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285Hegel’s Theory of Second NatureSymposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy/Revue canadienne de philosophie continentale 17 (1): 31-49. 2013.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, “sec…Read more
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208Neither Rawls Nor Adorno: Raymond Geuss' Programme for a ‘Realist’ Political Philosophy (review)European Journal of Philosophy 18 (1): 139-147. 2010.
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165Hegel’s Theory of LiberationSymposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy/Revue canadienne de philosophie continentale 17 (1): 10-30. 2013.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 be…Read more
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129Tragedy and the free spirits: On Nietzsche's theory of aesthetic freedomPhilosophy and Social Criticism 22 (1): 1-12. 1996.
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110Form and Formation of LifeConstellations 18 (1): 6-7. 2011.“Life” has become an enigmatic keyword in diverse fields of contemporary philosophy in the past years – from political thought and its reflections on biopolitics to practical philosophy and its recourse to forms of life, to aesthetics and its reflections on the modes of life and liveliness in aesthetic representation. The contributions included in the following special section investigate the peculiar way this keyword functions in a diversity of fields, in order to bring to light the underlying …Read more
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103The presence of tragedyCritical Horizons 5 (1): 201-225. 2004.This paper argues that modernity can only be properly understood when tragedy is viewed as one of the conditions internal to it. Modernity and tragedy are not mutually exclusive, as Hegel and Schlegel, for example both argue, but mutually inclusive. Each is determined by the other—as tragic modernity and as modern tragedy.
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96The Sovereignty of Art: Aesthetic Negativity in Adorno and DerridaMIT Press. 1998.Art is not only autonomous, following its own law, different from nonaesthetic reason, but sovereign: it subverts the rule of reason.In this book Christoph Menke attempts to explain art's sovereign power to subvert reason without falling ...
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94Paradoxien der Autonomie. Freiheit und Gesetz I (edited book)August Verlag. 2019, 2nd ed..Der Gedanke, der sich in der modernen Idee der Autonomie verdichtet, ist ein doppelter: Die Figur der Autonomie enthält zugleich eine neue Auffassung von Normativität und eine eigene Konzeption von Freiheit. Dem Gedanken der Autonomie zufolge ist ein Gesetz, das wahrhaft normativ ist, eines, als dessen Urheber wir uns selbst betrachten können; und eine Freiheit, die im vollen Sinne wirklich ist, drückt sich in Gestalt eben solcher selbstgegebener Gesetze aus. Die Idee der Autonomie artikulie…Read more
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84Autonomie und BefreiungDeutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 58 (5): 675-694. 2010.The left Hegelian interpretation of Hegel′s theory of Sittlichkeit has shown that the claim of the concept of autonomy to establish an internal connection between normativity and freedom can only be carried out, if the subject of autonomy is defined by its participation in social practices. While the left Hegelian interpretation thereby solves the paradoxes of the Kantian tradition of understanding autonomy, it is destined to repeat the paradoxical structure of autonomy in a new and fundamenta…Read more
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82Estética y negatividadDivisión de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades de la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa. 2011.
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82From the dignity of man to human dignity: The subject of rightsIn Ewa Czerwińska-Schupp (ed.), Values and Norms in the Age of Globalization, Peter Lang. pp. 1--30. 2007.
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80Die Möglichkeit eines anderen Rechts: Zur Auseinandersetzung mit Andreas Fischer-LescanoDeutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 62 (1): 136-143. 2014.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 …Read more
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78Not Yet. The Philosophical Significance of AestheticsNordic Journal of Aesthetics 21 (39). 2010.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 ag…Read more
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77Modernity and SubjectivityGraduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 21 (2): 217-232. 1999.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…Read more
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77Law and Violence: Chirstoph Menke in dialogueManchester University Press. 2018.A interlocution containing a stimulating lead essay on the relationship between law and violence by one of the key third-generation Frankfurt School philosophers, Christoph Menke, and engaged responses by a variety of influential critics.
