Cet article s’interroge sur le sens des termes « français » et « allemand » quand on distingue des caractéristiques françaises et allemandes à propos de la théorie de la reconnaissance. Deux manières de distinguer ces caractéristiques sont analysées : la première considère que la promotion philosophique du concept de reconnaissance est une opération allemande à laquelle rien ne correspond de ce côté-ci du Rhin, la seconde affirme que le propre des approches philosophiques françaises de la reconnaissance est de (...) souligner la face négative de la reconnaissance, alors que les Allemands rattacheraient la reconnaissance à l’autonomie et à la réconciliation. (shrink)

La philosophie sociale moderne, depuis Machiavel et Hobbes, présuppose un rapport d'hostilité entre des individus désireux de s'assurer une place au soleil ou plus simplement de garantir les conditions de leur survie. La société ne serait rien d'autre qu'une collection d'individus. La fonction de l'Etat, dans ce contexte, consiste à neutraliser leur antagonisme. La morale se trouve ainsi instrumentalisée. Le jeune Hegel se démarque de cette tradition en cherchant à comprendre les conflits humains dans la perspective d'une demande de reconnaissance. (...) Il met ainsi en lumière la dimension morale inhérente à tout affrontement et reconstruit l'évolution sociale selon une succession de luttes réelles ou symboliques, dans lesquelles l'individu ne cherche pas tant à supprimer ou à abaisser son adversaire qu'à être reconnu par lui dans son individualité. L'amour, le droit, la solidarité offrent les cadres successifs où s'inscrit, à mesure que s'enrichissent les rapports humains, ce lien de reconnaissance. La psychologie sociale moderne permet de reprendre cette approche pour l'enraciner dans les mécanismes de formation de la personnalité humaine (les travaux de G. H. Mead et de D. Winnicott en particulier). En distinguant trois formes de mépris - l'atteinte physique, l'atteinte juridique et l'atteinte à la dignité de l'individu -, correspondant aux stades de développement du rapport de reconnaissance, Axel Honneth se dote d'un outillage conceptuel qui lui permet d'articuler une véritable " grammaire morale des conflits sociaux ", fondée sur une théorie intégrée de l'homme et de la société. Ce faisant, il nous met aussi entre les mains un précieux instrument critique. (shrink)

Axel Honneth, célèbre théoricien allemand de la reconnaissance qui s’inscrit dans la filiation de l’École de Francfort et notamment de Jürgen Habermas, et Jacques Rancière, éminent penseur français de la mésentente qui a rompu avec la tradition althussérienne, sont deux figures centrales du paysage intellectuel contemporain. Leurs pensées se situent dans deux traditions distinctes, mais elles ont toutes deux à voir avec le marxisme pris au sens large, qu’elles considèrent sous un angle critique. Les deux penseurs portent intérêt à (...) des domaines spécifiques au sein de la philosophie et hors d’elle. S’ils partagent tous deux un souci du domaine politique, Axel Honneth se meut dans la philosophie sociale, la philosophie morale et la philosophie du droit ; il fait un usage important et réfléchi des sciences sociales. Jacques Rancière se tourne, pour sa part, vers l’histoire, l’esthétique et la littérature. Mais une confrontation entre leurs deux pensées paraît s’imposer, tant leurs modèles sont influents dans le champ des sciences sociales, de la théorie politique et de la philosophie critique aujourd’hui. Il s’agit de savoir si les paradigmes qu’ils mettent en avant pour critiquer la société, pour rendre raison de son évolution et des transformations qui doivent la rendre plus juste ou plus libre, le paradigme de la reconnaissance et celui de la mésentente, sont concurrents, s’ils sont exclusifs l’un de l’autre, ou s’ils sont compatibles. (shrink)

De la psychologie sociale aux Théories critiques de J Habermas et A Honneth, en passant par l'interactionnisme symbolique ou la sociologie pragmatiste héritière de l'école de Chicago, l'oeuvre de GH Mead (1863-1931) constitue une source majeure de la théorie sociale. Cet ouvrage invite à la (re)découvrir. Tout en examinant les sources de la pensée de Mead et en discutant ses concepts fondamentaux, il propose de mettre en lumière le potentiel critique et créateur des perspectives qu'elle ouvre pour la (...) théorie sociale. Il montre comment ses développements consacrés au self, à l'Autrui généralisé, à l'interaction, au contrôle social, etc., ainsi que son traitement des problèmes liés, notamment, à la conscience de soi, à la communication, à la reconnaissance ou aux institutions peuvent être mis en dialogue et en confrontation avec les analyses de A Smith, GWF Hegel, W James, G Simmel, J Dewey, RE Park, E Goffman, H Blumer, A Schütz, H Garfinkel, J Habermas, A Honneth, R Collins. Il propose des traductions inédites de textes de GH Mead qui permettent de saisir le processus d'élaboration et la richesse de sa psychologie sociale. A la fois introduction, examen critique et mise en perspective de la pensée de Mead, ce livre s'adresse aux philosophes, sociologues et psychologues, étudiants ou chercheurs, intéressés par l'auteur et, plus généralement, par la théorie sociale d'hier et d'aujourd'hui. (shrink)

Axel Honneth a élaboré une critique de la société moderne au prisme du concept de reconnaissance. Jacques Rancière a construit une théorie de la politique moderne à partir du concept de mésentente. Ils s'attachent tous deux à analyser les logiques d’exclusion et de domination qui structurent les sociétés contemporaines. Dans un précieux dialogue, les deux philosophes explorent les affinités et les tensions entre leurs approches respectives. Ils contribuent ainsi à renouveler le cadre d’une théorie critique et à (...) repenser les conditions du changement social et politique. La discussion est enrichie par des textes des deux penseurs, et elle est précédée d’une présentation substantielle qui remet en perspective ce dialogue critique. (shrink)

Cristóbal Balbontin La phénoménologie française, et tout particulièrement la philosophie de Lévinas, cherche à critiquer la lutte pour la reconnaissance hégélienne en ce qu’elle est une philosophie qui cherche à réduire « l’Autre » au « Même ». Est-ce que cette critique vaut aussi pour la réactualisation honnethienne de la lutte pour la reconnaissance? Notre position est que, même si Honneth s’engage dans une réactualisation de la reconnaissance intersubjective qui met en valeur l’importance de l’altérité, cette démarche s’avère insuffisante (...) ; surtout par rapport à la place phénoménologique de la chair. (shrink)

