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NÊ¿¯â¯¿N¬¯¿ÊÜÊÖ¬ĆÅN忯NåÙÖÊÜ
Axel Honneth
and THE Critical
Theory of
Recognition
EDITED BY
VOL KER S C HM I TZ
Political Philosophy and Public Purpose
Series Editor
Michael J. Thompson
William Paterson University
New York, NY, USA
This series offers books that seek to explore new perspectives in social
and political criticism. Seeing contemporary academic political theory
and philosophy as largely dominated by hyper-academic and overly-
technical debates, the books in this series seek to connect the politically
engaged traditions of philosophical thought with contemporary social
and political life. The idea of philosophy emphasized here is not as an
aloof enterprise, but rather a publicly-oriented activity that emphasizes
rational reflection as well as informed praxis.
Axel Honneth
and the Critical
Theory of Recognition
Editor
Volker Schmitz
Department of Political Science
Indiana University Bloomington
Bloomington, IN, USA
v
vi Series Editor’s Foreword
to call into question the extent to which the theory of recognition can
fulfill the claims of a critical theory of society. Whereas most of the chap-
ters that follow agree with the normative dimensions of such a project,
they question the strength of recognition theory—as Honneth has con-
strued it—to deal with the broader and deeper problems of modern soci-
ety. How can recognition theory deal with the pathologies of modern
consciousness and culture; with the increasingly hostile social contexts
of neoliberalism and austerity; how can it deal with the declining con-
sciousness and moral awareness of individuals to immigration and the
harsh forces of social inequality? Schmitz has been able to assemble a fine
series of polemical essays that raise genuine concerns about the nature
of recognition no less than the future of critical theory as a whole. The
essays that follow should therefore be seen not only as a critical conversa-
tion with the ongoing tradition of critical theory, but also an endeavor to
widen the scope for critical consciousness and a more politically robust,
publically engaged form of critique.
The editor is indebted to series editor Michael Thompson for his trust
and guidance throughout the process; to John Stegner at Palgrave
Macmillan for his inimitable combination of strong support and mild
harassment; to Bill Scheuerman for his patience and advise over the
years; and, above all, to the authors of this volume.
ix
Contents
xi
xii Contents
Index 283
Notes on Contributors
xiii
xiv Notes on Contributors
Volker Schmitz
V. Schmitz (*)
Department of Political Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
This Volume
The authors collected in this volume approach Honneth’s work from
different backgrounds, employ a wide variety of methodologies, and
write in different genres, ranging from the sober scholarly analysis to
programmatic and political appeals. Their intellectual and political diver-
sity characterizes this entry in the Political Philosophy and Public Purpose
series, and it would do them and the originality of their thought a great
disservice to falsely attribute to them a single, unified chorus of intent.
What unites them is a feeling of critical appreciation of Honneth’s work:
some are more critical, some more appreciative, but they all strive to
bring to light the impact, the achievements, and the potential pitfalls of
Honneth’s “ethical turn” and the second phase in critical theory’s orien-
tation toward the normative foundations of modern society that began
with Habermas’s exploration of procedures of justification. They share
with Honneth and each other a deep commitment to critical scholarship,
however different their propositions may be.
This book opens with several explorations of Honneth’s use of rec-
ognition, with particular emphasis on the more recent advances he has
proposed on the issue. J. C. Berendzen draws on two separate projects
Honneth pursued in the 2000s and proposes a synthesis of Honneth’s
“elementary recognition” with his work on the fourth chapter of Hegel’s
Phenomenology (Chapter 2). Konstantinos Kavoulakos provides a critical
1 INTRODUCTION: ANSWERS TO AXEL HONNETH 7
Notes
1. Jürgen Habermas, Introduction to Antworten auf Herbert Marcuse, ed.
Jürgen Habermas (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1968), 9. Translation mine.
2. The spectrum of authors expressing such concerns is wide and reflects the
ever-increasing number of thinkers who have influenced writers of the
second-generation Frankfurt School. In the Anglophone work, it includes
sympathetic readers of Habermas from Seyla Benhabib to Maeve Cook as
much as “Marcusian” writers, in a loose sense, such as Andrew Feenberg
or Stanley Aronowitz, but also thinkers who have worked on connecting
the Frankfurt School to post-structuralist theories, such as Nancy Fraser
or Amy Allen.
