What is recognition and why is it so important? This book develops a synoptic conception of the significance of recognition in its many forms for human persons by means of a rational reconstruction and internal critique of classical and contemporary accounts. The book begins with a clarification of several fundamental questions concerning recognition. It then reconstructs the core ideas of Fichte, Hegel, Charles Taylor, Nancy Fraser, and Axel Honneth and utilizes the insights and conceptual tools developed across these chapters for (...) developing a case for the universal importance of recognition for humans. It argues in favour of a universalist anthropological position, unusual in the literature on recognition, that aims to construe a philosophically sound basis for a discourse of common humanity, or of a shared human life-form for which moral relations of recognition are essential. This synthetic conception of the importance of recognition provides tools for articulating deep intuitions shared across cultures about what makes human life and forms of human co-existence better or worse, and thus tools for mutual understanding about the deepest shared concerns of humanity, or of what makes us all human persons despite our differences. -/- Recognition and the Human Life-Form will appeal to readers interested in philosophical anthropology, social and political philosophy, critical theory, and the history of philosophy. It also provides ideas and conceptual tools for fields such as anthropology, education, disability studies, international relations, law, politics, religious studies, sociology, and social research. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungIn der neueren deutschen Rechtsprechung wurden die Anforderungen an die rechtliche Zulässigkeit von Zwangsbehandlungen verschärft und der Berücksichtigung des natürlichen Willens nicht selbstbestimmungsfähiger Patienten ein höherer Stellenwert eingeräumt. So ist der behandelnde Arzt etwa verpflichtet, einen letzten Versuch zu unternehmen, eine auf Vertrauen gegründete Zustimmung zu erhalten. In Anbetracht dessen, dass ein solches Gespräch im Kontext informellen Zwangs stattfindet, ergibt sich ein medizinethisches Dilemma: Entweder wird eine Zwangsbehandlung durchgeführt und somit direkter körperlicher Zwang angewendet, oder eine Zustimmung wird erzielt, jedoch (...) gegebenenfalls um den Preis, dass informeller Zwang – z. B. in Form einer Drohung, Täuschung oder Manipulation – ausgeübt wird. Es wird dafür argumentiert, dass die Antwort auf dieses Problem im philosophischen Begriff der Anerkennung zu finden ist, der im vorliegenden Kontext als eine spezifische Haltung aufgefasst wird und sich in einem respektvollen Umgang des Klinikpersonals mit den betroffenen Patienten zeigt. Die Ausübung von Zwang ist in solchen Fällen kaum zu vermeiden. Dennoch kann man in dieser Situation besser oder schlechter mit dem Patienten umgehen – und besser heißt hier, dem Patienten Anerkennung entgegenbringen. (shrink)

In thePhilosophy of RightHegel argues that modern life has produced an individualized freedom that conflicts with the communal forms of life constitutive of Greek ethical life. This individualized freedom is fundamentally unsatisfactory, but it is in modernity seemingly resolved into a more adequate form of social freedom in the family, aspects of civil society, and ultimately the state. This article examines whether Hegel’s state can function as a community and by so doing satisfy the need for a substantial ethical life (...) that runs through Hegel’s social thought. The article also examines why Hegel does not provide a detailed analysis of community, as a distinct sphere between the private and the public political sphere in thePhilosophy of Right, and why it is not a key platform of his social freedom. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this article I examine Axel Honneth’s positive theory of recognition. While commentators agree that Honneth’s theory qualifies as a positive theory of recognition, I believe that the deeper reason for why this is an apt characterisation is not yet fully understood. I argue that, instead of considering only what it is to recognise another person and what it means for a person to be recognised, we need to focus our attention on how Honneth pictures the practice of recognition as (...) a whole, which according to him works to make societies into places of greater freedom. This conception of recognition as a freedom-enhancing practice is supposed to provide a solution to a key problem of Frankfurt School critical theory, namely of how to determine the emancipatory practice in which critical theory is rooted, which becomes apparent as soon as one turns to the context in which Honneth originally develops his theory of recognition. At the end of the article, I offer a few reasons for doubting the overly positive picture of the practice of recognition that Honneth provides us with. (shrink)

This entry discusses three forms of politics of recognition: politics of universalism, affirmative identity politics and deconstructive politics of difference. It examines the constitutive, causally formative, and normative role that recognition has for the relevant senses of universal standing, particular identity, and difference in these approaches.