Understanding Hegelianism explores the ways in which Hegelian and anti-Hegelian currents of thought have shaped some of the most significant movements in twentieth-century European philosophy, particularly the traditions of critical theory, existentialism, Marxism, and poststructuralism. Robert Sinnerbrink begins with an examination of Kierkegaard's existentialism and Marx's materialism. He looks at the contrasting critiques of Hegel by Lukacs and Heidegger as well as the role of Hegelian themes in the work of Adorno, Habermas, and Honneth. Sinnerbrink also considers the rich (...) tradition of Hegelianism in modern French philosophers such as Wahl, Kojeve, Hyppolite, Lefebvre, Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Derrida and Deleuze, who articulated a radical critique of Hegelianism.Throughout Understanding Hegelianism Sinnerbrink foregrounds the Hegelian themes of the unhappy consciousness, the master/slave dialectic, and the struggle for recognition and shows how each has provided fertile concepts for both the development of German critical theory and for French philosophy. He examines the problem of modernity, theories of recognition, and the deconstruction of metaphysics in order to show the legacy of Hegelian thought and also explores some of the recent developments in Anglophone Hegelianism. (shrink)

Au cours de cet entretien, Emmanuel Renault nous offre un aperçu de la manière dont la thématique de la reconnaissance est traitée en France aujourd’hui, notamment à travers le renouveau des études sur Hegel et Marx. Il explique la façon dont la reconnaissance a pu s’ériger en paradigme (en dépit de ses usages multiples et variés en France comme ailleurs), au cours de la dernière décennie et le rôle joué par Axel Honneth dans ce procès. Finalement, il explicite sa (...) manière d’envisager la pratique de la philosophie politique et son projet d’une critique du capitalisme. Emmanuel Renault nous livre également un commentaire critique mais constructif sur la manière dont Paul Ricœur envisage la reconnaissance et suggère quelques pistes concernant les possibles développements futurs des usages de la reconnaissance. (shrink)

La théorie critique qui s’incarne dans plusieurs démarches épistémologiques et politiques, n’est pas un pur produit de consommation académique ni un dogme qui oblige à l’unanimité, mais un « miroir brisé » reflétant nos mondes si éclatés et déformés. Sa mission d’émancipation des années 1930 est sa carte d’identité. Elle poursuit dans les mondes du « Sud » cette mission par des « conversations » sur l’oralité (Benjamin), la crédulité (Adorno/Horkheimer), les utopies des arts (Adorno/Marcuse), les reconnaissances (Honneth) (...) et la place des intellectuels (Adorno, Horkheimer). (shrink)

Les pages de Hegel consacrées à la lutte pour la reconnaissance sont certainement parmi les plus lues et les plus commentées, particulièrement en France où elles ont fourni à Kojève le point de départ d'une magistrale interprétation de la Phénoménologie de l'esprit. Pourquoi les relire une fois encore? Pour elles-mêmes d'abord, en les inscrivant, plus qu'on ne l'a fait jusqu'ici, dans le contexte général de l'idéalisme allemand de manière à clairement faire apparaître que la théorie de la reconnaissance est (...) la reprise par Hegel d'un problème largement élaboré avant lui, par Kant déjà, mais surtout par Fichte. Ensuite parce que les luttes pour la reconnaissance n'ont cessé de hanter notre modernité post-hégélienne et qu'un retour aux textes de Fichte et Hegel permet de comprendre que la lutte orientée vers la reconnaissance est, pour un individu ou pour un collectif, le moyen de construire les conditions intersubjectives d'un rapport positif à soi et aux autres dans la conquête d'une identité universelle et particulière à la fois. De plus, le travail étant, ainsi que le montre Hegel, un vecteur majeur de la reconnaissance, ce ne sont pas seulement les luttes culturelles, mais aussi les luttes sociales qui deviennent justiciables d'une approche relevant d'une théorie de la reconnaissance. Le thème de l'Anerkennung autorise ainsi une relecture de textes classiques qui ne coupe pas ceux-ci des enjeux de notre monde contemporain. (shrink)

Partant de l’analyse anthropologique des âges de la vie par Hegel dans l’Encyclopédie, on présentera sa critique des idéaux. Hegel fustige chez le jeune homme cette tendance à opposer le réel et l’idéal. Il dégage les risques à la fois individuels et collectifs que cette vision du monde fait courir et considère « l’homme fait » comme celui qui sait vouloir ce qui est. De cette analyse, suit la conclusion qu’il n’y a pas de possible en dehors du réel, pas (...) de substantialité hors du monde. Autrement dit, et contre la première impression de la plupart des hommes, possible et réel, devoir être et être, s’identifient. Pourtant, si l’aversion du réel inspirée par l’attachement aux idéaux représente, selon Hegel, un danger, le procès du devoir-être par la philosophie spéculative n’est pas non plus sans risque. Ne signe-t-il pas, comme le dira Nietzsche, la défaite de la volonté face au poids des choses ? La lecture, dans la Doctrine de l’essence, du chapitre intitulé « L’effectivité » dans la section du même nom, peut nous préserver de conclusions si déprimantes, car celui-ci vient expliquer, non que le possible est une chimère, une vue de l’esprit, mais qu’il s’identifie à l’effectif. Or, la reconnaissance de cette intimité produit d’une part en retour une conception plus riche, plus haute, plus noble du possible – elle lui donne en somme des lettres de noblesse – et, d’autre part, elle conduit à y lire une affirmation de la contingence. Notre argumentaire vise à établir qu’en disant que l’effectif est possible et que le possible est effectif, Hegel ne les détruit pas en leur ôtant leurs déterminations propres, mais leur assure une plus grande consistance. En étant possible, l’effectif cesse de se confondre avec la réalité comprise comme simple existence ou simple phénomène, comme simple il y a. En étant effectif, le possible cesse de signifier un moindre-être, un en deçà, un simplement ou seulement possible, puisqu’il est alors inscrit dans l’être, dans le monde. (shrink)

The critical theory tradition has, since its inception, sought to distinguish its perspective on society from more purely descriptive or normative approaches by maintaining that persons have a deep-seated interest in the free development of their personality—an interest that can only be realized in and through the rational organization of society, but which is systematically stymied by existing society. Yet it has struggled to specify this emancipatory interest in a way that avoids being either excessively utopian or overly accommodating to (...) existing society. Despite the fact that Hegel’s concept of reconciliation is normally thought to run aground on the latter horn of this dilemma, this book argues that reconciliation is the best available conceptualization of this emancipatory interest. It presents Hegel’s idea of freedom as something actualized in individuals’ lives through their becoming reconciled to how society shapes their roles, prospects, and sense of self; it presents reconciliation as being less a matter of philosophical cognition, and more of inclusion in a responsive, transparent political process. It then introduces the concept of reification, which—through its development in Marx and Lukács, through Horkheimer and Adorno—substantiates an increasingly cogent critique of reconciliation as something unachievable within the framework of modern society. Giving equal attention to psychoanalysis and legal theory, the second half critically appraises the writings of Rawls, Honneth, and Habermas as efforts to spell out what a concept of reconciliation more democratic and inclusive than Hegel, yet sensitive to the reifying effects of legal systems, might mean. (shrink)

L'ouvrage que nous propose M Tryphon Bonga présente un double intérêt. Il nous offre en effet une belle introduction à une tradition philosophique contemporaine majeure la Théorie critique de l'Ecole de Francfort tout en ouvrant de stimulantes perspectives, appliquées à un contexte social précis. La discussion théorique se double de réflexions mettant en évidence l'intérêt du travail du philosophe. La majeure partie de l'ouvrage consiste en une lecture détaillée de l'évolution de la Théorie critique au fil des trois (...) générations de l'Ecole de Francfort. Partant du marxisme d'Horkheimer et d'Adorno, l'auteur retrace la refondation de la Théorie critique qu'a proposée Jürgen Habermas sur base de l'activité de la communication. Cette discussion des thèses d'Habermas amène M Bonga à considérer, dans un troisième temps, le tournant pris par Axel Honneth chef de file de la troisième génération de l'Ecole de Francfort et l'importance donnée par ce dernier à la thématique de la lutte pour la reconnaissance. Les problèmes philosophiques abordés sont nombreux. La recherche est ample et donne lieu à une riche présentation de l'évolution des recherches majeures menées au sein de l'Ecole de Francfort. Mais l'importance de ce travail n'est pas seulement relative au spectre philosophique abordé ; elle l'est aussi au sens où les thématiques de l'émancipation humaine et de la démocratie "en acte" sont d'une actualité brûlante et ce, plus spécifiquement, dans de nombreux pays du Sud engagés dans des processus de démocratisation. Or une des grandes qualités de la recherche de M Bonga est de situer, tout au long de son développement, la discussion proprement philosophique en perspective du contexte socio-politique africain et plus précisément de celui de la R D du Congo. (shrink)

Critical theories often express scepticism towards the idea that social critique should draw on general normative principles, seeing such principles as bound to dominant conceptual frameworks. However, even the models of immanent critique developed in the Frankfurt School tradition seem to privilege principles over particular moral experiences. Discussing the place that particular moral experience has in the models of Honneth, Ferrara and Adorno, the article argues that experience can play an important negative role even for a critical theory that (...) is committed to the necessity of conceptual mediation, as moral experiences can undermine our confidence in the appropriateness of our moral concepts. Building on McDowell’s account of moral perception and Brandom’s interpretation of Hegel’s theory of experience, one can reconstruct Adorno as providing a “radically negativist” approach to immanent critique that takes particular moral experience seriously. (shrink)

"We owe a large debt to Axel Honneth for uncovering some of the theoretical affinities between the work of the Frankfurt School and that of Foucault.

Dans cet article, je retrace et discute l’itinéraire philosophique d’Axel Honneth, depuis La Lutte pour la reconnaissance jusqu’à ses récents essais Le Droit de la liberté et L’Idée du socialisme. Dans la première partie, le concept programmatique de pathologie sociale sera mis en relation avec celui de « sécularisation de la théodicée » formulé par Ernst Cassirer – à savoir, l’attribution de la responsabilité de la souffrance humaine à la société – et avec l’héritage des Lumières légué par Jean-Jacques (...) Rousseau. Dans la deuxième partie, une fois précisée la position occupée par Honneth dans la tradition de la théorie critique francfortoise, j’aborderai ses propositions théoriques ; je distinguerai notamment deux modèles normatifs correspondant à deux phases successives de la pensée honnethienne : la lutte pour la reconnaissance d’une part, qui s’appuie sur une anthropologie formelle à valeur universelle ; et la théorie de la liberté sociale d’autre part, qui réactualise la doctrine hégélienne de l’éthicité en s’appuyant sur un modèle historique et internaliste de critique sociale reconstructive. Dans la troisième partie, je me pencherai sur la « divinisation du social » inhérente au projet d’une critique des pathologies sociales, ainsi que sur la confiance excessive qu’Honneth semble accorder à la force normative de l’intersubjectivité. (shrink)

S'inscrivant dans le domaine de la théorie critique, en particulier celle de l’école de Francfort, cet ouvrage propose une analyse de la pensée d’Axel Honneth visant à l’élaboration de modèles pour le diagnostic de « pathologies sociales » telles que la réification de nos interactions avec l’environnement non-humain (nature), dans la sphère du travail et encore dans les processus menant au déclenchement de violences extrêmes. La reprise des éléments mimétiques, pulsionnels et affectifs liés au corps (très présents chez (...) la première génération de théoriciens critiques et notamment chez Adorno) dans le cadre d’une théorie à teneur normative constitue le fil rouge d’une recherche proposant de repenser le concept de réification et d’aliénation au-delà de la reconnaissance, dans une perspective reliant théorie et pratique. (shrink)

With his insightful and wide-ranging theory of recognition, Axel Honneth has decisively reshaped the Frankfurt School tradition of critical social theory. Combining insights from philosophy, sociology, psychology, history, political economy, and cultural critique, Honneth’s work proposes nothing less than an account of the moral infrastructure of human sociality and its relation to the perils and promise of contemporary social life. This book provides an accessible overview of Honneth’s main contributions across a variety of fields, assessing the strengths (...) and weaknesses of his thought. Christopher Zurn clearly explains Honneth’s multi-faceted theory of recognition and its relation to diverse topics: individual identity, morality, activist movements, progress, social pathologies, capitalism, justice, freedom, and critique. In so doing, he places Honneth’s theory in a broad intellectual context, encompassing classic social theorists such as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Dewey, Adorno and Habermas, as well as contemporary trends in social theory and political philosophy. Treating the full range of Honneth’s corpus, including his major new work on social freedom and democratic ethical life, this book is the most up-to-date guide available. _Axel Honneth_ will be invaluable to students and scholars working across the humanities and social sciences, as well as anyone seeking a clear guide to the work of one of the most influential theorists writing today. (shrink)

La théorie critique de la société, telle qu'elle s'est développée dans le cadre de ce qu'on appelle parfois l'école de Francfort, se caractérise notamment par le fait qu'elle donne toute son importance aux dominations et aux conflits dans son analyse du monde contemporain. L'une de ses figures aujourd'hui centrales, Axel Honneth, est aussi l'auteur de la théorie de la reconnaissance sans doute la plus systématique et riche en perspectives théoriques et critiques. C'est de cette théorie qu'Emmanuel Renault part dans (...) cc livre, tout en lui apportant des inflexions justifiées d'une part par l'histoire de la théorie critique, d'autre part par l'analyse du temps présent. L'analyse de l'imbrication de la reconnaissance, de la domination et du conflit demande une approche spécifique : l'apport du pragmatisme américain et les débats sociologiques contemporains, en particulier Dewey et Bourdieu, complètent ici le modèle hégélien et les intuitions de Marx. Quelques exemples choisis parmi des objets souvent délaissés par les sciences sociales la conduite oppositionnelle d'un groupe de punks squatters, le langage protestataire de jeunes de banlieues populaires mettent à l'épreuve la capacité d'analyse de l'approche proposée par l'auteur, celle d'une philosophie sociale conçue comme une hybridation de la philosophie et des sciences sociales. Une contribution d'importance au coeur des débats les plus actuels."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bataille in Theory: Afterimages (Lascaux)Suzanne Guerlac (bio)If there is a single term poststructuralism could not live without—at least within the intellectual circles associated with the review Tel quel—it is “transgression,” inherited from Bataille. “God-meaning,” Philippe Sollers writes in an early essay, “... is a figure of linguistic interdiction whereas writing—which is metaphoricity itself (Derrida)—transgresses... the hierarchic order of discourse and of the world associated with it” [“La science de (...) Lautréamont” 808, my emphasis]. In their Dictionnaire des sciences du langage Ducrot and Todorov declare grandly that text “has always functioned as a transgressive field with respect to the system according to which we organize our perception, our grammar, our metaphysics and even our science” [443–44, my emphasis]. They describe the advent of poststructuralism as a “Copernican revolution,” and it became customary to characterize the before and after of this break by referring to Bataille’s distinction between “restrained” and “general” economies.An influential essay by Foucault, “Préface à la transgression” (1963), might be considered the opening move in what would become Tel quel’s appropriation of Bataille. Foucault’s essay examines Bataille’s L’érotisme (1955), a study that theorized transgression in a complex elaboration which articulated philosophical discourse (Hegel/Kojève) with a “sociological” discourse of the sacred (Caillois). Foucault’s reading of the text removes the transgression of eroticism from both these discursive horizons and moves it toward late Heidegger (an ontology of the limit) and Nietzsche. If one of Bataille’s most radical gestures was to insert the ethnographic distinction sacred/profane into philosophical discussion, Foucault’s analysis reinscribes transgression within the intertextual field of philosophy, radicalized, of course, through the inclusion of the “marginal” figure, Nietzsche, and the philosopher who announced the end of philosophy, Heidegger. Foucault’s rewriting of Bataille may read philosophy against itself, may even propose the transgression of philosophy; nevertheless, it is structured by the vicissitudes of philosophical discourse. Bataille on the other hand had confronted philosophy with something radically other—tout autre.In “Préface à la transgression,” Foucault defined transgression as “a gesture concerning the limit.” He presented it as a flash of lightning, an image that not only figures transgression but also emblematizes the move into what will become the philosophical register of poststructuralism. It traces a line, a line that figures the Heideggerian ontology of limitation, the coming into being (or appearance) of beings on the horizon of Being; it suggests the limit of the ontological difference between Being and beings.Anticipating Derrida through Heidegger, Foucault analyzed transgression as an event of difference, alluding to Blanchot’s “principe de contestation” and to a Nietzschean notion of affirmation. “Might not the instantaneous play of the limit and transgression be today the essential test of a thinking of ‘origin’ which Nietzsche bequeathed to us... a thinking that would be absolutely, and in the same movement, a Critique and an Ontology, a thinking that would think finitude and being?” [Foucault 759]. Transgression becomes identified with a “philosophy of eroticism” (which plays on Sade’s “philosophie dans le boudoir”), a gesture that transvalues philosophy from the realm of cognitive or rational activity to “an experience of finitude and of being, of the limit and of transgression.” The [End Page 6] “philosophy” of eroticism is thus a “test/ordeal [épreuve} of the limit,” one that “no dialectical movement, no analysis of fundamental laws [constitutions] and of their transcendental foundation [leur sol]” can help us think. Foucault then asks a rhetorical question that could be said to structure much of the discourse of theory in the next decade: “Would it be an exaggeration, to say,” he asks, “... that it would be necessary to find a language for the transgressive that would be what dialectic has been for contradiction?” [759].In this way Foucault established transgression as an alternative to the machine of dialectical contradiction. Attuned to the recent discoveries of structuralism, which had begun to reverse the conventional understanding of relations between the subject and language (the subject is no longer considered master of his or her language but structured by it), Foucault announced that “the gesture of transgression replaces the movement of contradiction by plunging the... (shrink)

