Abstract

In this chapter I explore the tie between the notion of ‘vulnerability’ and the critique of the sovereign subject in Judith Butler’s later thought, tracing its connections with G. W. F. Hegel and the critical reception of the German thinker by other authors like Slavoj Žižek or Jean-Luc Nancy. I will develop this issue in three stages. First, I will explore Butler’s approach to the question of the subject, which she receives under the influence of Adorno and Foucault as an ‘opaque subject’, and analyse the connection between vulnerability and the critique of the sovereign subject. Secondly, I will try to develop this notion of subject which Butler portrays, as present in the Hegel reception by Nancy, Malabou or Žižek. Lastly, I will outline how Butler tries to develop a ‘double-edged’ concept of vulnerability which is politically useful, by understanding that vulnerability is both that which enables us to establish ‘sexual, social, and ethical modes of relationality’ and, at the same time, that by which we might ‘become subject to exploitation’. I will also try to sketch the critical approach to binary thought, of Hegelian heritage, assumed by Butler in her political-philosophical considerations.