The basic conflict in criticism today is between humanism and deconstruction, between the post-structuralist dissolution of subject and the attempt to reaffirm traditional humanistic values.Rather than take sides in this debate, my goal is to transcend it by developing a theory of subjectivity that cuts through the conceptual limitations of both frameworks.
My basic argument is that to attain an adequate theory of subject we need to achieve a principled dialectical integration of four contexts of thought that are usually opposed: Hegelian phenomenology, existentialism, Marxism, and psychoanalysis.
Walter A. Davis: Inwardness and Existence