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Plato's

Dialectical Ethics: Phenomenological

Interpretations Relating to the Philebus
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Continental Philosophy Review 33: 275287, 2000.

2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Subjectivity and intersubjectivity, subject and person1

HANS-GEORG GADAMER*

Universitt Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

The concept of intersubjectivity has become a familiar problem in the larger

Husserlian program of a transcendental phenomenology. In Husserls later
thought, it plays almost the role of an experimentum crucis. It is not only
that the bulk of manuscripts on this theme have by now been published in
three enormous volumes; but more importantly, it is exactly this problem
which actually led to new developments under the heading phenomenology
of the life-world. This began already at the end of the forties, when Aron
Gurwitsch and Alfred Schtz envisioned in the concept of the lifeworld a
shift away from the principle of transcendental subjectivity and a promising
approach towards entirely new developments. They sought to make the concept
of lifeworld fruitful for a foundation of the social sciences a concept
which had been taken up in various ways in American social philosophy.
Thus we have good reason to pay particular attention to the theme of
intersubjectivity.
There are, however, also good reasons to want to recognize the Husserlian
program of transcendental phenomenology for its consistency and radicality.
Yet one must be critical of the use that Husserl himself made of the approach
to the problem of intersubjectivity for the phenomenology of the life-world. 2
And one must not forget that the later Husserl never spoke of turning away
from transcendental idealism. He held, rather, that the real achievement of
phenomenology lay in the foundation of transcendental philosophy. In opposition
to the leading school of Neo-Kantianism, the Marburg school, he of
course insisted with great confidence that his phenomenological work would
furnish an effective foundation for the transcendental system of thought.
It is now quite clear to us that Neo-Kantianism, despite its own selfunderstanding,
was in truth never a real return to Kant. This became clear
from the further development and dissolution of Neo-Kantianism.
Neo-Kantianism was much more a return to Fichte, and thus could in the end
lead to Hegel, and make the concept of a system of philosophy familiar in
*Translated by
Peter Adamson and David Vessey

276 HANS-GEORG GADAMER

the philosophy of the universities and in the history of philosophy until it

came under fire from a new wave of criticism against systematization at the
beginning of the 20th century.
This can be verified quite well by looking at the problem of intersubjectivity.
Consider its beginnings. Most importantly we have the reception of
Kierkegaard at the turn of the century, which threatened the ascendant transcendental
philosophy, just as Kierkegaard in his own time had threatened
Hegel and his school. Kierkegaards influence began first in Spain where
Unamuno inspired an entire generation of youths. With the development of
the Schrempfschen Diedrichs edition, Kierkegaard also had a strong impact
in Germany, even on Catholic writers like Theodor Hcker and Ferdinand
Ebner, but also on Martin Buber, Viktor of Weizscker and others. Last but
not least was the role played by the Kierkegaard Project, presented by Karl
Japers in his Psychologie der Weltanshauungen (1919). Of course, no one
grasped this yet as falling under the concept of intersubjectivity. But the concept
of a system of philosophy came to an end with the ascendance of the
philosophy of existence.
Now, I have long followed the methodological rule that one should undertake
nothing without giving an account of the history of a concept. One must
bear in mind the way that our language can presage our philosophizing, insofar
as one seeks to make clear the implication of the words used by philosophy.
Now, of course, behind the concept of intersubjectivity stands the concept
of subjectivity. One might even say that the concept of intersubjectivity is
only comprehensible once we have expressed the concept of subjectivity and
of the subject, and its role in phenomenological philosophy. The impression
given by the word subiectum and the concept of subjectivity, has been that
subject means something like self-reference, reflexivity, I-ness. This has
seemed self-evident to us, but one gets no such impression from the Greek
word hypokeimenon. This word means that which underlies. One finds the
word in Aristotelian physics and metaphysics, and in such contexts it has a
long history in Latin, as substantia or as subiectum. Both of these are Latin
translations of hypokeimenon, which is, and means, that which remains unchanged
as it underlies the process of all change. Aristotle introduces this
concept in his treatment of nature. Regarding what occurs in nature, he distinguishes
between what may sometimes happen to a thing, and the thing to
which this happens. This Aristotelian distinction is anticipated already in Plato,
who distinguished between the what, the ti, and the how, the poion. The
Aristotelian turn towards physics brings this concept of the subject, which is
also grammatical or logical, very close to that of hyle, as the concept of
matter, and to the conceptual apparatus of Aristotles metaphysics of sub SUBJECTIVITY
AND INTERSUBJECTIVITY , SUBJECT AND PERSON 277
stance. One may well ask how, from this original orientation, there could
develop the modem concept of subject and subjectivity, with its particular
connotation.
The answer is obvious. It came through the Cartesian cogito me cogitare,
which gained world renown through John Locke. It was given an epistemic
primacy as the unshakable foundation which endures in the face of all doubts
quamdiu cogito, as long as I think, no matter what I think. It is, so to speak,
the substance of all our ideas. The concept of subjectivity developed out of
this. Kant gave the word and the concept further primacy when he recognized
the function of subjectivity in the transcendental synthesis of apperception,
which must be able to accompany all our ideas, and which gives

