ABSTRACT
This chapter first identifies where the political breach within human subjectivity is by examining Etienne Balibar's comments on the instability of the equation of 'man' and 'citizen', an instability that can be tracked back to Rousseau and the French Revolution. Rousseau plays a preparatory role in the chapter in that he is the first to note the conflict between man and citizen within modern subject, identify society as the main source of alienation for the self, and expect politics and education to cure that alienation. Once the problematic has been formulated with Rousseau, the chapter turns to Hegel's and Heidegger's conceptions of the relationship between subjectivity and the political. It focuses on aspects of Hegel's or Heidegger's thinking to show that they outline two alternative positions regarding the subjectivity-political relationship that can help us to understand the ways in which a free self can flourish in a democratic polity.
