The
term "subject" was conceptualized in different fashions is two
usually related theoretical fields: critical theory and psychoanalysis. The
constructionist approach, affiliated with thinkers such as Michel Foucault,
Louis Althusser, Jacques Derrida and Judith
Butler, holds that the subject is the product of cultural and social discourse fields, and in being so the subject is the result of ideology and
power struggles which shape and operate him. The constructionist
approach denies the possibility of a "universal" subject which is
independent of historical context, society, culture, politics, economy, gender
and so forth. There is no essential core of subjectivity which precedes its
relationship with the social world.
On the
other hand, psychoanalysis leaned towards a more essentialist perception of the
subject, believing that there is a universal and fixed truth to man which exists
in his subconscious. Freud, Jung and Lacan all thought that the human psyche
has fixed components which precede experience (in linguistics, Noam Chomsky thinks
the same). According to psychoanalysis, the truth of the subject is in the subconscious,
and is the subconscious which determines how we fill and act.
What
both takes on the nature of the subject have in common is a negation of the
subject's autonomy, be it from within or from without. Psychoanalysis holds
that the subject is not autonomous due to him being subjected to the subconscious.
Critical theory holds that the subject is not autonomous since it is
conditioned by cultural discourse. Viewing the subject as conditioned and
subjected and as lacking autonomy undermines modern juridical discourse which
relies on the concept of mens rea – criminal intention – in order to
establish responsibility and penalty for a crime committed. This perception
supposes autonomy of the subject, which both psychoanalysis and critical theory
deny.
