RETHINKING SUBJECTIVITY AS AN ENVIRONMENTAL CONCEPT

James Mensch, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, james.mensch@gmail.com

As Hans-Rainer Sepp writes in the Introduction to his Outline of Oikological Philoso-

phy, phenomenology transforms the question of the “what” into that of the “how.” What an

experienced object is—that is, its objective sense—is investigated in terms of how we experi-

ence it—that is, in terms of the acts of consciousness that bring it to presence. Phenomenol-

ogy, however, does not consider the “where, the place from which every relation first be-

comes possible and, on occasion, actual.”1 What exactly is this “where”? How are we to lo-

cate it? If we take place as an ultimate referent, then there is no place to place it. In fact, to

attempt to do so would involve us in an infinite regress of seeking a place for a place, and

seeking a further place for this placing place, and so on. As ultimate, then, place has to be

analyzed in its own terms. In what follows, I am going to engage in this analysis. I will con-

sider, first, place in general; then I will turn my attention to living creatures and place as de-

fined by the process of being-alive. Finally, I will consider the place of the subject. Place,

throughout will be thought of as an environmental concept. It will involve the relation of a

thing to what surrounds it.

Place and Manifestation

Professor Sepp suggests that we think of place in terms of the being of a house (Haus-

sein).2 When we do so, two aspects of place immediately appear. A place, like a house, en-

closes; its boundary distinguishes the inside from the outside. But a house also has windows

and doors. Thought in these terms, there must be a permeability of the border or limit defin-

ing the place. The inside can influence the outside. One way to conceive of this is in terms

of Aristotle's definition of place. He writes that “except for local motion, there would be no

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place as a subject matter for investigation.”3 This is because place, as he defines it, is “the

first unmoved boundary of what surrounds [an entity].”4 His insight is that place answers the

question “where?” but where something is depends on its motion. Thus, if I am seated writ-

ing at my desk, I am in my chair. If I walk about my study, its walls are my first unmoved

boundary. Similarly, when I pace around my apartment, the appropriate answer to the ques-

tion “where” I am is “in the apartment.” These examples show that the entity, itself, deter-

mines through its motion its first unmoving boundary and, hence, what constitutes the limits

of its place.5 The boundary is not fixed. As the limit of the presence of the entity, it is deter-

mined by its motion.

To speak of the permeability of this boundary, we have to mention what is presup-

posed when we say that something is present, i.e., manifests itself. For a thing to be present,

it must distinguish itself from its background. It must, as it were stand out from it. This

points to the link between presence and existence. The etymological sense of the word “exis-

tence” comes from the Greek words for “standing” and “out,” istimi and ex. Now, things

stand out, that is, ex-ist, by affecting their environment, such affection occurring through

their motion. On the most basic level, living beings do this through engaging in metabolism,

i.e., by exchanging material with what surrounds them. Inanimate objects stand out through

such motions as the vibration of atoms, the movement of electrons, the flux of subatomic par-

ticles, and so on. Without such motions, entities could not distinguish themselves from their

environments; they could not affect them. Environmentally, then, without movement, they

are indistinguishable from non-entities. If we accept this, then we can also say with Patočka,

“movement is … what founds the identity between being and appearing. Being is being man-

ifest.”6 This follows because the movement that makes something stand out or exist also

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makes it present to its environment. It appears in affecting it, and it affects it through its mo-

tion.

For Patočka, this identity of being and appearing implies a corresponding definition of

actualization. The motion that founds their identity is also responsible for the actuality of the

entity that appears. This entity, in other words, comes to be through motion. As Patočka ex-

presses this, “Movement is what makes a being what it is. Movement unifies, maintains co-

hesion, synthesizes the being’s determinations. The persistence and succession of the deter-

1 Hans Rainer Sepp,

Grundrisse einer oikologischen Philosophie (Prague: Arbeitsfassung, July

2014), p. 3.

