Lecture
CPP Lecture by Daniel Loick 'Uneducated, crude and superficial'
- Date
- Thursday 26 November 2020
- Time
- Location
- MS Teams
'Uneducated, crude and superficial'. A Hegelian critique of the freedom of expression.
Abstract
Following Hegel, I propose a specific form of legal criticism which can be called a “social-philosophical critique of law”. The talk will first outline the basic contours of such criticism, before spelling out some of its systematic consequences, using the example of a central individual freedom right, namely freedom of expression. The social-philosophical critique of law does not want to give up or abolish this right, but it does want to understand it in a fundamentally different way. According to this new understanding, this right can no longer be understood as a negative protection right, shielding the individual opinions of the citizens from, for example, censorship, but must itself be understood as a moment of social mediation. Following the Jewish concept of interpretive pluralism, I will briefly consider what form a right to freedom of expression would have to take that, on the one hand, meets the insights of the social-philosophical legal criticism and, on the other, avoids the danger of conformism.
About
I am Associate Professor of Political and Social Philosophy at UvA as well as Associated Researcher with the Institute for Social Research (Frankfurt). After receiving my PhD in 2010 from Goethe University Frankfurt, I held positions at multiple institutes in Germany, Switzerland, and the US. In the spring term 2020, I will be Max Kade Visiting Professor at the German Department at Northwestern University, Chicago. I currently pursue two research projects, one about legal criticism and abolitionism, and one about subaltern forms of sociality. Among my publications are four books, Kritik der Souveränität (Frankfurt 2012, English translation as A Critique of Sovereignty, 2018), Der Missbrauch des Eigentums(Berlin 2016), Anarchismus zur Einführung (Hamburg 2017), and most recently Juridismus. Konturen einer kritischen Theorie des Rechts (Berlin 2017).