Thinking Freedom in connection with aesthetic spontaneity

Abstract

This paper deals with the different reflections on freedom that arose in the context of the discussion that authors such as Wellmer, Bohrer, Hamacher and Menke established with the Habermasian conception that understands freedom as the result of a process of rational discussion and deliberation. In spite of the differences underlying the thinking of each of these authors, all of them manifest the idea that freedom, exclusively conceived in relation to rational decision, is a restricted notion. These authors coincide in pointing out the need to incorporate into the notion of freedom a spontaneous moment, not rationally controllable, associated with aesthetic experience. We propose that this spontaneous character, which these authors associate with the aesthetic, can be traced in the philosophies of Adorno and Horkheimer as underlying other spheres of everyday life.