Christoph Menke

While in neo-Aristotelian conceptions of virtue and Bildung the concept of “second nature” describes the successful completion of human education, Hegel uses this term in order to analyze the irresolvably ambiguous, even conflictive nature of spirit. Spirit can only realize itself, in creating (1) a second nature as an order of freedom, by losing itself, in creating (2) a second nature—an order of externality, ruled by the unconscious automatisms of habit. In the second meaning of the term, “second nature” refers to spirit’s inversion of itself: the free enactment of spirit produces an objective, uncontrollable order; "second nature" is here a critical term. On the other hand, the very same inversion of free positing into objective existence is the moment of the success of ("absolute") spirit. The paper exposes this undecidable ambiguity of second nature and claims that its acceptance and development are the conditions of an adequate understanding of the constitution and forms of second nature.

Mientras que en las concepciones neoaristotélicas de la virtud y la Bildung el concepto de segunda naturaleza describe la culminación exitosa de la educación humana, Hegel utiliza este término para analizar la naturaleza irremediablemente ambigua, incluso conflictiva, del espíritu. El espíritu solo puede realizarse a sí mismo creando (1) una segunda naturaleza como orden de libertad, perdiéndose a sí mismo, o (2) una segunda naturaleza, es decir, un orden de exterioridad, regido por los automatismos inconscientes del hábito. En la segunda acepción del término, segunda naturaleza refiere a la inversión de sí mismo del espíritu. Por otro lado, la misma inversión de la libre posición en la existencia objetiva es el momento del éxito del espíritu (“absoluto”). El artículo expone esta ambigüedad indecidible de la segunda naturaleza y afirma que su aceptación y desarrollo son las condiciones de una comprensión adecuada de la constitución y las formas de la segunda naturaleza.

The freedom of spirit, Hegel claims, consists in “the emancipation of spirit from all those forms of being that do not conform to its concepts.” That is, freedom must be understood as “liberation [Befreiung].” The paper explores this claim by starting with Hegel’s critique of the (Kantian) understanding of freedom as autonomy. In this critique Hegel shows that norms or “laws” have to be thought of as “being”—not as “posited.” This is convincing, but it leaves open the question of the relation between law and freedom (i.e., the very question that the concept of autonomy was meant to solve). In its second part the paper claims that Hegel’s solution to this problem consists in the analysis of freedom as the “historical” process of “social” transformation. While social norms ordinarily or habitually exist in the form of a second nature—according to Hegel, this is the form they necessarily take on in their social reality—, the act of liberation radically changes their mode of being: liberation is the momentary and transitory act of the ontological transformation of social norms from nature into freedom.

It is a well-known fact that the term ‘subject’ acquired its still predominant meaning only as late as the mid-eighteenth century, and that this led to the formation of the term ‘subjectivity’ at the end of the century. In this recent or ‘modern’ use, the term ‘subject’ is no longer taken just in its grammatical meaning where a subject is that of which something can be predicated, but refers to anything that can say ‘I’. In this sense, the predicate ‘subjectivity’ is not coextensive with, but is confined to, the realm of human beings. There are human beings who are not yet or are no longer subjects, but there are no subjects who are not human beings. Only human beings have the capacity to say ‘I’. This describes the new meaning the term ‘subject’ gains at that moment in the eighteenth century, but it does not yet grasp why this new use of the term ‘subject’ marks the beginning of a new, ‘modern’ way of thinking. For that semantic shift of the word ‘subject’ does not of course mean that subjectivity, referring to the capacity to say ‘I’, was discovered only then and unknown before. Rather, the epochal significance of the new use of the term lies in the fact that—and the way in which—the reference to beings capable of saying ‘I’ is often mixed up in an opaque way with the indication of a quite different determination: namely the specifically modern determination of the subject of reflection. The modern emphasis refers to the subject as the instance or place of a process of reflection in which anything objectively existing or pregiven is dissolved. This is what makes the shift in our speaking of a ‘subject’, some time in eighteenth century philosophical discourse, into a decisive fact for our understanding of modernity: it connects the reference to I-saying beings with the emphasis on a new practice of reflection.

