This study examines the conceptual formation of the subject within contemporary critical thought. Its central thesis is that the subject will always be a product of a specific theoretical perspective and a particular mode of questioning regarding the possible form and structure of knowledge and the political. Its argument is framed by developments within structuralist and post-structuralist philosophy. The study, as a whole, seeks to highlight the ways in which the philosophical derivation of the subject informs modern political and social theory. Here, the subject is often viewed as an rational, autonomous, thinking being with a self-contained identity, the author of knowledge, who able to negotiate both the requirements of the political, and the claims for a self-certain knowledge. The thesis develops theoretical perspectives upon the subject in order to contest such constructions of the subject. It examines, (i) the humanist-historicist construction of the subject in the writings of Lukács, and the ideological construction of the subject in the work of Althusser); (ii) Lacanian psychoanalytic constructions of the subject, language and knowledge; (iii) the philosophical deconstruction of the subject and its theoretical implications in the work of Derrida, and (iv) discursive constructions of the subject in relation to knowledge and power, drawing upon the writings of Foucault. Each of these analyses emphasise the epistemological and ontological problems regarding the nature of subjectivity, and draw upon comparative discussions where possible. These four chapters are preceded by a discussion which maps the concept of the subject upon a philosophical terrain, where the subject is viewed as negotiating the fragility and contingency of its existence in relation to knowledge and the social world. Descartes, Spinoza, and Marxist and Hegelian perspectives (Kojève and Hyppolite) are examined here and continue to have a bearing upon the chapters that follow.

This thesis aims to show that a right to be able to practice autonomy well lies at the heart of liberal aspirations for individual flourishing. In the past, autonomy was associated with metaphysical or essentialist conceptions of the self. However, the diversity of contemporary liberal societies has meant that liberals now seek new conceptual resources to underpin their normative theories. This is accomplished here by decontesting a doctrine which recognises that liberal acceptance of the malleability of the elf can generate certain moral aspirations associated with practising autonomy in a liberal society. It then aims to highlight that the normative content of these aspirations can be attractively conceptualised by reviving the currently neglected concept of character. A right to be able to practice autonomy well implies that agents in liberal societies should possess a certain sort of character to do so. A liberal concept of character has two aspects: moral and individual. These two aspects together provide normative content and criteria for a liberal character-ethics which can be promoted by the liberal state (and civil society) to enable agents in liberal societies to practice autonomy well. And the philosophical presuppositions of promoting this liberal character-ethics can be helpfully understood in quasi-Foucauldian terms as the inculcation of specifically liberal ‘technologies of the self’. The final chapter uses the liberal doctrine defended throughout the thesis to examine the normative cogency of the programme of political education currently being implemented in English secondary schools. The thesis then concludes by highlighting that liberal aspirations for character, politics and education must be confidently explicated if they are to shape the processes of ‘governmentality’ in liberal democracies.

This thesis draws upon the work of Michel Foucault to provide a Foucauldian account of apartheid South Africa. Its original contribution lies not solely in the distinctiveness of this particular account, but also in the way in which it seeks to address and overcome the problem of race/class reductionism that is typically found in many early explanations of apartheid. Beginning with a survey of early liberal and Neo-Marxist explanations, it goes on to examine the various ways in which both of these schools of thought have sought to respond to this problem of race/class reductionism. Building upon Neo-Marxist responses it suggests that by adopting a Foucauldian perspective the Marxist category of class, along with the categories of race and racism, can be resituated onto an entirely different epistemological plane - such that they can be understood as bodies of knowledge and practices that are constitutive of various subjectivities and identities. This shift of perspective is further developed by taking on board what Foucault has to say about modern state power. Those who rule, Foucault suggests, use the state in a whole series of defensive, identity-making and self-affirming strategies through which they make and secure their own particular sense of self. Applying this alternative Foucauldian perspective to twentieth century South Africa it is argued that instead of understanding apartheid as a racial policy of a pre-given Afrikaner nationalist movement or as the cheap labour policy of white racist capitalists it can be understood as the particular manifestation of a series of self-affirming, identity-making and defensive strategies through which a white Afrikaner ruling elite was made and secured. This alternative Foucauldian approach has implications that reach beyond the specific context of apartheid South Africa suggesting the need to radically rethink the way in which race and racism are conventionally analysed.

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This thesis uncovers and explores a pervasive tendency in political theory to assume that Hobbes's and Kant's political philosophies are absolutely opposed. This tendency is traced to deeply-rooted but flawed assumptions, which combine to suggest that Hobbes and Kant are spokesmen for what I term Hobbism and Kantianism. These 'isms' cast a long shadow backwards over Hobbes and Kant's writings, and obscure understanding of their respective political philosophies and relations between them. The central aim of this thesis is to expose this tendency, its pervasive and distorting effects, and to develop in parallel an alternative view of the theoretical relation between Hobbes and Kant which examines what Hobbes and Kant actually say in their texts without filtering its attention or its results through the assumptions of Hobbism and Kantianism. The thesis addresses four aspects of Hobbes's and Kant's political philosophies which receive especial prominence in recent treatments of the relationship between the two thinkers: liberty, equality, independence, and international relations. By examining these in detail, this thesis draws attention to complexities in their respective theories which are lost in the shadows of Hobbism and Kantianism. It encourages political theorists to move beyond Hobbism and Kantianism, to shed a new light on their theories. At the same time, it acknowledges affinities between the two thinkers which help to establish the coherence of their respective accounts of politics and the true character of their political theories. In the process it carries the methodological implication that studies of political theory and political theorists should reflect, much more than they do, on the assumptions that precede analysis, to avoid reproducing historically-inherited images of specific political theorists, which bear little relation to the detailed views of the theorists in question, and merely distort understandings of their positions and of politics more generally.

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