them unity. Just as in nature changing conditions or events happen to something

that remains unchangeable, so too the changing ideas have a basis in
that they belong to a remaining I. This is the historical framework in which
the transition from substance to subject took place.
Thus the structure of reflexivity returned to center stage in philosophy.
Reflection and reflexivity are etymologically derived from the Latin expression
reflexio, a familiar term in optics and mirroring. It could not have
developed to its newer meaning, its natural meaning for us, before the emergence
of the scholastic sciences. Originally it referred merely to the fact that
light itself is made visible only by that which it shines upon. This could be
taken as the chief characteristic of self-relationality and self-ness, which as
self-motion befits the life as such, and which for the Greek constituted the
soul, psyche. It is plausible enough that such a structuring principle would
befit life as such in the case of humans and animals. But even plants form
themselves by striving towards an organic unity, and subsist in themselves.
The Aristotelian tradition called this the anima vegetativa. This foundational
structure of the organism presents problems that were already being discussed
in Platos day. How can there be self-motion at all, if everything in motion
has a mover? How can the moved itself be a mover? The entire problematic
of heauto kinoun, taken up by Aristotle in Physics VIII becomes apparent
and finds its expression in the concept of nous. Here we recognize the concept
of Spirit, so that Hegel brought to a close his system of the philosophical
sciences, which he called the Encyclopedia, with a quotation from Aristotle.
The highest existent is nous, which represents the structure of reflexivity
as the noesis noeseos, the thinking of thought. Whatever is present to itself
having the structure of reflexivity, provides the highest fulfillment of being
as present.
Greek philosophy came this far, but not without raising the objection that
reflexivity is always a secondary phenomenon, compared to turning directly
278 HANS-GEORG GADAMER
to some object. Thinking is primarily thinking of something, and only then
thinking of thought. Aristotle saw the problem with complete clarity. Turning
back on ones own thinking is always only incidental (en parergu). Thus
Aristotle found it necessary, in the ontotheological sphere of his metaphysics,
to trace the ordering of motion in the universe back to a highest existent,
which is characterized by self-relation. How differently does the apodictic
evidence of self-consciousness stand at the center of philosophy for us! Transcendental
idealism gives subjectivity the rank of the absolute. Only in the
middle of the 19th century, with the return to Aristotle, did Franz Brentano
challenge the primacy of self-consciousness. He was followed by Max Scheler,
who insisted that this primacy must be given to the givenness of the thing
rather than to self-consciousness.
What motivates the modem ranking of self-consciousness over consciousness
of the thing is the primacy of certainty over truth, which had its basis in
the methodology of modern science. In contrast to the classical notion of
method, since Descartes method has been understood as the way to make
things certain, and in this sense there is only one method among the plurality
of methods. Here, with the emergence of the modern sciences, philosophy
takes on the persisting task of mediating between the tradition of metaphysics
and the modern sciences. It is the task of making compatible what is
incompatible: the empiricism of science and the eternal truths of metaphysics.

