The best starting point for a consideration of how subjects are'produced' is the work of Sigmund Freud. His theories have been picked up and used in a variety of ways, and have passed into everyday culture in many popularised forms. Prior to Freud, ideas about subjectivity had been strongly influenced by the work of the philosopher Rene Descartes, who argued that the human subject was a rational, reasoned and (sdf)conscious entity whose identity was made certain, was proven, by his self-consciousness: 'I think, therefore I am.' Descartes presumed that the T that was spoken ot written was the same as the entity that spoke the word, and that this 'l' was a stable and knowable entity. Humans, for Descartes, were reasonable and rational beings who were in full possession, at least potentially, of themselves; that is to say, their minds
were masters of their (bodily) castles.