The Cat Ate Our Tongue—But We Got It Back: Benjamin's Journey From Domination to Surrender

Abstract

This article attempts to interpret the evolution of the concept of intersubjectivity in Jessica Benjamin's work as a movement from probing into domination, through probing into recognition, to probing into surrender. After a short discussion of Benjamin's concept of domination, the article illustrates the way Benjamin's concept of intersubjectivity shifted, with the development of her thought, from mutual recognition of separate subjects to recognition of our basic interpenetrating creation and entwinement. Through a discussion of Hegel's philosophy a case is made that the evolution from an ontological stance that gives precedence to the subjective dimension of experience to an ontology which sees subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and objectivity as three essential dimensions of every human experience lies at the core of Benjamin's evolving concepts of intersubjectivity. A clinical vignette serves to illustrate the difference between domination, mutual recognition, and surrender.

Notes

¹In Hegel's terminology, Moments are those aspects of existence that cannot gain their full meaning unless they are standing in dialectical tension with each other in which each preserves, negates, and elevates the other.

²Hegel (1807) presents a similar discourse regarding the mediating concept “Here.”

³Later on in his writings, Ghent refers to that basic human need as the “centrifugal motivational system” (2001, p. 26).