What is Liberation?

According to Christoph Menke, we must reverse our perspective to explain this situation. Instead of simply turning to the next project of liberation, we need to analyse how previous attempts at liberation have unfolded. And in doing so, the way they began is most crucial—the ordinary but fascinating experience of a habit that enslaves us suddenly disintegrating. How is this process to be understood? What are its objective preconditions? And can liberation become once again a political project? After an introduction by Christoph Menke, Titus Stahl provides comments. Moderation: Beate Roessler.

About the speakers

Christoph Menke is Professor of Practical Philosophy at the Goethe-University of Frankfurt am Main. He is a member of the research center Normative Orders and a co-editor of the European Journal of Philosophy. Menke has written many highly acclaimed books in aesthetics (for instance Force. A Fundamental Concept of Aesthetic Anthropology) as well as in political philosophy (Critique of Rights; Law and Violence). His most recent book A Theory of Liberation (Suhrkamp 2022) has attracted a great deal of attention, not only in philosophy but also in (social) media. 

Titus Stahl is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Groningen. He works on topics in critical theory, political philosophy, the philosophy of hope and the ethics of privacy. His publications include the monograph Immanent Critique (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021).

Beate Roessler (moderator) is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. She is a co-editor of the European Journal of Philosophy as well as a member of the Göttinger Akademie der Wissenschaften and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has published widely on topics in ethics, social, and political philosophy; her most recent book is Autonomie: ein Versuch über das gelungene Leben, 2017, Suhrkamp (Dutch translation 2018, with Boom, English translation 2021, with Polity).