Christoph MenkeÄsthetik der Gleichheit

In his essay, Christoph Menke (*1958), Professor of Philosophy at the Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, focuses on the question of how and where there is equality between human beings. The author examines different notions throughout the history of philosophy, as well as varying political concepts, such as the contrarian interpretations of fascism and communism, and the differing reflections on the connection between equality and reason by Aristotle and Descartes. Responding to our current debate about the question of equality, Menke proposes a continuation through an “aesthetics of equality,” which radicalizes enlightenment’s assumption according to which all people have the same ability to reason. Here, equality consists of a force, an agency to imagine, given to all people—the equality of the possibility for an exercised and exercising formation of reason, which is not a given but a socially acquired capacity.