Abstract
Postmodern theories on the subject are very diverse. In this article, we take a closer look at physicist and philosopher Karen Barad’s work in the emerging field of new materialism as an example of postmodern theory. The aim is to analyze Barad’s subject model as such and what it entails for doing the science of psychology. We will do this by analyzing Barad’s notion of the subject through three different types of subject models. This analysis will then be supplemented by a critical inquiry into Barad’s subject model by way of phenomenology. We conclude that Barad’s subject model is unfit for studying the subject in psychology as she leaves no room for the universal characteristic of experiential life, which makes it impossible to generalize psychological findings—a necessity in science—and that this criticism could apply to other subject models like hers in postmodern theory.
Postmodern theories, the subject, and ontology
Postmodern theories (e.g., Derrida, 1967; Foucault, 1994) have analyzed subjectivity in a way that transcends the “standard way” since the age of enlightenment, where rationality, reason, and reflexivity were essential parameters for the “new” subjectivity. Advanced and pioneering assumptions regarding the human subject, its relations to other subjects (intersubjectivity), and the world outside the subject were made in the 20th century. Many theoretical paradigms collaborated unknowingly in this transformation of the primary categorization of the subject. Some examples can be named. The process philosophy of Whitehead was for many years a curiosity but has since experienced its own renaissance (Stengers, 2011), underlining the process as a “universal” ontological grounding of the subject (Rekret, 2016). Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947/2002) was one of the most important problematizations of enlightenment and the rational and reflecting subject. Freud’s decentering of the subject and his psychoanalysis in general (1916–17/1963), in which the conscious ego is no longer the center of psychological existence struck a further blow to this model of the subject. We think that symbolic interactionism (such as the theories of Cooley, 1902 and Mead, 1934) has been somewhat overlooked in this context because some of the main points in postmodern concepts of the subject are the relational and interactive approaches: the subject is constituted by social relations in nodes through an ever-active and subject-producing “web.”
Symbolic interactionism was one of the most important contributors, but there were other theoretical contributions. A propagation of semiological (as proposed by Saussure, 1916) and semiotic (as proposed by Pierce, 1991) theories of signs broadened the concept of language, making it not only a system for speaking and writing but a much more elaborated world of symbolic signs. Additionally, Wittgenstein’s (1953) ontological problematization of language in his theory of language games further expanded the relevance of seeing language in its performativity. The modern concept of discourse (Foucault, 1994) and the whole embodiment movement, in which the subject is, so to speak, stretched to the whole body, can be said to finally puncture the concept of the rational existential subject transparent to itself and in control of every action.
The purpose of this “namedropping” is to underline the point that postmodern theories (including modern feminist theories) in many ways function as a prism for many different theories that peak in the construction of a subject, which is very different from the standard model of the subject with which generations of scholars have identified. The postmodern view of the human subject sees it generally as a node in a web of relations, but a web which is dynamic and productive. The subject is constantly produced and reproduced and is exposed to discursive constructions which, acting as a sort of bounding or limiting condition among other things, define the space of the subject.
In principle, we understand and think it is correct to see the subject as something that is in constant creation, but we believe that there are some very important questions that need to be discussed—regarding experience (as primary subjective function) and generalization (in science). As a way to discuss these issues, we have chosen an example of a postmodern theory in Karen Barad, because she represents a so-called new materialism which rethinks especially ontological questions in relation to subjectivity. What follows is an investigation into Barad’s subject model, which will function as a case for our discussion of some possible limits on how postmodern theories on the subject relate themselves especially to the concept of experience and their possibility of being used for generalizations in science. Our discussion will limit itself to an explicit focus on the science of psychology.
Our way of reasoning is this: by discussing Karen Barad’s subject model, we hope to make statements about postmodern subject models similar to hers. In this context, we use the concept of postmodernism to designate concepts prioritized in a concrete historical period which, at the most general level, reject many aspects of modernity—the view of the human subject, history, determination, and so forth. As a concept of an ideational epoch, it is used as an “umbrella” for an inhomogeneous set of theories such as relativism, post-structuralism, social constructionism, and so forth. (Hacking, 1999; Sonne-Ragans, 2015).
Within this frame of reference, we are interested in ontological and epistemological aspects of defining the subject—and defining aspects of Barad’s contribution to a postmodernist view of the subject. In doing so, we discuss and analyze primary aspects of a postmodern definition of the subject as it relates to subject models in general. The aspects that these theories have in common do not, of course, define the entire theories themselves, indeed, they will often be at great odds with one another in many ways, and we thus do not pretend to postulate that all postmodernist theories are identical in their theories of the subject. However, no theory is an “alien theory”—every new theory defines itself explicitly or implicitly in relation to existing theories. If not, we would not be able to understand them. New theories can only be understood in this context by comparing concepts or aspects of the new theory with existing theories, or at least comparing them in general to types of theories. Here, we will do this with Barad by looking at those aspects of her theory that are primary in defining the human subject. We choose these aspects to reduce the complexity of her theory to a necessary level in order to make comparisons possible and hopefully to be able to generalize the points made through comparison. In this context, we use a structure that differentiates between three general models of the subject, which will serve as our framework of comparison. This framework synthesizes aspects (determination, agency, relations to other subjects, interaction) which are some of the primary and relevant aspects of the subject that have been the target of the last 200 years of discussions on models of the subject. The core of our discussion is of course abstract and other defining concepts could have been chosen in order to compare Barad’s theories to other theories, for example, religion, the relation to the body, and so forth. However, we think the aspects we have chosen are some of the most relevant in analyzing Barad’s contribution to our recognition of the human subject. The following discussion, as such, is not meant to be a complete discussion of all varieties of postmodern subject models, nor a discussion of the entirety of Barad’s theory, but we do hope to gain a general insight into some of the limits of postmodern subject models by discussing Karen Barad’s subject model.
