Cosler-Intersubjectivity

Edmund Husserl introduces the concept of intersubjectivity in an attempt to solve the Cartesian problem of other subjects. Descartes identifies in his first Meditation the possibility that our entire perceptual experience, including our experiences of our fellow subjects, is an elaborate fiction propagated by some unknown power. While this does not seem especially likely, Descartes makes a good point in noting the difficulty of establishing the actual existence of much besides our thinking selves. The artifacts of our experience that we often take for granted as immutably real, including our relationships with each other, in fact sit on very shaky ontological ground, at least according to the traditional Cartesian formulation of the argument. Husserl attempts to bridge this solipsistic gap by positing some faculty that affords us intimate knowledge of other subjects, including confirmation of their existence, non-inferentially. This phenomenon of other-knowing is constituted through acts of empathy, when one subject places themselves in the other's shoes, so to speak. This exercise, according to Husserl, affords one a kind of pre-inferential knowledge of the other's subjectivity, through ascription of intentions to the other's actions. But how much of a solution is this to Descartes' problem? Descartes is chiefly concerned with the division between thinking subject and experienced world. Husserl's move is to group all subjects together, to privilege them with a special relational epistemic capacity. However, this seems unconvincing when even in Husserl's view, the knowledge gained of other subjects is still mediated in some way by the senses, leaving even the most empathic subject open to manipulation from some evil demon.

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