Desubstantializing the critique of forms of life

Relationality, subjectivity, morality

Dados Bibliográficos

ID21335331
AutoresHeikki Ikäheimo (0000-0002-7755-5528, UNSW Sydney, autor correspondente), J P Deranty (0000-0003-3860-4371, Macquarie University), John Goris (0009-0000-8888-9905, Macquarie University)
Ano2023
Páginas1-25
Data de publicação2023-03-16
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoInquiry (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0020-174X • E-ISSN: 1502-3923
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0020174x.2023.2185908
OpenAlexW4327555651
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas17

Rahel Jaeggi’s Critique of Forms of Life represents a welcome new development in critical social thought. It aims to overcome the ‘liberal abstinence’, which forbids criticizing the ethical fabric of social life, and proposes to connect normative evaluation with a serious social-ontological model of ‘forms of life’. In this article we argue, however, that Jaeggi’s ontological characterization of the concept of form of life is problematic in ways that introduce a number of adverse consequences for social critique. In section 1, we lay out the main components of Jaeggi’s account. In section 2, we present four interconnected problems that beset Jaeggi’s substantializing conception of forms of life. In section 3, we present an alternative construal of the idea of forms of life, one which does not utilize the concept for grasping substantial unities, but rather focuses on the ‘forms’ that specifically human life takes, and which grasps social practices as concrete collaborative activities involving expectations of recognition. We thereby bring together the recognition-theoretical strand of critical social thought with Jaeggi’s welcome new gambit. In section 4 we briefly put forth three mutually complementary ways to conceive of recognitive expectations immanent in social life understood as a collaborative endeavor

Epistemology · Morality · Normative · Section (typography) · Social life · Social science · Sociology · Subjectivity · Computer Science · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics