The most recent discussions about centric discourses can well baffle the uninformed reader. On the one hand, post-war European cultural development was marked by attempts to overcome the ethnocentric and nationalist paradigms which had made European history into a history of wars, conflicts and intolerance. The post-industrial society was supposed to be, in opposition to this, a society of dialogue, diversity, coexistence and cooperation, a society in which ethnic and class divisions would become less important than rationally explained common interests, in which the "civic" principles of stratification would definitely supervene "tribal" differences. On the other hand, however, a variant of the ethnocentric thesis has lately been argued as the basis of a liberal doctrine which attempts to explain and legitimize "postmodern" tolerance and solidarity. It is easy to discern that these are two quite different kinds of ethnocentrism, but it is not easy to ascertain at first glance what the difference between them is.

It is much simpler to understand the distinction, dominant in sociology since Weber's time, between two models of constitution of social reality: one of them could be designated as "collectivist", "traditional", even "rural", while the other would be "individualist", "rational", "urban". The more a society is constituted in accordance with the second model, the more modern it is, the more open, flexible and effective, the more adapted to the demands of industrial and cultural progress; if it is constituted predominantly in accordance with the first model, it tends to be increasingly enclosed, ineffective, to look back to the past and to traditional norms, and not to the future and the challenges it brings. The problem, though, is not only that the "collectivist" variant in the 20th century was very often based on ideologies which had as their starting point the future and utopian projects as a basis for present action, nor the fact that this division seems outdated, as one type of "collectivist" conception showed itself to be applicable to the understanding of post-industrial societies - the problem is that no real society can be described completely and at all levels solely in terms of the categories of either of these models. This is a delicate balance which changes depending on historical conditions and the conditions of the self-thematization of the system, a balance subject to cyclical changes in all sub-systems, as well within the community as a whole.

However, although sociologically insufficiently applicable, these two ideal pairs - (1) "intolerant" and "tolerant" ethnocentrism, and (2) the "collectivist" and "individualist" models of constituting reality - can make up a basis for a more adequate understanding of the discussion on modern and postmodern centrisms. Both the collectivist and the individualist paradigms have appeared, in the last few centuries, in both their "totalitarian" and "liberal" political forms - and one of the main aims of this text is to show how all these forms, finally, are based on an adaptation of the solipsist argument¹.

The connection between solipsism, centrism and social constitution is easiest to see after posing the following question: In what measure do centric discourses still exist as the basis of legitimacy of the socially privileged positions of certain individuals or groups? In a somewhat old-fashioned and more philosophical form, this question could be put in this way: In what measure does the transcendental privilege of an individual or of supraindividual Selfhood justify the demand for his real privilege? Does the classical descriptive philosophical position of the asymmetry of the I and the Other in the transcendental position also point to the justifiability of the normative demand for asymmetry in the field of experience? Where, in other words, are the boundaries of exclusivity of "historical subjects", and in what measure are personal and social identity necessarily developed in accordance with such feelings of exclusivity?

In answering these questions, two kinds of centrisms might be separated: (1) that which derives conclusions about the real asymmetry of different subjects from transcendental asymmetry, and (2) that which on the basis of transcendental asymmetry postulates the demand for social symmetry, pointing to the equal right of different individuals and groups to create and develop their own narratives and systems of communication. It is clear that the first model, because of the consequences it leads to, as well as because of its specific, very limited understanding of the notion of tolerance (as "permitted deviation") can be termed "totalitarian", while the second, in opposition to it, can be termed "liberal".

That this is not an esoteric academic discussion but a distinction which makes possible the better understanding of social transformations can be clearly seen on the examples of the latest events in Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe, where the communist collectivist paradigm was never overcome but simply translated into a nationalist paradigm which completely belongs to the same model. The structural variation is only that "differentiation" - a necessary part of the model - is not based on the social but on the ethnic principle, thus unavoidably converting the traditional struggle against the "enemy inside" into an ethnic civil war.

