New approaches to the concept of alienation propose to understand alienation as a kind of heteronomy and to establish a connection between Kant’s and Marx’ philosophy. This paper explores Kant’s understanding of alienation and shows, with help of Kant’s Reflexionen, that he exclusively conceives the term “entfremden/entfremdung” within the meaning of the legal concept of “Veräußerung”. When interpreting “Entfremdung” as “Veräußerung” instead of “heteronomy”, similarities emerge between Kant’s and Marx’ thought, which manifest in the Kantian figure of the locator and (...) the Marxian worker. (shrink)

This chapter attempts to show that there are important convergences between Schiller’s and the young Marx’s account of alienation. The common approach to Schiller’s problem of alienation addresses the question solely from an anthropological perspective. The chapter rather focuses on alienation from a political and juridical perspective. It claims that Schiller’s account of alienation is better understood in the context of a politico-juridical debate on the relation between ‘right of mankind’ (Recht der Menschheit) and ‘state’ (Staat) following the French Revolution. (...) Looking at Marx’s early writings, it transpires that he describes the problem of alienation in similar terms to Schiller: as a conflict between particular and universal spheres, that is, private human being (individual) and political human being (species-being, state). (shrink)