91ÅÝܽ

Abstract: In this talk, I will develop what I take to be the teleological structure of emancipation. In contrast to accounts of emancipation that primarily take the concept to refer solely to the negation of a form of domination, I will argue that emancipation necessarily posits some practical end as a condition of its intelligibility. Taking the works of Frederick Douglass and Karl Marx as two exemplars, I will show that emancipation necessarily concerns the production of a new form of society and not just the negation of the old. To develop this insight I defend three claims: 1) social form is the highest expression of emancipation; 2) social forms have a teleological structure; and 3) this teleological structure conditions the ends of our practices and relations. Emancipation is nothing less than the invention of a new teleological structure of the social practices and social relations that comprise a form of social life.