In what follows, I attempt to reconstruct Fichte’s and Hegel’s reasons for developing at almost the same time two very different conceptions of a rational economic order. Whereas Hegel, on the basis of his objective notion of reason, would recommend that a rational state, founded on the notion of right, should include a strictly confined, socially embedded market economy, Fichte, on the basis of his subjective notion of reason, thought instead that the very same state must adopt an economic order (...) that might well be described as a ‘planned economy’. Throughout the article I discuss whether it is the stark differences in their methodological premisses or their very different ideas about the individual freedom to be institutionalized in the economic sphere that helps us understand their respective notions of a rational economy. (shrink)

This is a penetrating reinterpretation and defense of Hegel's social theory as an alternative to reigning liberal notions of social justice. The eminent German philosopher Axel Honneth rereads Hegel's Philosophy of Right to show how it diagnoses the pathologies of the overcommitment to individual freedom that Honneth says underlies the ideas of Rawls and Habermas alike. Honneth argues that Hegel's theory contains an account of the psychological damage caused by placing too much emphasis on personal and moral (...) freedom. Although these freedoms are crucial to the achievement of justice, they are insufficient and in themselves leave people vulnerable to loneliness, emptiness, and depression. Hegel argues that people must also find their freedom or "self-realization" through shared projects. Such projects involve the three institutions of ethical life--family, civil society, and the state--and provide the arena of a crucial third kind of freedom, which Honneth calls "communicative" freedom. A society is just only if it gives all of its members sufficient and equal opportunity to realize communicative freedom as well as personal and moral freedom. (shrink)

MAURO BASAURE. — Cher Axel Honneth, au nom du Groupe international d’études sur la Théorie critique1, je voudrais vous remercier cordialement pour cet entretien. La préparation de cet échange a été pour nous l’occasion d’effectuer des lectures sur plusieurs semaines et de mener des discussions communes sur votre approche particulière de l’héritage intellectuel de La..

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Hegel’s Ethics of Recognition by Robert R. WilliamsLawrence S. StepelevichRobert R. Williams. Hegel’s Ethics of Recognition. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998. Pp. xviii +433. Cloth, $60.00.The eminent Hegel scholar, Vittorio Hoesle, perceived the major weakness of Hegel’s philosophy in its seeming failure to adequately deal with the issue of interpersonal relations. Hardly a new objection, as Hoesle’s critique has a lineage that reaches at least as (...) far back as Schleiermacher. Against this thesis, Robert Williams had earlier developed a counter-argument which he presented in his work, Recognition: Fichte and Hegel on the Other (1992). In this foundational work, Williams drew out and clarified Hegel’s concept of recognition from its inchoate source in Fichte; and by so doing defended “Hegel against charges that his thought violates intersubjectivity and difference by reducing the other to the same.”(1) In the present work, the conceptual and textual grounds established by Williams in his first work on the topic allow for a more extensive extrapolation of Hegel’s doctrine, and argues that “The story of recognition is a story about Fichte and Hegel. Fichte introduced the concept but did not make it the basis of either his ethics or his politics. Hegel appropriated and transformed the concept of recognition and regarded it as the fundamental intersubjective structure of ethical life.” (26)After a brief introductory critical survey of some of the more or less misleading contemporary views of both Hegelians and non-Hegelians regarding Hegel’s concept of interpersonal recognition, Williams proceeds to present its historical genesis, of how it emerged from its early and unfocused appearances in the philosophies of Fichte and Schelling. Williams then traces the further development and elaboration of this concept as it gains expression in the course of Hegel’s own ethical theory, not only as it is found in such major works as the Phenomenology of Mind and The Philosophy of Spirit, but also as it appears in his earlier and lesser known Jena Manuscripts of 1805. After this preliminary doctrinal and historical introduction, Williams turns to the most substantial section of his study, that work of Hegel’s in which the concept of recognition would be expected to and does indeed play its most evident ethical role: The Philosophy of Right.Almost every category within The Philosophy of Right is examined not only for the appearance of the concept, but for the defining role which it plays in the construction of that category. Such an examination is necessary for Williams, since “Reciprocal recognition in its various determinate types and instances is the general structure of ethical life and the embodiment of social reason that underlies and supports the concepts of law and state.” (364) Among the categories considered, categories that Williams discusses within the context of contemporary issues and each of which is taken up in a separate chapter of his work, are Family, Crime and Punishment, Poverty, and the State. In every instance considered he argues that an understanding of the defining role of recognition is a necessary prerequisite not only for a clear and correct comprehension [End Page 174] of Hegel’s ethical theory but of all ethical theory. Certainly, after this scholarly tour de force Hegel’s concept of recognition will have to be taken into account in any credible discussion of his ethical theory. In a final chapter Williams turns to some contemporary ethical theorists who have not taken that concept into consideration, or if they have, have either misunderstood or have rejected it. For Williams, such thinkers as Kojeve, Sartre, Deleuze, Derrida and Levinas, in their misunderstanding or rejection of the ethically mediating concept of recognition, have all contributed toward the “disrupted and fragmented cultural situation at the end of the twentieth century.” (412)In sum, Williams’ presentation and support of Hegel’s ethical employment of the concept of intersubjective recognition cannot but encourage theorists to reconsider the subject, and to see in it not only a conceptual tool which can serve to lucidly contextualize Hegel’s ethical theory into the matrix of his total philosophical system, but also as a needed ethical concept able to transcend both... (shrink)

Over the last decade, Axel Honneth has established himself as one of the leading social and political philosophers in the world today. Rooted in the tradition of critical theory, his writings have been central to the revitalization of critical theory and have become increasingly influential. His theory of recognition has gained worldwide attention and is seen by some as the principal counterpart to Habermass theory of discourse ethics. In this important new volume, Honneth pursues his path-breaking work on (...) recognition by exploring the moral experiences of disrespect that underpin the conduct of social and political critique. What we might conceive of as a striving for social recognition initially appears in a negative form as the experience of humiliation or disrespect. Honneth argues that disrespect constitutes the systematic key to a comprehensive theory of recognition that seeks to clarify the sense in which institutionalized patterns of social recognition generate justified demands on the way subjects treat each other. This new book by one of the leading social and political philosophers of our time will be of particular interest to students and scholars in social and political theory and philosophy. (shrink)