Modern individualist centrism

The thesis that modern individualism and theoretical solipsism are homologous is by no means self-evident, and therefore deserves closer explanation. In its radical variant, solipsism was always seen as a paradoxical theory, as a hypothetical extreme to which the philosophical turn towards the subject could lead. Because it was considered that a true solipsist consciousness could be found only in the lunatic asylum (e.g., Schopenhauer)², and that, therefore, solipsism in philosophy, if argued by a sane person, was always a deeply insincere conception (Russell)³, this position could never seriously pretend to validity. "Solus ipse", meaning "only Selfhood", as an expression was never really used in Latin, but is an 18th-century construction created with the sole aim of denoting the theoretical attitude of exclusivity of Selfhood. It would be wrong, however, to limit solipsism to a paradoxical ontological theory which argues exclusivity only in the domain of existence. The expression "solus ipse" limits neither (a) the domain of exclusivity, nor (b) the kind of Selfhood. That is why it is possible to execute a double amplification of the notion of solipsism, and thus of the possible conceptions to which this word refers, starting from the homologous structures in which the formula of exclusivity appears together with the rhetoric of the subject.

a. Amplification towards the domain of exclusivity makes possible the inclusion in the term "solipsism" of:

1) ontological solipsism, which maintains the exclusivity of Selfhood in the domain of existence;

2) gnoseological solipsism, based on the argument that it is only of the individual I that one can speak with certainty, while of other people and of external reality it is possible to speak only on the basis of indirect (and therefore "uncertain") arguments. This kind of solipsism points to the exclusivity of Selfhood in the domain of possible knowledge;

3) methodological solipsism, which, although part of the conceptions which espouse belief in the existence of other people and of external reality, starts its argument from individual subjectivity, arriving at conclusions about others only by analogy with this privileged subject;

4) ethical solipsism, which can be divided into two quite different positions:

- a derivative of methodological solipsism, deriving norms of behaviour from a moral law which is discovered transcendentally as an internal regulatory principle,

- egoism or voluntarism, which derives norms of behaviour from the will and interest of the privileged subject⁴.

The expression "egoism" was coined in the 18th century with the intention of denoting the solipsist position as a whole (this is how it is used by Christian Wolf), and Kant later separated the notions of esthetic, moral and logical egoism, also calling the second one "moralistic solipsism"⁵.

b. Amplification towards the kinds of Selfhood whose exclusivity is to be determined makes it possible to demonstrate that the solipsist model of argumentation is not applicable only to the individual I, an individual consciousness or being, but can also be applied - in all its domains - to justify the position of exclusivity or self-sufficiency of collective or universal subjects: class, race, genus, people, life, spirit, God ... In literature, these arguments are called centric, and they are also connected to the transcendental starting point in philosophy, but with the initial idea that experience is constituted not within one consciousness, but within the collectivist perspective of a "community of consciousness", "community of persons", "community of spirits"...

Of course, the amplification towards the domain of exclusivity is more relevant for understanding the connection between modern individualism and solipsism. It is clear that in all solipsist stands the asymmetry of the positions of the I and the Other, on which exclusivity is based, is founded on a kind of "transcendental privilege". In other words, this means that solipsism was always connected with ideas of a "transcendental attitude" as an appropriate philosophical stance for the subject. It was precisely on the basis of this that the validity of solipsism was affirmed in spite of its radicality. In the transcendental attitude, in which the subject is necessarily alone (according to Husserl)⁶, in which "we must always put in the place of other people ourselves with the formula of our mind" (Kant)⁷, the different forms of the solipsist argument unavoidably turn one into the other. Namely, if we start from the transcendental attitude, ontological solipsism automatically changes to gnoseological:

1) "Only I exist" (ontological solipsism) changes into

2) "Only I exist - according to what I can know", and this is nothing but

3) "I can have knowledge only of my own existence" (gnoseological solipsism).

Furthermore, gnoseological solipsism is necessarily changed into the methodological variant:

1) "It is only of my own existence that I can have knowledge or certainty", through Descartes's principle of

2) "It is only from certainty that I can go to knowledge" is converted to

3) "In every description of reality I must start from myself, in order to be able to come to conclusions about others on the basis of myself" (methodological solipsism)⁸.

We should not be surprised then that every attempt to build a transcendental philosophy which started from the direct experience of a particular subject always had an explicit or implicit basis of transcendental solipsism. We should also not be surprised that the overcoming of the methodological solipsism of transcendental philosophy is one of the basic tasks of the "philosophy of transformation" which starts from a "linguistic turn" and theses about the social construction of Selfhood⁹. In its transcendental variant, solipsism has stopped being a paradoxically preradical theory, becoming instead the irreplaceable basis of a discourse which has hypertrophied into the global ego-centric philosophical policy of the "Modern".

Although Kant believed that the problem of the "solipsist starting point", which was a characteristic of his own analysis in the first edition of Critique of Pure Reason, had been overcome in the second edition, and especially in the expositions contained in Critique of Practical Reason, which postulates "methodological collectivism", the Other as an unavoidable condition of practical activity, it is still evident that his practical philosophy is based on the same variant of the "solitary" transcendental reflection. Methodological collectivism is derived from methodological solipsism, the other person appears on the horizon of thought about the regulatory principles of our own activities.

Seen from a different angle, it could be said that the Other in Kant is derived pragmatically (regulatively) and not epistemologically (constitutively) in the same way in which the use of ideas (I, World, God) is pragmatically defended in Critique of Pure Reason. The regulative status of the Other, as well as the regulative status of ideas, does not point to the certainty of their being. These are unavoidable presuppositions of knowledge and activity, but not something that could be legitimated as the outcome of the application of any kind of learning procedure¹⁰. The fact that Kant does not derive a voluntarist, egoistic thesis from lonely transcendental reflection in the domain of practical behaviour, but precisely an ethical-collectivist one, is significant in order to see that transcendental solipsism does not necessarily lead to the postulating of social asymmetry. This fact will become even more interesting when the consequences of collectivist transcendental centrisms are considered.

In the second edition of Critique of Pure Reason, Kant attempted to overcome methodological solipsism with a turn which gave inspiration to his most significant followers. In opposition to the first edition, where he spoke of the "solitary transcendental subject" (with the implication that there are as many solitary transcendental subjects as there are individual human beings - which represents a renewal of Leibnitz's monad theory at the transcendental level), in the second edition he treated the transcendental subject as a universal subject, which is not another name for an individual person, but a special kind of formal instance, an ideality in which each individual can participate equally¹¹. The maneuver applied here is the first version of an attempt to build a kind of "solipsism without Selfhood", and it became especially popular later on, in the early 20th century (Wittgenstein's Tractatus, Carnap)¹². Solipsism is only a formal model applied individually to oneself by each person, a methodological starting point which is not in danger of constituting the world as the private world of an individual.

It was precisely the impression that with his thesis on the ideality of the transcendental subject he had solved the problem of the link of methodological and ontological solipsism which gave Kant the possibility to formulate the analogous supposition of the ideality of the categorical imperative, the collectivist perspective of which is not disturbed by any individuality of insight. But even if this were not debatable (and even a partial look at the literature about Kant will show that it is), it is evident that the moral law is derived within an eminently individualist conception, from the very structure of individuality as such. Of course, in this way the privileged position of any one person is successfully avoided - and this was the task which the rhetoric of the ideality of the transcendental subject was meant to accomplish - but without leaving the framework of the radical subjectivism which must always anew explain its removal from solipsism.

As esoteric and academic, as far removed from the world and reality of Kant's time as this discussion may seem, it only interiorizes and thematizes the problem of the new civic identity which appeared with the growing consciousness of the "rights of the individual" and of society as a resultant of individual tendencies. The danger of taking individual rights as the starting point is that it may lead to the legitimating of "privatization of the world", and the whole discussion about the ideality of laws, by which the Other is set up as the limit of one's own freedom, was intended to make radical individualism, which was encouraged in the phase of early capitalism, a matter of principle - and therefore abstract - and link it with the concreteness of reality in which an individual (person), instead of having an expansive and possessive stance towards the world, identifies with his place and role, and thus with a certain responsibility towards others. If, in opposition to this, the transcendental subject - carrying in its very notion a sort of ideality and exclusivity - were private and individual (directly linked with the individuality of the person), transcendental asymmetry could serve as the basis for legitimating social asymmetry, and therefore also for encouraging individual consciousness of one's own autonomy, privilege and exclusivity, thus automatically suspending the autonomous rights of the Other.

Modern Collectivist Centrism

Just as the amplification of solipsism towards the domain of exclusivity is significant for understanding modern individualism, amplification towards the kinds of Selfhood is significant for understanding modern collectivism. Centrist arguments, brought up by this amplification, are themselves linked to the transcendental starting point in philosophy, but with the basic idea that the constitution of reality and experience are not derived from the individual solipsist perspective, but from the perspective of that collectivity which represents the basis or common denominator of an infinite multitude of persons. Already in his early phase Hegel applied this formula, connecting it with Fichte's reinterpretation of the transcendental I as an identical subject-object. Searching for that ideality, that objective unity, which by its own universality transcends both individual persons and their community, Hegel arrived at the notion of the spirit, which would become the foundation of all his later philosophical work.

