Thinking 'emancipation' after Marx : a conceptual analysis of emancipation between citizenship and revolution in Marx and Balibar
TLDR
In this paper, the authors examine the philosophical connotations of the notion of emancipation and propose an alternative understanding of the form of emancipation achieved by the French Revolution under the name of equaliberty.Abstract:
In light of an increasing embrace of the notion of ‘emancipation’ by various theoretical and
political perspectives in recent years, this thesis aims to scrutinise the philosophical
connotations of the concept itself. It therefore returns to Karl Marx’s distinction between
political and human emancipation, developed in his text ‘On the Jewish Question’, with the aim of
excavating its theoretical stakes. The core argument of the first part is that Marx draws a line of
demarcation between citizenship as the modern form of political, bourgeois emancipation realised by
the American and French Revolutions, and human emancipation as necessitating a different kind of
revolution that would allow for the constitution of a new type of social bond between the
individual and the social. Marx’s formulation of the need for human emancipation is grounded in his
critique of political emancipation, which he regards as failing to recognise the dialectical
constitution of its social bond by both political and economic relations. The bourgeois social bond
moreover makes ‘man’ exist as an individualised being who can only relate to his or her political
existence and dependency on others in a mediated and abstract way. The second part turns to the
post-Marxist critiques of ‘On the Jewish Question’, starting in the late 1970s with Claude Lefort,
which coincide with a broader re-evaluation of the revolutionary legacy in France. It specifically
interrogates Etienne Balibar’s alternative understanding of the form of emancipation achieved by
the French Revolution under the name of ‘equaliberty’, with which he defends the struggle for
citizenship as the unsurpassable horizon of a contemporary politics of emancipation. The aim is
here to develop a deeper understanding of Balibar’s criticism of Marx’s dividing line, which allows the French thinker's contribution to 'thinking emancipation after Marx' to be disentangled from his decision to distance himself from the Marxian approach.read more
Citations
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The Human Condition.
TL;DR: In some religious traditions, the myth of the ‘Fall from the Garden of Eden’ symbolizes the loss of the primordial state through the veiling of higher consciousness.
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The Social Contract or Principles of Political Right
TL;DR: The social contract principles of political right is a good habit; you can develop this habit to be such interesting way as mentioned in this paper, reading habit will not only make you have any favourite activity, but it will be one of guidance of your life.
References
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Book
Capital; A Critique of Political Economy
TL;DR: In the third volume of "Das Kapital" as discussed by the authors, Marx argues that any market economy is inevitably doomed to endure a series of worsening, explosive crises leading finally to complete collapse.
Book
The sublime object of ideology
TL;DR: The Sublime Object of Ideology as mentioned in this paper explores the political significance of these fantasies of control, linking key psychoanalytical and philosophical concepts to social phenomena such as totalitarianism and racism.
Book
Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays
TL;DR: Althusser's "For Marx" (1965) and "Reading Capital" (1968) had an enormous influence on the New Left of the 1960s and continues to influence modern Marxist scholarship as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Origins of Totalitarianism
TL;DR: The putrefaction of Western civilization, as it were, has released a cadaveric poison spreading its infection through the body of humanity as discussed by the authors, which has become an intimate part of their spiritual, intellectual, economic, and physical existence.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Human Condition.
TL;DR: In some religious traditions, the myth of the ‘Fall from the Garden of Eden’ symbolizes the loss of the primordial state through the veiling of higher consciousness.