In this volume Axel Honneth deepens and develops his highly influential theory of recognition, showing how it enables us both to rethink the concept of justice and to offer a compelling account of the relationship between social reproduction and individual identity formation. Drawing on his reassessment of Hegel’s practical philosophy, Honneth argues that our conception of social justice should be redirected from a preoccupation with the principles of distributing goods to a focus on the measures for creating symmetrical (...) relations of recognition. This theoretical reorientation has far-reaching implications for the theory of justice, as it obliges this theory to engage directly with problems concerning the organization of work and with the ideologies that stabilize relations of domination. In the final part of this volume Honneth shows how the theory of recognition provides a fruitful and illuminating way of exploring the relation between social reproduction and identity formation. Rather than seeing groups as regressive social forms that threaten the autonomy of the individual, Honneth argues that the ‘I’ is dependent on forms of social recognition embodied in groups, since neither self-respect nor self-esteem can be maintained without the supportive experience of practising shared values in the group. This important new book by one of the leading social philosophers of our time will be of great interest to students and scholars in philosophy, sociology, politics and the humanities and social sciences generally. (shrink)

Die Theorie der Gerechtigkeit gehört zu den am intensivsten bestellten Feldern der zeitgenössischen Philosophie. Allerdings haben die meisten Gerechtigkeitstheorien ihr hohes Begründungsniveau nur um den Preis eines schweren Defizits erreicht, denn mit ihrer Fixierung auf rein normative, abstrakte Prinzipien geraten sie in beträchtliche Distanz zu jener Sphäre, die ihr”Anwendungsbereich“ist: der gesellschaftlichen Wirklichkeit. Zur Begründung dieses weitreichenden Unterfangens weist Honneth zunächst nach, daß alle wesentlichen Handlungssphären westlicher Gesellschaften ein Merkmal teilen: Sie haben den Anspruch, einen jeweils besonderen Aspekt von individueller (...) Freiheit zu verwirklichen. Im Geiste von Hegels Rechtsphilosophie und unter anerkennungstheoretischen Vorzeichen zeigt das zentrale Kapitel, wie in konkreten gesellschaftlichen Bereichen - in persönlichen Beziehungen, im marktvermittelten Wirtschaftshandeln und in der politischen Öffentlichkeit - die Prinzipien individueller Freiheit generiert werden, die die Richtschnur für Gerechtigkeit bilden. Das Ziel des Buches ist ein höchst anspruchsvolles: die Gerechtigkeitstheorie als Gesellschaftsanalyse neu zu begründen. (shrink)

This article engages Axel Honneth’s recent work on Georg Lukács’ concept of reification in order to formulate a politically relevant and historically specific critique of capitalism that is applicable to theorizing contemporary democratic practice. I argue that Honneth’s attempt to reorient the critique of reification within the terms of a theory of recognition has done so at the cost of sacrificing the core of the concept, which forged a connection between the socio-political analysis of capitalist domination and an (...) analysis of the unengaged, spectatorial stance of human beings toward the world, showing how they together impede emancipatory social transformation. In order to accomplish the unfinished task of rendering the critique of reification applicable to contemporary critical theory, I seek to synthesize the advantages of Honneth’s approach, which focuses on the normative aspects of the critique of reification, with Lukács’ emphasis on the practical, political-economic dimensions of reification and the historically specific pathologies of the capitalist social form. (shrink)

One of the twentieth century’s most brilliant and unconventional thinkers, Alexandre Kojève was a Russian émigré to France whose lectures on Hegel in the 1930s galvanized a generation of French intellectuals. Although Kojève wrote a great deal, he published very little in his lifetime, and so the ongoing rediscovery of his work continues to present new challenges to philosophy and political theory. Written in 1931 but left unfinished, Atheism is an erudite and open-ended exploration of profound questions of estrangement, death, (...) suicide, and the infinite that demonstrates the range and the provocative power of Kojève’s thought. Ranging across Heidegger, Buddhism, Christianity, German idealism, Russian literature, and mathematics, Kojève advances a novel argument about freedom and authority. He investigates the possibility that there is not any vantage point or source of authority—including philosophy, science, or God—that is outside or beyond politics and the world as we experience it. The question becomes whether atheism—or theism—is even a meaningful position since both affirmation and denial of God’s existence imply a knowledge that seems clearly outside our capacities. Masterfully translated by Jeff Love, this book offers a striking new perspective on Kojève’s work and its implications for theism, atheism, politics, and freedom. (shrink)

The theory of justice is one of the most intensely debated areas of contemporary philosophy. Most theories of justice, however, have only attained their high level of justification at great cost. By focusing on purely normative, abstract principles, they become detached from the sphere that constitutes their “field of application” - namely, social reality. Axel Honneth proposes a different approach. He seeks to derive the currently definitive criteria of social justice directly from the normative claims that have developed within (...) Western liberal democratic societies. These criteria and these claims together make up what he terms “democratic ethical life”: a system of morally legitimate norms that are not only legally anchored, but also institutionally established. Honneth justifies this far-reaching endeavour by demonstrating that all essential spheres of action in Western societies share a single feature, as they all claim to realize a specific aspect of individual freedom. In the spirit of Hegel’s _Philosophy of Right_ and guided by the theory of recognition, Honneth shows how principles of individual freedom are generated which constitute the standard of justice in various concrete social spheres: personal relationships, economic activity in the market, and the political public sphere. Honneth seeks thereby to realize a very ambitious aim: to renew the theory of justice as an analysis of society. (shrink)

This article aims to contextualize and problematize Alexandre Kojève’s Note on Hegel and Heidegger, written in 1936 and unpublished during his lifetime, which is being introduced into Russian-language scholarship. A translation of the Note is published in the same issue with the permission of the copyright holders. This paper provides a general introduction to Kojève’s philosophy, illustrates possible reading strategies for Kojève and the place of the translated Note in his corpus of the philosopher’s texts, and describes the philosophical and (...) historical circumstances of the text, namely that it was composed as an extension of a review on Tragische Existenz. Zur Philosophie Martin Heidegger by Alfred Delp written and published by Kojève that same year in Recherches philosophique. The article reconstructs the lines of reference that are essential to understanding Alexandre Kojève and provides a critique of certain statements. Finally, on the basis of an analysis of Kojève’s language, it offers a broader thesis on the epistemological problems of Kojève’s philosophy, the discovery of which led him to make a series of debatable statements in the philosophy of history (on the necessity for the philosopher to participate in the realization of the end of history), in anthropology (on the difference between people in their capacity to be philosophers or sages depending on a philosophical and religious attitude that is not entirely dependent on them), and in his decision to leave academia and turn to the ideological and diplomatic provision of economic integration of European states during the Cold War. (shrink)

This book is a complete translation of Marx's critical commentary on paragraphs 261-313 of Hegel's major work in political theory.

