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Open Philosophy

Thinking freedom in connection with aesthetic spontaneity


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Full Title: Thinking freedom in connection with aesthetic spontaneity

Short Title:

Article Type: Oridinary Aesthetics

Keywords: Materialism; Reason; Subjectivity; Critical Theory

Corresponding Author: Paula García Cherep


UNL
Santa Fe, Santa Fe ARGENTINA

Corresponding Author's Institution: UNL

First Author: Paula García Cherep

First Author Secondary Information:

Order of Authors: Paula García Cherep

Abstract: This paper deals with the different reflections on freedom that arose in the context of
the discussion that authors such as Albrecht Wellmer, Karl Heinz Bohrer, Werner
Hamacher and Christoph Menke established with the Habermasian/Honnethian
conception that understands freedom as the result of a process of discussion and
rational deliberation. In spite of the differences underlying the thinking of each of these
authors, they all express the idea that if freedom is understood exclusively in relation to
rational decision, it is conceived in a restricted way. These authors coincide in pointing
out the need to incorporate into the notion of freedom the consideration of a
spontaneous aspect, not rationally controllable, associated with aesthetic experience.
We propose to trace the consideration of this spontaneous character in the
philosophies of Adorno and Horkheimer in order to point out how this aspect of the
aesthetic dimension underlies other spheres of everyday life.

Suggested Reviewers: Esteban Alejandro Juárez, Dr.


esteban.alejandro.juarez@unc.edu.ar
Works in the fields of aestetics and critical theory.

María Eugenia Roldán, Dr.


eugeniaroldan@hotmail.com
Works in the field of aesthetics.

María Verónica Galfione, Dr.


veronicagalfione@yahoo.com.ar
Works in the field of aesthetic and Critical Theory.

Naím Garnica, Dr.


naim_garnica@hotmail.com
Is acquainted with the theory of Hamacher.

Eduardo García Elizondo


eduelizondo@yahoo.com.ar

Opposed Reviewers:

Corresponding Author E-Mail: paulagcherep@yahoo.com

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Thinking freedom in connection with aesthetic spontaneity

Abstract: This paper deals with the different reflections on freedom that arose in the
context of the discussion that authors such as Albrecht Wellmer, Karl Heinz Bohrer,
Werner Hamacher and Christoph Menke established with the Habermasian/Honnethian
conception that understands freedom as the result of a process of discussion and rational
deliberation. In spite of the differences underlying the thinking of each of these authors,
they all express the idea that if freedom is understood exclusively in relation to rational
decision, it is conceived in a restricted way. These authors coincide in pointing out the
need to incorporate into the notion of freedom the consideration of a spontaneous aspect,
not rationally controllable, associated with aesthetic experience. We propose to trace the
consideration of this spontaneous character in the philosophies of Adorno and
Horkheimer in order to point out how this aspect of the aesthetic dimension underlies
other spheres of everyday life.

Keywords: Materialism; Reason; Subjectivity; Critical Theory

1. Introduction

Although Frankfurtian critical theory has not had, since its origins, a linear evolution, the
concern for a possible emancipation was present both among the representatives of the
first generation of critical theorists and among those who carried out a renewal of this
theory in the last decades of the twentieth century, such as Habermas and Honneth. The
renewal of critical theory proposed by the latter seeks to move away from what they
consider a notion of reason centered on the subject —such as that which Adorno and
Horkheimer would have held—, on the grounds that such a notion would obstruct the
transformative possibilities of the theory. As an alternative, the communicative paradigm
of reason elaborated by Habermas appears, according to which the notions of freedom
and justice would be achieved through discursive consensus. In the face of this reaction
against the first generation of critical theorists, there are those who point out the
limitations of a reason thought strictly in terms of communicative reason and recognition.
1
The first part of this paper reviews some of the ways in which different authors point out
these limitations, appealing to the need to attend to a particular aspect of subjectivity,
associated with aesthetic experience: it is an aspect that, as opposed to the processual in
the way in which Habermas or Honneth conceive the rational, is characterized by its
spontaneity. In the second part we recover passages from Horkheimer's work in which it
can be seen that the philosopher conceives of spontaneity as an inseparable moment of
rational thought. In this way, we propose that, in the most recent responses to the
paradigm of communicative rationality, an element characteristic of the first formulation
of critical theory, against which the communicative paradigm had been thought, is
recovered.

