigated in 20 healthy young individuals at low illumination for 10-min. Results indicate dissociative symptoms, dysmorphic face perceptions, and hallucination-like strange-face apparitions. Dissociative symptoms and face dysmorphia were correlated. Strange-face apparitions were non-correlated with dissociation and dysmorphia. These results indicate that dissociative symptoms and hallucinatory phenomena during interpersonal-gazing under low illumination can involve different processes. Strange-face apparitions may characterize the rebound to "reality" (perceptual reality caused by external stimulus and hallucinatory reality caused by internal input) from a dissociative state induced by sensory deprivation. These phenomena may explain psychodynamic projections of the subject's unconscious meanings into the other's face. The results indicate that interpersonal gazing in dyads can be an effective tool for studying experimentally-induced dissociative symptoms and hallucinatory-like apparitions.

[azadrithaanatheme]

Ping communication my beloved.

I haven't figured out how to import emojis into CSP, but drawing the symbols freehand does give me more freedom to make some unique stuff.

Version with slightly more Jessa violence under the cut, for those who, like me, enjoy their murder lesbians.

[anaxerneas]

What in effect characterizes empirical psychology is not in the first instance its preference for external knowledge, but its reduction of acts (with their intentionality and their reference to an Ego) to facts. Could we say that acts are better known from the "inside" and facts from the "outside"? That is only partly true.

For introspection itself can be degraded to a knowledge of facts if it omits the mental as intentional act and as someone's act. That is what happened to empirical interpretation of introspection in Hume and Condillac.

Introspection can be interpreted in a naturalistic sense if it translates acts into the language of anonymous facts, homogeneous with other natural facts, that "there are" sensations as "there are" atoms. Empiricism is a discourse in the mode of "there is." Inversely, knowledge of subjectivity cannot be reduced to introspection just as empirical psychology cannot be reduced to a psychology of behavior. Its essence is to respect the originality of the Cogito as a cluster of the subject's intentional acts. But the subject is myself and yourself.

These remarks are decisive for understanding the concept of a personal body. A personal body is someone's body, a subject's body, my body, and your body. For while introspection can be naturalized, external knowledge can in turn be personalized. Empathy (Einfuehlung) is precisely the reading of the body of another as indicating acts which have a subjective aim and origin. Thus subjectivity is both "internal" and "external." It is the subject function of someone's acts. By communicating with another, I have a different relation to a body which is neither included in perception of my own body, nor inserted in an empirical acquaintance with the world.

I discover body in the second person, body as motive, organ, and nature of another person. I read decision, effort, and consent in it. It is then not an empirical object, a thing. The concepts of subjectivity (of the voluntary and the involuntary) are formed by gathering experience derived from multiple subjects. On the one hand, my consciousness is profoundly transformed by the reoccurrence of the other's consciousness in it. I treat myself as a you which in its external appearance is a presentation to the other. From this viewpoint, to know myself is to anticipate my presentation to a you. On the other hand, knowledge of myself is always to some extent the guide for deciphering the other, even if the other is in the first place and principally an original revelation of empathy. The you is an other myself. Thus the concepts of subjectivity, valid directly for my fellow man and going beyond the sphere of my subjectivity, are formed in mutual contact of reflection and introspection.

We can see from this that the transition from the phenomenological to the naturalistic viewpoint does not take place by inversion of the internal and the external, but by a degradation of both. My body is displaced from my subjective realm, but likewise your body is displaced from its subjective expression. The inert and inexpressive body has become an object of science. The object body is the body of the other as well as my body severed from the subject which each affects and expresses. Thus we can go from an object body to a subject body only by a leap which goes beyond the order of things, just as we move from the latter to the former by diminution and suppression, such diminution and such suppression being made legitimate by the type of interest represented by the constitution of empirical science as a science of facts.

