Freedom’s affective nature

Abstract

This article argues that the critical and emancipatory aspect of the Hegelian notion of freedom needs more research and elaboration. The process by means of which individuals as well as communities become free can only be fully understood if we take into account the sensuous, somatic, and passionate dimension. Human freedom implied not only activity, but at the same time moments of passivity. The argument unfolds in three steps: a reconstruction of the idea of social freedom; a revision of Adorno’s argument against the Kantian conception of autonomy, applied to Hegel’s notion of social freedom and highlighting the impulsive, passionate concepts of freedom and thus reinforcing what can be considered its negative nature; and the revision of some passages of James Baldwin’s novel Another Country.