European Journal of Social Theory

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Love, society and agape : An interview with Axel Honneth

Gennaro Iorio and Filipe Campello
European Journal of Social Theory 2013 16: 246
DOI: 10.1177/1368431012459697
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Viewpoint section

European Journal of Social Theory

16(2) 246–258
Love, society and agape: ª The Author(s) 2013
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An interview with Axel sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/1368431012459697
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Honneth

Gennaro Iorio
University of Salerno, Italy
Filipe Campello
Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany

Abstract
This interview discusses whether the concept of love can be used not only when dealing
with primary relations of recognition, as in the relations of family or friendship, but also
regarding social relations in civil society. The issues refer to the categorical differences
between the concept of love – as developed by Honneth in his theory of recognition –
and that proposed by the concept of ‘agapic action’ as a specific comprehension of love
that is not reducible to affective bonds, but that could be helpful in interpreting actions
beyond such intimate relations. Thus, the interview discusses in which sense the concept
of ‘agapic action’ can contribute to a social theory, on the one hand, distinguishing
between a strict sense of love as primary affective bonds and, on the other, the concept
of solidarity as social bonds.

Keywords
agape, love, social action, solidarity

This interview with Axel Honneth discusses whether the concept of love can be used not
only when dealing with primary relations of recognition, as in the relations of family or
friendship, but also regarding social relations in civil society. The issues refer to the
categorical differences between the concept of love – as developed by Honneth in his
theory of recognition – and that proposed by the concept of ‘agapic action’: a specific

Corresponding author:
Axel Honneth, Institut für Sozialforschung, Senkenberganlage 26, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Email: ah2952@columbia.edu

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Iorio and Campello 247

comprehension of love that is not reducible to affective bonds but that could be helpful in
interpreting actions beyond such intimate relations. Considering an implicit theoretical
background of the different understandings of love described by the ancient Greeks, such
as Eros, Philia, Storgeē and Agape, the aim of the interview is not so much to clarify the
concept of ‘agapic action’, but rather to offer further aspects that may add to a more pre-
cise discussion between this conceptual approach to love and Honneth’s one, contribut-
ing to a further possible clarification of the concept of ‘agape’ as an interpretative
category. In his answers, Honneth presents a rather critical position regarding this con-
cept, arguing that it could be too specific to analyze the phenomenology of the social that
he defines in terms of solidarity. For Honneth, solidarity has a more neutral sense in
relation to the religious connotation that the term ‘agape’ has received in the Christian
tradition. The dialogue initiated by the interview can be seen as a starting point for a cate-
gorical clarification of agape in a non-metaphysical sense, as suggested by Honneth’s
criticisms. In this way, the discussion between the concept of love and solidarity, as pro-
posed in Honneth’s approach, and that of ‘agapic action’ can offer elements of a concep-
tual clarification that may be relevant in this continuing debate.
AH Axel Honneth; GI Gennaro Iorio; FC Filipe Campello
GI: In your research, how did you reach the point of studying the theme on love?
AH I’m not sure whether I’m really aware of all the earlier intuitions in my own work.
What I know is that one of the decisive experiences I made was in reading, on the one
hand, Hegel’s early stuff on love as a very specific form of mutual recognition, and on
the other, becoming aware of the Romantic movement, also stressing the importance of
love as a very specific kind of social bonding and of social debt. And I’m sure there
were earlier experiences, and maybe even very personal ones. It is clear that the expe-
rience of love, be it from the side of your own parents, or when you become a little bit
older, between you and a friend, always has an enormous impact on people, I think.
And the whole atmosphere in which I grew up was definitely an atmosphere where the
whole idea of, let’s say, a kind of sexual loving played a huge role in the self-
understanding of a certain culture. But I think the philosophical starting point was
definitely Hegel. He developed the idea that, if we try to understand subjectivity, we
immediately become aware of the fact that the individual subject owns his or her
self-understanding to a high degree to the experience of being loved by somebody.
So in studying that kind of mutual relationship of loving, I think he developed the core
factor of recognition, namely, that mutual recognition is the kind of reciprocal self-
limitation, and that in that self-limitation, you remain not only free, but you probably
become even freer, than if you had not had that experience. So I think he connected the
idea of mutual love and this form of recognition together with it, from the beginning
already, with a specific idea of freedom – namely, that freedom is best understood, and
in its highest form is not something you can approach or gain individually, but which
you gain only by having that specific experience, because in that experience you feel
yourself at home with yourself, by limiting yourself. I mean, this is the core idea: to
feel at home with somebody else, but in that specific way that without experiencing
obligation, you limit yourself. So it is almost an obligation-free form of self-
limitation, but feeling at home with somebody else. I think this is for him the core
model or the paradigm for all the other forms of recognition he then is interested in.

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