Of Testimony and Confession

Two Paradigms of the Subject

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine two modes of problematization, which shift the traditional examination of self–truth away from its initially Cartesian focus point. It analyses two new ways — those of Ricoeur and Foucault—of redefining the relationship between subjectivity and truth, two ways of challenging both the Cartesian veridiction mode (the evidence) and the resulting metaphysical offshoot of the subject (the res cogitans) and its self–positioning and founding nature (the subjectum). The first method finds a founding paradigm in testimony, while the second takes confession as its model.