This explains the fact that the ancient notion of system first returns to
philosophy in the modern era. In the older usage of the Greeks, the word
system plays a role only in astronomy and music, that is, where the task
was (as regarding the heavens) to make the irregular motions of the planets
compatible with the circular motion of the stars, or to designate the tones
in music. The transfer of the concept of system to philosophy assigns to philosophy
the same task: to mediate ever-progressing scientific research with
the truth-claims of philosophy. With Leibniz, the word system even finds
its way into the titles of works.
But the final synthesis, which was most strongly influenced by systemconstruction
in philosophy, was without doubt that of German Idealism. Thus
the successors of Kant grounded all knowledge on the first, highest principle
of self-consciousness. This represents precisely, as Kant called it, a Copernican
turn. It fell to Kants successors to give content to the formal notion of
self-consciousness. Schelling outlined his philosophy of nature, which was
supposed to give the physical proof of Idealisin, in so far as when the advancement
of the potencies of nature reached their highest potency,
self-consciousness would be brought about in a flash from the Absolute. Going
beyond Schelling, Hegel integrates the entirety of historical consciousness
SUBJECTIVITY AND INTERSUBJECTIVITY, SUBJECT AND PERSON 279
into Idealism, and linked the dialectic of life to the concept of self-consciousness.
This prepares the way for the role played by the concept of life in 19th and
20th century philosophy. The crucial link is found in Hegels Phenomenology,
in the well-known, but equally misunderstood, chapter on the slave and
master, which shows the meaning of work.3 True self-consciousness is founded
in work. By stamping the worked form on the other, through work, appropriation
of the other is achieved. This is the first higher selfconsciousness,
from which leads the path to the highest self-consciousness of Spirit.
This is on the way to the critique of self-consciousness as undertaken by
Marx and, today, by the critique of ideology. From Nietzsche to the present,
this critique dominates philosophical thought. In a well-known phrase,
Nietzsche directly challenged the idealist principle of self-consciousness, when
he said, with a nod to Descartes, it must thoroughly be doubted. Ever since,
statements that take self-consciousness as simply given seem to us naive. For
instance, Nietzsche already refers to the function of dreams, which Freud
would later put in the forefront, giving the example of someone fast asleep
who re-interprets the sound of an alarm clock as a cannon, and dreams an
entire battle merely in order to wake himself up. What Marx, Nietzsche, and
Freud have in common is certainly this, that one cannot just take the givenness
of self-consciousness as a given. Here arises a new role for the concept of
interpretation. One thinks of Nietzsches well-known words, I know of no
moral phenomenon. I know only moral interpretations of the phenomenon.
Nietzsches use of the word interpretation is, in itself, only the borrowing
of a word from the language of philology. But it certainly says volumes that
this use of interpretation has gone well beyond all philological use to become
a basic category of modem philosophy. Heideggers taking up of the
concept also marks, with that very taking up, the critical development of
Husserlian phenomenologys concept of the phenomenon.
Now, how does the problematic of subjectivity look in the light of Heldegger
and his proficient critique of Husserl? As is well-known, already in Being
and Time Heidegger transformed Husserls use of phenomenon, for he saw

the basic task of phenomenology as laying bare the phenomenon, and found
insufficiently careful Husserls mere phrase: to the thing itself. For something
to show itself requires an unconcealing of the concealed, so that it can
come to showing itself. The word phenomenology does not only mean,
then, the description of that which is given, but rather includes the
unconcealing of a concealment, which need not consist only in some false
theoretical construct. To a certain extent, in the beginning the art of
phenomenological description seemed to begin with the unconcealing of dogmatic
concealment, for example mechanical theories in the theory of percep280
HANS-GEORG GADAMER
tion, or in the unconcealing of a hedonistic theory of drives. One might see
this as a major impetus for the tum towards phenomenology, for instance in
the works of Pfnder, the school of Theodor Lipps, and also the young Max
Scheler. Husserl himself speaks of sensual elements in the phenomenon of
perception, and calls them hyletic data. Yet this occurred in order to work
out the particular form-characters active in perception and in order to bring
about the givenness of the object of perception in the flesh. Heideggers critique
was more radical. It aimed at the very concept of the phenomenon and
the givenness of the object of perception in the flesh, because for Husserl in
the end these are related back to the apodictic certainty of self-consciousness.
Heidegger, through his introduction of the concept of presence-at-hand
(Vorhandenheit) and its analysis in the direction of readiness-to-hand
(Zuhandenheit) and Dasein, passed beyond the temporal horizon and the consciousness
of time, as masterfully described by Husserl. He showed that this
supposed givenness remains under the spell of the Greek experience of Being.
That goes for all that lies in the concept of the transcendental Ego and its
apodictic evidence, in which phenomena constitute themselves.
Augustine already worked through the aporia of the consciousness of time
in which the now in fact is not at all, since it has already disappeared into
the past by the time it is identified. Husserl saw also the essence of
self-consciousness in this, that it entangles itself in the aporia of the temporality
as it tries to bring its own being before itself. The reflective self falls
into an endless process of iteration, since the reflection can always reflect
again on the reflecting self. Thus it follows from the structure of reflection
itself that it is trapped in an empty iteration. This is Husserls concept of a
transcendental subjectivity: that it involve this unending, empty iteration.
Heideggers advance consists in the fact that he himself uncovered the secret
after-effects of Greek ontology in this concept of self-consciousness, and
thus invalidated the concept of self-consciousness and its role as the support
for Transcendental Idealism.
Being is not to be understood only as that which I am conscious of or,
as the later Heidegger would interpret it, is present there [anwesen ist]. With
the concept of self-presence, that is, the appearing of the stream of consciousness
to itself, Husserl meant to grasp the essence of the consciousness
of time. Heideggers critique shows the narrowness of such a conception of
being. He shows that on this conception, the primary, fundamental composition
of human Dasein is misjudged. Dasein is not constituted in the always
retrospective attempt to recognize oneself in the very act of becoming aware
of oneself. It is rather givenness-on-the-way (Weggegebenheit), and not
only because of its imaginings, but above all because of the non-givenness of
SUBJECTIVITY AND INTERSUBJECTIVITY, SUBJECT AND PERSON 281

