There has been a debate, popularized by Ifenyi Menkiti and Kwame Gyekye, regarding philosophical understandings of the human person in Africa. The debate revolves around the saying "So and so is not a person." Gyekye convincingly argues that the saying is a manner of speech, intended to be a moral evaluation of a person's actions. Menkiti, however, goes further and suggests that many of the African conceptions of a person are based on a dynamic understanding of the self. Similar findings (...) were made of Maasai concepts of personhood in the study done by Patrick Dikirr. The "potential self" is not given but is always being constructed by one's deeds and one's relations. While it is certainly a romanticization to imagine Africans as harmoniously communal in contrast to the "isolated individuals" who supposedly inhabit the West, nevertheless, for a Maasai one gains self-identity and status to a large extent through one's relations to other persons and to animals. However, the paper illustrates the many ways in which Maasais still emphasize individual achievement and thought, debunking notions of African "group-think" and conformity. The paper then draws on Axel Honneth's insights into "recognition" to note the extent to which Maasai recognition of each other prevents the community's capitulation to the value system of other ethnic groups in Kenya or Western influence. (shrink)

The concept of recognition has been in the center of intensive interest and debate for some time in social and political philosophy, as well as in Hegel-scholarship. The first part of the article clarifies conceptually what recognition in the relevant sense arguably is. The second part explores one possible route for arguing that the 'recognitive attitudes' of respect and love have a necessary role in the coming about of the psychological capacities distinctive of persons. More exactly, it explores the possibility (...) that they are necessary in the kind of intersubjective relationship in which normal human infants engage in the pre-linguistic communicative practice of pointing things to others, as described by Michael Tomasello. If an incapacity to participate in the already Gricean communicative practices of pointing makes it also impossible for the infant to learn symbolic communication, and if without the immediately intrinsically motivating other-regarding attitudes of recognition communicative pointing does not get off the ground, then the capacity for recognition may be a decisive difference between humans and their closest non-human relatives. That is, it may be why only human infants, but no other animals, are capable of embarking on a developmental journey that normally leads to full-fledged psychological personhood. If this is so, then the concept of recognition, today mostly discussed in social and political philosophy and Hegel-studies, could turn out to be a very useful tool in cognitive scientific work interested in specifically human forms of social intentionality, cognition, volition and so forth. (shrink)

There is an underlying idea of symmetry involved in most notions of rationality. From a dialogical philosophical standpoint, however, the symmetry implied by social contract theories and so-called Golden Rule thinking is anchored to a Cartesian subject–object world and is therefore not equipped to address recognition – at least not if recognition is to be understood as something happening between subjects. For this purpose, the dialogical symmetry implied by Habermas' communicative action does a much better job. Still, it is insufficient (...) to embrace those kinds of recognition that are dependent on asymmetry and concrete difference. This article explores how communicative action could meet the demand of recognition by investigating a complementary source of validity in communicative rationality, apart from Habermas' validity claims, in which ‘inter’ is better characterized as mutuality than as symmetry. By recognizing both sources of validity, communicative action can open the door more fully to all aspects of recognition without giving up its universal pragmatic core. Key Words: communicative action • communicative rationality • discourse ethics • Jürgen Habermas • Axel Honneth • recognition • universal pragmatics. (shrink)

Axel Honneth has outlined a critical social theory in terms of recognition. He has recently argued that his theory is superior to the communications framework ofHabermas in that it better achieves the goals of providing normative criticism of society's ability to foster genuine and full sell-realization and explaining how emancipatory social movements can emerge within existing society. After exploring these arguments and their implications for critical theory, this paper concludes that Honneth's criticisms of Habermas fail and that the former's recognition (...) theory cannot provide an adequate free-standing alternative critical framework. lnstead, it is argued that recognition theory is best seen as a complement of a critical theory for which the normative basis remains Habermasian discourse ethics. (shrink)

Recent debates over the role of recognition by the community for one’s development and flourishing generally discuss community in a univocal sense: the way that recognition functions in particular communities is not fundamentally different from the way it functions in the larger community. They also tend to logically prioritize a fundamental human identity over particular religious, ethnic, or societal identities, which are understood to be secondary to, and derivative of, this basic identity. In his depiction of how (...) communal recognition contributes to individual selfhood, Søren Kierkegaard challenges these accounts by (1) differentiating between how communal recognition occurs in society in general and in one particular community, the Christian church and (2) questioning the idea that the self created in the former is more fundamental than that created in the latter. For Kierkegaard, one’s identities as both a Christian and a fully-developed self depend essentially on recognition by the Other: initially and fundamentally on recognition by God alone, and secondarily and derivatively on recognition by the human Other. (shrink)

