Heidegger says that the traditional Cartesian distinction between thinking. things and objects makes no sense. Outline his argument.

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1 Heidegger says that the traditional Cartesian distinction between thinking things and objects makes no sense. Outline his argument. Marcia Lise Pages including the cover: 15 1

2 Descartes developed the subject-object dualism, which is termed the Cartesian tradition (Cooper 1996: 19-20). Many social theorists accepted the subject object dualism and chose one stance as a starting point from which to work, thus resulting in subjectivist and objectivist approaches which involved problems of solipsism in the former case and decentring the subject in the latter (Lise 2003). Heidegger was not one of the many theorists who followed the Cartesian tradition. Heidegger questioned how these two radically different elements the subject and the object could be connected (Cooper 1996: 20). In contrast to Descartes idea that an individual is an isolated thinking thing, Heidegger believed that human beings should be seen as beings engaged in activities in the world (Rhodes 2003b: Sociological Theory Lecture Week 8). Therefore from his point of view the subject does not exist without the object and the object cannot exist without the subject, thus dismantling the Cartesian tradition and regarding the idea as nonsense 1. This essay will deal with Heidegger s idea on the subject-object relationship, including his key concepts worldliness and being-in-the-world. By way of presentation of a rework of Heidegger s theory (Dreyfus 2004), Foucault s investigation of how and why we have come to see ourselves and others as subjects and objects will be brought into discussion (Foucault 1976, Foucault 1975). According to Foucault (1976) the subjectification of individuals occurred historically through confessional technology which resulted in increasing disclosure of our inner feelings, in a search for the deepest truth about ourselves. Objectification of individuals is rooted, according to Foucault s analyses, in disciplinary technology which shapes individuals as objects through dressage, examination and control of time and space. (Foucault 1975). The aim of this essay is to outline Heidegger s argument that the Cartesian distinction between thinking things and objects makes 1 It seems that Heidegger does not totally deny the Cartesian theory since he confirms that when we face problems in our engaged activities the subject and the object appears. See page 6 for a discussion. 2

3 no sense, and to represent a reworking of Heidegger s theory by looking at how Foucault analysed the emergence of subjectification and objectifications of human beings. Descartes, the originator of the subject-object dualism, describes the subject as an isolated thinking thing which is the conscious mind of the individual, and the object as bodily things with spatial dimensions including the world out there (Cooper 1996:19). Descartes saw these two things as completely separate orders of being, which do not fundamentally interact but merely operate in parallel (Cooper 1996: 20). The Cartesian tradition provides two options for theorists: to take either an objective or a subjective stance. However both stances entail problems. Durkheim is an example of the former approach. He insisted on a sociology which concerned itself with social realities social facts, external to the individual in the world out there the object, such as social structures and forces (Durkheim 1964, Durkheim 1952). He argued that social facts in the object determined the subject the individual thinking thing. However his objectivist approach results in decentring the subject. On the other hand there is the subjectivist approach, which can be represented by Husserl as an illustration. He believed that sociology should be about individual actions and that consciousness brings its own objects into being (Collins 1999: 42). Fundamentally he argued that the subject determined the object. This stance gave rise to the question of whether we can trust our own consciousness or not, resulting in solipsism (Collins 1999: 40). Therefore both subjectivist and objectivist theories result in prioritising one over the other (the subject or the object). Nevertheless many theorists accepted the Cartesian tradition. Heidegger however chose not to take the Cartesian route. As Guignon suggests, Heidegger introduces a new way of grasping the sources of intelligibility (Guignon 1990: 654) which avoids the tendency to think of 3

4 ourselves as subjects or minds distinct from a world of brute objects (Guignon 1990: 654). Heidegger s starting point is Dasein 2. This refers to being-there which is about the being of the human being (Dreyfus 1991: 13). Dasein is that being which is concerned in its being about its being (Heidegger 1996: 40) and it is not a conscious subject (Dreyfus 1991: 13). Heidegger's aim is to show that there is no subject distinct from the object. Dasein is essentially being-in-the-world (Dreyfus 1991: 103). Heidegger uses the term world as in world of media, world of academy, or world of sports. Being-in-the-world is about a complementary dependence between Dasein and its world which is primarily practical. Heidegger uses an example of hammer to illustrate these aspects (Heidegger 1990: ). Say I am working for a new office from today and am learning how to use Excel on a computer. At first I will be very cautious, paying attention to every detail such as typing the correct formula or looking for the correct input fields. Here I use a rule, perhaps taught to me by an IT trainer. So the object as tool-present-at-hand and the thinking mind appear. However as I go on, I get used to using a software application Excel. I merely get on with the work. Other aspects emerge: the computer, including the software application, as a handy tool (tool-ready-at-hand) which does not appear in my mind, and the mindless subject who does not think of his/her activity. Thus the object and the subject do not appear. What remains is the mindless activity of data inputting with Excel. However what the Cartesian tradition says is that the subject and object are separate entities. Thus Heidegger s thoughts on individuals as engaged in activities, in others word, being-in-the world, portray his disapproval of the Cartesian tradition. So we have seen that we should be concerned with individuals involved in the world, coping with the world 3. But Heidegger asks himself how do we cope with the 2 The term Dasein seems to over lap with the term human beings 3 At the risk of heading back to the Cartesian territory I will use the term with. 4

5 world? Coping with the world is referred to, by Heidegger, as intelligibility (Rhodes 2003a: Sociological Theory Lecture Week 7). So from where does this intelligibility come from? It comes from a) the make up of the world and b) our distinctive way of being (Rhodes 2003a: Sociological Theory Lecture Week 7). Heidegger says that we have a distinctive way of being. This refers to what he calls being in, which is what I have discussed in pages 3 to 4. To add some aspects that Heidegger introduced, let us briefly see the three important aspects to highlight with the concept of beingin. They are understanding, situatedness and falleness (Cooper 1996: 33). Copper sums these concepts us as human beings who understands or is ahead-of, who is situated or already-in, and who is fallen or alongisde, can things and the world show up (Cooper 1996: 33). I will not go into details of these aspects as it is beyond the scope of this essay. We will move on to another element the make up of the world. According to Heidegger, there are common features in the make up of the world: equipment (with-which, in-order-to), goals (towards-which), and identities (for-the-sake-of-which) (Dreyfus 1991: 91-2). The equipment is intelligible only in context with a goal because without the goal the equipment does not entail meaning and would not make sense (equipment without significance is merely a tool-present-at-hand). The goal is intelligible in relation to the person who is set to achieving the goal, in other words the identity. The reverse also holds true. To take a specific example: I strike the guitar strings in a church, with a classical guitar, in order to play classical music, as a step towards practicing music, for the sake of my being a good guitar player. The illustration above demonstrates how these three elements interact. The guitar (equipment) makes sense only when referring to the 5

6 purpose of playing a piece of music (goal) and the goal of playing a piece of music is intelligible in relation to the guitar player (identity). The reverse, the guitar player can only makes sense in relation of his/her activity of playing a piece of music (goal), and the goal of playing a piece of music on add up only in relation to the guitar. Heidegger calls this the worldliness of the world (Dreyfus 1991: 88-9). As we have seen, Heidegger reminds us that we do not exist as independent entities but as part of the world. Thus the Cartesian distinction between thinking things and objects makes no sens does not make sense for Heidegger. It is, however, worth noting that Heidegger suggests an occasion in which the subject and the object appear as separated. It is when problems emerge with individuals engaged in activities. Let us return to the example I presented earlier on. I am working on my computer using Excel. If the computer does not switch on, then I figure out that the computer is not working. The subject emerges, and also the computer pronounces itself - the object emerges. Thus when things go wrong we seem to think like an isolated thinking thing as articulated by Descartes. Despite these illusions, Heidegger maintains his critique of the Cartesian tradition. We have seen how Heidegger thinks that the Cartesian tradition of subjectobject dualism does not make sense. Now let s move on to Foucault. Following Heidegger, Foucault, was also interested in the subject-object dualism. He neither believed in the Cartesian tradition (Canguilhem cited in Gutting 1994: 85) and his aim was to work out why we have become to see ourselves as objects and subjects in the first place. In fact Foucault s entire philosophical development was determined by [his] reading of Heidegger (Foucault in Dreyfus 1991: 9). While Heidegger wrote much about why he thought we ought not to be seen as subjects and objects, Foucault asked himself a slightly different question: how did we come to see ourselves as objects and subjects? He takes a rather historical approach in answering this question. Foucault developed his idea on subjectification in The 6

7 History of Sexuality (1976) and the concept of objectification in Discipline and Punish (1975), where much of his ideas are related in some way to ideas of power and truth. The theme of technologies of power is evident in his writings on how human beings come to see themselves as subjects and objects. These technologies constitute the mechanisms by which the subjectification and objectification processes operate. Notions about disciplinary technology facilitate an explanation of how he saw the development of human being s objectification and ideas on confessional technology are the primary focus, for the purpose of this essay, of his ideas on subjectification. As already stated, according to Foucault, the process of objectification of human beings is the outcome of disciplinary technology. He identifies three different types of punishment, which he traces through history: sovereign torture, humanist reform, and disciplinary technology (Foucault 1975: 130-1). Whereas the first two types of punishment, which took place earlier in the course of history, involve representations (e.g. sovereign torture signifies sovereign s power, punishment within humanist reform reflects the crime 4 ), disciplinary technology (also called the normalising detention) mainly involves the body [and] not signs (Foucault 1975: 130). In fact within the disciplinary technology the signifying dimension is progressively ignored, minimised and silenced (Dreyfus and Rabinow 1986: 153). Here I introduce three elements of disciplinary technology, in which we can observe objectification of human beings. Firstly, Foucault introduces the idea of dressage in which the body is subjected to precise training to make the most out of the useful [and] intelligible body (Foucault 1975: 136). An example Dreyfus and Rabinow take is the army drill (1986: 153). Bodies are trained so that the right part of the body moves at the right time in the right place (this aspect is connected to the notion of control 4 See Appendix A for a brief description of each form of punishment. 7

8 of time and space which introduced in the next paragraph). The body is divided into units (e.g. legs, head, and arms), which are then separately trained. Here what we precisely see is the objectification of humans actions. The body is a manipulable body that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved (Foucault 1975: 136), hence being treated as an object. There isn t any subject to be heard or any signs to be circulated and read (Dreyfus and Rabinow 1986: 154). Secondly, the disciplinary technology involves control of time and place which requires enclosure of space (Foucault 1975: 141) like prisons, schools, or museums. [E]ach individual has his own place; and each place its individual (Foucault 1975: 143). In the case of universities, there are spaces such as lecture theatres, libraries, canteens. For example if you go to room JS at 1:00, you expect to see students taking Sociological Theory class. Also you require a swipe card to enter buildings or at times lecture theatres (e.g. London Metropolitan University). Timetables are used to control usages of lecture rooms, and specific spaces are designated for particular uses and recoding attendances of staff and students. Some places students are not allowed to enter (e.g., staff dining areas, office spaces in administrative departments) and rooms cannot be entered at certain times. An example of the control of time and space on a larger scale would be the nationstate's immigration control. Tourists are allowed only for a certain period (e.g. Tourists of UK citizens are allowed to stay in Japan for up to 6 months Japanese Embassy in the UK: Reciprocal Visa Exemption or specific nationals are not allowed in particular countries (e.g. American tourists are not allowed to enter Cuba, US Consular Information Sheet Nation states aim to keep track of foreigners in the country through immigration control. In both examples the body is controlled in terms of time and place. 8

9 Last but not least, Foucault introduces examination as one of the elements of disciplinary technology, which is relevant to our discussion. It consists of hierarchical observation [and] normalizing judgement (Foucault 1975: 170). In hierarchical observation surveillance is made a central part of the discipline. Individuals are looking over each other and being inspected constantly. This gave rise to the necessity of arranging space 5 (Foucault 1975: 172). The second element, normalising judgement, refers to the way smaller elements of life, which had previously not been considered, became subject to micro-penalties or infrapenalties (Foucault 1975: 177-8). Foucault gives examples such as lateness, negligence, impoliteness, irregular gestures and so on (Foucault 1975: 178). The examination is very important in understanding the objectification of human beings. First power is exercised through its invisibility (Foucault 1975: 187) so individuals are not totally aware of the power. Second, individuals are known through documents that capture and fix them (Foucault 1975: 189) down to the small details. Most importantly individuals are known as analysable objects in order to maintain him in his individual features (Foucault 1975: 190). [T]he description of groups, the characterization of collective facts, the calculation of gaps between individuals, their distribution in a given population (Foucault 1975: 190) was possible. A recent example of the examination can be the "National Statistics" in the UK. It is a governmental survey organisation that measures mainly individuals (sometimes household) in terms of education, employment, housing, crime, transportation, and so on. The use of classification is crucial for comparative measurement between different groups of individuals in a given population (e.g. social class entails social class I, II, III, IV, V, VI). The information is used, for 5 Foucault calls this the architecture specifically. 9

10 instance, to capture phenomena for constructing and adjusting policies or regulation. We are treated as analysable objects that ought to be examined and maintained. Foucault uses a brilliant example to illustrate how disciplinary technology objectifies human beings; this was the Panopticon, drawing on Bentham. The Panopticon was a building plan for prison designed to enable constant and invisible observation of the inhabitants, who live in individualised cells, from a central point (Foucault 1975: 200). The inhabitant is seen, but he does not see; he is the object of information, never a subject in communication (Foucault 1975: 200). We have seen Foucault s various illustrations of how humans have come to see themselves and others as objects through several concepts. Moving on to how Foucault explains the process of humans subjectification, Foucault argues that confessional technology, which became predominant in the late 18th Century, made human beings see themselves as subjects (Foucault 1976). Confessional technology can be traced back to the Christian practice of confessing sins (Foucault 1976: 20-1). He describes this as the task of telling telling oneself and another, as often as possible, everything that might concern the interplay of innumerable pleasures, sensations and thoughts which, through the body and the soul, had some affinity with sex (Foucault, 1976: 20). Confession was about telling the truth of oneself to self and others (Smart 2001:108) and to explore the self, the soul and the heart (Smart 2001: 108). Foucault notes that the confession has spread its effects far and wide (Foucault 1976: 59) and pertains to absolutely everything in our lives; justice, medicine, education, family relationships and love relations (Foucault 1976: 59). He even goes on to say that [w]estern man has become a confessing animal (Foucault 1976: 59). It is through this confession that we come to see ourselves and others as subjects. We expose our inner mental side and this is, according to Foucault, what defines us as subjects. 10