2 Ibid.

3 Physics, 211a 13. All translations of Aristotle are my own.

4 Ibid., 212a 20.

5 Only if we ignore the issue of motion can we define "place" as the interface between the body

and what immediately surrounds it. Once we do consider motion, then as Aristotle notes, this

definition has to be modified. We have to say that "place is a receptacle which cannot be

transported" (Physics, 212a 15). Thus, the place of a motionless boat is given by the

surrounding water, but once we consider the boat as moving down the river, "it is the whole

river which, being motionless as a whole, functions as a place" (ibid., 212a 19). As the

example of the boat suggests, the place of a body need not be continuous with the body itself.

6 “Le mouvement est le fondement de toute manifestation. Or la manifestation pour

Aristote n’est pas manifestation de quelque chose dont l’essence demeurerait en retrait. Au

contraire, l’être tout entier entre dans le phénomène, car «être» ne signifie rien d’autre que

déterminer un substrat; la détermination du substrat est mouvement et le mouvement réside

précisément, comme nous venons de le voir, dans la manifestation. Le mouvement est ainsi

ce qui fonde l’identité de l’être et de l’apparaître. L’être est être manifeste” mouvement :

signification philosophique et recherches historiques” in Le monde naturel et le mouvement

de l’existence humaine,  ed. and trans. Erika Abrams [Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic

Publishers, 1988], p. 132).

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minations of a substrate, etc., are movements.”7 Thus, a plant grows and develops through

the movements of taking in and shaping the materials from its environment. Similarly, on an

inorganic level, the movements of subatomic particles actualize the atoms; the movements

and resulting bonding of the atoms bring about the chemical elements, and so on through the

structures of the material world. Such movements don’t just actualize entities, they affect

their environments. The entities that they actualize thus stand out or exist. They are present

to their environments. This is why Patočka writes, “movement is the foundation of all mani-

festation.”8

Implicit in the above is the attempt to think of actualization as an environmental con-

cept. What is actualized is both the being and the appearing of the thing in terms of its envi-

ronment. Patočka developed this position through his study of Aristotle. The point of this

study, however, is not historical. He engages in it as part of his attempt to develop an asub-

jective phenomenology.9 Viewed asubjectively, appearing, taken as presence to something,

is not, in the first instance, a category of consciousness; it is simply a thing’s affect on its en-

vironment. A weight, for example, appears (is present) to a pillow by depressing it. The hol-

low it makes is its presence. This presence is its place as a weight affecting the pillow. This

7 Ibid., p. 131.

8 Ibid.

9 “Pourtant, les moyens ontologiques d’Aristote sont une chose. Autre chose est son

projet de pensée fondamental - comprendre l’être de l’étant fini comme faisant partie d’un

mouvement global d’accroissement de l’être. Que ce projet de pensée soit inséparable de

l’empirie grossière de départ ou des propres moyens conceptuels du penseur, cela n’a pas été

prouvé. De nos jours, alors que la philosophie cherche derechef un fondement ontologique

asubjectif, un Aristote dédogmatisé est, pour cette raison, actuel” (Patočka, Jan. Aristote, ses

devanciers, ses successeurs, trans. Erika Abrams [Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin,

2011], p. 253.

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can be put in terms of Hans Rainer Sepp’s association of place and house. A house, I noted,

encloses and yet, with its windows and doors, is permeable. The example of the weight on

the pillow illustrates both the enclosure of the space occupied by the weight and the perme-

ability of such enclosure insofar as the weight is an actual weight in its pressing down on the

pillow. The relation of place, like that of actualization, is environmental. Place, being, and

appearing have to be thought of as relations of the thing to what surrounds it.

