Alienation means indifference and division, powerlessness and lack of connection to oneself and to a world experienced as indifferent and foreign. An alienated world presents itself to the individual as a world in which they are not "at home." The alienated subject becomes a stranger to themselves, experiencing themselves as a passive object, subjected to unknown powers. Rahel Jaeggi reinterprets this key concept of Critical Theory in a way that avoids problematic assumptions about the nature of humanity. According to her, alienation is a "relationship of lack of relationship," whose deficits can be described and criticized. A classic of contemporary social philosophy, now appearing for the first time in paperback with a new afterword.