Trasformazioni del soggetto moderno

This essay focuses on some aspects currently considered to define the Cartesian concept of subjectivity, especially those found in the Méditations métaphysiques. It also tries to show how these aspects changed the philosophical status of the modern ‘subject’ from the post–Cartesian period to Condillac, Diderot and, in general terms, to the rise of the modern aesthetics, whose origin is also due to a re–examination of the concept of subjectivity. The main idea, expressed in this essay, is that Descartes, basing on his earlier philosophical premise, was obliged to think of an anaesthetized subjectivity, whereas, since the early decades of the eighteenth century, the concept of subjectivity changed into a sentimental subjectivity, belonging to a conscious and living body, that is to say, to an aesthetical subjectivity