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Philosophical complexity and post-structuralism both offer a challenge to the Cartesian humanist subject and the predicates of subjecthood that this view presupposes (including a strong view of agency, intentionality, rationality, and causality). In substantive terms, this challenge results in a so-called liquidated subject, wherein the notion of the subject no longer corresponds with any fixed or signified content but is instead characterised as a decentred and complex construction. In this chapter, the deconstruction of the humanist subject and the traditional predicates of subjecthood is undertaken at the hand of Levinas's understanding of the Other; Derrida's work on the subject, animals, and eating; and, Nancy's reading of Heidegger's Dasein from the perspective of Mitsein. The insights that these analyses yield are critically compared to Cilliers' complex view of identity, in which the self becomes over time in a network of relations with others. In so doing, a tentative portrait of the liquidated subject emerges, and attention is drawn to the urgent need to revise our traditional understanding of ethics and responsibility. The consequences that this complex view of identity holds for understanding and relating to the self and to the other are also explored at the hand of the example of encountering the stranger (Levinas, Derrida) or the intruder (Nancy).

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-39047-5_5

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