Conclusion
Conclusion
The Sociality of the Self, the Sociality of Freedom
This book has outlined a reconstruction of the concept of alienation to show that it is only by relating appropriatively to the social practices that determine our lives and not by abstractly negating them that an unalienated relation to self is possible. If, as the book has argued, the self emerges only in relation to something—if it emerges only as the permanently rearranging result of a process in which the world is appropriated—this world is always a social world. If self-alienation is also alienation in and from the social world, then the problem, understood as a disturbed relation to self and world, can be solved only in—not beyond—the world of social practices. The problem of alienation leads us to the question of the nature of our relations to social practices and institutions and to an account of the demands we should make on them as the social conditions that make self-determination and self-realization possible. By way of conclusion, this book explores the sociality of the self and of freedom, arguing that a successful relation to self is also contingent on a successful relation to the social world.
Keywords: alienation, social practices, self, social world, self-alienation, self-determination, self-realization, sociality, freedom
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