@misc{Khurana2021, author = {Khurana, Thomas}, title = {This other life that knows itself as life}, series = {European journal of philosophy}, volume = {29}, journal = {European journal of philosophy}, number = {4}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Oxford}, isbn = {978-0-19-094761-3}, issn = {0966-8373}, doi = {10.1111/ejop.12745}, pages = {1136 -- 1144}, year = {2021}, abstract = {In this paper, I discuss Karen Ng's reconstruction of Hegel's concept of life. On Ng's account, Hegel's conception of life has a remarkable double role to play: Life is both the proper object of judgment as well as a fundamental characterization of the activity of the judging subject. In a first step, I highlight the insight that Ng's account sheds on the internal connection of life and self-consciousness and the peculiar normativity of life. In a second step, I raise three concerns about Ng's strong focus on the logical notion of life which she characterizes as non-empirical and a priori. I argue that in order to uncover the full significance of the notion of life for Hegel we have to turn to his Philosophy of Nature and Spirit.}, language = {en} } @article{Khurana2021, author = {Khurana, Thomas}, title = {The struggle for recognition and the authority of the second person}, series = {European journal of philosophy}, volume = {29}, journal = {European journal of philosophy}, number = {3}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0966-8373}, doi = {10.1111/ejop.12675}, pages = {552 -- 561}, year = {2021}, abstract = {In this introductory paper, I discuss the second-personal approach to ethics and the theory of recognition as two accounts of the fundamental sociality of the human form of life. The first section delineates the deep affinities between the two approaches. They both put a reciprocal social constellation front and center from which they derive the fundamental norms of moral and social life and a social conception of freedom. The second section discusses three points of contrast between the two approaches: The accounts differ in that the second-personal approach opts for a narrower conception of recognition focusing on mutual moral accountability, whereas recognition theory suggests a broader conception including relations of love, respect, and esteem. Secondly, the accounts differ as to how they conceive of the interrelation of the I-thou and the I-We relationship. Finally, they differ with regard to the way they think of struggles for recognition. Whereas the second-personal approach suggests that we can understand struggles on the basis of a transcendental infrastructure of second-personal address, the theory of recognition considers norms of recognition as themselves constituted by dialectical social struggles. The paper closes with a reflection on the ways in which both approaches can help us understand the social vulnerability of the human form of life.}, language = {en} } @incollection{Khurana2022, author = {Khurana, Thomas}, title = {Genus-being: On Marx's dialectical naturalism}, series = {Nature and naturalism in classical German philosophy}, booktitle = {Nature and naturalism in classical German philosophy}, publisher = {Routledge}, address = {New York}, isbn = {978-0-367-54172-9}, doi = {10.4324/9781003092056-13}, pages = {246 -- 278}, year = {2022}, abstract = {In his 1844 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, Marx famously claims that the human being is or has a 'Gattungswesen.' This is often understood to mean that the human being is a 'species-being' and is determined by a given 'species-essence.' In this chapter, I argue that this reading is mistaken. What Marx calls Gattungswesen is precisely not a 'species-being,' but a being that, in a very specific sense, transcends the limits of its own given species. This different understanding of the genus- character of the human being opens up a new perspective on the naturalism of the early Marx. He is not informed by a problematic speciesist and essentialist naturalism, as is often assumed, but by a different form of naturalism which I propose to call 'dialectical naturalism.' The chapter starts (I) by developing Hegel's account of genus which provides us with a useful background for (II) understanding Marx's original notion of a genus-being and its practical, social, developmental character. In the last section, I show that (III) the actualization of our genus-being thus depends on the production of a specific type of 'second nature' that is at the heart of Marx's dialectical naturalism.}, language = {en} } @incollection{Khurana2023, author = {Khurana, Thomas}, title = {Self-knowledge and knowledge of nature}, series = {Reading R{\"o}dl : On Self-Consciousness and Objectivity}, booktitle = {Reading R{\"o}dl : On Self-Consciousness and Objectivity}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Milton}, isbn = {978-1-03-234951-0}, doi = {10.4324/9781003324638}, pages = {195 -- 223}, year = {2023}, abstract = {In this chapter, I consider the unity of self-consciousness and objectivity. Starting from the notion that the objective character and the self-conscious character of thought seem in tension, I discuss Sebastian R{\"o}dl's Self-Consciousness and Objectivity and his thesis that this tension is merely apparent. This resolution suggests an immediate route to absolute idealism. I recall two Hegelian objections against such an immediate route. Against this background, it transpires that the dissolution of the apparent opposition of objectivity and self-consciousness can only be a preliminary step, opening our eyes to an actual opposition animating the pursuit of knowledge: the opposition of knowledge of nature and self-knowledge. This actual opposition cannot be removed as merely apparent and instead has to be sublated through articulation of its speculative unity. I consider two paradigms for the exposition of such a speculative unity: Kant's account of judgments of beauty, and Hegel's account of the speculative unity of life and self-consciousness. I close by contrasting these two approaches with R{\"o}dl's characterization, which strikes me as one-sided. Absolute idealism, properly understood, requires us to develop the speculative unity of knowledge of nature and self-knowledge from both sides, showing us that knowledge of nature is self-knowledge, but equally: that self-knowledge requires knowledge of ourselves as nature.}, language = {en} } @article{Khurana2022, author = {Khurana, Thomas}, title = {The art of second nature}, series = {Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal}, volume = {43}, journal = {Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal}, number = {1}, publisher = {Philosophy Documentation Center}, address = {New York}, issn = {0093-4240}, doi = {10.5840/gfpj20224312}, pages = {33 -- 69}, year = {2022}, language = {en} } @incollection{Khurana2023, author = {Khurana, Thomas}, title = {True right against formal right: The body of right and the limits of property}, series = {Hegel's philosophy of right: critical perspectives on freedom and history}, booktitle = {Hegel's philosophy of right: critical perspectives on freedom and history}, publisher = {Routledge}, address = {London}, isbn = {9781003081036}, doi = {10.4324/9781003081036-10}, pages = {147 -- 168}, year = {2023}, abstract = {The conception of property at the basis of Hegel's conception of abstract right seems committed to a problematic form of "possessive individualism." It seems to conceive of right as the expression of human mastery over nature and as based upon an irreducible opposition of person and nature, rightful will, and rightless thing. However, this chapter argues that Hegel starts with a form of possessive individualism only to show that it undermines itself. This is evident in the way Hegel unfolds the nature of property as it applies to external things as well as in the way he explains our self-ownership of our own bodies and lives. Hegel develops the idea of property to a point where it reaches a critical limit and encounters the "true right" that life possesses against the "formal" and "abstract right" of property. Ultimately, Hegel's account suggests that nature should precisely not be treated as a rightless object at our arbitrary disposal but acknowledged as the inorganic body of right.}, language = {en} } @incollection{Khurana2023, author = {Khurana, Thomas}, title = {The stage of difference: On the second nature of civil society in Kant and Hegel}, series = {Naturalism and social philosophy}, booktitle = {Naturalism and social philosophy}, publisher = {Rowman \& Littlefield}, address = {Lanham}, isbn = {978-1-5381-7492-0}, pages = {35 -- 64}, year = {2023}, language = {en} }