the future. This is what makes up human Dasein, as Hermann Cohen also
emphasized. Whether one calls this the Principle of Hope, or however much
one emphasizes the future-oriented character of human Dasein, Heidegger
showed that in all this, and in the concept of subjectivity, there is transmitted
an unnoticed ontological prejudice, even if one does not think of subjectivity
as substantiality or as presence-at-hand.
From this critique of the concept of consciousness, which Heidegger would
later radicalize, we can take to be of special significance that Heidegger already
before Being and Time introduced the expression hermeneutic of
facticity, setting it against his own questioning of the idealism of consciousness.
Facticity is obviously that which cannot be clarified, that which resists
any attempt to attain transparency of understanding. Thus it becomes clear
that in every understanding there remains something unexplained, and that
one therefore must ask about what motivates every understanding. This
changes the entire concept of interpretation, and we approach the radicality
we saw above in the citation from Nietzsche. My own works have proceeded
in this direction, asking what interpretation in fact is when one goes so far as
to fundamentally question the ideal of the self-transparency of subjectivity.
This does not mean only that de facto one will always find every understanding
to be limited. It also means that an unlimited understanding would cut
away at indeed, abolish (aufheben) the very meaning of understanding,
just as a perspective that sees everything would abolish the very meaning of
perspective.
This penetrates deeply into the problematic of so-called intersubjectivity
as will be shown. To begin with, it seems obvious in Being and Time that
intersubjectivity depicts only a peripheral appearance in Daseins authentic
mode of being, and falls under the verdict of the inauthentic, of Idle Talk, of
the They (das Man). That is to say, intersubjectivity has its place in Daseins
tendency towards fallenness.
In order to open a new horizon for the problematic of intersubjectivity, I
have chosen a concept-historical consideration of the concept of subjectivity
as my theme. We have already emphasized that transcendental subjectivity
constitutes the constant foundation in the Husserlian construction of phenomenology.
Likewise, the concept of intersubjectivity is a guiding word that
points us back to Husserls own conceptual shortcomings and a whole range
of problems. What we might, with Hegel, call objective Spirit, or with Marx
and the heirs of Hegels philosophy of right, call society, appears in Husserl
under the concept of intersubjectivity. The orientation towards subjectivity
is so central that Husserls position itself can only be formulated in its terms.
This is also expressed quite clearly by other terms Husserl used in his analy282
HANS-GEORG GADAMER
sis of the problem of intersubjectivity. Thus it is significant that Husserl latched
onto the Leibnizian concept of the monad and the monadic aspect which
already in Leibniz carries with it the nearly insoluble problem of the
co-existence of the monads, a problem Leibniz hoped to solve by proving the
existence of God. For his part, Husserl claimed the meaning of intersubjectivity
as constitutive of the world. Only through common possession of the world
(Welthabe) can one think the co-existence and interrelation of the monads,
that is, only on the basis of a consciousness which possesses the world
(welthabenden Bewusstsein).
Even without getting involved in the semantic side of the question, there

