ABSTRACT: This article considers how the erotics of the real, of Bataille, might contribute to the ethics of the real, of Lacan, and also to the genealogy of morals disclosed by Nietzsche. Combining Bataille’s anthropological understanding of a taboo-transgression correlation with Lacan’s analytic episteme of the real, symbolic, and imaginary, I trace a recessive loss of the erotic function of being through the Platonic, Christian, and Modern Science epochs that Nietzsche’s revaluations of the Good also centre on. What emerges is the possibility that like Bataille, figuratively speaking, the brothels of Paris should become our churches again.

The paper proposes a reconstruction of some fragments of Hegel’s Jena manuscripts concerning the natural genesis of recognitive spiritual consciousness. On this basis it will be argued that recognition has a foothold in nature. Such a reading of recognition will be contrasted with contemporary constructivist interpretations such as those offered by Robert Pippin and Terry Pinkard. As a consequence of our reconstruction of its emergence from nature, recognition should not be understood as a bootstrapping process, that is, as a self-positing and self-justifying normative social phenomenon, intelligible within itself and independently of anything external to it.

In this chapter, we take up the connection between perfectionism and autonomy, or more generally freedom, from the Hegelian perspective. As one might expect of Hegel, his understanding of both concepts, as well as the nature of their interconnection, is highly original, at times difficult to discern and quite often misunderstood. On our interpretation, Hegel’s perfectionism is a form of “evaluative essentialism”, while his understanding of freedom turns around the concept of “concrete freedom” [konkrete Freiheit]. “Evaluative essentialism” refers to the view whereby an entity’s essence, or in Hegel’s terms “concept”, is in effect its immanent evaluative criterion, the realization of which is a measure of the “goodness” specific to that entity. “Concrete freedom”, to give a preliminary characterization, is a relationship obtaining between self and other (whether other subjects, society, or internal or external nature) wherein the former is genuinely reconciled with the latter. The connection between these two principles—perfectionism as evaluative essentialism and freedom as concrete freedom—is encapsulated in Hegel’s claim that the “essence” [Wesen] of Geist, or as we interpret the latter, the “human life-form”, is concrete freedom. As we will show in more detail below, Hegel’s conceptualization of the interconnection of the relevant concepts not only marks a continuation with the Kantian tradition, but also a partial break with it, to the extent that it embraces aspects of Aristotelianism. We will begin by introducing the main features of the unique brand of ethical perfectionism that Hegel espouses, evaluative essentialism that is (Section I). Following this, we will adumbrate Hegel’s concept of concrete freedom with specific reference to its various “dimensions” (Section 2). By way of conclusion (section 3), we will consider the relationship of concrete freedom to autonomy, and discuss the various “opposites” of concrete freedom, in particular the alternative ideal of abstract freedom and its dialectical reversals into relations of domination. We will end by suggesting that the ideal of collective autonomy put in practice without the guidance of the meta-principle of concrete freedom amounts to a pathological development of the life-form. Published in: https://brill.com/view/title/53261?language=de

Review at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews: http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/27905-recognition-and-social-ontology/

In "I that is We, We that is I", an international group of philosophers explore the many facets of Hegel’s formula which expresses the recognitive and social structures of human life. The book offers a guiding thread for the reconstruction of crucial motifs of contemporary thought such as the socio-ontological paradigm; the action-theoretical model in moral and social philosophy; the question of naturalism; and the reassessment of the relevance of work and power for our understanding of human life. This collection addresses the shortcomings of Kantian and constructivist normative approaches to social practices and practical rationality it involves. It sheds new light on Hegel’s take on metaphysics and puts into question some presuppositions of the post-metaphysical interpretative paradigm. With essays by: Fred Neuhouser, Heikki Ikäheimo, Jean-François Kervégan, Luigi Ruggiu, Robert Stern, Arto Laitinen, Francesca Menegoni, Axel Honneth, Lucio Cortella, Luca Illetterati, Emmanuel Renault, Paolo Vinci, Italo Testa, Alfredo Ferrarin, Franco Chiereghin, Leonardo Samonà, Geminello Preterossi

In the Philosophy of Right Hegel argues that modern life has primarily produced an individualised freedom that conflicts with the communal forms of life that was constitutive of Greek ethical life. This individualised freedom is fundamentally unsatisfactory, but it is in modernity seemingly resolved into a more adequate form of social freedom in the family, aspects of civil society and ultimately the state. This paper examines if Hegel’s state can function as a community and by so doing provide satisfaction to the need for a substantial ethical life that runs through Hegel’s social thought. It also examines why Hegel does not provide a detailed analysis of community, as a distinct sphere between the private and the public political sphere in the Philosophy of Right and why it is not a key platform of his social freedom.