Socio-Philosophical Approach to the Problem of Human Subjectivity

Abstract

The author analyzes the phenomenon of the subject in its socio-philosophical perspective, which differs from the ontological, gnoseological, and anthropological consideration of subjectivity. Using the methodology of the substantive-activity approach, the author considers the subject as an active entity capable of initiating and controlling goal-oriented activity aimed at satisfying his own needs, interests, and goals. The author is convinced that the properties of the social subject - the ability to self-purpose existence, based on the motivational examination of different options of behavior and the free choice between them - have only separately taken people, human individuals. The author criticizes the ideas of "methodological collectivism," which attributes subjectivity to society, the state, and other institutional forms of human coexistence that influence activity but are not capable of carrying it out. The article analyzes organizational forms of subject-object mediation based on links of intersubjectivity, compositional intersection, and interpenetration. The author offers his understanding of the well-known philosophical formulas: "there is no activity without a subject and no subject outside of activity"; "there is no activity without an object and no object outside of activity"; "there is no subject without an object". The author considers subjectivity as the most important property of man, which is preserved by him in the conditions of forced functioning, which presupposes normally interiorization of externally imposed goals and agreement to their realization. At the same time, a person is capable of losing his or her subjective status in a situation when external coercion deprives him or her of the freedom of choice - when it is not a person who does something, but something is done to a person, using another person's activity as an object.