Alle Publikationen
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2017
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(2017): Noumenal Alienation. Rousseau, Kant and Marx on the Dialectics of Self-Determination. In: Kantian Review 22 (04), S. 523-551. DOI: 10.1017/S1369415417000267
Abstract: This article argues that alienation (as Entfremdung) should be understood as a particular form of individual and social heteronomy that can only be overcome by a dialectical combination of individual and collective autonomy, recovering a deontological sense of normative authority. If we think about alienation in Kantian terms, the main source of alienation is a denial of standing or, in the extreme, losing a sense of oneself as a rational normative authority equal to all others. I call the former kind of alienation, where persons deny others equal standing as a normative authority in moral or political terms, first order noumenal alienation, as there is no proper mutual cognition and recognition of each other in such a social context. I call the latter kind of alienation, where a subject does not consider themselves an equal normative authority - or an 'end in oneself' second order noumenal alienation (again, in a moral and a political form). In this sense, alienation violates the dignity of humans as moral and political lawgivers - a dignity seen by Rousseau, Kant and Marx as inalienable: It can be denied or violated, but it cannot be lost.
2014
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(2014): Book review. Karl Marx on Technology and Alienation, written by Amy E. Wendling. In: Historical Materialism 22 (3-4), S. 505-519. DOI: 10.1163/1569206X-12341362
Abstract: Amy Wendling contends in this book that Marx's concern with alienation is not restricted to his early, more explicitly Hegelian writings, and that it can be seen to evolve throughout his work in tandem with his interest in technology. This evolution, according to Wendling, is marked by his transition between two successive scientific paradigms, both of which pertain to the status of labour and machinery within society. Wendling claims that Marx uses the distinction between them as a means of conducting an immanent critique of capitalist ideology. Consequently, although it is primarily a work of intellectual history, this book offers an interesting contribution to the hermeneutics of Marx's Capital. In addition, it also bears relation to contemporary discussions concerning real subsumption and the abolition of labour. The book's general argument raises questions as to the degree to which a conception of alienation must rely upon notions of human essence, and upon an idea of a 'natural' and 'authentic' humanity. Wendling's responses to those questions are described as problematic within this review, but they are also acknowledged to be both pertinent and intriguing.
2013
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(2013): Recognition in Capital. In: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 16 (4), S. 713-727. DOI: 10.1007/s10677-013-9410-y
Abstract: In this paper it is shown that in his conception of value, published in the first volume of Capital, Marx relies on Hegel's concept of pure recognition to organise the relations between use- and exchange-value on the one hand and the relation between the social relations between things (goods) and actors (sellers) on the other hand. Establishing this thesis is important in three respects: Firstly it demonstrates that there is a strong continuity in the philosophical thought of Karl Marx, making visible an essential relation between his Economic-philosophical Manuscripts and his later writings. Secondly it helps to better understand Marx's conception of value; and thirdly it shows that "recognition" is an important conception in his critique of political economy.
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(2013): Three Marxian Approaches to Recognition. In: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 16 (4), S. 699-711. DOI: 10.1007/s10677-013-9413-8
Abstract: If it seems fully legitimate to introduce Marx in the contemporary discussion about recognition, it is more disputable to attribute to Marx an unified conception of recognition. There is no doubt that Marx hasn't provided any systematic account of recognition, but he has tackled the issue of recognition from various points of view. Could these various points of view be unified in a general conception of recognition? This article claims that this is not the case since three accounts of recognition should be distinguished that are hardly compatible one with the other: one Feuerbachian account of recognition of the species being in the other, one account of recognition related to the dynamics of disrespect as social experience, and one account of recognition through social roles.
2011
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(2011): Power, alienation and performativity in capitalist societies. In: European Journal of Social Theory 14 (2), S. 161-179. DOI: 10.1177/1368431011403460
Abstract: The article presents a model of performative agency in capitalist societies. The first section reconsiders the problem of third-dimensional power as developed by Steven Lukes, focusing on the relationships between universal human needs and social forms. The second section uses the concepts of the 'self', 'I' and 'person' to characterize the relationships between human nature, affect, individual alienation, social institutions and personal judgement. Alienation is argued to be inherent in human agency, rather than being solely created by capitalism. The next section applies this analysis within an agonal theory of civil society that is driven by the individual's performative participation in associations that compete within institutional settings. Finally the article considers the political ramifications of this model, rejecting contemporary constitutionalist approaches in favour of a revised form of pluralist associationalism. Throughout, the article warns of the dangerous marginalization of emotions (or 'affect') by excessively self-conscious, rationalist approaches such as Mead's social theory, liberal universalism and even some performative theories.
2010
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(2010): The Causal Power of Social Structures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Abstract: This book offers a solution to the problem of structure and agency: a new solution, but one that draws on a number of existing traditions of thought, most significantly philosophical theories of emergence and causality, and the sociological debates around structuration theory. This introductory chapter sets the context by explaining the problem of structure and agency and its significance for sociology, and outlines some of the key points of my argument. It also offers the reader some hints on different ways to read the rest of the book and briefly locates it with respect to critical realism, the main philosophical tradition on which I draw. The problem of structure and agency Sociology is founded on the belief that our behaviour is causally influenced and in particular that there are social factors that influence our behaviour. Karl Marx, for example, famously wrote ‘It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness’ (Marx 1978 [1859]: 4). Émile Durkheim, similarly, argued that ‘the individual is dominated by a moral reality greater than himself: namely, collective reality’ (Durkheim 1952 [1897]: 38). Conventionally, the social factors that are held to influence our behaviour are known as social structure, a concept that even today remains implicit in, and indeed essential to, much of the work done in the social sciences. Yet there is also widespread disagreement about what social structure really is and how it could affect us.
2009
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(2009): Labour, exchange and recognition. Marx contra Honneth. In: Philosophy & Social Criticism 35 (8), S. 935-959. DOI: 10.1177/0191453709340637
Abstract: This article explores Marx's contention that the achievement of full personhood and, not just consequently, but simultaneously, of genuine intersubjectivity depends upon the attainment of recognition for one's place in the social division of labour, recognition which is systematically denied to some individuals and groups of individuals through the capitalist organization of production and exchange. This reading is then employed in a critique of Axel Honneth's theory of recognition which, it is argued, cannot account for the systematic obstacles faced by some struggles for recognition.
Keywords: Anerkennung, Disziplin, Favoriten, Honneth, Honneth und aktuelle Kritische Theorie, Kampf um Anerkennung, Konstitution des Selbst, Konstitutionen des Selbst (Anerkennung), Lebenswelt, Marx, Marxens Begriff(e) der Anerkennung, Modelle/Theorien, Personhood, Philosophie, RECOGNITION, Soziale Angemessenheit, Sozialphilosophie
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