Intersubjectivity – Vol. 2 – Scripting the Human

The second in a series of edited volumes on intersubjectivity, this collection of essays considers the relationship between performance, subjectivity, and human agency. Certain texts explore the ways in which performance is decoupled from human embodiment via forms of mediation, mechanical reproduction, or simulation. Others seek to examine how performance is conceptualized. Encompassing both historical and speculative perspectives, Scripting the Human explores the ways in which non-human (or trans/post-human) entities complicate notions of subjectivity and exert intersubjective pressures of their own on social, political, scientific, and philosophical discourses. Might the interaction between two chatbots—whose behavioral patterns are modeled on human traits—be intersubjective, or are they simply scripted? Can scripting the human lead to transformative encounters or does it produce a closed system whose complexity obscures its ultimate limitations? Ranging from the origins of contemporary conceptions of intersubjectivity in continental philosophy to more recent formulations that derive from systems theory, trans identity, and the emergent field of bot pedagogy, Scripting the Human approaches intersubjectivity as both historical phenomenon and nascent mode of present-day relation.