Marcia Cavell draws on philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the sciences
of the mind in a fascinating and original investigation of human
subjectivity. A "subject" is a creature, we may say, who recognizes
herself as an "I," taking in the world from her own subjective
perspective; who is an agent, doing things for reasons, sometimes
self-reflective, and able to assume responsibility for herself and
some of her actions. The idea of a 'subject' points, then, toward
an ideal. It asks for the conditions under which a human infant
becomes a subject, and for the sorts of things, like self-deception
and massive anxiety, that get in the way.
What sorts of questions are these? Certainly philosophical. They
burrow into central issues in moral philosophy: freedom of the
will, the "self," self-knowledge, the relations between reason and
passion, between autonomy and self-knowledge, issues that form
roughly the second half of the book. They lead also into
metaphysics and epistemology: Is subjectivity incompatible with
objectivity? Are subjects not also objects in the real world? As
such, how are they to be treated? Would it be possible, in theory,
for a creature to become a subject in the absence of relationships
with other subjects? But the questions are also practical. In
particular they are at the heart of psychoanalysis both as a theory
of the mind, and as a therapy which aims at maximizing the ideals
of autonomy and self-knowledge implicit in the very idea of a
"subject."
One of the guiding premises of Becoming a Subject is that
philosophical investigation into the specifically human way of
being in the world cannot separate itself from investigations of a
more empirical sort. Cavellbrings together for the first time
reflections in philosophy, findings in neuroscience, studies in
infant development, psychoanalytic theory, and clinical vignettes
from her own psychoanalytic practice.
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