The Mechanism of Subjectivization

Ideology and the Transcendental Consciousness

Abstract

　The purpose of this paper is to construct a model of the subjectivization from an Althusserian point of view with taking the aporia of self-reference into account.
　The mechanism of subjectivization is divided into two phases. I call the first phase 'the transcendental subjectivization', which enables every subject to refer to himself. The distinction of the logical types, which is, as Russell says, the precondition of self-reference, can be achieved only by 'the trenscendental consciousness' and the emergence of this consciousness is none other than 'the transcendental subjectivization'. This consciousness does not become the object of the self-introspection as Wittgenstein expected. What brings it is, according to Lacan, the identification of the existence with 'the non-sense signifiant', and this identification means the appearance of the existence to the world.
　The second phase is 'the ideological subjectivization', which compels each subject to subject himself to ideology. The instability of the transcendental consciousness causes this subjection to ideology supported by the function of the ideological apparatus. The essential points of this subjectivization are as follows: ideology is introduced to the place of the transcendental consiousness. As it is not the object of the introspection, the subject fails to recognize this introduction of ideology to his own consciousness. Consequently, the subject must be submitted to the effect of ideology and makes himself identify with ideology without any doubt. Thus the subject is constructed as the subject in the strict sence of the word.
　The subjectivization consists of these two phases. The irony of this mechanism is that it makes us believe as if it hung on our own 'voluntary will'.