Subject models: A framework for understanding subjectivity
Analyzing theories on subjectivity can be an arduous task and there are many ways to undertake it. In this article, we have chosen to work from a distinction between three types of subject models inspired by Vanessa Sonne-Ragans (2015): namely the centered, decentered, and multiple models of the subject. This framework will be used as an analytic tool to help grasp exactly how Barad (2007) understands the subject and will function as a foundation for the following philosophy of science discussion.
The centered model of the subject
Mostly identifiable, historically speaking, with Rene Descartes’ Discours de la Méthode (1637/2004), the centered model of the subject considers subjectivity as a quality to be exactly that, namely centered. This means that the subject is placed inside one body (or brain/soul), which constitutes the point of reference for knowledge- and meaning-making. Cartesian rationalism abounds, the subject is considered to be “gifted” with freedom of will, control over itself, and inherent rationality. The subject is able to subject itself (i.e., its body) and the world to this rationality through consciousness in order to make knowledge that is free of the affective, irrational, bodily, and dynamic. This means that the subject/object, body/psyche, and action/thought distinctions are inherent to the centered model. These rationalistic “islands” of subjects are able, through reflection and thought, to experience and make meaning of the chaotic “ocean” that is the world.
The decentered model of the subject
As opposed to the islands of perception, thought, and free rational will, the decentered model emphasizes that what constitutes the subject lies outside of conscious thought. Famously pointed out by Freud in his lectures (1916–1917/1969, pp. 283–284), wherein he commits the third decentering of modernism, 1 the creation of the subject in the decentered model is found in dynamic and interrelational forces, both from within and without, and the subject has no firm rationalistic island on which to stand. Importantly, agency is no longer that of the centered model, but is now rather one of other forces, which, in their relating to one another, constitute the subject. Even though the subject is not inherently given “inside one’s head,” the decentered models still insist on a subject that is (inside) there even though it is determined by outside forces.
The multiple model of the subject
Opposing rigid structures and determined attributes of the subject itself, the multiple model of the subject insists on the subject’s multiplicity, dynamism, relationality, diversity, and nongivenness (Sonne-Ragans, 2015). The multiple model is a postmodern one, it shuns the dualisms, splits of the centered and decentered models, and instead emphasizes the complete lack of an anchor of the subject. Here there are no islands or oceans, no stable “core-self,” no stability in a split of conscious/unconscious. What could be considered to be intra-psychical is not very important, as the dualism of outer/inner and subject/object is discarded. The subject is no longer bound to any singularity and is now constituted completely outside itself in contexts. Sonne-Ragans (2015) uses Deleuze’s Fold (Deleuze, 1993) as an example of a multiple subject model. Leaning on an explication by Rose (1998), Sonne-Ragans emphasizes that the multiple of the multiple subject models can be seen in how the subject is in constant production. Multiple subject models represent much of the work done on the subject in postmodern theory. In Deleuze’s enfoldment metaphor, for example, the subject is an enfoldment of outside materialities and agencies, which by their enfoldment gives the illusion of interiority to the subject. Crucially, this is multiplicity, because it is always a new materiality that is enfolded. This means that the characteristics that science has noted (memory, phantasy, habits) do not “belong” to the subject, but are merely events that occur through the subject. The subject is, as such, to be considered as something that only exists as an enfoldment of things “from the outside,” and the subject as such is not. As Murris and Bozalek (2019) put it: For Deleuze, thinking is an act, not something an “I” does. The subject is a “crowd”; it is multiple, not singular. You can’t say “I am this, I am that” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987/2014, p. 33). Similarly, about their co-authoring Deleuze (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987/2014, p. 3) write/s: “Since each of us was several, there was already quite a crowd.” (p. 878)
With these three models in mind, let us now move on to an analysis of Karen Barad and her work.
Karen Barad: Agential realism and bodies in the making
This section is dedicated to an analysis of Karen Barad’s work in her book titled Meeting the Universe Halfway (2007) and some of her more prominent articles (Barad, 2003, 2012, 2014). As a self-proclaimed relational ontologist, Karen Barad proposes a theory where one can hardly describe one concept without describing the others. For example, one could only with great difficulty try to describe Barad’s epistemology by itself, as she collapses the usual epistemology/ontology distinction into an onto-epistemology, stressing the point that these, and everything else, are inseparable (Barad, 2007). However, due to the limited space of this article, we will narrow our focus to certain elements. These are Barad’s ideas of the subject, which we will later use to analyze the philosophical consequences this has for conducting psychological science, with particular emphasis on experience and generalizations. 2 Certain aspects of her theoretical work will not be dealt with thoroughly. These include the development of her theory through Niels Bohr’s quantum theory and what Barad terms his philosophy-physics and her methodology of diffraction. Instead, we will focus on what she concludes from her reading of Niels Bohr, that is, her own theory and what this consists of, following her use of diffraction. In the first section, we will present a coherent view of her system of thought, summarizing the most important concepts. Then we will turn our attention to what matters in this article, namely the subject model in Karen Barad’s work.
