Other (philosophy)

"The other" redirects here. For other uses, see The Other (disambiguation).
The founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, identified the Other as one of the conceptual bases of intersubjectivity, of the relations among people.

Other is a term used to define another person or people as separate from oneself. In phenomenology, the terms the Other and the Constitutive Other distinguish other people from the Self, as a cumulative, constituting factor in the self-image of a person; as acknowledgement of being real; hence, the Other is dissimilar to and the opposite of the Self, of Us, and of the Same.[1][2] The Constitutive Other is the relation between the personality (essential nature) and the person (body) of a human being; the relation of essential and superficial characteristics of personal identity that corresponds to the relationship between opposite, but correlative, characteristics of the Self, because the difference is inner-difference, within the Self.[3][4]

The condition and quality of Otherness (the characteristics of the Other) is the state of being different from and alien to the social identity of a person and to the identity of the Self.[5] In the discourse of philosophy, the term Otherness identifies and refers to the characteristics of Who? and What? of the Other, which are distinct and separate from the Symbolic order of things; from the Real (the authentic and unchangeable); from the æsthetic (art, beauty, taste); from political philosophy; from social norms and social identity; and from the Self. Therefore, the condition of Otherness is a person's non-conformity to and with the social norms of society; and Otherness is the condition of disenfranchisement (political exclusion), effected either by the State or by the social institutions (e.g., the professions) invested with the corresponding socio-political power. Therefore, the imposition of Otherness alienates the person labelled as "the Other" from the centre of society, and places him or her at the margins of society, for being the Other.[6]

The term Othering or Otherizing[7][8] describes the reductive action of labelling and defining a person as a subaltern native, as someone who belongs to the socially subordinate category of the Other. The practice of Othering excludes persons who do not fit the norm of the social group, which is a version of the Self;[9] likewise, in human geography, the practice of othering persons means to exclude and displace them from the social group to the margins of society, where mainstream social norms do not apply to them, for being the Other.[10]

  1. ^ The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (1995) p. 673.
  2. ^ The Other, The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought, Third Edition, (1999) p. 620.
  3. ^ Hegel, G. W. F.; Miller, A. V. (1977). Hoffmeister, J. (ed.). Force and the Understanding: Appearance and the Supersensible World: Phenomenology of Spirit (5th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 98–9. The relation of essential nature to outward manifestation in pure change ... to infinity ... as inner difference ... [is within] its own Self.
  4. ^ Findlay, J. N.; Hegel, G. W. F.; Miller, A. V. (1977). Hoffmeister, J. (ed.). Analysis of the Text: Phenomenology of Spirit (5 ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 517–18.
  5. ^ Given, Lisa M. (2008). "Otherness". The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. pp. 588–591. doi:10.4135/9781412963909.n304. ISBN 9781412941631. Archived from the original on 21 November 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  6. ^ "Otherness", The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought, Third Edition (1999), p. 620.
  7. ^ "Otherizing and the Death of Persuasion | Psychology Today". www.psychologytoday.com. Retrieved 18 October 2023.
  8. ^ "With 'Otherize,' Pundits Reach Outside The Dictionary To Describe Politics". NPR. ZIMMER: Well, turning other into a verb does have a long history. Actually, it goes all the way back to the German philosopher Hegel, who wrote in the early 19th century about consciousness of the self versus the other. And by the early 20th century in English writing, you see the other being turned into a verb to describe the act of making a person or a group be excluded from a particular norm. And that's been called othering. So this otherize form has been showing up more frequently lately.
  9. ^ "Othering", The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought, Third Edition (1999), p. 620.
  10. ^ Mountz, Allison. "The Other". Key Concepts in Human Geography: 328.