Interhuman relations sometimes suffer from a lack of adequate recognition. Here I ask whether this can be caused by the “third” of representations of a superhuman ultimate object or source of recognition, that is, a personal God. In arguing for a positive answer, I articulate a notion of mediational recognition, and present a systematic analysis of a trilateral form of recognition in which one party claims to mediate normative judgements of another party to a third one. The analysis then focuses (...) on the structure of metaphysical power that can be generated by religious groups and institutions. (shrink)

Contemporary recognition theory based on Axel Honneth's foundational work is a well-established research programme that is highly relevant also for philosophy of education. However, some of Honneth's own relatively recent writings on pathologies of recognition, and especially on the notion of antecedent recognition threaten to undermine the carefully built systematic foundations of the theory. These developments also problematise the educational significance that recognition theory in its previously established form arguably has. In this paper, I will analyse and critically evaluate some (...) of the educational implications of the very notion of antecedent recognition as discussed by Honneth. As my overall conclusion, I will argue that because of its unclear nature, the notion of antecedent recognition is highly problematic, and therefore, has questionable value for the philosophy of education. Although the discussion here focuses on Honneth, what is fundamentally at stake is a more general issue regarding capabilities and their preconditions. Honneth's conceptualisations and arguments represent particular types of moves in this educationally relevant discussion. Therefore, the conclusions drawn also have wider systematic significance beyond Honneth scholarship. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 103, Issue 3, Page 714-721, November 2021.

Since the groundbreaking work by Charles Taylor and Axel Honneth in the early 1990s, there has undeniably been greater interest in the concept of recognition in critical social theory, social philosophy, and the politics of identity. Perhaps this is because ‘everyone cares about recognition’ . At least, this is what Cillian McBride claims in his book, Recognition, which is one of the more recent publications in Polity’s Key Concepts series.While everyone might care about recognition, it is not entirely clear what (...) it is that they care about. The usage of the term in the current literature varies from Taylor’s cultural recognition, where the emphasis is on valuing particular identities and traditions, to Honneth’s anthropological recognition that is more centered on personhood and the development of healthy self-relations through our relations to others. From these two strands, McBride takes there to be a shared underlying Hegelian intuition that humans are social beings whose self-un .. (shrink)

This is an introduction to a special issue on recognition and democracy. We outline the constitutive and enabling relations between democracy and recognition. We distinguish between pre-political and political forms of identity and recognition, between horizontal and vertical forms of recognition, and between democratic and other ways or arranging the vertical and horizontal aspects of political life. We also distinguish between the roles of a subject and a co-author of law. The intruduction also includes an overview of the individual articles (...) in this special issue. The issue tries to fill some theoretical gaps in theories of democracy and recognition, with a special emphasis on feminist politics. (shrink)

