Alienation as a critical concept

This paper discusses Marx's concept of alienated (or estranged) labour, focusing mainly on his account in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. This concept is frequently taken to be a moral notion based on a concept of universal human nature. This view is criticized and it is argued that the concept of alienation should rather be interpreted in the light of Hegelian historical ideas. In Hegel, alienation is not a purely negative phenomenon; it is a necessary stage of human development. Marx's account of alienated labour should be understood in similar terms. It is not a merely subjective discontent with work; it is an objective and historically specific condition, a stage in the process of historical development. Marx usually regards it as specific to capitalism. The criticism of capitalism implied in the concept of alienation, it is argued, does not appeal to universal moral standards; it is historical and relative. Overcoming alienation must also be understood in historical terms, not as the realization of a universal ideal, but as the dialectical supersession of capitalist conditions of labour. Marx's account of communism as the overcoming of alienation is explained in these terms

Sources of community : mythical groundwork of Early Modern identities

Jakub Koryl’s lengthy chapter, “Sources of Community: Mythical Groundwork of Early Modern Identities”, stands out in terms of its theoretical nature and comprehensive scope. At the same time it goes to the heart of the question of confessional identity and otherness, and thus provides an illuminating perspective on many of the themes covered in both this section and the volume as a whole. Drawing on case-studies from both the Lutheran and Catholic Reformation, Korylseeksto offer a newaccount of confessional-identity building from the late Middle Ages through to the Enlightenment. In particular, he argues that in the early modern period the theme of myth - and especially the rival German and Roman “myths” of Reformation - became the driving force for the creation of new confessional identities, harnessing and uniting into one powerful synthesis, social, intellectual, political and religious forces. Then, following in the footsteps of Hans Blumenberg, Charles Taylor and others, Koryl traces the roots of the modern conception of identity to late medieval Nominalism and its overturning of the medieval analogical and hierarchical understanding of reality. According to Koryl, it was this philosophical move which helped release the creative - and destructive - interplay of forces that shaped the early modern confessional landscape for the next two centuries. Importantly, this situation gave minority views a new voice in European affairs, allowing them eventually to construct their own (secular) myths and take on the dominant, majority role they exercise in the world today