Published: 2019-12-30

The contemporary challenge to subjectivity – towards the indefinite man

Sylwester Warzyński
Studia Philosophiae Christianae
Section: Papers
https://doi.org/10.21697/spch.2019.55.4.03

Abstract

This article addresses the contemporary challenge to the modern vision of man as a subject. It shows that this kind of thinking has become a postmodern dominant view, and by taking into account several philosophical accounts it explains how one should understand the idea of the „death of a man” and what its consequences are. In the first part, the author shows that the modern creation of the subject for a particular kind of sovereign, that is the ruler of himself and the world, consequently leads to his own „death”. The author argues that the death of such a subject has in a way been provoked by the very advocates of subjectivity and their idea of the deification of the subject, making him absolutely independent, autonomous, uninhibited. In the second part of the paper, the author explains what is entailed by the postmodern idea of the “death of a man” with reference to philosophers such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Derrida, and Foucault. He argues that each of these philosophers, by abandoning metaphysics and questioning the modern understanding of subjectivity, proposes the vision of a man who ceases to be „jakis”, somehow determined, permanently present, defined. According to such a view, man becomes instead completely undefined. Lastly, the author shows following Foucault the essential features of the culture in which we live as the result of accepting certain postmodern assumptions when thinking about man. Hence, he speaks of a „nondialectic culture”, „the culture of good functioning” and the „culture of resistance”.

Keywords:

man, „death of man”, man as subject, modernity, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Derrida, Foucault, philosophy of man

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Citation rules

Warzyński, S. (2019). The contemporary challenge to subjectivity – towards the indefinite man. Studia Philosophiae Christianae, 55(4), 61–88. https://doi.org/10.21697/spch.2019.55.4.03

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