SUMMARYThe essay argues that Jeremy Bentham played a major role in the transitional process between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries leading to the ‘discovery' or ‘invention of society' as an order, i.e., as an autonomous object of knowledge. By comparing Bentham's discourse with those developed by select protagonists of that transition, particularly Ferguson, Sieyès, and Mirabeau, it is shown how society emerges as the logical and historical space of a set of relationships that affects both the rationalisation and the (...) practice of government. In contrast with Michel Foucault's interpretation of Bentham's role in the genealogy of neoliberalism, recently developed by Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval, this paper suggests that ‘the new governmental reason’ rose from within the discourse of law. Consequently, the problem of ‘constitution’ was not left behind by the epistemological change of the eighteenth century, as they argue. Rather, the scientific and political understanding of society as a code became the base for an innovative conception of both law and politics. (shrink)

Moving from the publication of the Italian translation of Wendy Brown’s Politics out of History, the essay discusses of two crucial issues for contemporary feminist political theory: the demand for rights and the politics of sexual difference. Concerning the first one, Brown’s peculiar position – her well known critique of rights and her conception of rights as an empty signifier that historically did and still could catalyze powerful political instances – is read through a close understanding of her conception of (...) the relationship between theory and politics. Concerning the second one, it is argued that Brown’s discourse allows to point out the risks implied by the politics of sexual difference both when it does not understand that difference could be a lever for the reproduction of contemporary political power, most of all when “the subject”, however “different”, is conceived as the unavoidable premise of political discourse. (shrink)

We asked a series of questions to Luca Cobbe and Paola Rudan, authors of two books foregrounding the turning point of the 18th century by which, moving from the experience of the revolution, the structure of the constitution and configuration of government were deeply rethought. The two works, respectively about David Hume and Jeremy Bentham, contribute significantly to illuminate the way by which obedience has been reconsidered when society and opinion became the sources of political legitimation. This dialogue at distance (...) clearly shows the presence of a plurality of constitutional registers which were necessary for the affirmation of the centrality of government in the era of the rising popular sovereignty. (shrink)

In The City of Ladies and Bell in Campo, Christine de Pizan and Margaret Cavendish imagine women’s participation to war as a metaphor of the sexual conflict that they must fight in order to conquer their visibility in history. While Pizan rewrites history from women’s stand point and acknowledges the universal value of sexual difference for the plan of salvation, Cavendish moves within a modern frame and thinks history as the result of human action. In both cases, the tale of (...) women’s participation to war allows criticizing the moral and normative implications of «nature». (shrink)

The article suggests that A Fragment on Government can be read as Bentham's contribution to the American Controversy. Though the contemporary vicissitudes are never mentioned in the text, Bentham's intellectual relationship with John Lind shows his interest in them. It is argued that Bentham criticizes the political discourses adopted both by the Americans and the supporters of the British Government. Bentham's legal positivism appears to be both a way of interpreting the constitutional aspect of the imperial relationship, and the basis (...) of a new science of sovereignty. (shrink)