Place as a Concept of Life

Living beings stand out or exist by engaging in metabolism, i.e., by exchanging mate-

rial with what surrounds them. Engaging in this exchange, living beings are both composed

of matter and yet different from it. They cannot be identified with the matter composing

them since, as Hans Jonas writes, this “is forever vanishing downstream.” This very fact,

however, means that, to continue to be, they have to take in new matter to replace what they

have lost. Thus, an organism, Jonas writes, is “independent of the sameness of this matter”

but “is dependent on the exchange of it.”10 Both necessities position metabolism (Stoffwech-

sel) as the fundamental motion of life. It is behind the organism’s actualization. Through it,

the organism is both present to its environment and distinguishes itself, i.e., stands out, from

it by affecting it. Now, this standing-out is also a standing-in the environment. By taking in

material, the organism becomes part of the material environment. This taking in of material

is the internalization of this material environment; it makes the organism part of it, i.e., a ma-

terial part among other material parts. It is also, however, the organism’s standing out by af-

fecting its environment. The organism, then, combines the opposites of being part of an envi-

10 Mortality and Morality--A Search for the Good after Auschwitz, ed. Laurence Vogel,

Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1996, p. 86.

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ronment and distinguishing itself from this. Both are the results of the metabolic process that

actualizes it.

When we speak of presence to something in terms of affecting it, then it is clear that

such presence indicates a double relationship. An organism affects and, hence, is present to

its environment; reciprocally, the environment, which includes other organisms, affects and is

present to the organism. Now, in the case of sentient animals, this presence of the environ-

ment embodies a pragmatic sense. The environment is seen in terms of the features useful for

survival and propagation. Thus, the living environment is present to the organism as, for ex-

ample, predator or prey, sexual partner or competitor. The inorganic environment is present

to it as water to drink, a cave to find shelter, and so forth. To reverse this, the organism is

present to its living environment through its own actions of predation, sexual display, etc.

The organism’s actions also affect its nonliving environment. The air in the atmosphere, for

example, is a result, in part, of the respiration of living creatures. This respiration is part of

their presence to it.

When we limit ourselves to living creatures, we can speak of a double disclosure and,

correspondingly, of a double actualization. Through its motion, the animal discloses and ac-

tualizes the features of the environment that are useful to it. The environment, in turn, dis-

closes and actualizes the animal through its affecting it. Thus, the deer chewing on the grass

discloses the grass as food to be eaten. Eating it, he actualizes it as food. To reverse this,

grass exhibits and actualizes, in its being eaten, the deer as an actual herbivore. Similarly, the

wolf through his predation discloses and actualizes the deer as prey, while the deer reveals

the wolf as a predator in its flight from the latter. As these examples illustrate, things affect

and are present to each other through their motion. This motion actualizes the things receiv-

ing this motion and, if the latter are sentient, this actualization includes the moving objects’

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appearing to them. Thus, the grass being chewed is present to the deer in the release of its el-

ements. Actualizing the deer as a herbivore, the grass being chewed actualizes its own ap-

pearing as food.

This double disclosure and actualization is a result of the evolutionary processes that

shaped life. As Darwin discovered, an organism evolves in relation to its shifting environ-

ment. A change in its environment requires, if the organism is to survive, a corresponding

change in the way that the organism responds to this. Thus, the wolf evolves to hunt specific

types of prey, and the prey it hunts evolves to escape its predation. A change in one term of

this relation requires a corresponding change in the other. The environment of an organism

includes, of course, the physical world. As the example of the atmosphere shows, the physi-

cal world is also affected by the activities of the organisms inhabiting it, the very organisms

that the environment, in turn, affects and causes to evolve. There is, then, an evolutionary

history not just of nature, but of presence and disclosure. The appearing of the world is not

fixed, but is part of evolutionary history.

The concept of double actualization allows us to answer the question of the place of

life. We can approach it by asking about the place of color: Is color in the eye or is it in the

colored object that we see? What prevents us from choosing between the answers is the fact

that neither the seeing eye nor the colored object can be without the other. The seeing eye ac-

tualizes the object’s appearing and, hence, its being as a colored object.11 But this object, in

turn, actualizes the eye’s being as an eye seeing color. In the first instance, this double actu-

alization seems to place color in both the eye and the colored object. But the two actualiza-

tions, in their mutual dependence, are actually only a single actualization. This actualization

11 Without the seeing eye, objects are simply emitters of colorless electromagnetic

waves.

