Intersubjectivity, Cognition, and Language

Abstract

In our normal everyday encounters with other people it is generally assumed that the knowledge we have and the language we use to describe and communicate about things and events in the physical and social world of which we are part is intersubjective, that is, it is shared by the people with whom we may communicate and co-act. Indeed, this assumed intersubjectivity of cognition and language would seem to be a precondition for any co-action and linguistic communication to take place among people about things which exist in the so called “outer”, publicly observable physical and social world. Arguably, it is a precondition for our very notion of a publicly observable physical and social world, i.e. a world that may be observed and described objectively and truthfully from a so called third-person view.