still remains thinking through Husserls phenomenological development of

concepts (Begriffsbildung). For German Idealism as it was discussed at the
time, previously, and also later in the twenties, this was like catching ones
breath. At one time, one spoke of the I-Thou problem. To say the I and
the Thou seems to us, at least since Wittgenstein, no longer quite allowable.
But Heidegger too points us towards the fact that, in such a use of
speech, there hides a mystifying substantialization thus blocking us from
getting at the real problems. We saw that such a critique of the concept of
subjectivity in Idealism goes back to Kierkegaard. His influence was what
inspired especially the circle of the creation: Martin Buber, Franz
Rosenweig, Theodor Haecker, Ferdinand Ebner and Friedrick Gogarten. The
Thou-relation appears here as a counter-example against the Kantianism
of the time and against the primacy of the transcendental ego, which even
Husserl could not escape in the long term. It seems to me an important modification
that now one does not only avoid speaking of the Thou, nor does
one (like Fichte) simply speak of the Not-I, which sounds like an opposition
or a reduction against which one must struggle, or which one must overcome.
Rather, one speaks of the Other. It changes the perspective to say here
the Other. Immediately, there is brought in a change in the state of the I and
Thou. Every Other is at the same time the Other of an Other, as one may learn
from Michael Theunissens book. I myself have taken the measure of the
ancient teaching on friendship in this regard.
On this point, one finds an astounding dogmatism of phenomenology among
the unendingly rich analyses of Husserl. In starting with transcendental subjectivity,
Husserl insists that the Other must first of all be intended as something
perceived, with all the specific formal qualities of perception Husserl
had presented in his teaching on adumbrations. Only then, in a second,
stepped-up act, is ensoulment bestowed upon the perceived thing. Husserl
calls this transcendental empathy, obviously in a conscious reliance on and
rejection of the psychological theory of empathy and sympathy. This theory
SUBJECTIVITY AND INTERSUBJECTIVITY, SUBJECT AND PERSON 283
had formerly been developed by Theodor Lipps, the Munich psychologist,
whose school included Pfnder, Geiger, Gallinger, Hildebrand and others,
before they overturned the Lipps School under the influence of Scheler and
joined the phenomenology movement. In truth, this two-step empathy is a
very artificial construction. In the living relationship of life to life, the
givenness to the senses of a perceived thing is a quite secondary construct.
Of course Husserl himself writes here under the banner of dismantling dogmatic
concealment, and not under that of the primary givenness of the thing.
Yet that was the great slogan of phenomenology, to go back to the thing itself.
At any rate, under the pressure of scientific-theoretical motives, Husserl insisted
that the Other can first be given only as a perceived thing, and not as
living, as given in the flesh. Here is where Heideggers ontological critique
of Husserls phenomenology comes in, at the point of its strongest evidence.
It certainly looks as though an all-too narrow concept of givenness the
scientific -theoretical concepts of measurability here clouded Husserls genius
for description. This has been criticized many times over. But only
Heidegger drew the ontological consequence of seeing at work in such a
false description the prejudicial influence of Greek ontology, and the measurability
postulate of the new science.
For Heidegger, it was a matter of delimiting thought on subjectivity and

