ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I argue that the critical, emancipatory aspect of the Hegelian notion of freedom, namely social freedom needs further investigation and elaboration. This is because our social freedom curiously requires that we undergo particular experiences, that we are led by “forces” we cannot and should not (entirely) control. After sketching out the ways in which recent philosophical contributions have been trying to “naturalise” freedom, I expound on an argument developed by Adorno in Negative Dialectics against the Kantian conception of autonomy and apply it to Hegel’s notion of social freedom as well. I argue that Adorno calls our attention to the impulsive, or affective components of freedom, thus highlighting what can be considered its negative nature. I then concentrate on some passages from James Baldwin’s Another Country, to provide a paradigmatic exemplification of social freedom, namely passionate or erotic love, that turns out to be particularly revealing when illustrating my revised notion of social freedom.
