Lesson 6:

INTERSUBJECTIVITY
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INTERSUBJECTIVITY

INTER + SUBJECTIVITY

- Among - Influenced by
- Between personal beliefs or
- Relation feelings

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INTERSUBJECTIVITY

- It is the relation or intersection between people’s cognitive

perspectives.
- It refers to a shared perception of reality between two or
more individuals.
- It inherently embraces the importance of interactions among
individuals in the process of making meaning.

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 A. Realize That Intersubjectivity
Requires Understanding, Accepting,
and Respecting Differences
and Not Imposing on One’s Views to Others

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Understanding, Accepting, and Respecting Differences
Though we are part of our society, we are still different from one
another. Each of us will have different points of view.
- Indeed you are unique. Most of the time, we look at our differences and
may have “labels” toward one another. Somehow, at one point in our
lives, we have been stereotyped.
- These compartmentalization could be negative or restrictive. However,
instead of the negative views about a person, we can turn them into
positive ones.

 Talents – one aspect of one’s uniqueness. When these are cultivated,

the person gains self-respect (Fromm 1976).

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Intersubjectivity as Ontology: The Social Dimensions of the Self
 Martin Buber and Karol Wojtyla
- Their views will be discussed as frameworks to understand the concept
of intersubjectivity since both argued in the notion of concrete
experience/existence of the human person.

- For them, the human person is a

total being, not just a rational animal.
- They are emphasizing that life, people,
and experiences are connected to us and
we are connected to them.

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Intersubjectivity as Ontology: The Social Dimensions of the Self
 Martin Buber
- He is a Jewish existentialist philosopher who was
born in Vienna and was brought up in the Jewish
practice.
- For him, the interpersonal is signified by the I-You
relations.

• I and Thou (Ich and Du) in 1923 - in this work of

him, he conceived the human person in his
wholeness, concrete reality, and relatedness to the Martin Buber
world.

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Buber’s I-Thou Philosophy
- It is about the human person as a subject, a being different from things.

 The human person experiences one’s wholeness not in the virtue of his
relation to one’s self but through one’s relation with another self.
 The human persons as subjects have direct and mutual sharing of
selves. Buber believed that a human being does not exist in isolation
and separation from the situations and people around him.
 Instead, every man, woman, and child are deeply and extensively
connected with each other. This implies that for a person to truly
understand himself and the world, he or she must reach out to others
and understand them.

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Buber’s I-Thou Philosophy
• Human Person – is not only being-in-the-world, but also being-with-
others or being-in-relation.
- That a person can blossom in a society without the need to inhibit the
self from the rest.
- The good of the community is symbiotic with the life of the persons
who comprise it.
- Harris (1972) believed that we should not consider one’s self and the
world as two antagonistic elements. Instead, we should view both in
polarity where balance could be achieved.

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Buber’s I-It Philosophy
 In contrast to the realm of meeting and dialogue, Buber also cited the
I-It relationship.
• I-It relationship – is a person to thing, subject to object that is just
experiencing and using; lacking directedness and mutuality (feeling,
knowing, and acting).
- Its example is the socioeconomic
plight of Filipino women and children.
- Sexual harassment and oppression
are crimes against women and children
that continuously escalate.

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Intersubjectivity as Ontology: The Social Dimensions of the Self
 Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II)
- He is born in Wadowice, Poland and was also an architect
of communism’s demise in Poland.
- He was elected to the papacy on October 16, 1978 and he
was considered a great pope.
- He criticized the meaning of human as “rational animal”.
- For him, the social dimension is represented by We
relations.

Karol Wojtyla
or • Fides et ratio – in this encyclical letter of him, he
Pope John Paul II upholds the human person as one who exists and acts.

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Wojtyla’s Philosophy

 For Wojtyla, action reveals the nature of the human agent. It means
who we are – our identity, our character, our personality is shown
through our behaviour, actions, and choices. We are what we do.
• Participation – is the essence of the human person in which he or she
is able to fulfill one’s self.
• Human Person – is oriented toward relation and sharing in the
communal life for the common good.
• St. Augustine of Hippo – claimed that no human being should become
an end to one’s self since we are accountable to our neighbors as we
are to our own actions.

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Wojtyla’s Philosophy

 We participate in the communal life (We). Our notion of the “neighbor”

and “fellow member” is by participating in the humanness of the other
person (I-You).
- To participate means to think how our skills, knowledge, and resources
can improve the quality of life and happiness of our fellow man.
- The weltanschauung or diwa of Filipinos vis-à-vis thinking is
nondual.
- A Filipino has the harmony-with-nature orientation.
- In short, the Filipino is interpersonalistic, fulfilling the sakop.