In comparison with Kant, it is immediately apparent that in Hegel the transcendence of the individual consciousness of the finite being is no longer achieved through the mere postulation of the transcendental subject as an ideal individual instance, but through the transcendence of finiteness itself, by setting up the monism of the new "solus", irreducible but essential for individual beings. In this way, as is known, the phenomenology of consciousness is converted into the phenomenology of the spirit, but it is sometimes forgotten that this does not mean abolishing the transcendental starting point from the subject. This is most clearly stated in Hegel's Science of Logic, where he stresses: "Das Ich Anfang und Grund der Philosophie sei, dazu wird die Absonderung dieses Konkreten erfordert - der absolute Act, wodurch Ich von sich selbst geeinig wird, und als abstraktes Ich in sein Bevustsein tritt. Allein dies reine Ich ist nun nicht ein unmittelbares, noch das bekannte, das gewöhnliche Ich unsers Bewustseins, woran unmittelbar und für jeden die Wissenchaft angeknüpft werden sollte. Jener Akt wäre eigentlich nichts Anderes, als die Erhebung auf den Standpunkt des reinen Wissens, auf welchem des Subjektiven und Objektiven verschwunden ist".¹³.

This passage undoubtedly points to continuity, to a new variation on the theme of the ideality of the subject, the difference being that Hegel, as opposed to Kant and Fichte, immediately realized that this thesis automatically questioned the subjectivist interpretation of transcendental philosophy as a whole. What is ideal is not something personal or individual. It cannot be something purely "formal", either. The ideal is only the universal or the absolute: totality. The all-encompassing. Solus ipse ... Thus the thematization of the transcendental I - which begins with the attempt to overcome methodological solipsism, the definition of the ideality of the subject in the second edition of Kant's first Critique, through Fichte's derivation of the I as an identical subject-object and Schelling's determination to treat the absolute, or "objective general" along the model of this I (even calling it "absolute I" or the "soul of the world") - ends in the radical solipsist thesis which through the maneuver of equation of totality, spirit and notion grows into a consistently presented objectivist logocentric position. Solus ipse (in its very notion) is truly the I OF THE TOTALITY and not the I OF THE INDIVUDAL, and absolute self-determination of the absolute I is no longer a system of transcendental reflection, but a constitutive act of realization of the whole world, genus, history and knowledge. Thus the thesis on the identical subject-object gained objectivist grounding, and the paradoxes of solipsism, visible at the level of the separate individual, simply disappear in the face of the impossibility of imagining the plurality of absolute subjects. When Hegel stresses that Kant's philosophy is a "psychological reflex of the notion (logos)", the aim is both to link the new logocentrism grounded in solipsism with transcendental anthropocentrism, but also to separate them, as the latter is only one of the appearances of the former¹⁴.

It is very interesting to see to what extent Hegel adds to the logical consistency of solipsism a psychological conviction which this conception never had. The problem of solipsism, especially in its ontological variant, was primarily that it was contradicted by direct evidence, as well as by direct psychological self-consciousness. I really cannot believe that only I exist, as I am daily in direct contact with large numbers of other persons. This goes for every one of us. The strength of solipsism, however, lies in the transcendence which it invokes. We should believe that our consciousness represents reality inadequately, that this is a game we play with ourselves, that a productive, omnipotent, absolute, pre-reflexive part of us is cheating the other, conscious and rational part, that "behind the back" of consciousness a dramatic act of absolute constitution is going on which we can only witness in an indirect way. If the solipsist thesis is to have any sense, then this must be proof of the existence of a kind of cunning through which the absolute subject in us cheats us as conscious individual beings.

The thesis on "cunning" was created by linking the neo-Platonic theory of transcendence with the transcendental theory of the synthetic productivity of the reason and the mind. Theoretically, there is no way to limit the synthetic productivity of the subject, as after Kant's "Copernican revolution" we have found it - contrary to common sense - in many unexpected domains (constitution of space, time, the subject of the world). This led Fichte to define the I as an absolutely effective identical subject-object. Hegel, however, saw that this was a strategy which must be separated from phenomenalism and studied in relationship to all of reality (including the physis as history). Our direct identity represents, as in the case of solipsism, only a limited, alienated experience of the infinite solus, which through cunning relates to itself as to a finite being. The existence of a direct appearance explained by the structure of cunning represents thus the grounding of a possibility of linking reality as we know it with the radical variant of the solus ipse which plays a strange, but necessary game with itself. As, however, this is the "objective general", totality, then the game it plays far supersedes the limits of our individual beings and super-determines both our individual identities and all the forms of our collective connectedness.