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is that of the place, the “where” of color. The same point holds with regard to the place of

life. The place involves both the individual organism and its environment in their mutual de-

pendence.

How far does this place, this “where,” extend? Darwin writes at length about what he

calls “the web of complex relations” that binds different species together. The web, he writes,

is such “that the structure of every organic being is related in the most essential and yet often

hidden manner to that of all the other organic beings with which it comes into competition for

food or residence or from which it has to escape or on which it preys.”12 For Darwin, the indi-

vidual features that make up a particular organism’s structure, from the shape of its legs to

the type of eyes it has, are actually a set of indices. Each points to the specific features of the

environment in which it functions.13 Natural selection, working through this environment,

acts, he says, “on every internal organ, on every shade of constitutional difference, on the

whole machinery of life.”14 Thus, once we bear “in mind,” according to Darwin, “how infin-

itely complex and close-fitting are the mutual relations of all organic beings to each other and

to their physical conditions of life,” 15 we have to say that the actualization of the organism

has an indefinite boundary. So has the place of the organism as determined by its actualiza-

tion. To represent this place, we cannot think of it as a point on a map, but rather as the map

itself. Such a map would exhibit the mutual relations that are required for its actualization.

12 “The Origin of the Species,” Ch. IV, in The Origin of the Species and the Descent of

Man (New York, 1967), p. 62.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid., p. 65.

15 Ibid., p. 63.

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The place of the organism as the place of its actualization would be the web of relations illus-

trated by the map.

The Place of Subjectivity

When we ask about the place of the subject, the obvious answer is that, as embodied,

the subject is in the world. The world, however, is present to our consciousness. It exists in

our conscious apprehension of it. Thus, each of us, as Merleau-Ponty says, has to assert, “I

am in the world and the world is in me.” As paradoxical as it seems, we are compelled, he as-

serts, to hold “on to both ends of the chain.” 16 This is because neither side is intelligible

without the other. Thus, I can only speak about the world in terms of my conscious appre-

hension of it. But such apprehension requires my bodily senses and activities, and I cannot

speak of these except in terms of the world. My embodiment makes them (and, hence, my-

self) part of the world—the very world that I can examine using the techniques of the natural

and human sciences. Given this, the place of the subject has to involve both the world and

consciousness. Its place involves an intertwining, where each side is placed in the other.

This mutual placing also comes forward when we speak of our actuality, that is, our

being in act or functioning as subjects. Aristotle’s description of the student-teacher relation-

ship can be used to illustrate this mutual placing. For Aristotle, as for Patočka, a thing is

present where it is at work. This is the place where it stands out or exists by acting to affect

its environment. Given this, we have to say that the teacher exists, is present, where he is at

work. His place is where he is functioning and, thereby, affecting his environment. Function-

ing as a teacher, he is, thus, in the student.17 Now, as Aristotle points out, the teacher’s actu-

16 Merleau–Ponty, Maurice. The Visible and the Invisible, trans. A. Lingis, Evanston:

Northwestern University Press, 1968 p. 8.

17 Aristotle, Physics, 202b 7-8.

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alization is one with the student’s actualization. His being an actual teacher occurs in union

with the student’s being an actual learner.18 Now, for Aristotle, the student is essentially the

passive partner in this relationship. The teacher acts to actualize the student’s potentiality to

learn.19 Doing so, he is at work in the student. One can also say, however, that the student,

through his questioning, actualizes the teacher’s potentiality to teach. As such, the student,

prompting the teacher through his questioning, is at work in the teacher. The single actual-

ization of the student and the teacher is thus correlated to their being in one another. The

same holds with regard to the embodied subject’s relation to its world. Through its actions,

the subject affects the world. Affecting it, the subject exists within it. The world, however,

also acts on the subject, affecting it. As such, it also exists in the embodied subject. In this

mutual placing, there is only a single actualization. The world actualizes the subject in its po-

tentiality to be a place where the world can appear. This subject actualizes the world in its

potentiality to appear. What we find here is the same pattern that we encountered in speaking

of the relation of color to the seeing eye. As before, we have to say that the two actualiza-

tions, in their mutual dependence, intertwine to form a single actualization. The place of this

actualization includes this intertwining of place within place.

