The Impotence of Sovereignty: Temporality and Repetition in History

Abstract

TH E H I S T O R Y O F M O D E R N P H I L O S O P H I C A L A N D P O L I T I C A L T H I N K I N G A B O U T sovereignty and the subject is marked by contradiction, the attempted resolutions of which give shape to this history while also tending to soften its rough edges, breaks, and inconsistencies—thereby always threatening to render it as something other than history. One such contradiction inheres to the term subject itself in what are seemingly two distinct modes or meanings: subject as subordinated and beholden to an external authority on the one hand, and subject as the proper agent of self-determination on the other. It is the positionality, the relational “beneathness” designated by the term sub-ject, that allows for these diametrically opposed meanings. The first meaning, subject as subordination, translates the Latin subjectus (lying below), synonymous with subditus or being subjugated to a higher authority. The other meaning, subject as autonomous agent, translates the Latin subjectum (foundation or subject of a proposition), which in turn translates Aristotle’s