Marcia Cavell draws on philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the sciences of the mind in a fascinating and original investigation of human subjectivity. A "subject" is a creature, we may say, who recognizes herself as an "I," taking in the world from her own subjective perspective; who is an agent, doing things for reasons, sometimes self-reflective, and able to assume responsibility for herself and some of her actions. The idea of a 'subject' points, then, toward an ideal. It asks for the conditions under which a human infant becomes a subject, and for the sorts of things, like self-deception and...

Cavell elaborates the view, traceable from Wittgenstein to Davidson, that there is no thought, and thus no meaning, without language, and shows how this concurs with psychoanalytic theory and practice. Cavell's argument takes up several issues of continuing interest to both philosophers and psychoanalysts, including the explanation of action, especially irrational action, the concept of subjectivity, the minds of children, the genealogy of morals, and narration in "life stories."