ABSTRACT
Experience often shows that the notion of subjectivity presupposes a psychophysical base frequently related to the subject. This experience is not a natural given but a historical construction, evidenced by the fact that Western thought has long been able to refer to “self” and “I” without a foundation in the concept of subject, nonexistent at the time, not to mention other traditions of thought (Chinese, for example) where neither the notion of subject nor subjectivity exist. There were then, paradoxically, one or several subjectivities without a subject. Sometimes, its absence from Ancient Greece to the modern era dates back to the advent of the subject. However, the origin of the modern notion of the subject is still much debated from dating its emergence (Saint Augustine, Montaigne, Descartes, Locke, or Kant?) to figuring its content and signification, all of which are further obscured by integrating other sociocultural and philosophical constructs such as “person” and “individual.” Strange as it may seem, individual subjectivity is not the same as the subjectivity of a person or that of the subject. We therefore have to find out on what base subjectivity is founded, “base” being the translation of Aristotle’s term hupokeimenon (from hupokesthai, “placed under, serving as base or foundation for”), from which the Latin term subjectum (“that which lies beneath,” but also “that which is constant”) was forged, followed by subjectity, subjectivity, and subjectification.