Logocentrism in Hegel is thus at the same time imposed as the foundation for all other forms of centrism. The spirit is the real subject of history, but it is realized through genus, people and a multitude of individuals. The structure of asymmetry and privilege is refracted through each of these categories, primarily because the spirit is not realized equally through all the representatives of a people, nor within all the peoples known in history. From the viewpoint of spiritual self-realization there are peoples and individuals who are "more important" than others. The theory of genius was derived from this centric supposition, as was the theory of people. Logocentrism is converted to ethnocentrism, and this again to elitism, and transcendental asymmetry into the real asymmetry which makes possible the formulation of the principle of "greater" and "smaller" spiritual and historical rights. On the other hand, the principle of "rights" is hierarchized according to degree of universality. The right of the people comes before the right of the individual, and the right of the genus before the right of the people as a whole. At the same time, these rights become historical, and not simply natural, as the nature of spirit consists of the history of its self-positioning and self-realization. The final aim of the absolute suspends all individual and collective aims, and the firm line of history suspends all individual and collective plans and fates.

Modern collectivism thus definitely gained its centric foundation. Kant's attempt at setting up social symmetry in spite of transcendental asymmetry ended up as a radical stance of social asymmetry based, in the case of Hegel, on the needs of global historical progress. Not even devastating criticism of Hegel's absolutism in the 19th century could change the centric structure thus set up. On the contrary, this structure is reflected in a broad spectrum of not only philosophical, but also social theories and political doctrines. When connected with the seductive thesis of negation as the operative principle of history, the rhetoric of collective privileges led to legitimation of struggle, of conflict, as the basis for the historical realization of privileged aims. This is evident in the national movements in the 19th and 20th centuries, in the communist movement, as well as in fascism, where the members of the privileged group were described as people who "think in continents and feel in centuries", as people "interested in matters of fateful import for future generations" (as Goebbels described the members of SS units)¹⁵. Homologous structures of nationalist and communist social identity come from precisely this type of collectivist centrist order, first postulated within Hegel's system. That these structures are directly linked at their very source is evident from Marx's understanding that there are not only "historically more and less progressive classes", but also "historically more and less progressive peoples" (thus Marx, for example, considers Slavs to be a retrograde group).

Acceptance of the theory of negation as the operative principle of development adds to the existing privilege and greater rights of the "historical subject" over other subjects the legitimation of potential violence until elimination. The Other is the enemy who must be fought, a potential danger for "us" and "our aims". The Other is the one from whom we should "differentiate", "purify" ourselves, between "us" and "others" there should be a barrier which clearly separates and the transgression of which cannot be tolerated. Tolerance is possible only if the Other accepts his lesser historical right and does not try to impose it as equal or superior to our own. The identical subject-object, which has degraded from absolute to collectivity (people, class), has in the process become the more aggressive, the more it has realized that the Other (still) exists. The lost direct totality of the absolute I is replaced by the pretension to totality, by the voluntarism of the group which attempts to somehow historically impose infinity¹⁶.

The Linguistic Turn

This dichotomy of individualism and collectivism, which has been thoroughly studied in philosophy in the course of the preceding centuries, is reflected in the very beginnings of psychoanalysis. In Unbehagen in der Kultur, Freud notes the existence of a feeling of general connectedness, which he calls the "oceanic feeling". It is a feeling of home, of an unbreakable unity, an understanding that we cannot fall out of this world, an experience of belonging. Freud, however, says that not even this manner of expressing the oceanic feeling (which he accepts as the foundation of religion) does not appear adequate if observed from the point of view of psychoanalytic knowledge of the nature of primary narcissism. Namely, the phenomenon of the unbreakable bond of man and world, as well as the phenomenon of the pseudo-certainty of the Ego (the impossibility of ascertaining its real borders) can point not only to the belonging of the I to the world, but can encourage an even stronger impression of the world belonging to the Selfhood. Freud considered the idea that the identity of the Ego is subject to constant changes and derived from a basic root logical. The I of a grown-up man is created through transformations which can be reconstructed psychoanalytically, starting from a new-born which cannot at all differentiate itself from outside reality, nor is it even conscious that this outside world might be the source of the feelings coming from it. The distinction between subject and object is not yet set up, the relations of the external and the internal still do not have a meaning which can be fixed. The absence of the breast, through which the mother is set up as the first object of outside reality, initiates the unpleasant experience of alienation of the one and only from oneself. The world of objects, set up through pain and need, represents in the beginning the exclusive "other" of our being.

