Self-Efficacious Subjects

Rosa on Alienation and its Antithesis

Bibliographic Data

ID7093777
AuthorsM Cooke (0000-0002-3168-4375, University College Dublin, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume13
Issue3
Pages366-381
Publication date2020-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Political Power (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2158-379X • E-ISSN: 2158-3803
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/2158379x.2020.1834068
OpenAlexW3118131562
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited9

Alienation is a central concept in Rosa's critical social theory. Rejecting the idea of freedom as self-determination, he introduces instead self-efficacious subjectivity as the antithesis of alienated agency. He thereby loses sight of a component historically central for theories of alienation: a critically reflective relationship by individual subjects to their own life-activity. Without such a relationship, I argue, subjects may be entrapped by their particular life-orienting commitments and convictions concerning what it means to lead ethically good lives. I conclude that Rosa's rejection of the idea of self-determining agency impairs the critical scope and vision of his critical social theory

Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy · Alienation · Antithesis · Critical theory · Epistemology · Political science · Psychoanalysis · Scope (computer science · Self · Sociology · Subjectivity · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Psychology · Social Psychology

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