Rivoluzione nell’individuo? Un’interpretazione della scelta esistenziale in Ágnes Heller

Abstract

This article interprets Agnes Heller’s “existential choice”, in the light of the concept of revolution in an individual’s life. Initially the various forms of “existential choice” are analyzed, with special reference to “self choice as a good person”, which links the individual with a universal normative model. Then parallelism is posited with the modern concept of political revolution: modern revolution and individual existential choice, in Heller’s view, are two parallel attempts to mould (political or personal) contingency by means of the value of universality: on the one hand moral choice is the realization of the universally moral individual, while on the other revolution is brought about in the name of the universality of the values of freedom and life. For this reason existential choice and political revolution combine in the definition of the human condition, whether it be individual or political-normative, peculiar to modern times.