Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0006-1597-7078

Date Available

7-22-2024

Year of Publication

2024

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College

Arts and Sciences

Department/School/Program

Philosophy

Advisor

Eric Sanday

Abstract

My dissertation intervenes in two ongoing conversations about the nature of freedom. The first seeks to understand and combat the allure of authoritarianism. The second, rooted in 19th and 20th century philosophy, sheds light on this phenomenon by suggesting that the acknowledgment and endorsement of the social and historical origins of our normative commitments would awaken us to our radical freedom. My dissertation contributes to this conversation by suggesting that authoritarianism is rooted in a failure to comprehend ourselves, and that a proper investigation into human selfhood is needed to understand and actualize our powers of self-determination. Drawing on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, I argue that selves are radically singular, free, and creative, yet fundamentally continuous with others, i.e., dependent on and constituted by others through relations of recognition. We come to recognize this presupposition of freedom through communicative practices in which we (re)interpret, (re)assess, and (re)shape inherited normative commitments. The authoritarian, by contrast, reifies normative commitments by turning over its conscious, creative powers to immutable sources of meaning, thereby failing to acknowledge their origin and inherent revisability. Through an investigation into selfhood, I reconstruct the subjective experience at work in authoritarianism and present a thoroughly anti-authoritarian form of self-understanding.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2024.363

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