Agential realism: A world in its becoming
Humans do not simply assemble different apparatuses for satisfying particular knowledge projects but are themselves specific parts of the world’s ongoing reconfiguring. To the degree that laboratory manipulations, observational interventions, concepts and other human practices have a role to play, it is as part of the material configuration of the world in its intra-active becoming. Humans are part of the world–body space in its dynamic structuration. (Barad, 2007, pp. 184–185)
Agential realism might best be described as the concept that labels the entire framework of Barad’s work. It is thus quite difficult to describe it in the limited space available to us, so here we will briefly sketch it out, in order to be able to focus on what constitutes the subject in it later on.
Barad’s (2007) project is one of “making matter matter” again. Her agential realism can be seen as a kind of critical naturalism. First, this provides us with two questions: who or what is the agent and in what way is the “real” constituted. Let us begin with the real, which is to be found in a relational ontology focused on materiality and Bohrian quantum physics.
The real: Material/discursivity and Bohrian phenomena
Dealing with poststructuralists like Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, Barad (2003, 2007) attempts to explicate a notion of materialism that they both have, but do not, according to her, quite succeed in making matter. In particular, she has a problem with the nature/culture dualism of social constructivists,
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whereby discursivity is a realm of the cultural and nature itself is simply something passive, inactive, and stable, gendered female, waiting to be ascribed something or other from the active, gendered male realm of culture (Barad, 2003; Calvert-Minor, 2014). Matter, according to Barad, is not inactive and stable, but rather dynamic and enfolding. It is a constant becoming, incorporating basically everything there is, including the discursive. In fact, Barad does not make a material or metaphysical distinction between the material and the discursive, but usually connotes it as material-discursive, emphasizing their inseparability: Discursive practices are specific material (re)configurings of the world through which the determination of boundaries, properties, and meanings is differentially enacted. That is, discursive practices are ongoing agential intra-actions of the world. (Barad, 2007, p. 148)
This has important consequences for notions of knowing and individuality, to which we will return later. The real in her agential realism is what she terms “Phenomena . . . – relations without pre-existing relata.” (Barad, 2007, p. 333) The basic unit of existence is phenomena constituted, not in relations amongst individual entities, but rather in exactly relations and not relata (i.e., pregiven objects in a relation), which means that relations precede whatever might be constituted as having certain boundaries from something else (Barad, 2007). Her reasons for determining relata as fundamental to phenomena and matter are twofold. One is to do away with an inherent Cartesian subject/object dualism. The other is founded in her readings of Niels Bohr’s quantum physics, where what can be said to exist exactly are these phenomena (which we will return to shortly) that in themselves are relations; that is, it is more empirically precise, according to Barad, to understand the world in its intra-relatedness (or intra-activeness) as opposed to its inter-relatedness between already given entities with preexisting boundaries and measures (Barad, 2003). How is this possible? Through Bohrian phenomena.
The phenomena of Niels Bohr are to be understood as relationally constituted. When dealing with the problems of complementarity (the now classical problem of quantum physics: “How can light be both a wave and a particle at the same time?”) Barad’s reading of Bohr solves this by claiming that the notion of wave and particle is not an inherent attribute of nature but is rather something “created” with the measurement of it. That is, the phenomenon of light as a particle is a result of the particular apparatus that we use to measure matter as such. Matter and apparatus together constitute light as a particle. It is important to understand that scientific concepts and material apparatuses coincide here, so when we speak of a certain phenomenon we are effectively also talking about the apparatus used to measure it; apparatuses are created in order to explore concepts. That means that there is no inherency to light being a particle before we measure it as such through an apparatus, which makes an ontic and a semantic determinacy of it. Barad (2007) expands on this notion, claiming that what is essentially at stake here is the fact that nothing is inherently thus, that is, matter is not stable and fixed, but rather is dynamically becoming all the time, everywhere. Everything is exactly related and it is only within phenomena that fixed notions of matter appear. Thus, light is not “out there,” separate from us as part of an external reality, a certain object, which we as subjects can determine. It is, rather, through the mutual intra-action of measuring apparatus and matter that the phenomenon of light emerges. 4 It is specifically in these phenomena that exteriority and interiority are produced along with subjects and objects, to which we will return later (Barad, 2003, 2007). There is, accordingly, no “God’s-eye-view” that we can “cast” upon certain entities that we want to subject to scientific enquiry, as science is always situated, always a part of the world. Phenomena are thus specific results of discursive/material intra-actions between apparatuses and the materiality with which they intra-act. Crucially, Barad continues Bohr’s notion of complementarity, which she labels “indeterminacy”; we cannot know what “belongs” to the object of our investigation and what belongs to the apparatus we use, or to us (combined: “the agencies of observation”) before we measure it and by that constitute a phenomenon, because the indeterminacy is only resolved within the particular phenomenon. Also importantly, the apparatuses that intra-act with what matters are themselves phenomena (Barad, 2007).