3. Cf. Jacques Rancière, “The Ethical Turn of Aesthetics and Politics.”
Critical Horizons, vol. 7, no. 1 (2006): 1–20. Rancière applies the
term to what he detects as a general trend but voices similar concern in
debate with Honneth several years later. See Axel Honneth and Jacques
Rancière, Recognition or Disagreement: A Critical Encounter on the
Politics of Freedom, Equality, and Identity (New York, NY: Columbia
University Press, 2016).
4. Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social
Conflicts (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995). For additional essays
deepening his central ideas of the period see Axel Honneth, The I in We:
Studies in the Theory of Recognition (Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity
Press, 2012).
5. While by no means exhaustive, the following are among the outstand-
ing works on Honneth’s theory of recognition. Among edited volumes,
excellent publications include: Danielle Petherbridge (ed.) Axel Honneth:
Critical Essays (Leiden: Brill, 2011); Bert van den Brink and David
Owen (eds.) Recognition and Power: Axel Honneth and the Tradition
of Critical Social Theory (Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press, 2007); and, more generally on the topic of recognition
and social theory, Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch and Christopher F.
Zurn (eds.) The Philosophy of Recognition: Historical and Contemporary
Perspectives (Plymouth: Lexington Books, 2010). An excellent collec-
tion of reactions to Honneth’s innovations can be found, in German, in
the Festschrift for Honneth’s 60th birthday: Rainer Forst, et al., (eds.)
Sozialphilosophie und Kritik (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2009). Outstanding
examples of critical monographies on Honneth and/or recognition
include: Patchen Markell, Bound By Recognition (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2003); Jean-Philippe Deranty, Beyond Communication:
A Critical Study of Axel Honneth’s Social Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 2009);
Lois McNay, Against Recognition (Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity
1 INTRODUCTION: ANSWERS TO AXEL HONNETH 9
Selected Bibliography
Allen, Amy (2010) “Recognizing Domination: Recognition and Power in
Honneth’s Critical Theory.” Journal of Power, vol. 3, no. 1: 21–32.
Cooke, Maeve (2006) Re-presenting the Good Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Deranty, Jean-Philippe (2009) Beyond Communication: A Critical Study of Axel
Honneth’s Social Philosophy. Leiden: Brill.
Forst, Rainer, Martin Hartmann, Rahel Jaeggi and Martin Saar, eds. (2009)
Sozialphilosophie und Kritik. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Fraser, Nancy and Axel Honneth (2003) Redistribution of Recognition? A
Political-Philosophical Exchange. London and New York: Verso.
Freyenhagen, Fabian (2015) “Honneth on Social Pathologies: A Critique.”
Critical Horizons, vol. 15, no. 2: 131–152.
Habermas, Jürgen (1986) “Zum Geleit.” In Jürgen Habermas (ed.) Antworten
auf Herbert Marcuse. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 9–16.
Honneth, Axel (1995a) The Fragmented World of the Social. Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press.
Honneth, Axel (1995b) The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of
Social Conflicts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Honneth, Axel (1998) “Democracy as Reflexive Cooperation: John Dewey and
the Theory of Democracy Today.” Political Theory, vol. 26, no. 6: 763–783.
Honneth, Axel (2007a) Disrespect: The Normative Foundations of Critical Theory.
Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Honneth, Axel (2007b) “Recognition as Ideology.” In Bert Van den Brink and
David Owen (eds.) Recognition and Power. Cambridge and New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press, 323–347.
Honneth, Axel (2008) Reification: A New Look at an Old Idea. Oxford and New
York: Oxford University Press.
Honneth, Axel (2012) The I in We: Studies in the Theory of Recognition.
Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Honneth, Axel (2014) Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic
Life. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Honneth, Axel (2017) The Idea of Socialism: Towards a Renewal. Cambridge and
Malden, MA: Polity Press.
