Abstract

ABSTRACT In the present work, we will determine the fundamental aspects of Laclau’s thought by considering the central role that the subject and the other have in it, both in the individual and in the collective or political sphere. Although the difference is a condition for unfolding consciousness, we will show that Laclau’s conception of the subject presents certain insufficiencies. They become especially relevant when addressing the political sphere. It is pertinent to warn, as Laclau does, regarding the limits of a political conception whose base is a sovereign individual and collective identity. However, one must pay attention to the unitary meaning that also defines individual and collective existence. To consider the relationship between identity and difference, we will resort to discussions of high significance on this matter, which take place in the context of German idealism and romanticism (in particular, we will attend to Kant Fichte, Hölderlin and Schelling). Having made the caveat about the difficulty mentioned above, we will show in what sense Laclau’s antagonistic political conception is adequate for a non-reductionist understanding of the indeterminacy and otherness that are part of the political sphere and that make its strict reduction to rational parameters impossible and undesirable.