Andrea Bianchi

Research Project

Freiheit, Normativität, Verfassung. Zu einer kritischen Theorie der Normativitätsformen nach Hegel

The work aims to address Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, offering an alternative reading to both neopragmatist interpretations and contemporary updates developed within Frankfurt School Critical Theory. In the first part of the work (Freiheit), the goal is to reconstruct Hegel’s concept of speculative freedom, demonstrating its irreducibility to the concept of social freedom. In the second part (Normativität), the aim is to reconstruct contemporary interpretations of Hegel that viewed his theory of ethical life and second nature as a solution to the so-called “paradox of autonomy” inherited from Kantian practical philosophy. In reconstructing the neopragmatist interpretations of Hegel, the focus will be on the form that normativity and freedom assume in the transition from the Kantian transcendental approach to the social-theoretical and historicist “left-Hegelian” approach. At the same time, the work will explore how contemporary Critical Theory has drawn paradigms from these models of classical German philosophy to elaborate its foundation. Finally, by recovering Hegel’s idea of a dialectic between objective and absolute spirit, the work will aim to develop a different dialectical model of Critical Theory, understood as a “critical theory of the forms of normativity.” The third and final part (Verfassung) of the work seeks to interpret the transition from civil society to the state within the Philosophy of Right as an application of the “critique of the forms of normativity” to the form of modern politics. Hegel indeed identifies that the division between society and state is the essential form of modern politics and develops an immanent critique of it, which brings to a re-signification of its key concepts (individual, representation, sovereignty, government).