The juxtaposition of strong and weak critique, which is so common today, represents the somewhat fruitless attempt to bring to a head a multifaceted discussion. For years now—in fact, since the end of Marxism as an autonomous theory—there has been a question regarding the possibility of finding an appropriate standpoint for a probing critical examination of the underlying assumptions of liberal-democratic society without relying upon a philosophy of history. On the one hand, material questions play a large role in the (...) discussion since it is difficult to envision alternatives to the institutional framework of highly developed societies of the West that are both desirable and efficient. On the other hand, philosophical questions play an eminent role in this debate, and these philosophical questions are often of a methodological nature. Specifically, at the center of the debate stands the problem of how to describe and justify a standpoint from which one can fruitfully critique society and its institutional practices. (shrink)

The aim of my contribution is to outline three points of overlap between Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and Durkheim’s sociology of morality in their respective views on social ethics: I will start by characterizing their shared conviction that the foundation of any form of morality cannot be found in some abstract principles but in actually existing, institutionalized normative rules that inform us about our role-obligations. In the second step I will show that Hegel and Durkheim also share the social-theoretical conviction (...) that we should differentiate modern societies into three different spheres all entailing different sorts of role-obligations; a part of this step will also specifically deal with the question of how both thinkers conceive of the problems raised by the modern, capitalist market economy. In the third part of my contribution I will consider the question of whether we find in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right a placeholder for what Durkheim refers to as a kind of cosmopolitan ethics, a standpoint beyond the role-obligations connected to membership in individual states. In my conclusion I will raise the question of the relevance of Hegel’s and Durkheim’s shared views on the basis for social ethics for contemporary discussions in political and social philosophy. (shrink)

In this pathbreaking study, Axel Honneth argues that "the struggle for recognition" is, and should be, at the center of social conflicts. Moving smoothly between moral philosophy and social theory, Honneth offers insights into such issues as the social forms of recognition and nonrecognition, the moral basis of interaction in human conflicts, the relation between the recognition model and conceptions of modernity, the normative basis of social theory, and the possibility of mediating between Hegel and Kant.

Normative political philosophy always refers to a standard against which a society's institutions are judged. In the first, analytical part of the article, the different possible forms of normative criticism are examined according to whether the standards it appeals to are external or internal to the society in question. In the tradition of Socrates and Hegel, it is argued that reconstructing the kind of norms that are implicit in practices enables a critique that does not force the critic's particular views (...) on the addressee and can also be motivationally effective. In the second part of the article, Axel Honneth's theory of recognition is examined as a form of such reconstructive internal critique . It is argued that while the implicit norms of recognition made explicit in Honneth's philosophical anthropology help explain progressive social struggles as moral ones, his theory faces two challenges in justifying internal critique. The Priority Challenge asks for the reasons why the implicit norms of recognition should be taken as the standard against which other implicit and explicit norms are to be judged. The Application Challenge asks why a social group should, by its own lights, extend equal recognition to all its members and even non-members. The kind of functional, prudential, conceptual, and moral considerations that could serve to answer these challenges are sketched. (shrink)

Moral-theoretical categories have almost disappeared from the theoretical vocabulary of sociology. Neither perceptions of legitimacy nor perceptions of injustice, neither moral argument nor normative consensus now play a significant role in explaining the social order. Instead the object of sociological inquiry is understood either according to the pattern of anonymous self-organization processes or as the result of cooperation among strategically-oriented actors; accordingly, the disciplinary role models are biology or economics, whose conceptual models appear suited to explain such a complex process (...) as the reproduction of societies. One may easily get the impression that current sociology wishes to finally bid farewell to the generation of its founding fathers; since from Weber and Durkheim to Talcott Parsons, it was a settled matter that an adequate basic conception of the social world could only be derived using the concepts, models, or hypotheses of moral theory – practical philosophy was, so to speak, the foundation and guiding discipline for classical sociology. After the “Theory of Communicative Action”– the last grand sketch of a complete social theory based on the sources of practical philosophy – all this seems to have been forgotten. In any event, it could until recently appear that with Habermas’ book the tradition of a normatively oriented sociology has come to an end. It is mostly due to the efforts of a small group of researchers in France – which assembled around Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot – that there continues to be a strand within social theory that employs sources of moral philosophy. Having emerged from an internal critique of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology, the works of this highly productive circle, probing ever new directions, seek to explain the integration of our societies through the interplay of different moral convictions.1 The foundational text of this sociological school is the study On Justification, originally published in 1991.2 This book, which has meanwhile also been published in German,3 deserves careful consideration not least because it represents the most interesting attempt of the more recent past to give sociology a basis in moral philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore and defend ideology critique as a method that is descended from the project of the critique of reason. Specifically, I interpret ideology critique as operating through what critical theory calls the dialectics of immanence and transcendence. Turning to Hegel and Marx, I further argue that the dialectics of immanence and transcendence must be more concretely understood as the dialectics of life and self-consciousness. Understanding the relation between life and self-consciousness is crucial for ideology critique because (...) what ideologies distort is the relation between self-consciousness and life, a relation that is fundamental to the actualization of human freedom. I argue that ideologies are social pathologies, or wrong ways of living. I analyze two concepts that illuminate the method of ideology critique in particular: Hegel’s “Idea,” and Marx’s Gattungswesen (species-being). These two concepts provide the normative basis for reconsidering ideology critique in light of a non-reductive critical naturalism. (shrink)

