Noumenal Power

I N political or social philosophy, we speak about power all the time.Yet the meaning of this important concept is rarely made explicit, especially in the context of normative discussions. 1But as with many other concepts, once one considers it more closely, fundamental questions arise, such as whether a power relation is necessarily a relation of subordination and domination, a view that makes it difficult to identify legitimate forms of the exercise of power.To contribute to conceptual as well as normative clarification, in what follows I suggest a novel way to conceive of power.I argue that we only understand what power is and how it is exercised once we understand its essentially noumenal nature.On that basis, I defend a normatively neutral notion of power that enables us to distinguish more particular forms of power, such as rule, coercion, or domination.The analysis aims to prepare the way for a critical theory of power.