Merleau-Ponty uses a striking metaphor to describe the placing of the world in us. Us-

ing the word tapisser, which signifies to cover, drape, line or wallpaper, he writes that “our

18 Physics, Physics

202a 16-20.

19 Aristotle defines

motion as the actualization of a potentiality. In his words, “the actualization of what

is potential as potential is ‘being in movement’” (ibid., 201a 11). Thus, the teacher’s

movement is his actualizing the student’s potential to learn a given subject. Since this

potential is in the student, so is the teacher in actualizing it.

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flesh lines and even envelops all the visible and tangible things” (VI, p. 123). Thus, we “line”

the world with visual qualities through our eyes, with tactile qualities through our sensitive

skin, and so on. Doing so, our embodied subjectivity provides measures “for being, dimen-

sions to which we can refer it.”20 This means that it is through our flesh that we can refer to

the sensible aspects of being. We can measure it along the axes or “dimensions” of its tastes,

sounds, smells, roughness and smoothness.21 Our flesh is the place of disclosure for these

sensuous qualities. Such qualities are in the place provided by our embodied senses. The

world that is present through our embodiment is, however, the very world that our embodi-

ment thrusts us into. This means, Merleau-Ponty writes, “my eyes which see, my hands

which touch, can also be seen and touched … they see and touch the visible, the tangible

from within” the visible and tangible world (VI, p. 123). Similarly, the flesh that “lines and

even envelops” the things of this world is “nevertheless surrounded” by them (ibid.). It is

within the world it reveals.

We envelop the world not only through our senses but also through our activities.

They, too, function as a place of disclosure. This means that they give us a further sense of

the way that the world is in us. Such activities can be straightforwardly pragmatic, such as

boiling water in a kettle to make tea. They can also be more complex actions like teaching.

The corresponding appearing of the world here includes the water we set boiling and the stu-

dent that is learning. On the one hand, the place of our actuality is where we are active. This

is where we exist or stand out. We are there in our action of boiling the water or teaching the

student. On the other hand, the water’s boiling and student’s learning are in us. Our actions

disclose them. They exist and appear, not in our flesh, but in the actions that actualize the

20 Ibid., p. 103.

21 Ibid., p. 103.

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water’s potentiality to boil or the student’s potentiality to learn. Such actualization includes

the sense that our actions, if successful, impose upon them. Thus, the water has the sense of

water boiling for my tea and the student has the sense of a person learning the subject I am

teaching. Their existing in these actions is one with our actualization as engaging in them.

Thus, the boiling water’s existing in and through my action of boiling it is one with my actu-

alization as the person boiling it. Similarly, the learning student existing through my teaching

exists in union with my actualization as a teacher. The place of this actualization is where I

am active. It is in what I actualize.

The intertwining of places and actualizations signifies that we have to do only with a

single reality. Given this, the thought of the world as it is in itself, the world whose reality is

independent of ourselves, is as incoherent as the thought of a single organism, an organism

thought apart from the web of life through which it functions. The actuality of the water boil-

ing in my kettle is unthinkable apart from my action; similarly the actuality of a student learn-

ing involves the actuality of teaching. In all such cases, there is a single actualization and a

single, intertwined place.

Subjectivity as an Environmental Concept

What is the self or subject viewed in term of this single actualization? How are we to

illustrate it as a place (a “house”) for being and appearing. Insofar as the embodied subject is

a living being, its place is not representable as a point on a map. It has to be described as a

map depicting all the intertwined relations involved in this single actualization. The dimen-

sions illustrated by this map thus include all the measures “for being, dimensions to which we

can refer it,” which are brought up by Merleau-Ponty.

