The purpose of this thesis is to explore the modern Western discourse on the subject. This thesis will trace the roots of the modern Western discourse on the subject from the Enlightenment era, which saw the subject as being autonomous, rational, stable, and self-constitutive. It will contend that the Hegelian subject was the culmination of the notion of the modern Western subject. Lacanian psychoanalysis will be used to show how this fictitious feature is constituted by the Oedipus story and how it works. This thesis will show that the modern Western politics was based on this fictitious subject, exemplified by Hegelian subject, Freud's ego and masculine subject, and Lacan's moi and speaking subject, and it will examine psychoanalytic feminists such as Kristeva and Irigaray in order to find alternative notions of the subject. Finally, this thesis will present the politics of the symptom based on the subject of the Real.
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations