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A L I E N a T I ALIENATION RAHEL JAEGGI Translated by Frederick Neuhouser and Alan E. Smith Edited by Frederick Neuhouser ALIENATION new directions in critical theory C6471.indb i 6/3/14 8:38 AM new directions in critical theory Amy Allen, General Editor New Directions in Critical Theory presents outstanding classic and contem- porary texts in the tradition of critical social theory, broadly construed. The series aims to renew and advance the program of critical social theory, with a particular focus on theorizing contemporary struggles around gender, race, sexuality, class, and globalization and their complex interconnections. Narrating Evil: A Postmetaphysical Theory of Refl ective Judgment , María Pía Lara The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory , Amy Allen Democracy and the Political Unconscious, Noëlle McAfee The Force of the Example: Explorations in the Paradigm of Judgment , Alessandro Ferrara Horrorism: Naming Contemporary Violence , Adriana Cavarero Scales of Justice: Reimagining Political Space in a Globalizing World , Nancy Fraser Pathologies of Reason: On the Legacy of Critical Theory , Axel Honneth States Without Nations: Citizenship for Mortals , Jacqueline Stevens The Racial Discourses of Life Philosophy: Négritude, Vitalism, and Modernity , Donna V. Jones Democracy in What State? Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, Daniel Bensaïd, Wendy Brown, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Rancière, Kristin Ross, Slavoj Žižek Politics of Culture and the Spirit of Critique: Dialogues , edited by Gabriel Rockhill and Alfredo Gomez-Muller Mute Speech: Literature, Critical Theory, and Politics , Jacques Rancière The Right to Justifi cation: Elements of Constructivist Theory of Justice , Rainer Forst The Scandal of Reason: A Critical Theory of Political Judgment , Albena Azmanova The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics, Adrian Parr Media of Reason: A Theory of Rationality, Matthias Vogel Social Acceleration: The Transformation of Time in Modernity , Hartmut Rosa The Disclosure of Politics: Struggles Over the Semantics of Secularization, María Pía Lara Radical Cosmopolitics: The Ethics and Politics of Democratic Universalism, James Ingram Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life , Axel Honneth Imaginal Politics: Images Beyond Imagination and the Imaginary, Chiara Bottici C6471.indb ii 6/3/14 8:38 AM ALIENATION RAHEL JAEGGI Translated by Frederick Neuhouser and Alan E. Smith Edited by Frederick Neuhouser columbia university press new york C6471.indb iii 6/3/14 8:38 AM columbia university press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu Copyright © 2014 Campus Verlag GmbH English edition copyright © 2014 Columbia University Press The translation of this work was funded by Geisteswissenschaften International—Translation Funding for Work in the Humanities and Social Sciences from Germany, a joint initiative of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the German Federal Foreign Office, the collecting society VG WORT, and the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publishers and Booksellers Association). All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jaeggi, Rahel. [Entfremdung. English] Alienation / Rahel Jaeggi; translated by Frederick Neuhouser and Alan E. Smith; edited by Frederick Neuhouser. pages cm.—(New directions in critical theory) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-231-15198-6 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-231-53759-9 (e-book) 1. Alienation (Social psychology) 2. Self psychology. I. Title. HM1131.J3413 2014 302.5′44—dc23 2013044698 Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. This book is printed on paper with recycled content. Printed in the United States of America c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Jacket Design: Jason Alejandro References to Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. C6471.indb iv 6/3/14 8:38 AM CONTENTS Foreword Axel Honneth vii Translator’s Introduction Frederick Neuhouser xi Preface and Acknowledgments xix PART 1 THE RELATION OF RELATIONLESSNESS: RECONSTRUCTING A CONCEPT OF SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY 1. “A Stranger in the World That He Himself Has Made”: The Concept and Phenomenon of Alienation 3 2. Marx and Heidegger: Two Versions of Alienation Critique 11 3. The Structure and Problems of Alienation Critique 22 4. Having Oneself at One’s Command: Reconstructing the Concept of Alienation 32 PART 2 LIVING ONE’S LIFE AS AN ALIEN LIFE: FOUR CASES 5. Seinesgleichen Geschieht or “The Like of It Now Happens”: The Feeling of Powerlessness and the Independent Existence of One’s Own Actions 51 6. “A Pale, Incomplete, Strange, Artificial Man”: Social Roles and the Loss of Authenticity 68 7. “She but Not Herself”: Self-Alienation as Internal Division 99 8. “As If Through a Wall of Glass”: Indifference and Self-Alienation 131 C6471.indb v 6/3/14 8:38 AM vi CONTENTS PART 3 ALIENATION