The paradoxes of nobody: A genealogy of no-subject

Abstract

Each historical period creates, through discourses and specific practices, its own legitimated forms of subjectivity. However, underlying these institutionalized identities, a paradoxical form of subjectivity has been developing throughout history. From Homer onwards, it has been named Nobody. This eccentric figure ””whenever present in the fabric of discourses and practices”” enables the subversion of essential categories of ontology and politics which have historically determined the human being. The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the genealogy of Nobody in order to demonstrate that a different ””and paradoxical”” interpretation of some key concepts in Western metaphysics is possible