Having now outlined what the real in agential realism consists of, we will now shift our focus to the agentic.
Agentic forces: Posthumanism and performativity
Barad’s theory of agential realism is one of posthumanism. Inspired by such scholars as Donna Haraway (Barad, 2003, 2007, 2014), she seeks to move beyond a theorizing on the exceptionality of the human, in order to be able to see how matter matters; that is, how humans, nonhumans (or, in broader terms, bodies), materiality, and discursivity are parts of the agentic force that constitutes the world we live in. Crucially, she problematizes the “classical” Cartesian separation of subjects and objects.
Barad’s difficulty with the Cartesian subject/object dualism lies in her problem with the metaphysics of individualism, which is found in both a classical Newtonian view of physics and the Cartesian subject/object dualism as well. The problem with the metaphysics of individualism lies in that of representationalism, namely the idea that we (as subjects gifted with inherent rationality) are able to unproblematically represent the world through our language (Barad, 2003, 2007). Although, as we mentioned, Barad criticizes theorists like Foucault and Butler (and social constructivists in particular) for forgetting the material and overemphasizing language, she does want to maintain the “lessons learned” by social constructivists and poststructuralists alike that we cannot make science as agentic, knowing subjects creating a complete mirror of what is a passive nature. Discourse as a major contributing factor to science is a fact for Barad, but science is not only a mirror of culture. In short, Barad wants to move beyond any kind of a-prioritism (Calvert-Minor, 2014) away from any sort of representationalism, be it a natural or a cultural one (Adrian, 2014). This is done through her readings of Niels Bohr’s quantum physics, Foucault’s concept of discourse, and Butler’s notion of “iterative performativity.” 5 The point for Barad is to move beyond the usual concepts of human exceptionality by pointing towards, especially, Butler’s iterative performativity claiming that the world performs itself. That is “All bodies, not merely ‘human’ bodies, come to matter through the world’s iterative intra-activity – its performativity” (Barad, 2007, p. 152).
Given that everything becomes through its iterative intra-active performativity, what exactly is the agent in Barad’s account? What is it that performs? The short answer is the world. The longer answer is that agency should no longer be thought of as a particular concept that connotes a special skill to act intentionally that we humans have, rather: Agency is a matter of intra-acting: it is an enactment, not something that someone or something has. Agency cannot be designated as an attribute of subjects or objects. . . . Agency is about the possibilities and accountability entailed in reconfiguring material-discursive apparatuses of bodily production, including the boundary articulations and exclusions that are marked by those practices. (Barad, 2007, p. 214)
This, however, should be understood with regard to the phenomena. This means that there are differences that matter between subjects and objects, but it is only differences that matter within the particular phenomena, because it is the material-discursive iterative practices of the world that create these phenomena (Barad, 2003, 2014). The agentic forces of “the world” produce what Barad terms “agential cuts” between what is part of a phenomenon and what is not. These cuts are part of the world’s becoming and are just as dynamic as everything else, but even though they are dynamic, they do constitute causal structures. This means that within a certain phenomenon, depending on the cut made, there are causalities producing distinct splits and differences, which result from the agentic forces that are the world in its becoming (Barad, 2007). As Barad herself writes: What the agential cut does provide is a contingent resolution of the ontological inseparability within the phenomenon and hence the conditions for objective description: that is, it enables an unambiguous account of marks on bodies, but only within the particular phenomenon. Strictly speaking, there is only a single entity—the phenomenon—and hence the proper objective referent for descriptive terms is the phenomenon. . . . It’s all a matter of where we place the cut. The solution to the “measurement problem” is recognizing that what is at stake is accountability to marks on bodies in their specificity by attending to how different cuts produce differences that matter. (2007, p. 348)
This means that different agencies of observation produce different agentic cuts, which produce different subject/object relations and varying differences. Fundamentally, we as humans and the science we make is part of the agentic forces that produce these different cuts and it is within our power to change the place of the cut (Barad, 2007).
In summary, agential realism is a posthumanist relational onto-epistemology (remembering that being implies knowing in accordance with Bohrean phenomema), which emphasizes the world in its becoming. Nothing is stable, nothing is static, nothing is inherently subject or object, disentangled from one another; rather, phenomena emerge through particular iterative material-discursive intra-actions (Barad, 2007). However, how then should we conceptualize the humans whose psychology we would like to investigate?