However, just as the initial state of primary narcissism appears illusory to a grown-up person, thus the externality and autonomy of the world and other people (as something derived) can also be presented as illusion. Freud`s thesis from, Das Unbehagen in der Kultur which says: "Ursprünglich enthält das Ich alles, spatër scheidet es eine Aussenwelt von sich ab"¹⁷, clearly shows to what extent solipsist models should repeat a basic intuition, traces of which are preserved in our primary experience of reality.

Jung, however, differed from Freud to the same extent to which Hegel differed from Kant. He took the primordial encompassing subject, which is not reduced to the identity of any single person, universalized it and termed it the Selfhood (das Selbst), equating it with the notion of "mneme" (Burckhart) or of his own "collective unconscious"¹⁸. Our deeper inner being is not individual, but universal and identical in other persons. Selfhood is what we are placed in original identity with others in. This Freud/Kant - Jung/Hegel analogy surprises even less when we take into account that Jung, like Schelling, from whom Hegel took over the thesis on the absolute I as objective totality, found inspiration in the mystical tradition and in neo-Platonism, both of which search for the "common denominator" as the condition of the possibility of existence of each individual being.

Both in psychoanalysis and in philosophy everything changed radically with the so-called "linguistic turn". In brief, the linguistic shift abolishes the traditional philosophical starting point from directness, which was always connected with the thesis on the epistemological primacy of the consciousness and of perception. This thesis is replaced by the view of the derivativeness of perception and the primacy of language, which foregrounds the social, intersubjective character of the constitution of reality and knowledge. As it is not possible to imagine a "private language", because it is not possible to set up a private model of following rules (intersubjective by definition), all the words of a language - including the basic solipsist category of "I" - acquire a relational character and belong to language games which abolish the very intention of solipsism¹⁹. With the thesis that the limits of one's language were the limits of one's world, Wittgenstein announced the end of the transcendental subject thought along the model of consciousness and transcendental aperception²⁰.

Within the phenomenological tradition, though, abandoning the directness of consciousness began with Husserl's attempt to use the concept of "Lebenswelt" to distance himself from the transcendental solipsism of the Cartesian Meditations. Even at the psychosomatic level Selfhood feels itself as "social", and the world of life as an inter-human world. Describing this change within phenomenology, Scheller said that starting from the I, it is impossible to reach the WE. On the contrary, one should start from real social interconnectedness (WE) in order to realize in what measure the I represents a social construct. It was only Heidegger who linked this shift with the thesis on the primacy of language, making possible a hermeneutic reinterpretation of the phenomenological idea of the "personal horizon" which stressed its social and linguistic character, its dependence on the historical moment and the traditional prejudices which are interiorized through the process of socialization and language acquisition²¹.

The thesis on the social construction of Selfhood is most completely developed within pragmatic philosophy, in the whole spectrum from "derivativeness of perception" to "intersubjectivity and contingency of personal identity". Perce's, Mead's and Royce's considerations of Selfhood which refracts in itself the system of human relations, and of perceptual knowledge dependent on interpretive and communication links among people, are completely analogous to the hermeneutic thematization of the relationship of language and perception²². This analogy was the reason for numerous modern linkings of hermeneutics and pragmatism, in Germany, for example, in the work of Habermas and Appel, and in the United States primarily in Rorty's Philosophy and Mirror of Nature²³.

