Ways of Being Bound: Perspectives from post-Kantian Philosophy and Relational Sociology

Description

This book addresses the topic of 'being bound' from a philosophical and a sociological perspective. It examines several ways in which we are bound. We are bound to acknowledge the truth and to follow laws; we are bound to others and to the world. Who we are is partly defined by those bonds, regardless of whether we live up to them – or even of whether we acknowledge them. Puzzling questions arise from the fact that we are bound, such as: How are those bonds binding? Wherein lies their normative character? A venerable philosophical tradition, particularly since Kant, has provided an account of normativity that crucially appeals to such notions as “self-legislation.” But can our normative bonds be properly understood in these essentially first-personal terms? Many argue that our social condition resists any account of those bonds that fails to acknowledge the perspectives of the second and the third person. The first part of the book explores these themes from a historical perspective in the tradition of transcendental philosophy (Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger); it examines the phenomenon of “being bound”, i.e., why and how we are bound. The second part of the book offers a sociological analysis of social bonds that is both historical and systematic. Based on sociological approaches to “solidarity” and “reflexivity”, it explores the way in which the phenomenon of “being bound” manifests through the concept of a “social relation”. Contents Contributors Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Normativity and Social Bonds 1.2 Solidarity and Reflexivity References Part I: Normativity and Social Bonds from Kant to Heidegger Chapter 2: Being Free and Letting Oneself Be Bound. A Central Motif in Heidegger’s Aletheiological Approach to Freedom 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Truth, Measure, Bindingness 2.3 Freedom and Bindingness on the Ontic Plane 2.4 Freedom and Bindingness on the Ontological Plane 2.5 By Way of Conclusion References Heidegger’s Works Secondary Literature Chapter 3: Commitment: What Is Self-Binding, and How Is It Possible? 3.1 Some Ways of Being Bound 3.2 Ontological Commitment Prior to Persons and Rational Animals 3.3 Heidegger’s Answer to Rouse’s Paradox References Chapter 4: The Life of Form: Practical Reason in Kant and Hegel 4.1 Kant’s Practical Notion of “Life” 4.2 Pure Practical Life and the Notion of Mere Form 4.3 The Form and Matter of Pure Practical Life: Imposition or Incorporation? 4.4 A Hegelian Alternative: The Life of Absolute Form 4.5 The Force of Form References Chapter 5: Duties to Oneself and Other Ways of Being Bound in Fichte’s Sittenlehre 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Recent Discussion on Fichte’s Ethics 5.3 Fichte’s Position on Duties to Oneself 5.4 The Concept of Person and Duties to Oneself 5.5 Final Remarks References Fichte and Kant’s Works Secondary Literature Chapter 6: Practical Identity, Individuality and Universality. A Reading of True Spirit in the Phenomenology of Spirit 6.1 Introduction. Practical Identity and Normativity in the Phenomenology of Spirit and Contemporary Discussion 6.2 Spirit and True Spirit 6.3 The Function of Tragedy 6.4 Conclusion References Chapter 7: Communalization (Vergemeinschaftung) Through Ethical Love. A Phenomenological Account 7.1 Concluding Remarks References Part II: Social Bonds in Realist and Relational Sociology Chapter 8: Solidarity and Social Bonds: A Kantian Perspective 8.1 Building Up Moral Communities Around Obligatory and Meritorious Duties 8.2 Elements for a Kantian Doctrine of Solidarity 8.2.1 Duty of Humanity 8.2.2 Benevolence and Justice 8.3 Social Bonds that Are Not Moral Bonds References Chapter 9: Social Integration and System Integration Re-visited 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Can Conceptual Differences Be Compressed into Coherence? 9.3 When Morphogenesis Begins Outstripping Morphostasis 9.4 The Intensification of Morphogenesis 9.5 At the Macro-level: Government Without Conviction 9.6 At the Meso-level: Social Institutions – Performance Indicators and the Loss of Collegial Bonding 9.7 Anormative Bureaucratic Regulation and Its Indifference to Social Integration 9.8 At the Micro-level: Can Social Life Foster Its Own Social Re-integration? 9.9 Conclusion: The Results of Diminishing Social Integration References Chapter 10: New Insights into the Relational Subject: Connecting Personal and Collective Identity 10.1 The Topic: The Relational Constitution of Identity 10.2 The Concept of (Social) Relation 10.3 The Concept of Identity 10.4 What Are the Connections Between Identity and Relationship? 10.5 From Unrelated Thought to Relational Thinking: Three Semantics of Identity 10.6 The Recognition of Identity as a Relation 10.7 Who Is the Relational Subject? 10.8 How the Relational Subject Connects Personal and Collective Identity in the Morphogenetic Process? 10.9 Perspectives on the Future: How to Deal with the Challenges Launched to Human Identity by the Post/Trans-Human References Chapter 11: Relational Critical Realism on Identity and Character Development. The Case of Consumption 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Talking about Identity 11.3 Consumer Practices and the Dynamics of Identity 11.3.1 The Postmodern Fragmentation of Identity 11.3.2 A Relational Analysis of Consumption 11.4 Social Bonding and Moral Bonding: The Moral Dimension of (a Consumer’s) Identity 11.4.1 Consumer Ethics and Identity 11.4.2 A Virtue Ethics Approach to Consumption 11.5 Lifestyle as a Relational Quest for the Good Life References Chapter 12: The Process of Idealizing Social Bonds in the Sociological Tradition 12.1 Introduction 12.2 Social Differentiation and Individualization 12.2.1 Towards a Diachronic Understanding of Reality 12.2.2 The Process of Social Differentiation 12.2.3 Emergence of Individuality and Self-Restraint 12.3 Towards the Idealization of Social Bonds: Between the Self and the We 12.4 Conclusions References Chapter 13: The Ongoing Humanitarian Revolution: Solidarities Reformed and in Flux 13.1 Introduction 13.2 Durkheim’s ‘Cult of Humanity’ 13.3 More Irascible, Fractious and Disunited; Yet also More Humane 13.4 On the Character of the Response and Analysis from Social Science 13.5 Some Concluding Remarks References Epilogue Theoretical Isomorphisms Thematic Unity and the Role of Bridging Concepts Necessary Background Conditions for Interdisciplinarity