2. Freedom as that which is not subject to rational control

According to Habermas' distinguished interpretation, the notion of reason centered on the


subject that Adorno and Horkheimer would have held, obstructed the transformative
possibilities of the theory. Faced with this diagnosis, Habermas1 thought of reason from
a communicative and intersubjective paradigm, in which the notions of freedom and
justice would be achieved through discursive consensus. This demand was later accepted
by Axel Honneth in his theory of recognition. In the formulation of his theory, Honneth
goes a step further and adds that the possibility of reaching consensus does not depend
exclusively on rational discursive processes, but also on the development of certain social
struggles2 through which the most socially marginalized groups manage to transform the
vocabulary that is accepted in a given historical and social context. Honneth understands
that it is in these struggles that the disadvantaged groups and their claims achieve
recognition in view of decision-making.

While Albrecht Wellmer3 adheres in general terms to the Habermasian conception, he


understands that if decision is conceived strictly in terms of a communicative and
procedural reason, freedom is restricted. Here Wellmer points out that the problem of
how freedom could be realized in the modern world requires that both the positive and

1
Habermas, Jürgen. Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne: zwölf Vorlesungen, 1985.
2
Honneth, Axel. Kampf um Anerkennung, 1992; Kritik der Macht. Suhrkamp, 1993.
3
Wellmer, Albrecht. Ethik und Dialog,1999.
2
the negative conception of freedom be taken into account. These are the two concepts
paradigmatically distinguished by Isaiah Berlin:4 while the first of these is that which
corresponds to collectivist and communitarian conceptions which, like the Habermasian,
understand that freedom is only realizable collectively, the negative conception of
freedom, more characteristic of liberalism, places the emphasis on the individual and on
the absence of restrictions for action. Wellmer understands the positive notion of freedom
in connection with the idea of rationality in the Habermasian sense, and although he
recognizes himself as a communitarian, he warns that the idea of communitarian freedom
should not be reduced to a procedural conception of rationality, since it does not
necessarily imply a negative conception of freedom, which would be a necessary
condition to achieve mutual recognition as well as voluntary agreements and rational
consensus among equals. Thus, Wellmer conceives that in order to be able to freely
exercise procedural rationality -that is, rationality in the sense in which Habermas
understands it-, there must be the possibility and the right to act non-rationally. Thus, if
rational action is free action, it is because one chooses to act rationally when one could
choose not to.

It is precisely this demand to make reflection on freedom contemplate the possibility of


enabling a non-rational moment that is echoed in some approaches to this same subject
that give prominence to the aesthetic dimension. One of them is that of Werner Hamacher,
who distances himself from the characteristic formulation of the communitarian
conceptions of freedom, considering that the State and the legal-normative order have a
certain logic, which he considers inappropriate for the constitution of justice. According
to the author, the State and the legal order are established by means of an establishing
violence and preserved by means of a conservative violence.5 Thus, he considers that
history is prey to a dialectic that oscillates between two opposing forms of violence that
impede the effective realization of freedom and justice.

Hamacher points to language as a medium that would offer the possibility of the
destitution of normative logic and the forms of violence associated with it, insofar as it
could break with its form and not merely configure a new alternation. However, his appeal

4
Berlin, Isaiah. Dos conceptos de libertad, 2001.
5
Hamacher, Werner. Lingua amissa, 2013.
3
to language is not assimilable to a vindication of the notion of freedom in terms of
procedural reason. Hamacher's conception of language differs from that of Habermas in
that it points to an element that cannot be rationally grounded. In his conception of
language, the notion of freedom appears in this element in the form of the uncontrollable
and allows a link to be established with the sphere of aesthetics.

This link between freedom and the aesthetic sphere reappears in Bohrer's work. In the
vindication of the autonomy of the aesthetic sphere, which he makes through his revision
of the critique of romanticism,6 Bohrer points out the inconsistency of the attempts, which
would be typical of German idealism or subsidiary to it, to subordinate art to certain moral
and rational imperatives. According to Bohrer, these attempts lead to a progressive
trivialization of art, since they instrumentalize it, emptying it of all content that cannot be
referred to a rational foundation. The author understands that it is precisely in this content,
which he approaches through his thematization of romantic fantasy, where lies a
revolutionary element of the aesthetic sphere, which would make possible a distancing
from the model of sovereign and self-conscious subjectivity on which the rationalist
conceptions of freedom are based. Bohrer observes a tension between, on the one hand,
rational discourse, which aims at the stabilization of experience and its incorporation into
a long-term perspective, and, on the other hand, aesthetic experience, which makes
possible a temporal isolation of that stabilized experience. From this, he makes a defense
of aesthetic subjectivity, which implies a reformulation of the rationalist conception of
subjectivity. In emphasizing the aesthetic realm, the sudden moment of perception
[Plötzlichkeit] plays a role as the dissolution of the unity of subjectivity in unforeseen
states of mind. It is this unpredictability and spontaneity that Bohrer considers
inescapable in any reflection on freedom.