Within psychoanalysis, an analogous transformation was carried out by Jacques Lacan. More than Jung or Freud, Lacan starts from an understanding of the subject as the very order of the symbolic. Lacan, too, allows for the immediacy of psychophysical processes in the stage of primary narcissism, for a spontaneity which is pre-symbolic and partly convergent with the classical philosophic ideas of direct subjectivity. Lacan, however, shows that this pre-symbolic stadium must be necessarily overcome by entering into the order of the symbolic; the price for this is loss of spontaneity, loss of centre, death of the subject as directness and passing into the domain of interplay of desire and signifier. Entering the differential symbolic order is a necessary condition for the possibility of language acquisition, and thus a condition of the development of an individual psychological structure. All that is left of the subject is an empty space, which, however, does not remain unfilled. The order of the dead (letters) becomes more important than the order of the living (spontaneous flow), and the subject is always represented only as a signifier in a chain of signifiers. This game cannot be stopped through introspection which would make the "real being" of the subject transparent: "The point is not wether\wheather I speaks about itself in the way that is analogous to that what I is, but wether\wheather I know if I is that what I am talking about"²⁴. Lacan (as well as Freud in Lacan's interpretation) considers that this kind of identity cannot be set up. I think where I am not, or, I am where I do not think I am. The loss of spontaneity is compensated through a system of differential symbolic substitutions, which imaginarily set up both us and the world in intersubjective space. In this sense, the "imaginary" is the only possible reality.

But although all these transformations definitely negate the intention of classical ego-centric solipsism by abolishing the instance of directness in which the solipsist thesis finds its grounding, they at the same time prepare a new kind of "collectivist centrism" by abolishing all transcendental supraindividual instances and pointing to the contingency of selfhood, the contingency of language and the contingency of community within which personal and social identities are set up and changed²⁵.

If the limits of my language are the limits of my world, if the process of socialization directly influences what I am and what I can be, if traditional prejudices and belonging to the community construct my world in a way which is partly or completely incomparable with the world of a member of a different linguistic or cultural environment (and if using trans-historical, supraindividual, universal criteria there is no way to represent my world and my identity as epistemologically or ethically more adequate, valid or right than somebody else's) - then I am forced to see myself as the resultant of an accident of circumstances, a resultant which can pretend to no other exclusivity but the exclusivity of a personal life history, and which, therefore, cannot legitimately demand for itself privileges relative to other contingent subjects.

Postmodern liberal centrism

Although this kind of insight increases the readiness for tolerance, solidarity and dialogue, it is still based on an eminently ethnocentric conception. Commenting on Wittgenstein, Bernd Williams called this conception "aggressive solipsism", and Rorty himself speaks of it as postmodern liberal centrism. According to Williams, Wittgenstein's thesis of language as the limit of the world sets up a "pluralistic replacement for the individualist I", thus preserving the asymmetry of the transcendental position, which is projected on relations among groups instead of on relations among individuals²⁶.

The solipsism of the Tractatus logically ends in the linguistic ethnocentrism of the Philosophical Investigation. However, by neglecting the contingency of belonging to a linguistic community, which in Wittgenstein, as in Rorty, is made completely clear, Williams arrives at a totally mistaken estimate of the social effects of this kind of centrism. He determines on the example of Wittgenstein what Putnam determines on the example of Rorty: that "aggregative solipsism" leads to relativism, and that relativism becomes cultural imperialism when from the unavoidability of starting from one's own horizon it comes to the conclusion that it is possible to understand others only by analyzing them according to the norms of our linguistic and cultural environment²⁷.

This sort of interpretation evidently distorts the meaning of postmodern ethnocentrism by positing that it has a normative as well as a descriptive dimension; that it is not only a matter of transcendental reflection which makes possible the assuming of a "neutral instance", and the abandoning of a traditionally and pragmatically determined horizon of thinking and feeling, but also a transcendental argument which, as in Kant, legitimizes "our" system of schemata for constituting reality. It is precisely the admission of contingency and plurality of a possible constitution which makes impossible any kind of normative dimension. All cultural imperialism presupposes imposition, and all imposition is based on the belief that what is being imposed is better or more correct. This is certainly not the case with transcendental aggregative solipsism. On the contrary, this is a case of an argument which could be called the "last transcendental argument", or, as Rorty has it, a transcendental argument to end all transcendental argument in the sense of arguments of justification, legitimizing of one synthesis, conferring on a narrative the status of objective and neutral instance²⁸.

