This research was designed to dissertate the new theories of subject in modern European philosophy from the perspective of the political/social philosophy. Engaging with the philosophers such as Emmanuel Lévinas, Jacques Derrida, Antonio Negri, Jacque ...
This research was designed to dissertate the new theories of subject in modern European philosophy from the perspective of the political/social philosophy. Engaging with the philosophers such as Emmanuel Lévinas, Jacques Derrida, Antonio Negri, Jacques Rancière, Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, my principal question was to clarify the political implication of each theory of subject based on the three matters: anti-metaphysics (Lévinas and Derrida), criticism of class theory (Negri and Rancière) and exception (Agamben and Badiou).
The research of 1st year, concerning Lévinas and Derrida, revealed that the anti-metaphysical theory of subject, criticizing modern egoist subject, constitutes a new subjectivity based on the ethical and move toward the political. Lévinas shows us the process in which the subject of ipséité (egoist subject) is transformed into the subject of responsibility via the face of the Other, moving toward an ethics of universality. Derrida, for his part, describes the singular figure of subject whose sens remains indeterminable, through an excluded subject in the form of a stranger or woman. This research finally showed that for Lévinas, this political subjectivity is reduced to ethics, while for Derrida, who explores the antinomy between ethics and politics, the political subjectivity is both irreducible to and inseparable from ethics.
The second stage of my research, treating Negri and Rancière, concerns a critical transfiguration of the subject in class theory. Negri, paying attention to changes in contemporary production system, makes multidude which is established by immaterial labor into a new political subject. Multitude does not have a uniform quality as in proletarian class. It is defined as a plural subjectivity, an irreducible, absolutely differentiated set. Rancièr’s political subject of demos as a purely political concept, designates the excluded from a consensus system, people without share. It marks a revolutionary subjectivity, separated from pusillanimous and anonymous mass, claiming the share which the pre-established order do not accept. This part thus argued that two philosophers go forward an in-formal democracy, democracy irreducible to institution.
In the third year, my research considered the theory of an exceptional subject. Agamben, who reveals the existence of ‘Homo Sacer’ as an exceptional existence, those excluded from the legal and political order, defines the coming politics as an inoperative politics. Considering that the political act of sovereign power is subsumed under the frame of bio-power that manages life through the logic of exclusion, Agamben pursues a politics that is not based on any type of goal. Badiou, for his part, adds an importance to the politics established by the appearance of exceptional void, the process of subjective practice toward emancipation. For him, communism is the very process of such subjective practice. My research concludes that the politics of Badiou is similar to the politics of Agamben, based on the fact that the former does not have any specific purpose, but it is opposed to the latter because it necessitates the minimum discipline and organization.