Abstract
The last decades have witnessed the emergence of a burgeoning literature on freedom that has set out to reconfigure this idea in response to the critique of the autonomous subject. The paper has three main objectives. It engages critically with this new field of theory by exploring two divergent strands of thought: a recast form of liberal autonomy and agonistic freedom as envisioned by M. Foucault, C. Castoriadis and certain other authors. Second, it seeks to bring out the merits of the agonistic view by situating it in the problematic of freedom that developed after the critique. Agonistic freedom attends more fully to social inhibitions and unconscious determinations; it grapples more effectively with internalized limits; and it gives more play to the creative powers of action, which carry liberating effects. The argument offers, finally, a reply to the much-iterated polemic against agonistic self-invention, which charges it with amoral and antidemocratic implications. In effect, this ethos of freedom displays virtues that can facilitate democratic interaction and reinforce commitment to democratic egalitarianism. The entire discussion ties in with debates around agonistic democracy and helps to construe democratic freedom in a way that enables social contestation, pluralization, and solidarity.
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Notes
See Foucault (1982, 211–215, 220–225; 1991, 195, 201–204; 2000c, 283, 292). The imputation of creative capacities to the human subject is not, however, adequately theorized in the work of Foucault, leaving this idea vulnerable to various misunderstandings. Castoriadis, by contrast, developed a psychoanalytic and philosophical account of creative imagination. This is not to say that his conception is entirely free of difficulties and obscurities. For Castoriadis's notion of the radical imaginary see Castoriadis (1987, 285–287; 1994a, 319–337; 1997, 247–272). Some of the issues raised by the idea of creative agency in both thinkers are touched upon in the next section. For some other difficulties with Castoriadis's imaginary see Habermas (1990, 333–334) and Whitebook (1996, 176–178, 200).
On this idea of democracy and its connection with individual autonomy see Castoriadis (1983, 314–316; 1991, 20–22, 163, 168–169; 1994b, 340–345). For cognate accounts of empowered and agonistic democracy see Unger (1998; 2001) and Mouffe (2000). Foucault took note of the social dimensions of freedom but stopped short of developing his remarks into a broader political view. See, for example, Foucault (1982, 220–225, 2000b, 167; 2000c; 283, 292), Simons (1995, 102–104) and McNay (1992, 158, 190). Other thinkers have tried to draw out the democratic implications of Foucault's perspective, see, among others, Simons (1995, 118–125).
For Castoriadis, see Habermas (1990, 332–333) and Simopoulos (2000, 576–606). For a similar critique of Foucault, see Han (2002, 168) and McNay (1992, 80–82, 157; 1994, 149–154).
See Foucault (1997b, 127; 2000c, 283–284) and Castoriadis (1987, 103–108, 146, 315; 1989, 369–370; 1994a, 333–334; 1997, 111, 127,168, 190).
Bert van den Brink (2005) has also tried to answer the moral objection to agonistic autonomy. This argument, however, works from the assumption that agonistic citizens are always/already bound by a prior ‘disposition towards democratic civic cooperation’ (Brink, 2005, 257), an assumption that makes the defence of agonistic autonomy a much easier job. In the following discussion, I also insist that the agonistic view encompasses morally relevant dispositions and presumptions that sustain a commitment to reciprocity, but this is the demonstrandum, rather than the premise, of the argument.
Of course, there are considerable differences between political liberalism and the view defended here. To note only three, in Rawls, the content of political reason is largely given by the value interpretations implicit in contemporary democracies (Rawls, 1996, 8, 150, 192, 223), whereas agonistic autonomy sees critical reflection as an endeavour to question the given and to open prevailing interpretations to contest. Second, agonistic autonomy foregrounds creative agency and imagination, rather than reason, as a source of differentiation and contingency. Third, it avoids using the term ‘reasonable’ in relation to acceptable differences and the limits of democratic pluralism, because it insists on keeping these limits subject to contest instead of entrenching them in the name of reason.
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Acknowledgements
I thank Dr Abigael Baldoumas for proof reading an early draft of the paper and an anonymous reviewer of the journal for his or her constructive comments. The Greek State Scholarships Foundation provided funding for part of the research on which this paper is based.
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Kioupkiolis, A. Post-Critical Liberalism and Agonistic Freedom. Contemp Polit Theory 7, 147–168 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.cpt.2007.28
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.cpt.2007.28