unconcealing the ontological prejudice standing behind phenomenology and

philosophical research. In my opinion in an age in which all traditions
dissolve and there is no longer an uncontroversal consensus Heidegger is
basically right to pursue this goal by assuming no other ground for solidarity
than that one in which all humans are necessarily united: the borderline situation
of each individuals dying and death. Even this, we might well note, is
an assumption restricted to a Christian culture. In fact Heideggers distinction
between authenticity and inauthenticity is also restricted to this assumption.
This should not be taken as a basic devaluation of the social
world. Instead we should become aware that there is no commonly-held
world to be found in the form of Idle Talk, of the They and so on. There
is just a kind of Fallenness, by which one conceals the radically individual
confrontation with death and the illuminating commonality within that.
Heidegger emphasized this as the finitude of Dasein, and explained this
only with the aim of preparing the question of Being. This has nothing to
do, then, with the question whether the Other, and along with that, the problem
of intersubjectivity, remains sufficiently in view for Heidegger. As is
well-known, he knew very well that Dasein is also Mitsein, and distinguished
Mitsein as an equally original state of Dasein. Thus Dasein is just
as originally Mitsein as it is Dasein.
284 HANS-GEORG GADAMER
In Heideggers approach, with regard to the question of Being the primacy
of subjectivity is ruled out so radically that the Other cannot even become a
problem. Dasein is, of course, not subjectivity. Thus in Heideggers approach
the concept of subjectivity is replaced by the concept of care. Here it becomes
clear that the Other does not remain only at the margins, seen only
from a biased perspective. Heidegger speaks, then, of care and also of solicitude.
Solicitude receives a particular accent when he calls real solicitude freeing
solicitude. The word indicates what its significance is. True solicitude is
not to care for the Other, but rather to let the Other come freely into ones
own being self as opposed to taking care of (Versorgung) the Other, which
would take away from him care for Dasein (Daseinsorge). It has nothing to
do, then, with sociopolitical solicitude, as the sociologist Bourdieu thought. 4
Here again, Heidegger is concerned only with the preparation of the question
of Being, which can only be posed beyond all metaphysics. The formula of
the freeing solicitude is obviously meant as a freeing of that in which the
authenticity of Dasein consists, and about which Being and Time tries to
unfurl the question of Being in metaphysics in a new sense.
One might ask, of course, to what extent the approach of Being and Time
allows the Other to come properly into view. Here a recollection of my own
may be telling. This was in 1943 in a work which would later be published as
the first piece in my Kleinen Schriften;5 I was trying, in opposition to
Heidegger, to show how the understanding of the Other possesses a fundamental
significance. The way Heidegger had developed the preparation of
the question of Being, and the way he had worked out the understanding of
the most authentic existential structure of Dasein, the Other could only show
itself in its own existence as a limiting factor. In the end, I thought, the very
strengthening of the Other against myself would, for the first time, allow me to
open up the real possibility of understanding. To allow the Other to be valid
against oneself and from there to let all my hermeneutic works slowly develop
is not only to recognize in principle the limitation of ones own framework,

but is also to allows one to go beyond ones own possibilities, precisely

in a dialogical, communicative, hermeneutic process. When I conveyed this to
Heidegger, he nodded, if not entirely approvingly, but then said: Yes, but what
about thrownness? Obviously Heidegger meant that that which I wanted to
make valid would for him all be included in the fact that the existing of Dasein
is not only a projection, but also thrownness. This means that Dasein must take
itself up, in a way which never becomes completely penetrable.
In fact, the word thrownness (Geworfenheit) presents a semantic field
suggestive of several quite different things. In normal German usage we find
the word used only in the context where a cat has given birth to a litter. The
SUBJECTIVITY AND INTERSUBJECTIVITY, SUBJECT AND PERSON 285
kittens are a litter, or Wurf. That is thrownness, or Geworfenheit. Doubtless,
with this semantic connotation Heidegger had in mind what is essential for
him: one has no real free choice whether to exist. One is thrown into the
there just as the kittens from the cat. This provides a principled limitation
to the projective character of authentic Dasein. In such a litter we are not
even this single thing, and we do not even know who we are for example
we, this generation. But in the expression thrownness there is also a suggestion
of a more historical origin: the Gnostic component. In the Gnostics
we find an anthropology, which has been reconstructed by Hans Jonas using
Heideggerian methods. In that context thrownness meant the thrown being
of the soul in the world, a foundational determination from which Gnostic
meditation takes its starting-point, attempting to ascend to a reunion with the
One. In any case Heideggers answer seemed to me to give short shrift to the
phenomenon I was concerned with. It is not only that everyone is in principle
limited. What I was concerned with was why I experience my own limitation
through the encounter with the Other, and why I must always learn to experience
anew if I am ever to be in a position to surpass my limits.
Here there arises a completely different conceptual tradition, and one might
ask to what extent it may help us. I mean all that relates to the concept of
Person. As is well known, this expression, like its Greek parallel prosopon, is
an expression for the masks of actors and hence also for the roles played by
the actors in Attic theater and likewise by anyone in the theater of the world.
The same goes for its Latin equivalent (persona). From here there developed
the concept of person in legal terminology. Understandably in law it is not
individuality as such which is of interest and is referred to, but only the reduced
legal role played by the person in a law case. Now the history of the
concept of person is extremely instructive. It is first coined by Boethius, after
whom the person is the naturae rationalis individua substantia. One sees
here how Greek metaphysics has worked its way in the late Hellenistic period
into Latin philosophical language, and it remained at work up through
scholasticism. Another, highly significant Christian teaching stands along side
this one: the application of the term to the Trinity. At issue here are the three
Persons of God, which are understood at once as a unity and a trinity, as
Creator and Father, as Redeemer and Son, and as the dissemination of the
Holy Spirit. It is obvious that it is not only the conceptual history we have just
sketched that determined the formation of the concept of person in current
thought; but most important was the slow development of new social forms in
the city and the nation during the consolidating period marked by the mobility
of peoples. Thus, in particular, in the later Middle Ages the English model
of the Free Bill strengthened the social dimension of the concept of person.