Subjects as phenomena: The subject model of Karen Barad
Given that Barad works within a posthumanist frame, her notions of the subject are, not surprisingly, quite different from a regular or “traditional” notion of the subject as something inherent and “given” to the rational human. For Barad, subjects and humans in general are, like everything else, phenomena. This means that they are material-discursive intra-actions. Common concepts like agency, knowing, intentions, and subjectivity are, thus, not something that belongs to the human, but are exactly a result of specific intra-actions. As Barad writes: “Human bodies and human subjects do not pre-exist as such; nor are they mere end products. Humans are neither pure cause nor pure effect but part of the world in its open-ended becoming” (2007, p. 150). One might argue here that, surely, we must at least insist on the givenness of the human body, which has a universal characteristic or quality. Not so for Barad: “Bodies are not objects with inherent boundaries and properties; they are material-discursive phenomena. . . . What constitutes the human (and the nonhuman) is not a fixed or pregiven notion, but neither is it a free-floating identity” (p. 153). This is meant quite literally, as she quotes Merleau-Ponty and Haraway, claiming that the normal physical boundaries we draw with regard to what limits the body (usually the skin, i.e., the body ends at the skin) are not meaningful ways to understand the body. It is indeed a phenomenon, constantly changed and produced in iterative material-discursive intra-activity. In her article on touching, Barad (2012) relates the sensation of touch as something that is also an intra-active production, that is, that indeed matter touches its self. Here again, however, one might object: “But surely there is a difference between self and other” and again, not quite so for Barad. Self and other are only constituted within phenomena and as such self and other are entangled entities in their very material being. There is a specific vitality and infinity about phenomena as they are intra-actively produced (Barad, 2012), which is true for humans as well. As Barad herself puts it, “This double movement, this play of in/determinacy, unsettles the self/other binary and the notion of the self as unity. The self is itself a multiplicity, a superposition of beings, becomings, here and there’s, now and then’s. Superpositions, not oppositions” (2014, p. 176). This adds an element to Barad’s onto-epistemology as it turns to an ethico-onto-epistemology, since we are always-already entangled with each other (both humans and nonhumans), because we are all part of the world in its becoming, we have an ethical responsibility to the intra-active nature of reality which we all share, which makes us all and which we constantly make. As Barad states: In an important sense, in a breathtakingly intimate sense, touching, sensing, is what matter does, or rather, what matter is: matter is condensations of response-ability: Each of “us” is constituted as responsible for the other, as being in touch with the other. (2012, p. 212)
Now we have a basic grasp of the subject in Karen Barad’s writing, but what type of model of the subject is it? Looking back at the types of models that Sonne-Ragans (2015) suggests, it seems quite clear that we are dealing with a multiple model of the subject. Barad’s subjects are constantly “produced” and prior to intra-action there is no such thing as a subject. One could be tempted to say that her model of the subject is not even a model of the subject at all, that she has no subject model. The usual aspects of subjectivity we associate with the subject in the centered model (intention, knowing, agency, etc.) are not human at all for Barad (since they are quite simply really only something that the world does). It might be reminiscent of the decentered model, but given that the decentered model of the subject still insists on a singular subject even though that same subject comes about amidst different agentic forces, it seems to be at odds with Barad’s insistence on constant change and production on the part of the subject. The decentered model still assumes a subject that is given, whereas Barad emphasizes the constant production of the subject through intra-actions and agential cuts, which are dynamic and always changing. Therefore, either it is a multiple model of the subject or there is no model at all. The latter might be the conclusion drawn most in the spirit of Barad (2007) herself, given how she emphasizes that absolutely nothing is itself something prior to relations and intra-active phenomena. Therefore, it would be quite redundant to give an account of what a subject could be said to be before its becoming, since you frankly cannot. However, she does give an account of the genesis of the subjects (namely that of intra-actively produced phenomena that are multiplicities in their superpositions as stated in the quote above) and that does make it meaningful to claim her model of the subject to be one of multiple subjects. Indeed, it does make sense to say that what her theory on the subject and subjectivity entails is that multiple subjects are produced constantly, changing dynamically in the iterative material-discursive intra-actions of the world.
This, however, leads us to a dilemma, which we find troubling. If multiple subjects that relate to the same “body” (or even multiple bodies) are possible, which follows logically from Barad’s emphasis on dynamism and constant production of subjects, then why do we experience ourselves as exactly that—ourselves? We do not find it radical to assert the hypothesis that human beings have a constant experience of being themselves in one way or the other, that essentially there is only one “experiencer.” This question of experience is related to consciousness and, essentially, we wish to ask the question: is it possible to have multiple experiencers or multiple selves related to the same subject? We think not.
Having now concluded that Barad’s model of the subject is a multiple one and having sketched out what it consists of, we will now turn our attention towards phenomenology in order to gain a grounding for exploring what it means to understand the subject in this way.
Phenomenology: Experience and subjectivity
In relation to a multiple subject or multiple selves related to the same subject, it is not possible to think this as separate subjectivities who do not “know each other.” Obviously, the subject can relate differently to different matters and contextualize differently to the same matter—but that is not the same as having discretely different subjects with “shutters” between them. We think it is necessary to insist on a shared “origo” from which the experience originates. Phenomenology has some points in relation to this theme, which we think can clarify this view of the subject. We use phenomenology only because it represents one of the most clear-cut versions of the centered subject, which highlights the description of the experiencing subject. Confronting Barad’s model of the subject with a fundamental defense of the centered model will give us an opportunity to show Barad’s conception of experience or consciousness of something. In a more general way, how is it possible to understand that the multiple-self subject only has one experiencer, which we find to be a necessary condition for subjectivity and experience, unless one is inclined to believe that we are able to “multitask,” that is, experience different types of experiences located in different selves. This section is thus very much focused on trying to give an account of necessary conditions of subjectivity that the centered models of the subject can provide. Phenomenology, as such, is suitable to confront Barad’s multiple self-model of the subject.