Paul Ricoeur, Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntary, translated by Erazim V. Kohák

[ladydaybreaker]

iNtersubJeCtiVe requital Uzi

So she's not gonna show up for a while (but she will!) but I wanted to draw her a bit. So...meet IR's Uzi, codenamed "Apollyon"

Yes, she totally did use a sharpie to draw the runes and Solver arrows on her arms and legs because she's a dramatic af Edgelord.

[transangelic-lizards]

I think one bit of Fitz's character that got to me throughout the Fitz and the Fool trilogy was him gradually realising that he is becoming increasingly like the Fool. He has his own little private space, he takes on different identities and personas (even to the point of seeing "Fitzchivalry Farseer" as just another act), and then, finally, in the end, they merge.

[gaytwirights]

what do you think of Eve Zvezda and Ma?

VERY late reply because some sentences were reused in an assignment and I needed to wait until I got my grades to post this because I don't want to get got for plagiarism

Anyway Eve and Ma omg

Starting with Eve,

Yes, she did terrible things and I would never dream of erasing that from her. But also at the end of the day she would never have done those things if she wasn't manipulated down that path to begin with

And then, she got manipulated into a romantic relationship with Adam. And yes, the Venom didn't work on her, but the fact still remains that Adam initially only began dating her because he planned to use her. Drugs or not, their relationship began as Adam manipulating Eve. It probably only got easier for him after the raid on Nemu, when Eve had NO ONE ELSE on her side

Look at her before she met Adam. She was Eve Zvezda, the Witch of Nemu, protecting her village from Apocalypse. Hell, even when she agreed to join Project MA and become Queen, it was shown that she wanted to use her power to enact positive change in sectors that she knew the government mostly turned a blind eye to. It was exactly what you'd expect of a humble village girl who's had to hear witness to government incompetency and thus decided to take matters into her own hands. She wanted to be good!!

And then, when Eve had no one, other than Adam and their children, she experienced a miscarriage

Now, to be fair, I do have my issues on the OSS novels (I think it was a waste for Gammon Octo to reincarnate into, essentially, another fucking Gammon Octo), I really like the idea of her own hypnosis powers working on herself

And that's a real defense mechanism, fitting for an Inheritor of Levia. It's denial, and in my notes, I literally put "Nemesis Sudou when she👍"

And then, she killed a human being, which is an incredibly distressing thing to do

Eve was put in a terrible position, and when she (understandably) broke down, the world called her a sinner

EXCEPT, here's the thing:

Original Sin is more than just disobeying God out of Pride

Original Sin is not an act. It's a state of weakness. Let us not forget that Eve was tempted by the Serpent. She fell for the trick, but she was manipulated

Original Sin comprises two parts: Originating Sin and Originated Sin

Originating Sin was the original act of disobedience, the weakness of Adam and Eve

Originated Sin is the one that the following humans were born with, a natural inclination to evil (aka concupiscence). As such, it is the duty of people to choose to be kind to each other

(Shout out to Saint Augustine of Hippo, and my shitass Augustinian school that made me insane)

Now, the whole concupiscence thing seems to parallel the idea of HERS, in that it is something that you are born with, a natural inclination to take and hurt and destroy, yet still something that does not inherently* make you a bad person

(*btw being unbaptized (aka uncleansed from Original Sin is grounds for you to go to Hell, and also iirc all HERs go to the Hellish Yard)

ANYWAY what I was getting to is this:

Eve Zvezda is not the only parallel to the Biblical Eve

Seth Twiright also parallels the Biblical Eve

Personally, I would compare it to how both Adam Moonlit and Michaela Arklow are parallels to the Serpent of Eden

(side note I am NEVER letting people forget about HERS = Concupiscence. Let it be my brand idc I'm the dragonmask and concupiscence guy and I'm proud of it)

Anyway, back to Evillious

Eve always had a choice. Mikulia chose to kill her son. Margarita chose to distill Gift. Neo Eve chose to follow through with the Re_Birthday that trapped her and her family (+ Gammon Octo) in a time loop

