Normativity and subjectivity: 1. nature – 2. nature – spirit

Project management: Prof. Dr. Christoph Menke

The project is based on the assumption that normativity both presupposes and produces subjectivity. Subjectivity is understood as the ensemble of abilities to orient oneself towards normative points of view. The project therefore examines the forms of subjectivity that are associated with (certain) structures of normativity. This involves a double perspective: it examines how normative orders are realized through the formation of subject structures and how they are created in the first place. The investigation of the connection between normativity and subjectivity therefore aims at a processualization of the concept of normativity: normativity only exists through processes of subjectivation. The aim of the project is a genealogical concept of normativity.

The link to the cluster’s research project is twofold. Firstly, the project focuses on the question of the formation of normative orders. The question is how normativity, in its mode of being and its structure, must be understood when it has been formed through processes of subjectivation. Secondly, the project examines the forms of subjectivation that produce normative orders from an interdisciplinary perspective.

The project research had two focal points. The first focus was the investigation of the formation of subjectivity and its consequences for the concept of normativity; the concept of freedom, as liberation, was at the center of this. The second focus was the investigation of the normative structure of modern law; the question was directed at the specific way of legal subjectivation in the form of “subjective rights”.

The studies on the first focus have shown that the genesis of subjectivity is to be understood as the process of the transformation of a merely natural being into a normative or spiritual being. The concept of subjectivity is therefore determined by the (processual and procedural) relationship between nature and spirit. This relationship determines the concept of freedom, which is understood as processual, as a process of liberation. In his dissertation on the young Hegel, Oliver Brokel showed as part of the project that the freedom of the subject is therefore in an indissoluble tension with the normative orders that it produces. The investigations into the second focus have led to a theory of the form of subjective rights, which plays a fundamental role for the modern order of law. The central thesis here is that a self-reflection of law takes place in the form of rights, which introduces the difference between norm and nature into the constitution of the norm itself. Further analysis focuses on the question of how and with what social and political consequences modern law organizes its self-reflection as an “empowerment” (Weber) of the subject. The results of these investigations are published in the monograph Kritik der Rechte(Berlin: Suhrkamp 2015).

The most important publications in this project:

Menke, Christoph: Critique of Rights, Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2015.

Menke, Christoph: “Hegel’s Theory of Liberation. Law, Freedom, History, Society”, in: A. Honneth and G. Hindrichs (eds.): Freedom. International Hegel Congress 2011 Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 2013, pp. 301-320. reprinted in: Christian Schmidt (ed.): Can we escape history? Geschichtsphilosophie am Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt am Main/New York: Campus 2013, pp. 60-81. English translation: “Hegel’s Theory of Liberation: Law, Freedom, History, Society”, in: Symposium. Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy 17(1), 2013, S. 10-30.

Khurana, Thomas: “Paradoxes of Autonomy: On the Dialectics of Freedom and Normativity”, in: Symposium. Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy 17(1), 2013, S. 50-74.

people in this project:

Project management / contact person

Menke, Christoph, Prof. Dr.

Project staff

Brokel, Oliver