Hum Stud https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-018-9461-0 1 3 THEORETICAL / PHILOSOPHICAL PAPER Human Mirrors: Metaphors of Intersubjectivity Thiemo Breyer 1 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract This paper revolves around the question of how we can phenomenologi- cally interpret the application of the mirror metaphor to intersubjectivity. To answer this question, we must irst clarify the phenomenon of the mirror itself, and specii- cally its function and how the objects it relects appear, as well as the modes of self- and other-relations that it makes possible. We can compare these properties with the characteristics of intersubjectivity in order to ind out how sound or signiicant the mirror metaphor is here. Our goal then is not to show whether the mirror metaphor is a ‘correct’ or ‘false’ descriptive determination of intersubjectivity. Redeeming the metaphor in the phenomenological sense would require that we elucidate which aspects of the mirror phenomenon permit an analogy with the Other and which do not. If the metaphor were to conform perfectly with the analogy, and if one could transform it into a veriiable and complete description, it would no longer be a meta- phor. In other words, metaphors live by the dialectic of their resolvable and irresolv- able descriptive elements. We must preserve this tension in our phenomenological analysis while bracketing any overarching assessments of the metaphor. Only when we have worked out the individual aspects of the core of the matter, can we examine the adequacy of its application to the sphere of intersubjectivity. In the following, then, our task is a critique of the metaphor, in the sense of unpacking its speciic phenomenal features, on the basis of which we may then discuss whether or not we can carry out a metaphorical translation of those features. Indeed, even though the metaphor is such a prominent one, the paper demonstrates its limitations when it comes to determining social relations. Keywords Mirror · Embodiment · Metaphor · Intersubjectivity * Thiemo Breyer tbreyer@uni-koeln.de 1 a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne, University of Cologne, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, 50923 Cologne, Germany