Article: Other

For the movie, see The Others (2001 film). For the book, see The Other (Book). For the Doctor Who character see Other (Doctor Who). For the characters of Lost see Others (Lost)

The Other or constitutive other is a key concept in continental philosophy, opposed to the Same. It refers to that which a person considers to be entirely unrelated to their own concept of their self-identity.

As such, a person's definition of the 'Other' is part of what defines or even constitutes the self (see self (psychology), self (philosophy), and self-concept) and other phenomena and cultural units. Lawrence Cahoone explains it thus:

"What appear to be cultural units—human beings, words, meanings, ideas, philosophical systems, social organizations—are maintained in their apparent unity only through an active process of exclusion, opposition, and hierarchization. Other phenomena or units must be represented as foreign or 'other' through representing a hierarchical dualism in which the unit is 'privileged' or favored, and the other is devalued in some way." (Cahoone 1996)

It has been used in social science to understand the processes by which societies and groups exclude 'Others' who they want to subordinate or who do not fit into their society. For example, Edward Said's book Orientalism shows how this was done by western societies—particularly England and France—to 'other' those people in the 'Orient' who they wanted to control.

History of the other in philosophy

The concept that the self requires the other to define itself is an old one and has been expressed by many writers:

• The German philosopher Hegel wrote "Each consciousness pursues the death of the other", meaning that in seeing a separateness between you and another, a feeling of alienation is created, which you try to resolve by synthesis. Hegel's famous parable of the Master and Slave uses this concept of "the other" to great effect.
• The poet Arthur Rimbaud may be the earliest to express the idea: "Je est un autre" [I is another].
• Søren Kierkegaard argued that others, the crowd, is "untruth", and stressed the importance of the individual.
• Friedrich Nietzsche, in The Gay Science, phrased it thus: "You are always a different person."
• Ferdinand de Saussure described language as, in Calvin Thomas' words, a "differential system without positive terms".
• Jacques Lacan argued that ego-formation occurs through mirror-stage misrecognition, and his theories were applied to politics by Althusser. As the later Lacan said: "The I is always in the field of the Other."
• Emmanuel Levinas, on the other hand, saw apprehension of the other as the basis for ethics, and as a limit on ontology.
• Jean-Paul Sartre's character Garcin, in the play Huis clos (No Exit), states that "Hell is other people." ("L'enfer, c'est les Autres.")

The Other in gender studies

Simone De Beauvoir adopted the Hegelian notion of the Other in her description of how male-dominated culture treats woman as the Other in relation to man. The Other has thus become an important concept for studies of the sex-gender system. According to Michael Warner

"the modern system of sex and gender would not be possible without a disposition to interpret the difference between genders as the difference between self and Other ... having a sexual object of the opposite gender is taken to be the normal and paradigmatic form of an interest in the Other or, more generally, others."

Thus, according to Warner, Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis hold the heterosexist view that if one is attracted to people of the same gender as one's self, one fails to distinguish self and other, identification and desire. This is a "regressive" or an "arrested" function. He further argues that heteronormativity covers its own narcissist investments by projecting or displacing them on queerness.

De Beauvoir calls the Other the minority, the least favored one and often times a woman, when compared to a man because, "for a man represents both the positive and the neutral, as indicated by the common use of man to designate human beings in general; whereas woman represents only the negative, defined by limiting criteria, without reciprocity" (McCann, 33). Betty Friedan supported this thought when she interviewed women and the majority of them identified themselves in their role in the private sphere, rather than addressing their own personal achievements. They automatically identified as the Other without knowing (Colwill). Although the Other may be influenced by a socially constructed society, one can argue that society has the power to change this creation (Haslanger).

In effort to dismantle the notion of the Other, Cheshire Calhoun proposed a deconstruction of the word "woman" from a subordinate association and reconstruct it by proving women do not need to be rationalized by male dominance (McCann, 339). This would contribute to the idea of the Other and minimize the hierarchal connotation this word implies.

See also

• Subject-object problem
• The same (philosophy)
• Michel Foucault
• Jacques Derrida
• Julia Kristeva
• Judith Butler

Bibliography

• Foucault, Michel (1990). The History of Sexuality vol. 1: An Introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage.
• Derrida, Jacques (1973). Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs. Trans. David B. Allison. Evanston: Ill.: Northwestern University Press.
• Kristeva, Julia (1982). Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Trans. Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Butler, Judith (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.
• Butler, Judith (1993). Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex". New York: Routledge.