Structures and process in the constitutional self: Coping with the future?

Among the many virtues of pictorial endeavors such as Renaissance frescoes, we find the clarity and majesty of the image as a whole, one that requires a detachment and distance, both optically and intellectually, to be fully ‘comprehended.’ However, unlike the contemporary pixel-based performances of electronic imaging, by getting closer and closer, subsequent levels of coherence and narrative become perceptible, and one is caught by the appearance of high-definition scenes and detailed descriptions; we end up captured by the unexpected surfacing of the fresco’s many concurring worlds. The “identity of the constitutional subject”1 reminds us of this dual dimension; the very hypothesis of its existence remains an intuitional projection prompted by the institutional continuity of the constitutional idea, whose rationale cuts across diverse scenarios, since modernity, and thrives on the conjecture of an author, a subject, a universalizable self spanning as far as constitution making. And yet the quasimetaphysical connotations of such an overarching unity involve both an “idea of reason” and an ungrounded defeasible appearance. What Michel Rosenfeld does is to bring us closer to the picture, by zooming out and in, exploring its further dimensions, structures, actors, environment, and circumstances, all without discarding the very notion of a constitutional self as an illusory artifact stemming from the sheer need for ideological reassurance. Thus, the vantage point of a closer look does not bring about the debasing of the “general” notion but, instead, takes a further step toward the latter’s “dialectical” reframing, the overcoming of abstraction, the recognition of its conflicting or concurring components, and the pursuit of concrete determinants.