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72Critique and DeconstructionGraduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 22 (2): 49-58. 2001.At a central point in his much-discussed book Real Presences, George Steiner writes of the “mountebank’s virtuosity... of a Hitler,” that realises “a counter-logos which conceptualizes and then enacts the deconstruction of the human.” It was clear to Steiner’s American readers what was meant by this transposition of the term ‘deconstruction’ from the field of aesthetics and philosophy, of literary and cultural criticism, to the context of political and ideological struggle against fascism and to…Read more
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70Weder Rawls noch Adorno? Raymond Geuss′ Programm einer realistischen PhilosophieDeutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 58 (3): 445-455. 2010.In Philosophy and Real Politics, Raymond Geuss outlines the program of a realistic investigation of politics and develops a critique of the normativistic approach that defines the mainstream of contemporary analytic political philosophy. The paper discusses the question of how these two elements, realism and critique, are related in Geuss. Drawing on some of Geuss′ considerations in Outside Ethics the paper argues that the very existence of real politics depends on the critique of those …Read more
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68Critique and Self‐Reflection: The Problematization of MoralityConstellations 7 (1): 100-115. 2000.
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60Paradoxien der Autonomie (edited book)August. 2011.Der Gedanke, der sich in der modernen Idee der Autonomie verdichtet, ist ein doppelter: Die Figur der Autonomie enthält zugleich eine neue Auffassung von Normativität und eine eigene Konzeption von Freiheit. Dem Gedanken der Autonomie zufolge ist ein Gesetz, das wahrhaft normativ ist, eines, als dessen Urheber wir uns selbst betrachten können; und eine Freiheit, die im vollen Sinne wirklich ist, drückt sich in Gestalt eben solcher selbstgegebener Gesetze aus. Die Idee der Autonomie artikulie…Read more
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54The "Aporias of Human Rights" and the "One Human Right": Regarding the Coherence of Hannah Arendt’s ArgumentSocial Research: An International Quarterly 74 (3): 739-762. 2007.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 Are…Read more
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54Die Kritik des Rechts und das Recht der KritikDeutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 66 (2): 143-161. 2018.Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 66 Heft: 2 Seiten: 143-161.
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50Force: a fundamental concept of aesthetic anthropologyFordham University Press. 2013.Sensibility: the indeterminacy of the imagination -- Praxis: the practice of the subject -- Play: the operation of force -- Aestheticization: the transformation of praxis -- Aesthetics: philosophy's contention -- Ethics: the freedom of self-creation.
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49Aesthetic reflection and its ethical significance: A critique of the Kantian solutionPhilosophy and Social Criticism 34 (1-2): 51-63. 2008.In the Critique of Judgment, Kant quotes the traditional view of the relation between the ethical and the aesthetical ('the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good'). However, he elaborates this view in a radically new way: as equivalence between two forms of reflection, between ethical and aesthetic reflection. The article distinguishes three different aspects of aesthetic reflection in Kant and discusses their respective ethical meaning. It shows the unresolved tension between Kant's progr…Read more
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45The Act of Negation: Logical and OntologicalZeitschrift für Medien- Und Kulturforschung 9 (2): 43-58. 2018.Das Konzept der Negation ist der zentrale Operator bei der Unterscheidung zwischen historischem Wandel und natürlicher Evolution, welche grundlegend für das moderne Denken ist. Die Krise dieser Abgrenzung ist somit auch eine »Krise der Negation« (AlainBadiou). Der vorliegende Text untersucht die Krise, indem er zuerst Hegels Konzept der »bestimmten Negation« und deren Auswirkungen auf das moderne Verständnis von Revolution beleuchtet und erörtert im Anschluss zwei mögliche Alternativen, wie Nega…Read more
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43Reflections of EqualityStanford University Press. 2006.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.
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43Kontingenz und Solidarität. Eine Replik auf Anke ThyenDeutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 56 (1): 155-158. 2008.
Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, Germany