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Wojtyla’s Philosophy
 In Hinduism, the Vedantist observes the three
stages to commune with God: faith (spirit), reason
(intellect), and experience (physical body).
• Faith – is the stage wherein the seeker simply accepts the laws of
nature as expression of divine existence.
• Reason – which is the second path, is where the seeker attempts to
understand these laws by rational and logical process; though God is
beyond the power of any created intellect to comprehend.
• Experience – through this, the seeker overcomes the worldly
attachments.

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 B. Appreciating the Talents
of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) and
Those from the Underprivileged Sectors
of Society and Their Contributions

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1.) On Person with Disabilities (PWDs)
 Person with Disability (PWD) – instead of using the word “disabled
person”, this term is used because it maintains the dignity and value of
the person.
 Disabled Person – this term implies that the personhood of the
individual is the one that is broken and problematic, when in fact, it is
only his or her body that has a disability.

The process of recognizing and identifying the

handicap for parents with PWD will include feelings of
shock, bewilderment, sorrow, anger, and guilt.

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1.) On Person with Disabilities (PWDs)

 Different Responses when Someone is Facing a Disability

• Denial is universal when one is faced with e.g., deafness.
• During diagnosis, isolation occurs when the parents intellectually
accept the e.g., deafness of their child.
• The loss should follow mourning or grief.
• Feeling of helplessness or searching.
• Some parents become religious and count the disability as “heaven-sent
blessing in disguise”.
• Fear of future or becoming a lifelong burden.

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1.) On Person with Disabilities (PWDs)
 Realization and grief can blind parents to their child’s uniqueness.
There are many categories of PWDs or persons with disabilities:
- hearing impaired - asthmatic
- diabetic - cystic fibrotic persons
 In a certain study of asthmatic children, their mothers always scored
more positively than any other group of mothers.
- While fathers of asthmatic and cystic fibrotic groups had higher parent
attitudes and were more sociable than the other fathers.
- On both these scales, parents of hearing-impaired youngsters had the
highest problematic scores.

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1.) On Person with Disabilities (PWDs)
 Spirited kids and children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
(ADHD) are different.
• Spirited Perceptive Child – will notice everything going on around
him or her but will be able to process that information quickly and will
be able to select the most important information to listen to.
• ADHD Child – will find it difficult to focus or complete a task, despite
his or her best efforts.

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1.) On Person with Disabilities (PWDs)
Negative mindsets of the family and community toward PWDs may
increase to their poor academic and vocational outcomes.
Parents need to reach the point of constructive action.
- They can decide to restructure certain aspects of their lifestyle in order
to accommodate the communicative as well as the educational needs of
their child with disability.
- Community sensitivity, through
positive and supportive attitudes
toward PWDs, is also an important
component (Mapp 2004).

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2.) On Underprivileged Sectors of Filipino Society
Dimensions of Poverty
 Notion of Poverty – not one-dimensional; it is multidimensional.
This means a person can be poor not only in terms of money,
clothing, and food but also in terms of education, love, and relationships.

 Dimensions of Different Concepts and Measures of Poverty:

- Income - Empowerment
- Health - Working Condition
- Education

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2.) On Underprivileged Sectors of Filipino Society
• Income Poverty – the most common measure of the underprivileged.
- It is defined in terms of consumption of goods and services.
- Some are poor because there is not enough cash in their pockets and
they have no job or business to generate money.
- There is lack of goods and services.

 Two Levels of Poverty: (According to World Bank)

a. Poor – those living below 100 pesos a day.
b. Extremely Poor – those living below a 56 pesos a day.

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2.) On Underprivileged Sectors of Filipino Society
• Poor Health – is also an important aspect of poverty.
- It is almost always a direct result of income poverty.
- If a person has no income and no job or business, that person will not
have the resources to buy food, medicine, and proper clothing to stay
healthy and strong.
- Globally, millions die due to AIDS, Ebola virus,
tuberculosis, and malaria as well as a number
of infant deaths from largely preventable
causes of diarrheal diseases.
- Health deprivation had become focal point for
the underprivileged.

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2.) On Underprivileged Sectors of Filipino Society
• Human Rights – are also relevant to issues of global poverty in its
focus on shortfalls in basic needs.
- Extending human rights into the realm of foreign direct investment is
also an imperative.
- The Church, in its pro-poor stance, is constantly challenged wherein
justice is being denied for sectors like farmers, fisher folks, indigenous
people, and victims of calamity and labor.

