Intersubjectivity

Abstract “Intersubjectivity” describes the basic structure of the international understood as social, as opposed to a physical, system. Etymologically, it means the space between subjects, where they stand in relation to one another, and where they engage and encounter one another. “The subject” is the founding term of philosophical modernity, first articulated by Descartes, who posited the subject as the starting point for all thought and action at the dawn of the modern age. Intersubjectivity is the forgotten third term mediating between “subjectivity” and “objectivity.” It has gained a bad reputation in international studies by being conflated with an emphasis on ideational factors in much of mainstream constructivist work. In this essay we recover intersubjectivity for International Political Sociology, first by distinguishing it from several varieties of individualist theory, and second by exploring how language and discourse operate intersubjectively to constitute subjects (as opposed to “individuals”).