Like Bohrer, Menke argues against the subordination of aesthetic concepts to external
impositions. In this sense, he points out that the subjective form proper to the
contemporary epoch-which he calls the post-disciplinary subject-can be better understood
as a result of the crisis of the notion of freedom associated with aesthetic autonomy than
as its realization. Menke distinguishes between two dimensions of the notion of taste, one

6
Bohrer, Karl Heinz. Die Kritik der Romantik. Der Verdacht der Philosophie gegen die literarische
Moderne, 1989.
4
of which corresponds to autonomy, the other to subordination to extra-aesthetic ends.
Thus, he notes that, while taste as an aesthetic category implies a certain notion of
freedom, given that it allows interpretation and evaluation without being subject to
external tutelage, it is, when understood as a social category, fundamental for the
integration of the subject into an economy centered on consumption. He notes that in taste
considered as a social category - in other words, in the loss of autonomy of the sphere of
the aesthetic - both art and the aesthetic experience a loss insofar as they are emptied of
force. The author uses the concept of force [Kraft], contrasting it with that of capacity
[Vermögen], in such a way that it refers to the activity of the subject insofar as it is
exercised through self-control in order to achieve something. What is achieved is the
repetition of a social practice, which could only be realized as a result of a process of
exercise and learning, or of disciplining. Just as there is a notion of freedom related to the
sphere of the aesthetic, it follows from Menkian thematization that someone is free in a
practical sense when - as a self-conscious subject - he or she is capable of successfully
carrying out a practice. At the same time, he points out that, while forces are human, they
are also pre-subjective, in the sense that they are not conducted by a self-conscious
subject. Thus, while Menke delineates the notions of force and capacity as oppositional,
he does not conceive of them as mutually exclusive. Rather, aesthetic freedom, associated
with the notion of force, is the precondition for subjects to acquire and practice those
capacities that make them individuals integrated into social practices.

From what has been developed so far, it can be seen how the authors who question the
exclusively rationalist and communitarian conception of freedom (Wellmer, Hamacher,
Bohrer, Menke) demand, each in his own way, the recognition of a subjective instance
that can be subtracted from the modern conception of a subject identical to himself and
perfectly self-conscious. This subjective instance refers, in all the cases addressed, to
something necessarily linked to the aesthetic experience. We will now turn our attention
to two of the members of the first generation of Frankfurtians, more precisely to Adorno,
in the first place, and to Horkheimer, in the second place, since we consider that a
conception of subjectivity similar to that of the authors discussed in the first part of this
paper can be found in both of them. We will point out that, even outside the aesthetic
theorization of Adorno and Horkheimer, both give account of a conception of reason by
which it does not strictly coincide with subjective self-control, but also contemplates a

5
spontaneous, sudden moment, that is to say, a rational moment that differs from control.
In this way of conceiving reason, both Adorno and Horkheimer differ from the
Habermasian conception, for which the rational is exhausted in argumentation and
decision-making, and allow us to think of an aspect of subjectivity that can be thought of
in relation to both freedom and aesthetic experience.

3. The spontaneous moment of reason

The spontaneous moment of reasonIf the authors discussed in the first part of this paper
coincide in pointing out the importance of a moment associated with the aesthetic
experience in relation to freedom, it is because they agree that the notion of a sovereign
subject whose action is based on rational decision is restrictive. In what follows, we will
point out that in both Adorno's and Horkheimer's thought the notion of reason, although
not understood in Habermasian terms, is not restricted to the idea of a sovereign
subjectivity either.