She made those choices, and I could never take that away from her. However, that doesn't erase the fact that she would never have made those choices if she wasn't first put into a fucked up situation

Mothy put it best when he wrote "I was already broken long ago, I wanted to destroy everything"

(side note: yes, I know that mothy is Buddhist and all matters of sin are written from that specific viewpoint. But as a guy who has been going through Catholic school since they were 5, I think my 13 years of ingrained Catholicism knowledge could provide a fun and interesting view)

As for Ma, gosh, where to even begin,,,

As for Ma, smash

Ma's actions are complex, and difficult to analyze. She is a very controversial character, and with good reason -- she has done many terrible things, but it was all with the intention of preserving her own life.

If an action was done out of desperation, then no matter how selfish and destructive the action may be, how accountable can she truly be held?

If Ma undertook those actions, not because she had a desire to harm people, but because they were necessary for her continued survival, then how responsible is she truly?

Ma is easily one of my favorites. I’m a massive Envy, Grath, and OSS girlie foreverrrr, and I really loved Ma. Easily one of the top villains ever

I love that she did terrible things, not only because of hashtag women’s wrongs, but also because I feel it was truly the best way to show the point of her character

The point being that Ma is someone so innately separate from the human experience, but also with one of the most human stories in the series--

Now, the definition of 'human' can get fuzzy. What qualifies an action as 'human'? What makes a character 'human'? What sets 'humans' apart? What makes humans so special?

One of the concepts we learn in Catholic school is Human Freedom

Human Freedom is more than simply acting in whatever way one pleases -- it is also about considering others "instead of yielding to caprice".

In a nutshell, humans are special because they are free to choose to do good.

In other words, one of the things that makes humans special is that they have a choice in their actions and their morality.

She wanted to prove her existence, to find her identity, to escape death

Did Ma have a choice when she had to go to desperate measures just to prove her own existence?

Was Ma ever given the opportunity to be a 'human'?

In a universe where you’re the only one without an immortal soul, where you’re the only one who can truly die, wouldn’t you be terrified?

That is the core of Ma, the only person who can never get a second chance, a woman who was only given one life and proceeded to spend it trying to avoid her own death

She’s one of the best examples of a villain that I have ever seen, committing unforgivable acts that make you hate her, while still being sympathetic enough that you understand why she did it

I would never dream of ignoring what she did to Gallerian. Obviously, that was insanely shitty of her, and no normal person would stand for that sort of thing in real life. In fact, I personally believe that those sort of people deserve to be taken out back and shot

But in fiction, and particularly, with a character like Ma, you can see why she had to do that. You can see how desperate she is to prove her own existence

Obviously, she did terrible things, but I still can’t help but feel sorry for her

She just wanted to prove her own existence

Teleologically - starting from the end and reasoning back, explaining things based on their end purpose

Ontologically - investigating the nature of existence, aiming to discover the foundational building blocks of the world and characterize reality as a whole in its most general aspects

Cosmologically - in a way that involves or relates to religious or spiritual theories about the nature and origin of the universe

Deontologically - judging the morality of an action based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, rather than based on the consequences of the action

In the end, Ma was nothing more than an abomination of an Irregular, a being that was too ‘pure’ to die, a ghost of Malice

She achieved the immortal soul that others were born with, but in doing so, she had to erase the person who used to be Ma

And I could bring up the Ship of Theseus as well -- when Ma first absorbed a Demon (Rahab Barisol), did she stop being the same person? She arguably functions under the same consciousness, but then again, Elluka Clockworker also shared a continuous stream of memory with Elluka Chirclatia, and they are most definitely separate characters. Was it because Ma’s replacement of herself was more gradual?

Did Ma stop being ‘Ma’ when she expelled the Souls of Levia and Irina? What about when she was a being of pure evil, latching on to Riliane’s Soul? What about after Seth let her fall to her death?

What even is Ma?

She doesn’t quite know either.

Isn’t that pitiful?