Apolo

Atividade

94934 - Freedom and Autonomy from Kant to Adorno

Período da turma:

10/02/2020 a 13/02/2020

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Descrição:

Syllabus

Day 1: KANT (1724 – 1804). A discussion of Kant’s theory of freedom as autonomy (or self-legislation). We will begin to explore the so-called ‘paradox of autonomy’ as it emerges in Kant’s thinking. The paradox of autonomy suggest that, if freedom consists in obeying a self-given law, then the act of putting myself under that law cannot itself be a free act. But this seems to make the the moral law heteronomous. Either that, or there is a type of freedom which is not bound by law, which then undermines the theory of freedom as autonomy. We will examine how Kant tries to deal with this problem, by distinguishing between Wille (rational will), and Willkür (power of choice) in the Critique of Practical Reason and in his late book on Religion. We will also see how the ‘paradox of autonomy’ emerges in the writings of earlier critics of Kant’s theory, such as Carl Leonhard Reinhold.

Day 2: SCHELLING (1777 – 1854). Right from the beginning of his career, Schelling was deeply concerned with the question of freedom. In an early text, Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism (1795) he suggests – against Kant – that there are two contrary models of freedom. There is a model in which we surrender to the power of nature, and ultimately become one it; but there is a contrary model in which we exercise our freedom to transform nature so that it no longer resists our freedom. At this stage, Schelling believes there is no way of choosing rationally between these two possibilities. Later, however, Schelling comes to realize that the ‘paradox of autonomy’ (which in the Letters he had tried to split into two opposing conceptions of freedom) is simply a basic feature of human existence. His question then becomes: what must the world be like, in metaphysical terms, if it can produce a being who has to live this paradox? And how can human beings live it?

Day 3: HEGEL (1770 – 1831). Unlike Schelling, Hegel believes that he can solve the problem of autonomy by moving from an individual to a social conception of freedom. He argues that autonomy consists in participating in social practices which have already shaped us, so that our own subjectivity is no longer simply opposed to the social rules we are obliged to obey. In this way, there is no longer an opposition between the moral agent and the duties which she must perform. Hegel calls this social conception of duty ‘Sittlichkeit’, and the associated conception of freedom ‘being-with-oneself-in-the-other’. However, a problem arises because Sittlichkeit takes the form of a concrete socio-political formation. Is Hegel right to argue that the dimension of subjectivity which may sometimes find this concreteness limiting is merely ‘abstract’? Is he underestimating the dynamic of human freedom?

Day 4: ADORNO (1903 – 1969) In his masterwork Negative Dialectics, and in other writings, Adorno engages deeply with the thought of Kant and Hegel. He is able to see the strengths and weakness both of Kant’s theory of autonomy, which he thinks submits the spontaneous dimension of our freedom to an inflexible moral law, and Hegel’s theory of freedom, which he believes subordinates the individual to the power of the social whole. Adorno inteprets both these theories as an expression of the dilemmas confronting the exercise of freedom in an emerging bourgeois society. As a result, he tries to develop a new conception of freedom which can reconcile the universal claims which our own humanity, and the humanity of others, make on us with individual spontaneity.

Bibliography
NB: Where possible Portuguese translations will be identified and recommended prior to the start of the course, and some texts will be supplied to students, either in English or Portuguese, as pdfs.

Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (Cambridge University Press, 1997)
Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (Cambridge University Press, 1998)

Schelling, Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism (in The Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four Early Essays, Associated University Presses, 1980)
Schelling, Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom, SUNY Press, 2006

Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Adorno, Negative Dialectics, Routledge, 1973.

Carga Horária:

12 horas

Tipo:

Obrigatória

Vagas oferecidas:

Ministrantes:

Peter Kenneth Dews

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