Insofar as, as we pointed out in the previous section, the critics of the rationalist
conception of freedom point to the need to contemplate the unpredictable, the
spontaneous or uncontrollable as a constitutive instance of free action, they all refer to a
form of subjectivity that corresponds to that of aesthetic experience. In this sense, the
connection with the philosophy of Adorno - only explicitly alluded to by Wellmer and
Menke - becomes inescapable. It is in the concept of the what is added [das
Hinzutretende]7 that he accounts for an element that fails to exhaust itself in mere
consciousness. According to Adorno, this is an impulse without which free acting would
be inconceivable. This impulse is understood by the philosopher as something
constitutive of the subject, and which is characterized, in contrast to rational mediation,
by being spontaneous. These considerations could indicate that the philosopher moves
away from the conception of a pure consciousness, pointing to an ontic or material
moment in it.

7
Adorno, Theodor. Zur Lehre von der Geschichte und von der Freiheit, 1964-1965; Negative Dialektik,
1966.
6
Since Adorno presents his thematization of Hinzutretende as a critique of Kantian
morality mediated by the reception of Schopenhauer, it can be read as a reformulation of
Horkheimer's reading in 1933.8 There, Horkheimer pointed to compassion as an impulse
that, subtracting itself from consciousness, is inseparable from it and makes free action
possible. Although Horkheimer's thought, unlike Adorno's, is not alluded to as an
antecedent by Menke, Bohrer or Hamacher, his approach to the material —that is, natural,
animal— moment that would be constitutive of consciousness is probably broader and
deeper than Adorno's, although in none of these authors does it acquire a systematic
character.

The thematization of the impulsive is deepened some years later,9 when the philosopher
attends to the repression of what is natural in the human being as a central aspect for the
constitution of morality in capitalist society. Taking this into account, and insofar as
Horkheimer considers the spontaneity of the impulsive as an essential aspect of reason,
his critique of positivist epistemology and modern science could be understood as
pointing out the lack of compassion and solidarity of these conceptions with respect to
nature insofar as that which from the rationalist conception of subjectivity is -
erroneously, according to Horkheimer - understood as the other of the human. Likewise,
the recognition of a material and spontaneous character as inseparable from the notion of
reason draws attention to the need for thought not to be reduced to syllogistic reasoning,
but also to contemplate an impulsive or noetic moment of reason,10 which can be traced
as sketched in a dispersed form in various texts by Horkheimer11 and which is explicit in
his notion of objective reason (1947).

Horkheimer observes the society of his time as configured around a certain notion of
reason, according to which this would consist exclusively in a mediating function
between subject and object. Thus, reason conceived in these terms focuses solely on
predictive and planning functions, based mainly on the subjugation of everything that -
from the perspective of this notion of reason - is not considered rational. According to

8
Horkheimer, Max, “Materialismus und Moral”. In Between Philosophy and Social Sciences, 1993.
9
Horkheimer, Max, “Autorithy and the Family”. In Critical Theory Selected Essays; “Egoism and Freedom
Movements”. In Between Philosophy and Social Sciences.
10
Jay, Martin. Reason after its Eclipse, 2016, p. 14.
11
Horkheimer, Max, “Traditional and Critical Theory”; “The latest Attack on Metaphysics”. In Critical
Theory Selected Essays; “The Authoritarian State”, in Arato, Andrew & Gebhardt, Eike (eds.), The
Essential Frankfurt School Reader, 1978.
7
Horkheimer's characterization, the narrowness of the conception of reason on which
bourgeois society is based consists both in denying all exteriority - that is, the denial of
everything that differs from mediation, calculation, the instrumental - and in
hypostatizing the scope of the exercise of rational dominion, identifying reason with its
capacity to dominate. The social form compatible with such a conception of reason is far
from what for Horkheimer would make the freedom of individuals possible, inasmuch as
a reason conceived exclusively as dominating is nothing more than a source of violence
and subjugation.

If this notion of reason is characterized as narrow, it is because it neglects and even


represses a feature that for Horkheimer is proper to the rational. We refer to a spontaneous
character of thought, which retains something of the order of immediacy, which exceeds
the application of calculation and methodological rigor. In characterizing the way in
which bourgeois thought is configured at the dawn of the bourgeois era, Horkheimer
points out that its conception of reason goes hand in hand with a repressive function:

The same historical tendencies which, in religious terms, saw human beings as divided
between conscience and instinct, lead in epistemology to the doctrine of the rational ego
that must master the emotions. Religion corresponds to the masses whose historically
necessary subordination is not grounded in rational motives, but must rather be taken on
as a burden; philosophy refers to the behavior of the bourgeoisie, which postpones
immediate gratification out of self-interest.12

That doctrine of the rational ego is understood as the instrument by means of which the
bourgeois class carries out a repression of the affections, although Horkheimer
understands that, in this case, and in contrast to the way it happened in the previous social
form, it occurs in a secularized form. Repression is based on a split between reason and
impulses and conforms to the idea that one is all the more rational the more one
subordinates the immediacy of the impulsive to rational mediation. This subordination of
immediacy would not only occur at the anthropological level - between reason and

12
Horkheimer Max, Between Philosophy and Social Sciences, p.285.
8
impulses - but also at the level of thought itself, repressing spontaneous intellection in
favor of calculation.

