Abstract

In the phenomenology of Henri Maldiney, subjectivity is ontologically constituted by passibility, which designates the affective capacity of enduring a critical event. This ontological constitution of subjectivity does not concern an intentional act of self-constitution, but rather an ontological event in which a subject can only emerge as the effect of an existential wound. Unlike animals, who are captive to their environment and who must respond to unforeseen circumstances with a variety of actions, human beings can transcend the formative cycle between an external event and the necessity of a behavioral response. The human capacity to bear an event is a capacity to take an affective attitude to one’s suffering, which ranges from openness to closure. As such, passibility is a responsive capacity that shapes a variable degree of freedom: it makes possible a detachment from one’s ego and self-image, a projection into the future, and allows for making choices. In this chapter, we will examine what this distinct mode of affectivity entails, and how it is constitutive of subjectivity. How is it distinct from mere animal sensing and behavior? And if indeed human beings do not relate to their sufferings and their passions as egological subjects relate to the objects of their representations, then how should we conceive this distinct mode of subjectivity?