The paper is dedicated to the issue of assessing the contribution of Rene Descartes to the birth of the idea of sovereignty. The author focuses on defining the status of the Cartesian cogito and sovereignty of scientific cognition. In modern philosophical discourse, the problem of sovereign life becomes acute and relevant in relation to the problem of sovereign power, the sovereignty of the state, primarily. Scientific discussions on the issue are expressed in the dialectic of the fundamental values of human social existence, freedom and security. At the same time, the concept of sovereignty has not yet received a worthy place in philosophical dictionaries and it needs theoretical elaboration. The author tries to master the concept, using it to resolve the controversial position of Descartes' figure in the question of the becoming of a sovereign personality. Building on work undertaken by G. Bataille, the fundamentally subjective nature of sovereignty is established. Thus, the statement of the subject-object