The philosophical tradition has long understood subjectivity solely in reference to the self's place within the world and the powers of intentional transcendence which open it. Nowhere is this presupposition more apparent than in the thought of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty. Despite the precise differences among their respective philosophies of transcendence, each understands the self as little else than that which opens the exteriority of a world and is thereby exhausted and determined by it. Against this prevailing assumption that the self is a 'being-in-the-world', I contend that the essence of subjectivity instead consists in the unworldly interiority of life's affective self-revelation. The studies that follow accordingly investigate five related aspects of subjectivity: the irreducibility of the self's individuality to society; the blow of vanity that reveals this inwardness; the resultant life that marshals and in turn deploys it; the power of the work of art to express it; and finally the promise of immortality that sustains it.

My project is an exploration of the ethics of subjectivity as proposed by Friedrich Nietzsche and Emmanuel Levinas, and it evolved from the question of whether subjectivity is experienced essentially as an unfolding of the will to power from within one's own being to act on the outside, or whether it is primarily a formation based on an intrinsically passive exposure to exteriority. In the first part I descriptively laid out Nietzsche's and Levinas's conceptions of subjectivity. I began with portraying Nietzsche's naturalistic account in which the human subject is basically an organism which functions based on its inherent will to power to interpret, shape and dominate its environment. Levinas's interpretation of the human subject, on the other hand, is unapologetically anthropocentric and fundamentally inter-subjective, according to which the subject gains its identity by responding to the Other without expecting reciprocity. Levinas provocatively refers to the religiosity of the human soul by emphasizing that it is only through sociality that one truly realises one's moral capacity. In the second part, I critiqued the two philosophers' accounts from each other's view points. I posed a Levinasian criticism of Nietzsche based on the ethical validity of the latter's notion of the subject for being too self-sufficient and hence indifferent to the suffering of others. Lastly, I presented a Nietzschean challenge to Levinas by rejecting the universalizing aspect of the latter's philosophy from the former's notion of perspectivism. I suggested that Levinas promotes a notion of subjectivity which has a stifling effect upon the creativity and flourishing of the free spirit who wants to cultivate her character.

Based on a cross-cultural comparison of requesting behavior between Koreans and Americans, the study tried to determine the extent of pragmatic transfer and the impact of individual subjective motives that may influence pragmatic language choice. Two different groups of subjects participated in this study: 30 Korean participants for Korean (KK) and also for interlanguage (KE) data who were studying English as a Second Language (ESL) in a U.S. university, and 30 American college students (AE). Data were collected by using a questionnaire with a Discourse Completion Task (DCT). Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with 13 Korean ESL learners who showed the highest and the least amount of pragmatic transfer. Findings showed evidence of pragmatic transfer in the request responses given by Korean ESL learners in the level of directness, perspectives of head acts, and the frequency of supportive moves and internal modifiers. The requesting behaviors of KE group were realized through more direct strategies than those of AE group. KE speakers had a tendency to use hearer-oriented requests more frequently than AE speakers, but slightly less than KK speakers, indicating that L1 transfer is operative. Pragmatic transfer occurred in three supportive moves such as Promise of Reward, Appreciation, and Apology and in three internal modifiers such as play-down, consultative device, and downtoner. The interviewees in this study were conscious of differing rules for requesting. Learners’ judgment of L2 pragmatic norms, the learners’ perception of their own language and their attitudes of the learned language have a determining influence on language use. Furthermore, findings showed that purpose of learning the L2, learners’ different types of motivation, and the length of residence intention contribute to the extent of pragmatic transfer. Finally, impossibility to acquire native-like proficiency, fear of disloyalty to their own culture, and preference of L1 styles as a marker of cultural identity seemed to be factors that influence learners’ pragmatic choices. Findings of this study offer implications that language educators need to recognize and plan for the different target goals language learners may have and that second/foreign language speakers also possess a desire to express their own identity.

ABSTRACT This text is to understand, in the fissure of modernity and post-modernity, how contemporary people face the future; in particular, in the age of technoscientific rationality, how China face her binal crisis and to solve them. Until Now, in regard to the debate between modernity and post-modernity, domestic scholars usually fall into philosophic speculation, and don¡¦t touch the real condition of society. Besides, they usually follow the science of Western, and don't deal with the problems faced by China in the postmodern society, and how she can play a role in the postmodern society. This text uses a method model that I obtain from my research of the methodology of social science for more than ten years. Basically, social science research begins from question and crisis; if there are question and crisis, we will proceed to interpret and understand them; if we have a foundation of interpretation, we may proceed to reconstruct and criticize in order to maintain original paradigm, or we may proceed to deconstruct and fuse in order to achieve paradigm shift. According to this method model, this text begins with exploring Western scientific crisis and the domination of technological society; further, we analyze the rational foundation and subjectivity characteristic of this phenomenon, at the same time we want to understand humanism and the Enlightenment that influenced the rise of Western science and technology. Through this understanding, we can understand the root of crisis and possible solution. When Western technoscientific rationality faces with crisis, What Karl Popper and Jürgen Habermas do is to reconstruct and criticize, while Paul Feyerabend, Edmund Husserl, Matin Heidegger and postmodernists deconstruct and fuse. Basically, the former want to reconstruct the original normal standard and criticize the deformation of real society in order to maintain original paradigm; the latter want to deconstruct original paradigm in order to open the new possibility. The approaches of resolution about technoscientific crisis include: technical, democratic, aesthetic and post-metaphysical. The first two adopt a stand of reconstruction and critique, holding an optimistic attitude with regard to technoscientific rationality. The latter two adopt the strategy of deconstruction and fusion, holding a pessimistic attitude with regard to technoscientific rationality. The dilemma of China in the technoscientific era is ambiguity, on the one hand, we must develop technoscientific rationality in order to enter modern quickly; on the other hand, we also must use traditional religious philosophy to participate in the discourse of post-modern. This contradictory plight demands that we adopt a stand of ¡§both/ and¡¨, so we can get rid of the anxiety of ¡§either/ or¡¨. Therefore we must equally emphasize science and humanism, and in this way, we can find a foothold in the postmodern society. Key Word: science, technology, rationality, subjectivity

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI/Dissertation Abstracts International.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität zu Münster, 1971. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 547-565).

Thesis (M.A.) in English--University of Maine, 2009. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 246-256).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 307-318).

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This dissertation investigates various issues at play in the development and perpetuation of jazz in Bulgaria from the early-20th century until the present. In particular, I explore jazz’s emergence within the conceptualization of subjective experience unique to modern Bulgaria. In this way I move away from the relatively static notion of a “transcendent” subjectivity centered on the “improviser” that constitutes a great deal of jazz historiography and discourse. Through an examination of jazz musicians, listeners, and government critics in different periods of Bulgarian history, I seek two broad but not mutually exclusive goals. The first is trace how “jazz” was conceptualized in different quarters of Bulgarian society and how those conceptualizations factored into the composition, recording, and patronage of music. This second is to posit alternatives to a subjectivity of “transcendence” in jazz performance, using the Bulgarian case as an example. Throughout the dissertation, I use “fascination” and “boredom” as the two concepts through which to ground a historically and materially-bound subjectivity that better takes into account social, cultural, and economic factors unique to Bulgaria. Ultimately, these concepts feature prominently in understanding jazz’s role in framing the fractured subjectivities of Bulgarians within modernity, as well as the constant historical struggle by Bulgarians to center senses of self and place within a changing Bulgaria, a changing Europe, and a changing world. / text