A Defence of Genuine Open Intersubjectivity in Object Perception

Abstract

ABSTRACT The thesis of open intersubjectivity (OI) is that the other is present in our perceptual experience of objects without any concrete encounter. The main goal of this paper is to provide a modified version of this thesis that meets two conditions at the same time: first, preserves the main insight of OI, namely the structural presence of the other in the act of object perception; and second, prevents challenges to the strong version proposed by Zahavi. To that end, after Zahavi's explanation of OI is introduced, the main lines of argument against it will be discussed. These lines call into question both the phenomenological validity of this version and the broader context in which it has been embedded. Then, a new framework for object perception will be proposed which reconciles the normative and enactive approaches to object perception. This new framework is capable of meeting the two aforementioned conditions.