In several passages, Horkheimer establishes a distinction between scientific rationality


and thought, implying that the methodical reasoning of modern science does not
correspond to thinking. In this way, he points out that the emphasis on the mediating and
dominating potential of reason leads to forgetting that thinking is not only calculation,
but also spontaneity. In describing the situation in which scientific thought finds itself in
bourgeois society, Horkheimer argues:

Thought relinquishes its claim to exercise criticism or to set tasks. Its purely recording
and calculatory functions become detached from its spontaneity. Decision and praxis are
held to be something opposed to thought—they are "value judgments," private caprices,
and uncontrollable feelings. (…). Thought and will, the parts of the mental process, are
severed conceptually. Logically, there can be no objection to the latter procedure.13

Although this split would have in view -from the scientific perspective- the privilege of
reason understood as instrumentality, Horkheimer points out that, in the end, not even
instrumentalization can emerge victorious from such a process: «the reduction of reason
to a mere instrument finally affects even its carácter as an instrument».14 Much of
Horkheimer's argumentation is aimed at pointing out the irrationality in which the
attempts to extreme rationalization redound. Particularly with regard to the reduction of
reason to the mediation of calculation, not only is the richness of thought and the capacity
of reason to attain some content of truth renounced, but also what is rational in it:

An intelligent man is not one who can merely reason correctly, but one whose mind is
open to perceiving objective contents, who i sable to receive the impact of their essential
structures and to render it in human language; this holds also for the nature of thinking as
such, and for its truth content. The neutralization of reason that deprives it of any relation
to objective content and of its power of judging the latter, and that degrades it to an

13
Horkheimer Max, Critical Theory Selected Essays, pp. 178-179.
14
Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason p. 37.
9
executive agency concerned with the how rather tan with the what, transforms it to an
ever-increasing extent ino a mere dull apparatus for registering facts. Subjective reason
loses all spontaneity, productivity, power to discover and assert new kinds of content —
it loses its very subjectivity.15

In this passage we can see reflected the idea that, to the extent that reason renounces any
function that does not coincide with mere instrumentality, it is impoverished. It becomes
a type of reason that does not correspond to an intelligent subject, but only to one that is
skilled in drawing conclusions from a set of data. According to Horkheimer, reason
reduced to a mere instrument only succeeds in extracting what was already contained in
an object that is not alien to it, but is incapable of discovering novelty. By losing this
spontaneous character, that is, by losing the capacity to perceive objective contents, to let
essential structures act upon it, the capacity to deal with what, Horkheimer maintains that
subjective reason loses what in it can refer to subjectivity, understanding that subjectivity
has to do with agility, movement and the capacity not only to penetrate into the truth of
things, but also to create something different, which does not coincide exactly with what
is already given. By losing spontaneity, productivity and creativity, subjective reason
resembles the way in which, from the point of view of instrumental reason, the object is
conceived, to which it corresponds to adopt a passive function.

In the same vein we find other passages; for example, Horkheimer states that «Calculative
thought, mere "head" thinking ("Verstandes"-Denken)»16 corresponds to an impotent type
of man, since, adjusting to procedures already determined in advance, reason not only
loses its capacity to discover novelty, but also its creative potential. As a result of this
passivity, Horkheimer points out that the control and regulation performed from thought
purged of all immediacy, «in our bifurcated world, they take on the character of
adaptation and artifice far more than that of rationality».17 The philosopher announces
that, in the end, the attachment of reason to its integrally mediating function ends up
turning it into exactly that from which it, allying itself with the calculating function,
wanted to escape.