This article aims to make two points. First, seeking and granting recognition is an ambivalent process that may lead to results completely the opposite from what was intended. Certain social pathologies, including reification, develop because of the way the desire for recognition is expressed and satisfied. Nevertheless, the concept of recognition remains central to critical theory. A normative concept of recognition is needed in order to identify these pathologies. Second, a critical theory of society that understands itself as praxis must (...) justify the possibility of its ‘reception’ by members of society. The theory’s addressees must ‘recognize themselves’ in the theory. They must recognize in it the conceptual expression of their own experience of society. Therefore, social theory must account for the emergence of a critical standpoint on society. These two main points are addressed by means of a ‘dialectical’ approach. The tensions and interactions between global society, states, and value-communities – the dialectic within and between these spheres – account for the diverse and conflicting meanings of the concept of recognition. At the same time, such a dialectic makes it possible to understand the emergence of a critical viewpoint on society. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I intend to reconstruct the main points of Taylor’s politics of recognition, starting from the debate about negative and positive liberties. Then, I will focus on the role of the ideal of authenticity in this conception of freedom, as well as on the dialogical conception of the self. Furthermore, I will develop the political consequences of these ideas. In addition to examining McBride's argument about the oppressive character of recognition, I will also address Fraser's objection concerning the (...) sectarian character of Taylor's theory. Furthermore, I also consider Ikäheimo's criticisms in respect to the problem of integration between the horizontal and vertical forms of recognition, the issue of affirmative action, and the idea of a passive subjectivity. Finally, I will centre on Axel Honneth's criticisms to Taylor's idea of recognition in terms of its lack of clarity. (shrink)

n this article I address the idea that recognition is fundamentally ambivalent: not only can there be bad forms of recognition – misrecognition, nonrecognition, disrespect – but that even the good or adequate forms of recognition may in some ways be detrimental to the recipient or sustain societal domination (Ikäheimo, Lepold, Stahl 2021). One version of the challenge is that social movements do better by focusing on other concepts than recognition, for their progressive aims. I will discuss the non-consequentialist nature (...) of adequacy of recognition, value pluralism, the rewards of submissiveness, dialectical progression to adequate recognition, and “ambivalence of being” as providing partial explanations for the ambivalence of recognition, while arguing that adequate recognition is only contingently ambivalent. By discussing these challenges, I continue to articulate a conception of mutual recognition and misrecognition that I have developed earlier (Laitinen 2002, 2003, 2010, 2012, Ikäheimo & Laitinen 2007). (shrink)

This paper argues that relations of mutual recognition (love, respect, esteem, trust) contribute directly and non-reductively to our flourishing as relational selves. -/- Love is important for the quality of human life. Not only do everyday experiences and analyses of pop culture and world literature attest to this; scientific research does as well. How exactly does love contribute to well-being? This chapter discusses the suggestion that it not only matters for the experiential quality of life, or for successful agency, but (...) that it actualizes our nature as “relational selves” (Chen, Boucher & Kraus 2011). I defend a hybrid or pluralist theory, which sees humans not only as subjects of experiences, or agents, or valuers, but also as relational selves. Expanding from love to other interpersonal relations, thriving relations of mutual recognition (love, respect, esteem, trust), contribute directly and non-reductively to our flourishing as relational selves. The paper will start by putting forward the proposal (Section 2), and then discussing it in relation to important alternatives. The focus is on alternatives which hold that love, and other forms of mutual recognition, are important for well-being, but only indirectly. One kind of challenge against the constitutive role of relations to others for well-being comes from the traditional theories that accommodate relations in some indirect ways (Section 3). A second kind of challenge admits that perhaps love is central to well-being in a direct way, but do we have reason to believe that other forms of mutual recognition are as well? (Section 4) Yet another kind of challenge is that love matters for the quality of lives in some other way than contributing to its prudential value: love is good, but is it good for us? (Section 5) A fourth kind of challenge concerns what we are, and the nature of “essentialism” involved in the approach stressing relational selfhood: cannot, say, motherhood contribute to one’s good life even if motherhood is contingent and not essential? (Section 6). In debates on recognition the idea that mutual recognition is also relevant for well-being has been put forward, for example in Axel Honneth’s (1992, ch.9 ) ”formal” theory of good life. Whatever else constitutes good life, relations of recognition form its backbone (cf. Ikäheimo 2014). Surprisingly little however is written about mutual recognition and well-being in detail, or recognition in comparison to traditional theories of well-being. This chapter aims to fill some of that void, and at the same time defend the view that well-being is one of the normative notions with which mutual recognition has a constitutive relationship. (shrink)