We can gain an insight into the complexity of this map by considering the mathemati-

cal dimensions or variables that are required to specify the distances represented on this map.

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Given that actualization involves motion and motion involves crossing distances, such dimen-

sions “for being” can claim to be fundamental. Now, in three-dimensional Cartesian space,

three variables are required to fix a position. In this space, the shortest line measuring the

distance between two points can be determined by the three variables (the x, y, and z coordi-

nates) of these points. For an embodied subject, however, the shortest distance is determined

by its body. Its muscular structure and size determine how it is able to move between points.

Thus, the localized space of an adult human being is different than that of a child. Both are

different from that of a bird. This means that the variables determining the shortest lines be-

tween positions in such spaces vary accordingly. As the French mathematician, Henri

Poincaré, pointed out, it signifies that our “motor space” has as many dimensions as the mus-

cular determinants of our motion.22 All of the dimensions of this “motor space” must be rep-

resented in the map depicting the place of the subject.

What is the relation of consciousness to this place? To speak of consciousness, we

have to discuss time. This is because there is no space, properly speaking, in the experiences

that fill our consciousness. We cannot say that an experience has a certain size or that one

experience is a given distance from another. The house we regard may be so many meters

high and so many meters distant from the next one, but such predicates do not apply to our

experiences considered in themselves. They have only temporal relations: They succeed one

another, endure, and share durations. If we want to regard space, we have to look outward.

Since we cannot sensibly see what is past or what is to come, our perception is limited to the

22 In Poincaré’s words, “Each muscle gives rise to a special sensation which may be

increased or diminished so that the aggregate of our muscular sensations will depend upon as

many variables as we have muscles. From this point of view, motor space would have as

many dimensions as we have muscles” (Science and Hypothesis [New York: The Walter

Scott Publishing Co., 1905], p. 64).

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spatial relations grasped in the now.23 These are the relations that science investigates. It re-

duces time to the spatial positions of the hands on clocks. Using the numbers gained from

clocks, it understands motion through the a-temporal expressions of mathematical formulae.

Thus, the experience of the constant movement of an object, which subjectively involves our

memories of its just past positions and our anticipations of those it is about to advance to, is

expressed by the static relation, velocity equals distance divided by time (v=d/t). Similarly, a

change of motion becomes acceleration understood as distance divided by time squared

(a=d/t2). A more complicated motion with a changing acceleration is dealt with by a more

complicated, yet equally timeless formula. These formulae do not yield motion, but rather

snapshots of it. When we enter specific numbers into their variables, they give us the object’s

position at the instant determined by these numbers.

As is obvious, both time and space are required for the map depicting the subject.

Distances in this map are determined by the subject’s bodily structure. The latter, in deter-

mining distances, determines the time required to cross them. Now, if we say that time is our

experiential measure of motion, then, as is obvious, this measure requires space. Without

space, there are no distances to cross and, hence, no motion for time to measure. Space, as it

were, extends or “spaces” time considered as a measure. If we attempt to conceive of time

apart from space, then its moments become non-extended units. As non-extended, however,

these units collapse into each other. This dependence of extended time on space is actually

the dependence of our consciousness on the spatial world that embodies it. This spatial

world, however, has no sense apart from consciousness. The latter gives it its intelligible

sense. The scientific formula for motion, d/t, gives us only individual snapshots of motion.

23 To move beyond the now, we have to remember the past or anticipate the future. But

to do so, we have to turn inward to regard the temporal relations of our consciousness.

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We, however, experience, not frozen images, but motion. We require this experience to give

sense to the formula.

With this, we have an answer to the question of relation of consciousness to the sub-

ject conceived as a place. If we abstract space from this place, we are left only with the tem-

poral relations that characterize consciousness. If, alternatively, we abstract time from it,

only the spatial relations formalized by science remain. Both are abstractions when we think

of the subject as an environmental concept. Conceived as such, the subject does indeed be-

comes a “house of being.” It becomes a place where actualization and appearing occur to-

gether.

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