Subjectivity as Fiction

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the postmodern understanding of subjectivity as fiction and some of its consequential statements criticising humanist Western understanding. Firstly, it discusses the theories of an autonomous and pre-existing selfhood and then explains the psychoanalytic approach to human subjectivity. That approach analyses subjectivity and concludes that it is the interior structure of humans which is constructed through the childhood stages and psychoanalytic processes.

From the Paper:

"On the other hand, it is important to remember that we cannot function in this world or in this society without some concept of subjectivity (Mansfield 2000, 171-172). Language is grounded in subjectivity. Every noun and every pronoun argues for the existence of some unique subject. One couldn't have social rhetoric, ultimately, without some theory of the subject, some faith in a society composed of multiple, unique subjects. Carrying this argument to is furthest extreme, one could say that nothing would show up for us at all without subjectivity since subjectivity is the cornerstone of language, and language delivers "the world" to us once we have entered the symbolic order. Subjectivity, then, is a useful fiction in that it delivers the world to us, and allows us to function within it. It is a useful tool which helps us shape our worlds, through language. Whether we argue that subjects are auto-produced or culturally produced or they are fictions created by power, however, it seems clear that there are subjects so long as there is language, and that subjectivity is not a spontaneous and naturally occurring phenomenon (Mansfield 2000, 179). It seem to be produced, in one way or another."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Baldwin, E., B. Longhurst, S. McCracken, M. Ogborn and G. Smith (eds.), 1999, Introducing Cultural Studies, University of Georgia Press, Athens.
• Butler, J., 1990, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Routledge, New York.
• 1993, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of 'Sex', Routledge, New York.
• Cavallaro, D., 2001, Critical and Cultural Theory, The Athlone Press, London and New Brunswick, NJ.
• Foucault, M., 1979, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison trans. A. Sheridan, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth.

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