1 INTRODUCTION: ANSWERS TO AXEL HONNETH 11
J. C. Berendzen
J. C. Berendzen (*)
Loyola University New Orleans, New Orleans, LA, USA
belief that after the Jena period, Hegel’s work moved from intersub-
jectivism to idealism. But Honneth has recently paid more attention
to Hegel’s post-Jena writings, and he now argues that “Hegel sought
throughout his life to interpret objective spirit, i.e. social reality, as a set
of layered relations of recognition.”3 This has resulted, among other
things, in Honneth reconsidering ch. IV of the Phenomenology, espe-
cially in the essay “From Desire to Recognition: Hegel’s Grounding of
Self-Consciousness.”4
Around the same time that he began re-evaluating Hegel’s discussions
of recognition, Honneth also added to his own theory by considering
what he calls “elementary recognition.” Especially as developed in his
2005 Tanner Lectures (published as Reification: A New Look at an Old
Idea), elementary recognition is seen as a basic level of affective engage-
ment with one’s environment that must be in place before one can take
up cognitive relations to others.5 Mature forms of social relation that
move beyond this basic level are seen to be possible only on the basis of
this antecedent form, and elementary recognition is now also taken to
be the ontological basis for the more substantive forms of recognition
described in The Struggle for Recognition.
On its face, these two developments—Honneth’s study of Hegel’s
Phenomenology and his discussion of elementary recognition—would
seem to be largely unrelated. In Reification there is little substantive
discussion of Hegel, and Honneth develops his conception of elemen-
tary recognition via consideration of other thinkers (such as Lukács and
Heidegger). Phenomenology of Spirit is not cited in Honneth’s lectures.6
On the other hand, “From Desire to Recognition” does not refer to
“elementary recognition” or reference Reification. As I plan to show in
this paper, however, the two works discuss very similar ideas and com-
plement each other quite well. Most significantly, I think that the expan-
sion of some ideas developed in “From Desire to Recognition” can help
respond to criticisms that have been leveled against the view presented in
Reification.
To show this, this essay will proceed in the following fashion. Part one
will summarize Honneth’s conception of elementary recognition as it is
developed in Reification, and consider prominent criticisms of the view.
The main criticism is summarized by Honneth as the claim that he “is
guilty of employing an overly optimistic anthropology” that inappro-
priately builds a kind of moral goodness (which is particularly suitable
to his purposes) into human nature.7 Part two will then shift gears to a
2 RECIPROCITY AND SELF-RESTRICTION IN ELEMENTARY RECOGNITION 15
Lo Ta rikkoo munkkivalansa.
Miss' vuoren alla tanner on, siin' punas hurme hiekan; mut
sitä paikkaa myllertäin löys' härkä maasta miekan. Ja virran
tumman partaalta puhalsi tuores tuuli — oh, miehensä on
jättänyt Ju kaunis, hymyhuuli, j.n.e.
— Mitä?… joisinko?…
— Niin, tätä minun viinaani, — selitti mies. — Minä tuon sitä tänne
vuorelle myydäkseni luostarin palvelusväelle. Se on minun toimeni.
Mutta luostarinjohtaja on antanut ankaran määräyksen, että jos
myymme munkeille pisaraakaan viinaa, niin meitä rangaistaan, me
menetämme kaikki oikeutemme ja karkotetaanpa meidät luostarin
läheisyydestäkin. Me olemme kauppamme tähden riippuvaisia
luostarista ja asumme siksi sen läheisyydessä. Tästä syystä en
uskalla millään ehdolla myydä teille viinaa.
Kun mies huomasi, että keskustelusta saattoi tulla täysi tosi, hän
sieppasi lekkerinsä ja läksi pakoon. Mutta Lo Syvähenki ryntäsi
hänen jälkeensä, tarttui lekkereihin ja potkaisi kaupustelijan
menemään kuin kerän maata pitkin. Sitten hän vei lekkerit
kesämajaan, otti kupin, avasi tulpan ja alkoi lipoa viinaa. Pian hän oli
tyhjentänyt toisen lekkerin, minkä tehtyään hän huusi miehelle:
Lo Syvähenki, joka oli vielä liian vähän aikaa ollut munkkina, jotta
olisi voinut sotaisen luonteensa hillitä, suuntasi sanomattoman
ylenkatseellisen silmäyksensä portinvartioihin ja alkoi sättiä heitä:
— Tuokaa ryyppy!
— Älkää nyt siinä enää noin kovin tarkasti kysykö, vaan tuokaa iso
pullo, niin sittenhän riittää.
— Minä arvelin, että koska olette munkki, niin ette saa syödä
koiranlihaa ja sentähden en minä sitä ilmottanut.