The relativism set up in this way is not just a relativism of truth (Rorty convincingly demonstrates why, in the matter of truth, neopragmatism lies beyond realism and anti-realism)²⁹, but also a relativism and pluralism of possible experience of the world. This directly contradicts the objectivist intention of transcendental philosophy which, since Kant, has been trying to legitimize a certain "synthesis", without, however, having recourse to the external instance of the "thing by itself". The plurality of constitution negates the classical analytic transcendental argument, while the possibility of the existence of several different constructions of the world can be extrapolated from Kant's writings. This was first shown in Kant studies by Körner, who formulated a negative answer to the question of whether Kant could, through his philosophical resources, convincingly demonstrate the reasons for believing in the unity and singularity of meaning of the synthesis of reality which he justifies in the "Transcendental Analytic" of the Critique of Pure Reason³⁰ The postmodern linguistic turn is consistent with the impossibility of universalizing any experience of the world, the necessity of understanding ourselves, as well as our realities, as contingent and changeable categories.

However, as in the case of the Other in Kant's practical philosophy, another culture is seen as the limit of "our" possible pretension at universalization of our own norms. And that is precisely why postmodern ethnocentrism is opposite to cultural imperialism, that is why it argues for the principles of tolerance and dialogue, that is why it appears within a (postmodern) liberal theory. Postmodern ethnocentrism is the kind of centrist argument which, within the collectivist paradigm, succeeds in avoiding the derivation from transcendental asymmetry of the normative stance for real social asymmetry; therefore, it relates to totalitarian collectivist centrism of the Hegellian, Marxist and nationalist types in the same way as Kant's theory of the categorical imperative, within the individualist paradigm, relates to voluntarism and egoism.

Here, however, we do not pose the question of which of these centric positions is "more true" or "more consistent". Neither is the aim merely to determine how founded they are in philosophical discourse. As we have seen, all these paradigms were reflected on the real construction of personal and social identities, significantly determining cultural and social events in the last several centuries. In other words, it is now much more important to determine the pragmatic, and not the epistemological values of the analyzed centrisms. In this context, one must ask whether postmodern liberal centrism, which promotes tolerance and solidarity, can actually give a real contribution to the building of a solidary and liberal society?

In Rorty's opinion, social identity in the West is already constituted in accordance with this kind of postmodern liberal conception. In other words, this means that the total consciousness of contingency in the West has grown of late. Even if this is true, it is certain that nothing of the kind has taken place in Eastern Europe. The East of Europe in the 20th century has been dominated by the totalitarian collectivist paradigm, which in different forms (communist or nationalist) directly determines personal and social identities. It is not certain, however, to what extent the liberal paradigm can maintain itself even in the West. Not only because there is never unity and singularity of meaning of social identity within a system, but also because the greater attraction of the totalitarian centric variant compared with the liberal one lies precisely in the larger degree of real exclusivity and privilege which it offers to every "correct" member of the community. The addition of real social privilege to transcendental exclusivity conforms to the narcissism and egoism of each separate individual. People would rather see themselves as exclusive and exceptional than as contingent beings. And there are not many of those to whom personal history and the accident of circumstances can guarantee a basis for feelings of exclusive quality and specialness.

In other words, this means that the construction of social identity in accordance with postmodern liberal centrism would imply an "improvement" of the average human psyche, which is today highly narcissistic. This is why the vision of a postmodern liberal and solidary society belongs to the domain of a liberal utopia, with no guarantees of its realization in the future. Naturally, as in the case of all other centrisms, a certain kind of community and way of life lies in the background of liberal centrism, too: it is the urban society in which plurality of cultures is already reality, a society of diversities which coexist in a limited space. The postmodern "Babel" of large cities is the new model of dynamic space in which different cultures and norms are constantly mixed and harmonized. A new type of urbanity should be the foundation of the construction of a new identity.

The problem is, of course, that "parallel worlds" not only mutually enrich and complement each other, they also very easily and very often arrive at a position in which they indirectly, or, worse, directly, confront each other. Within certain subsystems, they even absolutely exclude each other. That is why the liberal postmodern stance can only be an expression of hope that historical circumstances will lead to "reconciliation" - in the same way that Rorty's hermeneutic conception in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature represents an "expression of hope that the space in culture left by the testament of epistemology will never be filled", or in the way in which Adorno's Negative Dialectics wished for a future reconciliation which would make both "identifying thinking" and "consequent consciousness of unidentity" unnecessary³¹.

Regardless of whether the liberal utopia has a chance of being realized in the future or not, the promotion of an identity which lies in its foundation is a matter of conscience for those who have not succumbed to the challenges of individual or collective narcissism, in the West, too, but much more in Eastern Europe, where the totalitarian centrist paradigm dominates absolutely, completely determining relations among individuals, nations and cultures.

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