Kafka on the Loss of Purpose and the Illusion of Freedom

Polish Journal of Aesthetics 53 (2/2019: The Philosopher Franz K):69-60 (2019)
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Abstract

I argue that Kafka's writings express the idea that our sense of freedom is deceptive. It is deceptive because we cannot discern any proper purpose or destination that would allow us to make truly meaningful choices. Kafka's thought here relates to the existentialist view of Kierkegaard, but it radicalizes that view by depriving it of its teleological dimension.

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Markus Kohl
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

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Responsibility and judgment.Hannah Arendt - 2003 - New York: Schocken Books. Edited by Jerome Kohn.
The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt.Seyla Benhabib - 1996 - Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Pure immanence: essays on a life.Gilles Deleuze - 2001 - Cambridge: the MIT Press. Edited by Anne Boyman.

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