Mattia Fiorilli

Research Project

Butler’s Double Kantian Inheritance

My research project explores the relationship between Kantian philosophy and Judith Butler’s “genealogical critique” of the categories of sexuality. Building on some of Butler’s explicit references, it will demonstrate that their critical work contains a double Kantian legacy.

From a practical-political perspective, investigating the conditions of possibility of given ontological fields leads to challenging existing power structures and promoting alternative modes of self-formation. According to Butler, the Kantian critical interrogation and the possibilities opened up by his conception of Enlightenment are the foundations of this critical approach.

From a theoretical standpoint, I will argue that Butler’s inquiry into the constructed nature of our reality, experience, and identity represents a historicised reiteration of Kantian transcendental idealism. Butler posits that everything comes into being only to the extent that it is performatively constructed through culture and discourse. However, this cultural constitution is inherently limited: culture and discourse are not the only grounds of our reality, which constantly exceed the categories of our construction. Transcendental idealism, as seen in its “non-ontological” or “epistemological” interpretation, seems a helpful way to understand this particular conception of constructivism.

As some often-overlooked statements by Butler suggest, these resonances seem to stem from the influence of Foucault and Derrida and their reinterpretations of the tradition of transcendental philosophy. I will seek to demonstrate the validity of this interpretation, shedding light on the enduring influence of Kant’s reform of metaphysics on contemporary philosophical thought.