Christoph Menke

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

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

Hannah Arendt's 1949 essay on the critique of human rights was published in English and German in the same year under two quite different titles: while in English the title asks the skeptical question: "'The Rights of Man'. What Are They?", the German title claims: "Es gibt nur ein einziges Menschenrecht " - "there is only one human right". The article shows that the English title's skepticism and the German title's assertion represent two internally connected moves of Arendt's argument. For Arendt aims at a fundamental critique of the modern natural law tradition of human rights which, at the same time, hints at a possible alternative understanding of a " right to have rights" in terms of a political anthropology - a new understanding of human dignity

This book brings a new perspective—mainly out of German intellectual discussions rooted in Hegel—to bear on the problems of equality as discussed in Anglo-American conceptions of liberalism. Menke argues that the idea of equality is at the heart of political modernity. At the same time, political modernity is characterized by an attitude of critical reflection on the notion of equality in view of its consequences for the lives of individuals. This book explores the sources and legitimacy as well as the limitations and problems of this attitude toward equality in the work of such thinkers as Adorno, Habermas, Derrida, Hegel, Luhmann, Nietzsche, Rawls, and Schmitt. Looking at key texts in modern political philosophy, the author develops the claim that there is a basic and irreconcilable conflict in justice: between general demands of equality and attention to the individual. In a debate with contemporary Anglo-American liberal philosophy’s concepts of rights, the political process is thereby understood as an interminable strife and negotation between equality and individuality.

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.

In his critical review of Recht und Gewalt Andreas Fischer-Lescano has suggested that the critical insight into the paradoxical entwinement of law and violence should lead towards the utopian idea of a “transcendence” of law. The response to Fischer-Lescano rejects this idea as a false leveling of the - decisive normative - difference between law and society. This difference is the condition of possibility of law’s critical and hence transformative relation to society. The response thus defends the idea, brought forward in Recht und Gewalt by way of an interpretation of Benjamin’s formula of the Entsetzung of law, that the break with law’s fateful violence cannot consist in the “transcendence” but rather the “depotenciation” of law.

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).