AS A DISTURBED APPROPRIATION OF SELF AND WORLD 9. “Like a Structure of Cotton Candy”: Being Oneself as Self-Appropriation 155 10. “Living One’s Own Life”: Self-Determination, Self-Realization, and Authenticity 199 Conclusion: The Sociality of the Self, the Sociality of Freedom 216 Notes 221 Work s Cited 251 Index 261 C6471.indb vi 6/3/14 8:38 AM FOREWORD Axel Honneth NO CONCEPT HAS BEEN MORE powerful in defi ning the character of early Critical Theory than that of alienation. For the fi rst members of this tradition the content of the concept was taken to be so self-evident that it needed no defi nition or justifi cation; it served as the more or less self-evident starting point of all social analysis and critique. Regardless of how untransparent and complicated social relations might be, Adorno, Marcuse, and Horkheimer regarded the alienated nature of social relations as a fact beyond all doubt. Today this shared assumption strikes us as strange, for it seems as though these authors, above all Adorno, should have realized that the concept rested on premises that contradicted their own insight into the danger of overly hasty generalizations and hypostatizations. For the concept of alienation—a prod- uct of modernity through and through—presupposes, for Rousseau no less than for Marx and his heirs, a conception of the human essence: whatever is diagnosed as alienated must have become distanced from, and hence alien to, something that counts as the human being’s true nature or essence. Philo- sophical developments of the past decades on both sides of the Atlantic have put an end to such essentialist conceptions; we now know that even if we do not doubt the existence of certain universal features of human nature, we can no longer speak objectively of a human “essence,” of our “species powers,” or of humankind’s defi ning and fundamental aims. One consequence of this theoretical development is that the category of alienation has disappeared from philosophy’s lexicon. And nothing signals more clearly the danger that Critical Theory might become obsolete than the death of what was once its fundamental concept. Yet in recent years it has seemed to more than a few philosophers that our philosophical vocabulary lacks something important if it no longer has the C6471.indb vii 6/3/14 8:38 AM viii FOREWORD concept of alienation at its disposal. It is often the case that we can hardly avoid describing individual forms of life as alienated; not infrequently we tend to regard social conditions as failed or “false,” not because they violate prin- ciples of justice but because they confl ict with the conditions of willing and of executing what we will. In such reactions to the conditions of our social world we inevitably fi nd ourselves falling back on the concept of alienation, even if we are aware of its essentialist dangers; as antiquated as the talk of alienation may be, it apparently cannot simply be eliminated from our diagnostic and critical vocabulary. This book can be understood as a philosophical defense of the legitimacy of the category of alienation. Its aim is to revive for us today the social-philosophical content of this reviled concept. The author, Rahel Jaeggi, is completely aware of the diffi culties that such an undertaking entails. Updating the category of alienation requires not only the conceptual skills necessary for explicating its meaning in such a way that, without losing its critical force, it avoids essentialist presuppositions; beyond this, it must also be shown that it is truly indispensable for a critical diagnosis of the conditions of social life. In tackling the fi rst task the author is helped by the fact that she is equally well versed in the classical history of the con- cept of alienation and in recent, analytically oriented debates concerning the nature of personhood and freedom. This familiarity with two philosophical traditions that until now have been split off from each other enables her to identify precisely those places in the classical concept of alienation where es- sentialist consequences can be avoided by relying on more formal accounts of human capacities. With respect to the second task, the author benefi ts from a considerable talent for the phenomenological description of everyday life. This talent enables her to depict human phenomena such as rigidity, the loss of self, and indifference so vividly that the reader is virtually compelled to look for ways of recovering the concept of alienation. These two philosophical sources defi ne the strategy and landscape of the present investigation: it begins with a historical sketch of the concept of alienation that makes clear both the conceptual strengths and the essentialist presuppositions of the concept; in its main section it brings to light, through descriptions of types of individual self-alienation, the analytic potential of recent accounts of human freedom, which it then uses to establish a concept of alienation free from the defects of essentialism.
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