The Subjectivity of Certainty and the Subjectivity of Uncertainty

Abstract

Based on the acknowledgment of what I have designated as cracks in our theoretical models, I have advanced some hypotheses that account for the constitution of social, familial, and individual subjectivity. I have attributed great significance to the concept of the unforeseeable. The unforeseeable is tied to uncertainty, which is related in turn to the flow of interpersonal relations. I have also discussed new forms of suffering that stem from conditions imposed by the social context, in this case, the expulsion from one's territory. I chose this phenomenon because of the importance I attach both to the feeling of social belonging and to subjects' need to create stable places in a world in constant flux. Some clinical vignettes illustrated these reflections.

Notes

¹I explain later how I understand the difference between representation and presentation.

²Through the judgment of attribution, individuals confirm appropriation by means of introjections or expulsions sustained by the ego-pleasure. The judgment of existence, by contrast, is sustained by the ego-reality, and attributes a representation to the ego that is no loner suitable. What is at stake here is the enesis of the interior–exterior division.

³Many metapsychological concepts present in Freudian theory share this origin, for instance, the drive, primary narcissism, and the Oedipus complex. We know them only through their representants.

⁴By hyphenating the word re-conocimiento (recognition), the author underlines the fact that re-conocer (recognize) means to know (conocer) again. Throughout the text she plays with two of the meanings of the verb “to recognize” (reconocer), namely, “to be aware of as something or someone known before, or as the same as that known,” and “to acknowledge the existence, validity, authority, or genuineness of.” (T.N.)

⁵“L'incertitude de notre avenir donne aux objets leur véritable prix” (Chateaubriand, 1946).

⁶This was Hans Jonas's (1979/1984) point of view when he posited the Principle of Responsibility. According to this principle, men must take responsibility for their power to destroy nature.

⁷Social organizations have greatly changed since the 1960s. The illusion of job security and upward mobility has vanished.

⁸The word the author uses in Spanish is des-oir, literally, dis-hearing. I chose an approximate translation. (T.N.)