A Feeling for the Organism: Understanding and Interpreting Political Subjectivity

Abstract

The role of understanding and interpretation in the study of political subjectivity is considered, and the position is advanced that it is unnecessary to insist on a division between the human and natural sciences. An example is provided in terms of value clarification in decision making, with Q technique and factor analysis providing instrumental foundations for two single-case studies. The conclusion is reached that there are two self psychologies, psychoanalytic and generalized, and that the latter must take precedence over the former if the self is ever to be conceived as independent or as other than a function of more basic factors.