Phenomenology 6 is the study of experience. The central concept is intentionality, originally defined by the German philosopher Brentano (1874) as consciousness is always consciousness of something, and the founding father of phenomenology Husserl (1929/1991), who described the phenomenological method as a hierarchy of reductions seeking the essence of the phenomena studied. Like Barad, phenomenology challenges a classic subject/object dichotomy, because, according to phenomenologists, it makes no sense to speak of the subject without the object—the subject is always intentionally aimed at a phenomenon in the world. This means that phenomenology has to take the first-person perspective seriously, that is, we need to investigate how subjectivity is a part of the world, because the world appears to someone, namely the embodied subject (Zahavi, 2003). Phenomenology takes the life-world, literally the world we live in, seriously (Husserl, 1934/1989). This means that even though natural science has shown us that the world does not work quite as intuitively as it might seem (quantum physics being a great example), explanations made by natural science are not the only valid form of explaining what it means to be human. In addition, embodied subjects in our life-world conduct natural science (as well as any other science). This basically entails an insistence on antireductionism, not in the sense that we should not try to make exact accounts of the world, but rather that we should respect the way phenomena appear to us as we experience them (Zahavi, 2003).
Zahavi’s minimalist notion of self: An account of experiential subjectivity
What are the minimal and necessary conditions for experiential subjectivity according to phenomenology? It is a distinct prereflective, nonverbal, sense of for-me-ness that is part of each experience that we make as (our)selves, according to the Danish philosopher Dan Zahavi.
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Essentially, Zahavi grounds part of subjectivity in this very thin notion of self, insisting on a locus of experience. Experience must be afforded some-one, it cannot simply “be.” He insists on this notion because: To deny that such a feature is present in our experiential life, to deny the for-me-ness, or mineness, of experience, is to fail to recognize an essential constitutive aspect of experience. It is to ignore the subjectivity of experience. It would amount to the claim that my own mind is either not given to me at all (I would be mind- or self-blind) or present to me in exactly the same way as the minds of others. (2014, p. 22)
Zahavi insists on maintaining this minimalist notion of self, that experiences are for us, in order to be able to understand such things as intersubjectivity, consciousness, and experiential subjectivity. Quoting Sartre, Zahavi considers this experiential self to be (and here we are paraphrasing) a universal ontological necessity for consciousness. Importantly, we live through the experiences we make, at least at this minimal and prereflective level we are dealing with when discussing the experiential self (Zahavi, 2014). This insistence on an experiential subjectivity is also necessary in relation to Barad’s performativity. If the subject only reacts automatically in the processual subject–object relations of intra-actions, it is rather like a primitive robot, which we do not think is Barad’s view.
Essentially, Zahavi’s concept of the experiential self is an argument against a multiple model of the self because we have to accept the for-me-ness of all experiences that we have as selves. It is, however, important to note that Zahavi does not completely dismiss what might be learned from those who inspect the subject through a multiple model of the self but it must be grounded, somehow, for Zahavi, through the experiential self. In conclusion, if we are to take the experientially subjective aspect of being and being conscious seriously we cannot condone a completely multiple model of the subject. With this in mind, let us now return to Barad.
Barad’s subjects-as-phenomena: Experiential intra-actions?
Since we, as psychologists, would want to be able to deal scientifically with experiences of subjectivity and consciousness, as they are important parts of our field (Køppe & Dammeyer, 2014), Barad needs to be able to explain how these things could be said to be if we are to accept her ethico-onto-epistemology, that is, her agential realism, as our framework for doing the science of psychology. But as one might have guessed, her theory does seem to be at odds with Zahavi’s and phenomenology, broadly speaking.
Barad’s multiple model of the subject entails that subjects and subjectivity are results of specific iterative material-discursive intra-actions. There is no inherency, no determinable attributes to give to bodies and subjects before they emerge as phenomena (Barad, 2003, 2007). This seems to be quite the problem given that Zahavi (2014) insists on the universality of the experiential self. Can Barad explain the for-me-ness? It seems quite difficult. This is due to two things: first, she seeks to make manifest a multiple model of the subject, as we have already established, which she does through emphasizing relatedness in all. If we are all somehow completely related prior to intra-active phenomena, it makes it difficult to see how for-me-ness would come about, unless the subject–object distinctions that are made within phenomena continuously make this possible. That is, that all the subjects that emerge as phenomena through intra-actions are constituted in a way that would enable all of them to be subjects in a way that made the experiential self emerge. This would require that some causal structure happened to emerge in the same way, that is, that the same agential cuts were made in all subject-phenomena. This, however, brings us to our second point. Barad explicitly states that agential cuts (the causality of the world) can be made in different ways depending on the specific material-discursive practices of the world. Basically, when a certain phenomenon emerges, certain subject/object distinctions are made within the phenomena depending on the agential cut made by the agencies of observation. If this cut is dynamic and changeable, depending on the agency of observation, that would amount to the claim that the for-me-ness that is produced within the intra-actively produced phenomena, that is the human subject, could cease to be as the subject changed depending on the agency of observation that produces the very cut that made the subject and for-me-ness in the first place. In other words, Barad’s focus on dynamism and, by proxy, her insistence on what we have analyzed to be a multiple model of the subject makes it impossible to explain why, according to Zahavi, for-me-ness is a universal part of being human. 8
In summary, what we see here is a theoretical problem, which arises out of different models of the subject. A claim to a certain universality in what constitutes a subject is at odds with a claim of dynamism and production. Let us now move on to analyzing what kinds of difficulties this further gives us in the scientific discipline of psychology.