286 HANS-GEORG GADAMER

Luther, too, was effective in this direction. He connected the concept of person
most closely with that of fides, the rule of belief, and thus also with the role of
conscience, though not at all with the concept of the theoretical self-consciousness.
Ebeling has shown this in his studies of Luther. But it is then even more
remarkable that in philosophical conceptual language, the conceptual shift we
have outlined from substance to the modem concept of subjectivity won the
upper hand. For Descartes, as for Leibniz and John Locke, the concept of person
is defined through the reflective concept of self-consciousness, without the
Other coming into consideration at all. New paths were only opened up by
Kants philosophy at the time of the French Revolution, in that Kant placed the
freedom of personhood and its accountability above the subjectivity of
self-consciousness. Here, for the first time, we come to the concept of subject
in the political sense. This also had its impact upon the theological debates.
The concept of Person finds new receptions both in the Lutheran tradition,
through Schleiermacher, and also in the renewal of the Thomistic tradition in
the Catholic philosophy of our own century. Schleiermacher straightforwardly
took up the banner of Personalism, in order to eliminate all pantheistic tendencies
in the theology of the Trinity. The same goes for the reception of Personalism
in the Catholic philosophy of our century, particularly due to the
influence of Max Scheler and the fruitful distinction he made in his philosophical
analyses between the private sphere of the person and the social function of
person. Of course, this led to a new interpretation of the concept of Christian
love (throughout both main denominations), and in particular a new interpretation
of the third Person of the Trinity.
Later on, after his abandonment of the transcendental self-conception
to which he held so strongly in Being and Time, Heidegger left behind the
dimension of subjectivity and also the structure of care in Dasein even
more fundamentally, even eliminating the concept of understanding and
of hermeneutics from his thought after the turn. Those of my own works
which are oriented towards the primacy of speech, and which found their
first expression in the sketch of the third part of Truth and Method, were
an attempt to move in this direction. Who thinks of language already
moves beyond subjectivity.
Notes
1. This essay was first presented in 1975 in Dubrovnik, and first published in Vol. 10 of
Gadamers Gesammelte Werke as Subjectivitt und Intersubjektivitt, Subjekt, und
Person, pp. 8799.
SUBJECTIVITY AND INTERSUBJECTIVITY, SUBJECT AND PERSON 287

2. Compare this and what follows to Die Phnomenologische Bewegung in Gesammelte

Werke Vol. 3, No. 6, above all the second and third sections. [This piece has been translated
as The Phenomenological Movement is published in Philosophical Hermeneutics
(tr. and ed. David Linge, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976, pp. 130181).]
3. Cf. the work on Hegel in the Gesammelte Werke Vol. 3, p. 47ff. [Translated as Hegels
Dialectic of Self-Consciousness and published in Hegels Dialectic (tr. P. Christopher
Smith, New Haven: Yale University press, 1976, pp. 5474).]
4. Cf. in this volume p. 50ff. [This footnote refers to Gadamers yet untranslated essay
Heidegger und die Soziologie: Bourdieu und Habermas in Vol. 10 of Gesammelte
Werke, pp. 4657.]
5. Now in Gesammelte Werke Vol. 2, No. 2 [Das Problem der Geschichte in der neueren
deutschen Philosophie pp. 2736, untranslated].

288 HANS-GEORG GADAMER