Corpo, gender e costituzione del soggetto. Fichte e la questione della neutralità del corpo umano

Abstract

This paper reflects on some structural aspects of Fichte’s conceptualisation of the notions of individual, body, and the determination of gender. I argue that the particularity of Fichte’s position consists in the complete separation of the philosophical conceptualisation of human corporeality from the determination of gender. The philosophical fundament of corporeality has to be found in a basic concept of body understood as the infinite capacity of movement and action in the world (Bildsamkeit), absolutely neutral with regard to sex: in this perspective, the body is neither male nor female. This concept allows to develop some reflections on the tension between gender seen as cultural or natural, which also takes into account forms of so-called trans- and intersexuality without regarding them as exceptions or deviations from a given norm, be it natural or cultural.