Fragen wir nach den Pflichten und Rechten, die wir einander gegenüber haben, so ist die erste Antwort der Moderne, dass es Pflichten und Rechte der Gleichheit sind: Gleichheit ist die vorrangig nromative Idee der Moderne. Das gilt im Moralischen ebenso wie im Politischen. Gleichheit ist die Grundidee der modernen Moralphilosophie und der modernen Verfassungsstaaten. Die moderne Begründung und Durchsetzung der Gleichheitsidee begleitet jedoch wie ein Schatten eine andere Einstellung: eine Haltung der 'Befragung' der Gleichheit. Diese andere Einstellung betrachtet die Gleichheitsidee von außen, in ihren Folgen für das Leben der Individuen; sie betrachtet die Gleichheit in ihren Brechungen und Spiegelungen in deren Leben. Das ist die Methode der Befragung der Gleichheit: Sie ist eine 'Reflexion' der Gleichheit im Verhältnis zur Individualität. Die Idee der Gleichheit kann für die Individuen Einschränkungen, gar Verzerrungen und Verletzungen bedeuten; was für alle gerecht ist, ist nicht für jeden gut. Das ist der Inhalt der Befragung der Gleichheit: Sie ist eine 'Kritik' der Gleichheit am Maßstab der Individualität. Christoph Menke geht es in seinem Buch um dieses Unternehmen einer Befragung der Gleichheit. Dazu bezieht er sich auf wichtige Stationen ihrer Geschichte: die romantische Revolutionskritik (Burke, Schiller), Nietzsches Genealogie der Moral, Schmitts Theorie der Souveränität, Adornos negative Dialektik der Gleichheit. Zugleich betrachtet er die gegenwärtigen philosophischen Debatten um die Idee der Gleichheit: die Debatte um den Begriff der Gerechtigkeit (Derrida); um den Wohlfahrtsstaat (Luhmann, Taylor, Foucault); zwischen Liberalismus und Kommunitarismus (Rawls).

The use of violence in law, the argument for its legitimacy says, constitutes an "unsurpassable limiting case"; it is at the disposal of law, whose internal organization is "symbolic" or normative, as a "symbiotic mechanism" that operates by action upon "physical-organic existence." The law to be discussed here is the law of tragedy; not just any sort of order guaranteed by a power that establishes a minimum of reliability of expectations, but the specific form of law engendered by the tragic labor of reflection. Oedipus issues the legal curse of autonomy only as a proxy, in his role as judge. Walter Benjamin offers an alternative to consent or rejection, instauration or destruction, an alternative he calls "relief of law". The dualism of bourgeois liberalism consists in confronting autonomous participation in the law and the right of free non-participation as mutually external registers.

The paper asks for the preconditions and the consequences of the emergence of aesthetics in and for philosophy. The question is: what does it mean for philosophy to engage the question of the aesthetic? My answer will be: it means nothing less than putting philosophy in question. Or, more precisely: by engaging the question of the aesthetic, philosophy puts itself in question. In order to show this, I will refer to a brief passage in the Phenomenology of the Spirit and then attempt to turn it against what I take it to be Hegel’s own intention. The paper attempts to sketch this argument in three brisk moves by (1) distinguishing a philosophy of the “poetic” from a philosophy of the “aesthetic”; (2) describing the aesthetic as “regressive” and “(self-)reflexive”; and (3) sketching the paradoxical place of aesthetics within philosophy. &nbsp

Un des problèmes centraux des discussions sur la relation entre éthique et esthétique tourne autour de la question de la violence. Celle-ci emprunte deux avenues dans le texte. La première traite d'aspects déterminés de la peinture de Francis Bacon, comme la façon dont l'art représente la violence. À ce propos, on formule la thèse que la provocation éthique de cette peinture ne repose pas tant sur le fait qu'elle représente la violence, mais qu'elle engendre en sa présence un détachement esthétique, et même, un plaisir à l'occasion de cette présentation. La deuxième avenue proposée interroge l'effet éthique du plaisir esthétique en face de la violence. La théorie aristotélicienne de la catharsis est alors amenée comme modèle d'une « économie de la différence » qui permet d'élucider la relation entre plaisir esthétique et jugement éthique.A central problem in the discussion about the relation between Ethic and Aesthetic is the question of violence. This question follows two paths in the text. The first one debates the determinated aspects in Francis Bacon painting, the way art represents violence. On that matter, we draw up the thesis that the ethical provocation in his painting don't stand upon the representation of violence but also his tryptic creates an aesthetical indifference and even a pleasure. The second part questions the ethical effects of the aesthetical pleasure in front of violence. The aristotelien catharsis theory is therefore proposed as a model of an "economy of the difference" that allows the elucidation of the relation between aesthetical pleasure and ethical judgment

Self-reflection amounts to the attainment of an awareness that deepens the understanding of whatever it is that undergoes the process, the understanding that someone has of herself or himself, or the understanding that something has of itself. In Christoph Menke, self-reflection as an act of the law, as an act of the law's enlightening manifestation, has to do with unwillingness, with a peculiar reluctance to apply the law, with a repugnance inspired by such application, or execution. Self-reflection is the logical and genetic criterion that allows Menke to distinguish between two forms of justice: retributive justice and the justice of the law and its normative order. The place of self-reflection, the place that in Menke's essay is occupied by the law and configured by its instauration, is the place of a transformation of self-reflection that must protect it against turning into a tautological activity or activity with a result.