Alterity Alterity is a philosophical term meaning "otherness", strictly being in the sense of the other of two (Latin alter).

In the phenomenological tradition it is usually understood as the entity in contrast to which an identity is constructed, and it implies the ability to distinguish between self and not-self, and consequently to assume the existence of an alternative viewpoint. The concept was established by Emmanuel Lvinas in a series of essays, collected under the title Alterity and Transcendence (1999[1970]). The term is also deployed outside of philosophy, notably in anthropology by scholars such as Nicholas Dirks, Johannes Fabian, Michael Taussig and Pauline Turner Strong to refer to the construction of "cultural others". The term has gained further use in seemingly somewhat remote disciplines, e.g. historical musicology where it is effectively employed by John Michael Cooper in a study of Goethe and Mendelssohn Abjection The term abjection literally means "the state of being cast off". In usage it has connotations of degradation, baseness and meanness of spirit. In contemporary critical theory, "abjection" is often used to describe the state of often-marginalized groups, such as women, unwed mothers, people of minority religious faiths, prostitutes, convicts, poor people, and disabled people. In this context, the concept of "abject" exists between the concept of an object and the concept of the subject, something alive yet not. This term is used in the works of Julia Kristeva. Often, the term space of abjection is also used, referring to a space that abjected things or beings inhabit. William Apess used the term in the early 19th century in "An Indian's Looking-Glass For The White Man" to describe the plight of the Native Americans. According to Kristeva, since the abject is situated outside the symbolic order, being forced to face it (the symbolic order) is an inherently traumatic experience. For example, upon being faced with a corpse, a person would be most likely be repelled because of being forced to face an object which is violently cast out of the cultural world, having once been a subject. We encounter living beings daily. To confront a corpse that we recognize as human, something that should be alive but isn't, is to confront the reality that we are capable of dying ourselves. This repulsion created by the sight of death, excrement and rot constitutes the subject as a living being in the symbolic order. From a psychoanalytic perspective, abjection is done to the part of ourselves that we exclude: the mother. We must abject the maternal, the object which has created us, in order to construct an identity. Abjection occurs on the micro level of the speaking being, through her subjective dynamics, as well as on the macro level of society, through "language as a common and universal law". We use rituals, specifically those of defilement, in order to maintain clear boundaries between nature and society, the semiotic and the symbolic. This line of thought begins with Mary Douglas' important book, Purity and Danger, as well as in Kristeva's own Black Sun. The concept of abjection is often coupled (and sometimes confused with) the idea of the uncanny, the concept of something being "un-home-like", or foreign, yet familiar. The abject can be uncanny in the sense that we can recognize aspects in it, despite its being "foreign". An example, continuing on the one used above, is that of a corpse, namely the corpse of a loved one. We recognize that person as close to us, but the fact that the person is dead, and

"no longer" the familiar loved one, creates a cognitive dissonance, leading to abjection of the corpse. Subjectivity Subjectivity refers to the subject and his or her perspective, feelings, beliefs, and desires.[1] In philosophy, the term is usually contrasted with objectivity.[1] Subjectivity may refer to the specific discerning interpretations of any aspect of experiences. They are unique to the person experiencing them, the qualia that are only available to that person's consciousness. Though the causes of experience are thought to be "objective" and available to everyone, (such as the wavelength of a specific beam of light), experiences themselves are only available to the subject (the quality of the color itself). Subjectivity frequently exists in theories, measurements or concepts, against the will of those attempting to be objective, and it is a goal in most fields to remove subjectivity from scientific or mathematical statements or experiments. Many fields such as physics, biology, computer science, and chemistry are attempting to remove subjectivity from their methodologies, theories and results and this is a large part of the process of experimentation in these fields today. Despite this, subjectivity is the only way we have to experience the world, mathematically, scientifically or otherwise. We share a human subjectivity, as well as individual subjectivity and all theories and philosophies that dictate our understanding of mathematics, science, literature and every concept we have about the world is based on human or individual perspective. The creation of philosophies is within itself subjective, along with the concept of discovery or creation of ideas. This term contrasts with objectivity, which is used to describe humans as "seeing" the universe exactly for what it is from a standpoint free from human perception and its influences, human cultural interventions, past experience and expectation of the result.