Le sentiment du sujet : l'interpretation de la subjectivite de sentiment chez kant et schleiermacher

The subject's feeling. The interpretation of subjectivity as feeling in kant and schleiermacher

• Auteur / Autrice : Denis Thouard
• Direction : Jean-François Courtine
• Type : Thèse de doctorat
• Discipline(s) : Philosophie
• Date : Soutenance en 1997
• Etablissement(s) : Paris 10

Résumé

Le sentiment, etant sentiment de plaisir et de peine, est d'emblee marque par une ambiguite : le sujet y est passif et actif a la fois. A ce titre, il suggere une possibilite de mediation entre les dimensions theoriques et pratiques de la subjectivite. Montrer la consistance d'un concept de subjectivite de sentiment, et faire apparaitre sa presence au sein d'une histoire complexe de la subjectivite, definit l'enjeu et la pertinence philosophique de cette these. La premiere partie, ''kant et la critique du sentiment'', retrace le cheminement de kant jusqu'a l'elaboration du concept de sentiment pur. A travers l'analyse du respect, d'abord presente comme l'unique sentiment ''pur'', kant degage un rapport a soi non cognitif, ou le sujet s'affecte de sa propre representation. La critique de la faculte de juger, qui generalise cette structure au jugement de gout dans son ensemble, prend directement en compte la subjectivite. De meme qu'elle opere une mediation entre les domaines de la nature et de la liberte, elle accomplit une reunification de la figure du sujet theorique et pratique depuis le sentiment. Nous la comprenons donc comme une auto-reflexion de l'activite critique. La seconde partie, ''le sujet de sentiment : la subjectivite finie chez schleiermacher'', etudie l'approfondissement du concept de sentiment chez schleiermacher, qui l'a place au centre de sa philosophie. En rupture avec kant, il pense le sentiment non pas a partir de la structure d'une subjectivite autonome, mais depuis l'experience premiere d'une dependance. Le sentiment est compris ainsi comme ''conscience immediate de soi'', ou les dimensions de la facticite et de la reflexion sont etroitement liees. Cette conception, qui s'articule aux differents ordres de la rationalite, prend a revers l'idealisme allemand, en refusant la possibilite de penser un sujet absolu.

The feeling, that is, of both pleasure and pain, is demarcated from the very start by an ambiguity, for the subject is simultaneously active and passive. On the same grounds, it offers the possibility of mediating between the theoretical and practical dimensions of subjectivity. To demonstrate the coherency of the concept of subjectivity as feeling and to reveal its appearance within a complex history of subjectivity are the goals and the philosophical relevance of this dissertation. The first part, ''kant and the critique of feeling,'' traces kant's process of thought up to its elaboration of the concept of pure feeling. Through an analysis of respect, which kant presents at the start as the only pure sentiment, he derives a non-cognitive self relation, where the subject effects and is affected by a representation of itself. The critique of judgement, which generalizes this structure in the judgement of taste, takes subjectivity directly into account. As well as mediating between the domains of nature and freedom, kant's text reunifies the theoretical and practical subject by means of feeling. We understand the concept of feeling, therefore, as an auto-reflection of the critical activity. The second part, ''the subject of feeling: the end of subjectivity in schleiermacher,'' studies the development of the concept of feeling in the work of schleiermacher, who situates it at the center of his philosophy. Breaking with kant, he conceptualizes feeling as the originary experience of dependency. The concept of fealing is thereby understood as ''direct self-consciousness,'' in which the dimensions of facticity and reflection are closely linked. This idea which is articulated in the different levels of rationality, opposes the main concepts of german idealism by refusing the possibility of an absolute subject.