15
Horkheimer Max, Eclipse of Reason, 1974, p. 38.
16
Horkheimer Max, Critical Theory Selected Essays, p. 181.
17
Horkheimer Max, Critical Theory Selected Essays, p. 181.
10
Horkheimer understands that the reduction of rational activity to foresight and calculation
cannot result in a social configuration in which there is room for freedom. When he states
that society shaped around the dominating reason «has either been founded directly on
oppression or been the blind outcome of conflicting forces, but in any event not the result
of conscious spontaneity on the part of free individuals»18, suggests that the link between
reason and spontaneity should transform into something different from what it is. «Since
the development of a higher spontaneity hinges on the creation of a rational community,
it is impossible for the individual simply to decree it».19

If the imposition of the mediation of calculation over spontaneity is carried out on a


certain way of conceiving rational activity, a social configuration that can coexist with
those forms of spontaneity in a relationship that is not merely dominating will require that
in it reason no longer be reduced to calculation or instrumentality. On the need to
overcome this contradiction between reason and spontaneity, Horkheimer adds:

Critical thought has a concept of man as in conflict with himself until this opposition is
removed. If activity governed by reason is proper to man, then existent social practice,
which forms the individual's life down to its least details, is inhuman, and this inhumanity
affects everything that goes on in the society.20

To the extent that he understands that current social praxis is traversed by the
instrumentalization of reason, but far removed from noetic spontaneity, Horkheimer
considers that the given social form -as well as rational activity once reduced to
calculation- is not in accordance with reason. But at the same time he adds that a society
that is not rational cannot be considered human either. This is how we can understand the
tearing apart with which, according to the passage quoted, critical thought operates; as
long as there is no reconciliation of reason with spontaneity, reason -reduced to pure
instrumentality- will not be rational. Likewise, man cannot be considered human until
this split in his interior is not mended. In this sense, it is evident that Horkheimer does
not restrict his conception of reason to the procedural, but expands it to the singularity of

18
Horkheimer Max, Critical Theory Selected Essays, p. 200.
19
Horkheimer Max, Critical Theory Selected Essays, p. 181.
20
Horkheimer Max, Critical Theory Selected Essays, p. 210.
11
a creative potential that differs from abstract reasoning. It is a singularity that, in order to
be empowered, requires a social subject that is capable of making decisions rationally
without requiring the repression of the impulsive.

4. Conclusion

In the first part of this paper we saw how certain authors take as a starting point the
reflection on freedom, considered in terms of procedural reason, in order to point out the
importance of this reflection being open to a way of understanding free action that does
not restrict it to rational control. To the extent that what is manifested as indispensable in
relation to freedom is incompatible with the conception of the subject as a unit of
consciousness and as the master of his actions, the way in which freedom is understood
opens up to an aesthetic dimension of experience and subjectivity. In relation to this,
turning our attention to the first generation of critical theorists not only manifests in their
thought, as implicit, a reflection on an aesthetic dimension of subjectivity. In the
connection that the texts of Adorno and Horkheimer point out between spontaneity and
freedom, we also glimpse the possibility of expanding what is understood by reason
towards a conception that exceeds the merely abstract and conceptual and also
contemplates a material moment. In this sense, and insofar as it would be a conception of
matter that does not understand it merely as passive, but rather as endowed with potency,
the dimension of the added in Adorno or of the spontaneous in Horkheimer would be in
consonance with what Coole y Frost21 called new materialism. By abandoning the
conception of matter in the sense of an inert object that would be contrary to the
potentiality of reason, the new materialism detaches itself from the consideration of
society in exclusively social terms, to consider it in material terms, that is, as composed
of individuals, communications, cultural codes, streets, houses, bodies and winds,22
enabling the preoccupation with things in view of an object-oriented democracy.23 By
considering the material moment of subjectivity, the debate about freedom ceases to

21
Coole, Diana & Frost, Samantha (eds.) New Materialism. Ontology, Agency and Politics, 2010.
22
Folkers, Andreas. “Was ist neu am neuen Materialismus? – Von der Praxis zum Ereignis”, 2013.
23
Latour, Bruno, “From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik or How to Make Things Public”, 2005.
12
oscillate between positive and negative notions, and incorporates the notion of freedom
as non-domination.

References

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Main: Suhrkamp, 1964-1965.
_____Negative Dialektik. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1966.
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literarische Moderne. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1989.
Berlin, Isaiah. Dos conceptos de libertad. Madrid: Alianza, 2001.
Coole, Diana; Frost, Samantha (eds) New Materialism. Ontology, Agency and Politics.
London: Durham, 2010.
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_____ “The Authoritarian State”, in Arato, Andrew & Gebhardt, Eike (eds.), The
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Jay, Martin. Reason after its eclipse. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2016.
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13
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