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3.) On the Rights of Women
In the Philippines, women are subjected to oppression, among
others, of class and sex.
• “Babae” – a song by Inang Laya
- It is a song that problematizes the gender role assigned by the social
order to women since their childhood.
- It is an alternative song portraying the image of the woman aspiring for
liberation from patriarchy.
- It is a song which sends out a message that gender roles, as social
constructs from the relationship of power relations in a particular
historical arena, are also grounds for struggle.

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3.) On the Rights of Women
- Heroines from Philippine history like Gabriela, Teresa, and Tandang
Sora as well as women martyrs in the current people’s conflict in the
country like Lisa, Liliosa, and Lorena, defied stereotype of women e.g.,
Sisa, are represented in the said song “Babae”.
- It is usually sung during women’s month celebrated in March.

“Babae”
by
Inang Laya

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C. Explaining the Authentic Dialogue
That Is Accepting Others
Regardless of Individual Differences

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We Are a Conversation
 Martin Heidegger – in his essay, he said that humankind is a
conversation.
 Conversation – is more than an idle talk but a dialogue.
This means that humanity is progressively attuned to
communication about being.

• Language – as one of human possessions, creates human world.

- It is a tool for communication, information, and social interaction.
• Dialogue – is a conversation that is attuned to each other.
- Mutual tuning is perfected in the attunement.

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We Are a Conversation
For Heidegger (1997), all conversations are really one
conversation, the subject of which is being (may be God, Tao, or YHWH).

 For Buber, a life of dialogue is a mutual sharing of our inner selves in

the realm of the interhuman.
 Between two persons is a mutual awareness of each other as persons
avoiding objectification. Being is presenting what one really is to
present to the other one’s real self.
 Personal making entails the affirmation of the other as a person who is
unique and has distinct personality. There is the acceptance of the
person; unfolding the other actualizes himself.

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We Are a Conversation
 A conversation is creative, poetic, and deep allowing humanity to exist
as more than entities. In a conversation, there could be a “stammer”,
which is trying to express that unnamable.
- For Heidegger, a conversation attempts to articulate who and what we
are, not as particular individuals but as human beings.
- For Wojtyla, it is through participation that we share in the humanness
of the other.

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D. Performing Activities That Demonstrate
the Talents of PWDs
and Underprivileged Sectors of Society

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Support Persons with Disabilities
In the Philippines, the government supports persons with
disabilities (PWDs) to land a job. It is a harmful opinion that they are less
productive.
In reality, the PWDs do face a number of barriers in finding a job
whether through inaccessibility of transportation in the workplace,
discrimination, and a negative perception of their capacity.
• National Statistics Office (2014)
- they estimated that about 1.44 million
Filipinos have some form of disability in the
employable 15-64 years old age bracket.

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Laws in the Philippines that Protect the PWDs
• Executive Order 417 (E0 417)
- It is a policy of the State under the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines
to protect Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) and promote their welfare
and development.
- It mandates all national government agencies and state-run
corporations to allot at least one percent of their annual budget for
programs that will benefit the sector.
- It also addresses the need for government to provide capitalization for
PWD livelihood activities, which include support for technical skills
through labor department.

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Connection Between Disability and Poverty
• Disability – is considered a development concern because of its
connection to poverty.
• Poverty – may increase the risk of disability.
People with disabilities incur additional expenses to achieve a
standard of living similar to those without disabilities such as health care
services, costlier transportation options, and special diets among others.

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Human Trafficking
• Human Trafficking – in relation to poverty, it has become a form of
modern-day slavery.
- Globally, men, women, and children are forced into prostitution,
cybersex, pornography, and other forms of exploitation that assault
human dignity.
- Millions of poor and helpless Filipinos have become part of this criminal
enterprise.
- For Pope Francis, this is called as “crimes against humanity” and it has
called upon many to fight for human dignity and sacredness of life.
- This is what Buber called the I-It relation, where the other human being
is perceived as an object rather than as human being.

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Summary of Intersubjectivity

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Summary
Freedom is a gift that should not be squandered but taken as
wonderful that must be nurtured and protected, not impinging the rights
or freedom of others.
In participation, we share the humanness of the other.
Being human means we are in relation with other human beings
who might be different from us.
Yet, regardless of the differences, our humanness is enriched as we
participate in our community.
Buber, Wojtyla, and various philosophers dreamed of equality,
actualization, and participation.

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 Prepared by:
Reporter No. 5 (ABM-12) (I.P.H.P.)
Minalabag, Karen Mae F.
Manigbas, Aillyn R.
Medrano, Clariz M.

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