Generalizing phenomena: Barad’s dynamism in the science of psychology
In this part of the article, we will focus on the topic of generalization and what role it plays in science. After briefly pointing out how generalizations are an important, necessary, and inherent part of the science of psychology, we will turn our attention towards Barad’s multiple model of the subject and see how or whether generalizations are possible in her agential realism.
Generalizations in science: Nomothetic and ideographic practices
A common distinction in science between natural science and humanist or social science is that of nomothetic and ideographical ideals. In short, natural sciences aim to formulate generalizable statements, that is, to reduce a particular phenomenon 9 to certain elements that can then be generalized to other contexts. The aim is to produce knowledge that we can use independently of the context in which it is produced. Opposed to this is the ideographic ideal, which aims to understand phenomena in their specific contexts and which is commonly considered to be unable to produce generalizable knowledge. Importantly, however, these notions are arguably wrong (Flyvbjerg, 2006; Roald & Køppe, 2008). The reasons for this are plentiful, so we will quickly summarize the points that are important concerning Barad and the science of psychology.
The distinction between ideographic and nomothetic approaches in the sciences is quite simply incorrect. This is because the distinction is based on the notion that generalizations are not possible in the types of sciences we usually term “ideographic” 10 (humanist, social, hermeneutic, etc.), but this is wrong. Flyvbjerg (2006), for example, disposes of five common misconceptions about the case-method, one of which is exactly that one cannot generalize from a case, because it does not contain enough examples of the phenomenon. However, Flyvbjerg argues, the case contains more information, which can be generalized. In the classic Popperian example, a single case of a black swan can be generalized to all other cases in the statement that “not all swans are white; in fact, some (or in this case, one) are(is) black.” Another point, which is argued by Roald and Køppe (2008), is that generalizations are everywhere and a necessary part of scientific (and lived) practice, given that generalizations are a part of scientific theory. Generalizations are part of science in general and therefore a part of psychology. We will argue that not only is it the case that generalizations are part of psychology, but psychology would not be very interesting as a science if we were not able to generalize something from our research, even though it is important to respect the singularity and uniqueness of each and every individual’s life (Roald & Køppe, 2008). However, we should be able to say something in general about psychology because otherwise, what would be the point? If we were to make no generalizations in psychology whatsoever, we would have to investigate every single person all the time in order to know anything about them. Generalizations are necessary if we wish to take advantage of the science of psychology. However, what has this got to do with Barad?
The multiple model of the subject: Dynamism and generalizations
As should have been firmly established by now, there are no inherent attributes to give to the subject prior to the phenomenon that is the subject, emerging intra-actively, according to Barad (2007). What are the possibilities then for generalizing knowledge about subjects? The short answer is none. Let us explain. Since Barad works with a completely multiple model of the subject, the only knowledge we can generalize is that which states that subjects and subjectivities emerge in specific material-discursive intra-actions. This leaves us no room to generalize any type of particular subject structures or particular workings of the psyche. Anxiety, for example, cannot be treated as having some sort of fundamental characteristic for humans, because we can never know how it would emerge intra-actively and what role it would constitute in subjects. This is because we can never know what a subject is in particular intra-actions until we investigate them in those practices. As Barad herself writes: any particular apparatus is always in the process of intra-acting with other apparatuses, and then enfolding of (relatively) stabilized phenomena (which may be traded across laboratories, cultures, or geopolitical spaces only to find themselves differently materializing) into subsequent iterations of particular practices constitutes important shifts in the particular apparatus in question and therefore in the nature of the intra-actions that result in the production of new phenomena, and so on. Boundaries do not sit still. (2007, pp. 170–171)
The apparatuses here are scientific apparatuses that function as agencies of observation and are themselves phenomena in the Baradian (2007) sense. This means that any apparatus we would create to measure any sort of psychological phenomena and the knowledge we would gain from this apparatus is not generalizable beyond the particular practice, quite simply because the intra-actions that it emanates from change depending on other specific intra-actions in the particular contexts. Our argument is: if this counts for instruments of science, then surely it must count for phenomena in general like that of the subject, given that these apparatuses are phenomena just like everything else.
