Abstrakt
The review essay deals with Ernesto Laclau's Emancipace a radikální demokracie, the Czech translation of author's collection of essays Emancipation(s) added by his two later texts ("Democracy and the Question of Power" and "Populism: What's in a Name"). As its main issue, the book addresses the modern idea of emancipation.
Since this idea has lost its credibility, Laclau, drawing chiefly upon various currents of the philosophy of language and the Gramscian tradition of Marxism, seeks to articulate a new emancipatory vocabulary. His main intention consists in the reformulation of the concept of emancipation in light of universality and particularity.
Although universality enables us to continue in goals and demands of modernity, it must be also restricted so as not to give rise negative consequences like repression, unification, and hypertrophy. Thus, the logic of possible mediation between the universal and the particular Laclau searches for involves the reciprocal subversion of both elements.
However, the question is to whether Laclau's version of emancipation is plausible. To answer this question, I will proceed in two steps.
First, I will critically reconstruct Laclau's concept of emancipation. Second, I will raise some (partially anticipated) objections to it, mainly concerning semantics and radicality.