The Person as an Effect of Communication

Abstract

The subject of my chapter is the subject or its derivates, the actor, the author, the individual. But my aim is not to explain what a subject or its derivates are or can be or should be. The claim I assert is rather modest. I will not deal with real subjects — if any real subject has ever existed. I want only to meditate on how subjects can be addressed and why subjectivity as a form has emerged as an accountable point of attribution. I want only to make some theoretical remarks about how sociology deals with the problem of subjectivity. As a warning, I have to confess that I shall take readers on a necessary detour through the discipline’s classical approach to theorizing subjectivity, with a focus on the problem of willing and doing and the deconstruction of those traditional concepts. The basso continuo of this chapter is a criticism of the peculiar tendency of sociology concerning the functional meaning of attribution practices to individuals. How selves can emerge as ‘willing selves’ is the fundamental question of this volume and the fundamental question of the bourgeois tradition. The basic question of this bourgeois world was: ‘How can we will what we have to do?’ The contemporary question in our neuroscientifical world is probably: ‘How can we will what our brain is going to do with us?’ Thus far — my cryptic suggestions about what I want to present here.

I want to thank Sabine Maasen, Barbara Sutter, and Daniel Lee for really helpful comments.