11 In this essay Heidegger s explanation of how the Cartesian distinction between the subject and object makes no sense has been illustrated. Descartes coined the idea of subject-object dualism, which was to see subject as an isolated thinking thing and object as the world out there. Many theorists took a stance by starting from either the subject or the object point to start a sociological enquiry, the former referring to subjectivists such as Weber and later to objectivists such as Durkheim. Heidegger believed in taking neither stance. Instead Heidegger offers an explanation of humans as being-in-the-world, and the worldliness about the place we live in arguing that separating the subject and object makes no sense because they are all part of the world. The prime idea of subjects and objects is in fact wrong and they cannot be regarded as separate. I have then introduced a variety of ideas put forward by Foucault, who reworked Heidegger s theory. Foucault, like Heidegger, did not believe in the Cartesian tradition. As we have seen, the bulk of his argument is based on historical analysis aimed at answering why we came to see ourselves as objects and subjects. Foucault argued that in the course of disciplinary technology we have come to see ourselves and others as objects, and confessional technology resulting in humans coming to see themselves and others as subjects due to increased disclosure of inner feelings and search for truth. In sum, in this essay, Heidegger s argument that the Cartesian distinction between thinking things and objects makes no sense has been outlined and Foucault s ideas on the historical process of subjectification and objectification of humans has been demonstrated and introduced as a reworking of Heidegger s theory. 11

12 Bibliography Collins, J. and Selina, H. (1998) Introducing Heidegger. London: Penguin Books Cooper, D. E. (1996) Heidegger. London: The Claridge Press Dreyfus, H. (Accessed 14 March 2004) Being and Power: Heidegger and Foucault. Dreyfus, H. (1991) Being in the World: A Commentary on Heidegger s Being and Time, Devision I. Cambridge: The MIT Press Dreyfus, H. and Rabinow, P. (1986) Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Brighton: Harvester Press Durkheim (1964) The rules of sociological method. (Trans. Solovay, S. A. and Mueller, J. H. London: Collier Macmillan Durkheim, E. (1952) Suicide. (Trans. Spaulding, A. and Simpson, G.) London: Routledge Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison. London: Allen Lane Foucault, M. (1976) The History of Sexuality, Volume 1, The Will to Knowledge. London: Penguin Books Gutting, G. (1994) The Cambridge Companion to Foucault. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Lise, M. (2003) What does Durkheim s argument in Suicide say about the relationship between the individual and the social? Are there alternative views of this relationship? Rhodes, C. (2003a) Sociological Theory Lecture Week 7. London Metropolitan University: 10 November 2003 Rhodes, C. (2003b) Sociological Theory Lecture Week 8. London Metropolitan University: 17 November 2003 Smart, B. (2001) Michel Foucault. London: Routledge 12

13 Appendix A Sovereign torture, (Heidegger in Rhodes 2004: Lecture Keypoints Week ) which is the earliest form of punishment, is a kind of punishment where violation of law is seen as a crime against the sovereign (Dreyfus 1975: 45-6). This lead to public executions which displayed the power of sovereign: representing its invincible force (Dreyfus 1975: 45). However [p]ublic torture and execution was by no means the most frequent form of punishment (Dreyfus 1965: 32). Foucault describes the process of humanist reform (Foucault in Rhodes 2004: Lecture Keypoints Week ) as a period whereby crimes were seen as crimes against the society (Dreyfus 1975: 89-90), thus a criminal was seen as an enemy of society as a whole and the right to punish shifted to the defence of society from the vengeance of sovereign (Dreyfus 1975: 90). The society had the right to punishment and consequently punishment had to reflect the crime precisely (e.g. murderers undergo death penalty) (Dreyfus 1975: 89). There was a shift in the application of power here; it was no long about displaying a body in pain but play of representations and signs (Dreyfus 1975: 101). 13

Conclusion. One way of characterizing the project Kant undertakes in the Critique of Pure Reason is by

Conclusion. One way of characterizing the project Kant undertakes in the Critique of Pure Reason is by Conclusion One way of characterizing the project Kant undertakes in the Critique of Pure Reason is by saying that he seeks to articulate a plausible conception of what it is to be a finite rational subject