Abstract

The question of the political subject has been crucial for philosophy and political thought since the beginning of the Modern age. It was debated and criticized to the point that the crisis or even the death of the subject has been announced many times during the 20th century. Yet, we can see today the powerful return of the question of subjectivity, both in the Western public sphere - social movements - and outside the Western world - new political subjectivities. But we may ask: the subjectivity of which subject? What is the meaning of «subject»? What does the link between «subject» and «crisis» imply? This issue of «Filosofia Politica» is an attempt to articulate these questions. The starting point is the critical perspective provided by women and feminists who denounced the political subject as a one-sexed identity, and the power relationships it implies (P. Rudan); it is also analyzed - through Marcel Gauchet's political thought - the un-linear and ambiguous relationship between democracy and the subject (A. Lanza), while Rawls offers the opportunity to point out the persistency of the concept of the liberal «individual» within Western political discourse; the perspective of the «post-subject» is explored by reading Derrida's reflections upon «the living» (A. Del Vecchio) and by taking into account the conceptions of «multitude» and «people» articulated by the Italian Theory (D. Tarizzo).