Intersubjectivity in the context of "Subjectivity"

The distinction between subjectivity and objectivity is a basic idea of philosophy, particularly epistemology and metaphysics. Various understandings of this distinction have evolved through the work of philosophers over centuries. One basic distinction is:

• Something is subjective if it is dependent on minds (such as biases, perception, emotions, opinions, imaginary objects, or conscious experiences). If a claim is true exclusively when considering the claim from the viewpoint of a sentient being, it is subjectively true. For example, one person may consider the weather to be pleasantly warm, and another person may consider the same weather to be too hot; both views are subjective.
• Something is objective if it can be confirmed or assumed independently of any minds. If a claim is true even when considering it outside the viewpoint of a sentient being, then it may be labelled objectively true. For example, many people would regard "2 + 2 = 4" as an objective statement of mathematics.

Both ideas have been given various and ambiguous definitions by differing sources as the distinction is often a given but not the specific focal point of philosophical discourse. The two words are usually regarded as opposites, though complications regarding the two have been explored in philosophy: for example, the view of particular thinkers that objectivity is an illusion and does not exist at all, or that a spectrum joins subjectivity and objectivity with a gray area in-between, or that the problem of other minds is best viewed through the concept of intersubjectivity, developing since the 20th century.

Phenomenology within sociology (also social phenomenology or phenomenological sociology) examines the concept of social reality (German: Lebenswelt or "Lifeworld") as a product of intersubjectivity. Phenomenology analyses social reality in order to explain the formation and nature of social institutions. The application of phenomenological ideas in sociology, however, is not reduced to the notion of the "Lifeworld", nor to "grand" theoretical synthesis, such as that of phenomenological sociology.

The problem of other minds is a philosophical problem traditionally stated as the following epistemological question: "Given that I can only observe the behavior of others, how can I know that others have minds?" The problem is that knowledge of other minds is always indirect. The problem of other minds does not negatively impact social interactions due to people having a "theory of mind" – the ability to spontaneously infer the mental states of others – supported by innate mirror neurons, a theory of mind mechanism, or a tacit theory. There has also been an increase in evidence that behavior results from cognition, which in turn requires a brain, and often involves consciousness.

It is a problem of the philosophical idea known as solipsism: the notion that for any person only one's own mind is known to exist. The problem of other minds maintains that no matter how sophisticated someone's behavior is, that does not reasonably guarantee that someone has the presence of thought occurring within them as when oneself engages in behavior. Phenomenology studies the subjective experience of human life resulting from consciousness. The specific subject within phenomenology studying other minds is intersubjectivity.

George E. Atwood (born October 1944) is an American clinical psychologist. Atwood and his collaborator Robert Stolorow introduced the concept of intersubjectivity to the field of psychoanalysis. Their book Faces in a Cloud (1979) established the theory of intersubjective psychoanalysis which influenced analytic thinking across many schools of psychoanalysis. Atwood is professor emeritus of Clinical Psychology at Rutgers University where he received the Lindback Award. He is an honorary member of the American Psychoanalytic Association and Founding Faculty Member at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity in New York City.

Robert D. Stolorow (born 1942) is a psychoanalyst and philosopher, known for his works on intersubjectivity theory with collaborator George E. Atwood, intersubjective psychoanalysis, and emotional trauma. Important books include: Faces in a Cloud (1979, 1993), Structures of Subjectivity (1984, 2014), Psychoanalytic Treatment: An Intersubjective Approach (1987), Contexts of Being (1992), Working Intersubjectively (1997), Worlds of Experience (2002), Trauma and Human Existence (2007), and World, Affectivity, Trauma: Heidegger and Post-Cartesian Psychoanalysis (2011).

He earned a PhD from Harvard Medical School.

The beginning of human personhood is the moment when a human is first recognized as a person. There are differences of opinion about the precise time when human personhood begins and the nature of that status. The issue arises in a number of fields, including science, religion, philosophy, and law, and is most acute in debates about abortion, stem cell research, reproductive rights, and fetal rights.

Traditionally, the concept of personhood has included the concept of the soul, a metaphysical concept of a non-corporeal or extra-corporeal dimension of human beings. In modernity, the concepts of subjectivity and intersubjectivity, personhood, mind, and self have come to encompass a number of aspects of humanness that were previously considered to be characteristics of the soul. One question about the beginning of human personhood has been the moment at which soul enters the body. An alternative question, both historically and in modern times, may be at what point does the developing individual acquire personhood or selfhood.