LA VITA ESTRANEA. CRITICA E SUPERAMENTO DELL’ALIENAZIONE NEL PENSIERO CONTEMPORANEO

During the last century, one of the most frequently used and debated theories in human and social sciences has been the one based on the concept of alienation. Its diffusion dates back to the publication of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, in which Marx focuses on the analysis of the estranged labour (entfremdete) and its consequences for the living conditions of the workers and for the social relations. Due to the posthumous publication of these notebooks the category of alienation, that was already an important concept in the thought of Feuerbach and Hegel, finds its core in the economic dimension and becomes a critique of the capitalist system. After an initial phase of discovery and diffusion, the idea of alienation begins to be applied to the most disparate contexts, and it becomes a synonym for every condition of unhappiness in human life, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s. From this extreme diffusion, the concept of Entfremdung emerges void and overly. It appears to have lost its original critical ability and it is gradually put aside by the philosophical and the political language, up to its almost complete fading. Nevertheless, this gradual dissolution of the concept does not correspond to the disappearance of the conditions and phenomena it denounced. This fact represents the starting point of my research work. It particularly focuses on the contemporary concept of alienation in order to understand whether it can still be analytically valid and necessary for a critical reading of contemporary society. The following chapters are intended to answer some of the key questions: is it still possible to talk about alienation? How should it be done? And what meaning should be given to this term today? This research work first starts by tracing the origins of the concept, focusing in particular on Hegel and Marx, then by focusing on its evolution throughout the 20th century - following a semantic thread. The aim of this first part of the research is twofold: on the one hand, it wants to provide a brief history of the concept of alienation while highlighting its vitality; on the other hand, it emphasizes the elements of the classical tradition which are most significant for the contemporary reinterpretation of the category of alienation. Therefore this initial part has both an introductory and a founding role for the next pages. The second part of the work switches the focus to the field of contemporary critical theory and explores the contribution of the authors currently dealing with the alienation. The first chapter of this part is about Rahel Jaeggi, who places Entfremdung in a relational paradigm and understands the alienation as an obstacle to the relations of appropriation through which we realize ourselves, in the sense that we give reality to ourselves. In this way, the category of alienation becomes a critical tool of social philosophy. The next chapter examines the sociological analysis by Hartmut Rosa. He takes the first step from the observation of a close relationship between the phenomena of social acceleration that characterize modern Western societies and the present dynamics of alienation. The only way to oppose them is rooted in a profound rethinking of the way we relate to the world. The third and final chapter of this second part studies the theories of alienation proposed by Franck Fischbach and Stéphane Haber. Fischbach recovers the alienation in order to describe the loss of the world that characterizes the contemporary era in which existence has become something truly intolerable. Haber further extends the range of meanings that the alienation takes on today and focuses his analysis on the ubiquitous nature of the neo-capitalist system, which escapes from the Economic and tends to entirely shape our existences. In short, from this second part of the work it emerges that the category of Entfremdung still represents an analytical tool that can and should be saved. The authors hereby considered go into this direction, and by means of their thinking it becomes possible to outline what it means to talk about alienation in contemporary society and how it should be done. These initial results lay the foundations for the third and final part, which goes into threefold directions. Firstly, it returns to Jaeggi, Rosa, Fischbach and Haber to identify their common traits and delineate the contours of the contemporary category of alienation. Here, a brief focus is about the possibility of interpreting Entfremdung as a defective habitare and, vice versa, of seeing in the character of the uninhabitable at least a trace of Entfremdung. Secondly, the work highlights some critical aspects of the presented authors and some limits of their redefinitions. The origin of these is investigated through two aspects that emerge from the previous chapters: 1) the progressive abandonment - by alienation theory - of a dialectical view of reality and 2) the fact that the critical theory has now become social philosophy. Finally, in the last chapter, the work attempts to overcome the critical issues that have emerged and proposes a new paradigm within which we can reframe contemporary alienation theory. As a new theoretical model by which we can rethink the category of Entfremdung, this new paradigm regains the anthropological reflection and the centrality of human dignity. Like so, this paradigm brings back to the critique a foundational layer that does not repress the plurality of the reality, and likewise is able to reposition the analysis in a broader horizon. In this way, the theory of alienation once again appears capable of recovering its critical radicality and its transformative élan. Thus in the last part, my work answers the opening questions from which it started and elaborates an original proposal, concluding in the very last pages, with a redefinition of alienation as a deadly alteration of the system of vital relations.