6. The Method of Equality: Politics and Poetics, by Jacques Rancière -- 7. Of the Poverty of Our Liberty: The Greatness and Limits of Hegel's Doctrine of Ethical Life, by Axel Honneth -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

On Tyranny is Leo Strauss's classic reading of Xenophon's dialogue, Hiero or Tyrannicus, in which the tyrant Hiero and the poet Simonides discuss the advantages and disadvantages of exercising tyranny. This edition includes a translation of the dialogue, a critique of the commentary by the French philosopher Alexandre Kojève, Strauss's restatement of his position in light of Kojève's comments, and finally, the complete Strauss-Kojève correspondence. "Through [Strauss's] interpretation Xenophon appears to us as no longer the somewhat dull and flat author (...) we know, but as a brilliant and subtle writer, an original and profound thinker. What is more, in interpreting this forgotten dialogue, Strauss lays bare great moral and political problems that are still ours." —Alexandre Kojève, Critique "On Tyranny is a complex and stimulating book with its 'parallel dialogue' made all the more striking since both participants take such unusual, highly provocative positions, and so force readers to face substantial problems in what are often wholly unfamiliar, even shocking ways." —Robert Pippin, History and Theory "Every political scientist who tries to disentangle himself from the contemporary confusion over the problems of tyranny will be much indebted to this study and inevitably use it as a starting point."—Eric Voegelin, The Review of Politics Leo Strauss (1899-1973) was the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. (shrink)

There is no normative concept more appealing today than the idea of individual freedom. Political party manifestos are drawn up, legal reforms are defended, military interventions are undertaken, even decisions in personal relationships are justified - all in the name of individual freedom. But our understanding of freedom is impoverished if we try to grasp its essence merely in terms of the subjective rights of the individual. In his new book, Axel Honneth shows that we still have a lot (...) to learn from the tradition of philosophy about a rational concept of freedom. Honneth begins by re-examining the work of Hegel and Marx in order to clarify the concept of freedom. He then explores various social problem areas in which the ideals of freedom are directly confronted by contemporary obstacles. Honneth ends by examining potential forces which could give new impetus to our struggle for freedom. This new book by one of the leading social and political philosophers writing today will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy, political theory, social theory and the social sciences and humanities generally. (shrink)

The article argues that Honneth’s idea of reconstructive critique represents a type of immanent critique. Starting from the objection raised by Rahel Jaeggi, who considers the reconstructive critique to be a genre of internal criticism devoid of any transformative negativity, it seeks to show, on the contrary, that Honneth’s notion of “surplus of validity” plays a role of transcendence within the historical reality, which could explain his understanding of reconstructive critique as immanent one. In the second part, the (...) paper displays how Honneth applies this conception of critique to solve the division within Critical Theory, induced by Habermas’s use of the idea of rational reconstruction, which would have split off the tasks of founding the normative criteria and discovering immanently elements for the social transformation. In the third part, the category of surplus of validity is investigated in its function of enlightening possibilities of transformation following an “universal-particular dialectic”. In its final part, the paper addresses some conceptual difficulties in Honneth’s attempt to clarify the systematic value and philosophical meaning of the surplus of validity within the framework of normative reconstruction. (shrink)

Despite the general acceptance of Hegel's importance for Marx, virtually no one has paid sufficient attention to Marx's youthful critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Nature. Even Alfred Schmidt, whose work refers to the Naturphilosophie most frequently, underestimates its importance in the formulation of Marx's own materialist philosophy of nature and comes close to replicating the very Hegelian views that Marx is attacking. Yet the critique of the Naturphilosophie in Marx's Dissertation and the 1844 Manuscripts foreshadows Marx's later stated intention in (...) Capital to turn Hegel right-side up. It affirms not only a theory of the ontological reality of the material world, but a dialectics of nature whose importance for Marx extends from the Paris Manuscripts to Capital. Marx' s Naturphilosophie criticizes Hegel's replacement of natural history with a Philosophy of Nature derived from logical categories. It affirms Engels' later view that natural history should be restored by discovering dialectics in nature rather than imposing dialectics on it. (shrink)

Marx wrote two critiques of Hegel’s political philosophy, which are brought together here in English translations. In 1843 he laid aside, unfinished, a lengthy manuscript - known since its publication in 1927 as the Kritik des Hegelschen Staatsrechts - containing a detailed criticism of §§ 261–313 of The Philosophy of Right. In 1844 he published a short article, “Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie. Einleitung”, proclaiming the imminence of a proletarian revolution in Germany. His specific criticisms of Hegel’s political theory are (...) to be found, not in the article, but in the manuscript, which is presented here in its first complete English translation. (shrink)

This paper discusses in depth the critical thought of religion shown by young Marx in the Introduction to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law, which is not only an important part of Marx's early theoretical explorations, but also an important symbol of his transformation from idealism to materialism. In the Introduction to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law, Marx systematically expounded the nature, function, root of reality, and critical method of religion through the perspective of anthroposophical materialism. He (...) inherited Feuerbach's theory that ‘the essence of religion is the alienation of human nature and went beyond his abstract anthropocentrism to direct the focus of the critique of religion to real social relations. This study makes comprehensive use of various methods, such as documentary, comparative, and historical research, to sort out, summarize, and conclude Marx's early critical thought on religion on the basis of existing research results, with a view to providing valuable academic reference for domestic and foreign academics. Although this study is devoted to a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the critical thought of religion in the Introduction to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law, the argumentation of some viewpoints may be insufficient due to the constraints of my current level of academic research and the availability of materials. Future research can continue to expand the scope of research and enrich the research methodology with the development of practice, so as to better make up for the shortcomings of this study. (shrink)

I explore some of the challenges involved in establishing the intersubjective dynamic as the foundation for a normatively charged philosophy of history. I seek in addition to highlight the value of Levinas’ work for the field of recognition studies. Levinas in effect offers a transitional model of recognition between Kojeve and Honneth, and as such his work harbors the potential for addressing some of the difficulties which beset the work of both when it comes to formulating an understanding of (...) recognition which is capable of explaining historical transformation and of serving as a standard for the critique of historical practices. (shrink)