In summary, if there is no universality at all about subjects, then psychology as a science working from an agential realist framework can never generalize anything, as it has no basis to generalize from. Barad’s multiple model of the subject leaves us no room to generalize, a point to which we will return shortly. This concludes our analysis of Barad’s subject model. We will now turn to a short discussion of experience and generalizations and try to bring them together.
For-me-ness and generalizations: A discussion of Barad
The purpose of this part of the article is to discuss the points of for-me-ness and generalizations concerning the rather simple question: is Barad’s theory useful in psychology following our twofold critique of it?
One might counter to our objections to Barad that we should take the dynamism of the subject seriously in our scientific theories. After all, we are not the same, and people do change constantly. Our reply is, of course we should and of course we do. Nevertheless, do we have reason to believe that everything changes in a completely fundamental way, constantly? If we do, then we need no longer worry about generalizations, because they have become impossible theoretically. If we do not, however, then we need to take things like the experiential self seriously in our models of the subject, because this is one of the universal qualities that make generalizations possible.
However, we do want to stress that we think the orientation towards materiality is an important one. Where we find Barad to make an important contribution to notions of the subject is exactly in her ability to point towards how materiality and discourses are implicated in each other. There being different ways to conceptualize and to shape materiality in discursivity has consequences for the ways we view nature, and we agree with Barad that there is a high risk of missing the point that matter matters and that it has great influence over us and our lives given that we are a part of it. Also, her points on ethicality, difference, self and other, and the way that she uses her concept of intra-action to make us aware that we are producing each other and thus have an ethical responsibility towards each other (Barad, 2012, 2014) is one with which we very much agree. We are a part of nature and each other and should be able to theorize it.
However, we hold that the arguments put forward in this article against Barad’s theory are important and should be generalized somewhat. Our criticism of what we see to be a multiple model of the subject that Barad puts to the fore is equally applicable to any multiple model of the subject that makes for-me-ness impossible. We will not go into details here with all the different theorists this could include, but will point towards the multiple subject model of Deleuze as explicated by Murris and Bozalek (2019), Rose (1998), and Sonne-Ragans (2015) as a very likely candidate. It seems likely that the apparently Deleuzian insistence on “being a crowd” would entail trouble along the lines of the arguments we have put against Barad. As Murris and Bozalek (2019), who believe that the theories of Deleuze and Barad are close, note: To sum up, the relational ontologies of both Barad and Deleuze trouble individual subjectivity (negative difference: differentiation). As Olkowsky (2009, p. 57) observes: every living thing is not a singular entity, but every one of us is a crowd. In contrast to science, which often assumes a humanist, Cartesian conception of the mind as a “thinking thing” with a separate existence from the body, Deleuze (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987/2014, p. 32–33) rejects the idea of mind spaces, such as the unconscious as singular (“one Wolf”), a unity. (p. 877)
Let us be clear in stating that if a multiple model of the subject cannot theorize something akin to for-me-ness and experience, then we think it does not adequately explain subjectivity and that it makes generalizations impossible. For us this is crucial, when it comes to postmodern theories on subjectivity. The very diverse theoretical expansion that has happened in postmodern theories on subjectivity is very interesting and extremely useful, but we do wish to insist on a caution. When we as scholars theoretically expand concepts that relate to a particular phenomenon (not in the Baradian sense), we risk losing essential aspects of what the phenomenon consists of, which makes the scientific study of it impossible. For us, one of these aspects, when it comes to the human subject, is exactly experientially lived life.
Conclusion: Barad and the science of psychology
The science of psychology deals with the human psyche and thus, an important part of the science is the different theories on the subject and subjectivity. Karen Barad’s (2007) agential realism is one of the most important theoretical/philosophical contributions to the new materialism of feminist scholarship (Alaimo & Hekman, 2008; van der Tuin, 2011). Importantly, her framework is already used in psychological studies such as those reported by Juelskjær et al. (2013) and Søndergaard (2016). However, even though Barad is used and is important in this emerging tradition, it seems that a fundamental discussion of the implications of her theories for ways to conceive the subject concerning the science of psychology has not taken place.
This article has shown that Barad’s agential realism works through a multiple model of the subject, in which nothing is universal and nothing is inherent prior to material-discursive intra-actions. This leaves Barad unable to theoretically explain for-me-ness (the fact that experiences as such happen for some-one, that is, a particular self), which is a necessary foundation for subjectivity and consciousness according to Zahavi (2014). This theoretical inability makes it difficult to conduct psychology on subjectivity and to theoretically argue how we should be able to generalize our results when studying the subject, because if every subject in principle can be completely different from the other, there is nothing to generalize from. Given that generalizations are an important part of science, we have argued that this is a theoretical weakness in Barad’s agential realism.
It is important to make “matter matter” again. But what is the use, when the study of the subject, as in the science of psychology, is lost in the process? Finally, we would like to stress that these theoretical problems might not only count in Barad’s feminism, but that the general landscape of postmodern theories on the subject should take the same arguments we raise towards Barad seriously. Is the human subject dynamic? Is the human subject a process? Does it always change? Our answer to all of these questions is a resounding yes. However, some aspects regarding the concept of the subject are universal; otherwise, how would we ever know whether we are speaking of a human subject or not?
Footnotes
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