Contemporary Christian ethics encounters the challenge to communicate genuinely Christian normative orientations within the scientific debate in such a way as to render these orientations comprehensible, and to maintain or enhance their plausibility even for non-Christians. This essay, therefore, proceeds from a biblical motif, takes up certain themes from the Christian tradition (in particular the idea of social justice), and connects both with a compelling contemporary approach to ethics by secular moral philosophy, i.e. with Axel Honneth's reception of Hegel, as (...) based on Hegel's theory of recognition. As a first step, elements of an ethics of recognition are developed on the basis of an anthropological recourse to the conditions of intersubjective encounters. These conditions are then brought to bear on the idea of social justice, as developed in the social-Catholic tradition, and as systematically explored in the Pastoral Letter of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice For All (1986). Proceeding from this basis, aspects of a Christian ethics of community service with regard to long-term care can be defined. (shrink)

Intentionalism is a research program that seeks to explain facts about meaning and communication in psychological terms, with our capacity for intention recognition playing a starring role. My aim here is to recommend a methodological reorientation in this program. Instead of a focus on intuitive counterexamples to proposals about necessary-and-sufficient conditions, we should aim to investigate the psychological mechanisms whose activities and interactions explain our capacity to communicate. Taking this methodologi- cal reorientation to heart, I sketch a theory of the (...) cognitive architecture underlying language use that I have defended elsewhere. I then show how this theory can be used to give an account of non-communicative language use—a phenomenon that has long posed a challenge to intentionalism. (shrink)

Conflict revolves around communication and culture intersections. This interplay has historical antecedents and contemporary applications. Conflicts involving Indigenous Peoples and colonizers appear in literary representations, and contests between communities and cultures in historical, political and social settings. Amnesty International reports Indigenous Peoples’ realities and efforts to lobby for social justice. One effort is in becoming visible and seeking meaningful recognition examined in media coverage of the First Peoples’ holiday in Trinidad and Tobago, and resonates in conflicts reported elsewhere between Indigenous (...) Peoples and others. Using media reports, interviews and other texts, this article employs a critical discourse studies approach to trace narrative elements and themes of communication, culture and conflict interplay, and interpret the contested expression and meaning of these texts to describe, understand, explain and construct a theoretical and applied account of resistance against unequal treatment. (shrink)

Truths, facts and opinions on the climate issue are often met with psychological or social defense, both publicly and privately. Based on selected psychological and philosophical theories as well as data material, this book shows how defense comes about, how it works, and how, on the other hand, the necessary recognition can succeed on various levels. It is only through recognition that constructive discourse becomes possible. This book offers all the basics to be able to theoretically and practically solve communication (...) conflicts between defense and recognition in the climate crisis. (shrink)

While he was archbishop of Canterbury from 2002 to 2012, the scholar and theologian Rowan Williams faced divisive controversy over ethical issues such as human sexuality, women's ordination, and the treatment of religious minorities. This essay presents a selective retrieval of Williams's approach to communal disagreement as an important contribution of the Anglican tradition to the future of Christian ethics. Williams's concept of ethical discernment as an exercise in "recognition" offers a way for communities to approach differences as fostering constructive (...) engagement and expanding ethical insight. Kathryn Tanner's analysis of culture and tradition in Theories of Culture is used to explicate the strengths and limitations of Williams's thought. (shrink)

This article looks at “faith-in” and what Jonathan Kvanvig calls the “belittler objection” by comparing Hegel’s and Kierkegaard’s interpretations of Abram (later known as Abraham). I first argue that Hegel’s treatment of Abram in Spirit of Christianity and its Fate is an objection to faith-in. Building on this with additional Hegelian texts, I argue that Hegel’s objection employs his social command account of morality. I then turn to Johannes de Silentio’s treatments of Abraham in Fear and Trembling and Søren Kierkegaard’s (...) Works of Love to argue that Kierkegaard defends faith-in as part of a moderate divine command account of moral knowledge. Finally, this article suggests that the belittler objection is ultimately an objection to faith-in as a divine command source of moral knowledge or obligation rather than social command. (shrink)

This paper attempts to sketch a critical model of political community by drawing upon recent contributions to the theory of ‘recognition’, particularly in the work of Axel Honneth. The paper proceeds by, first, delineating key features shared by a range of positions associated with ‘communitarianism’, along with the limitations and problems incurred by these commitments. The second part of the paper attempts to mobilise Honneth’s theoretical work to develop a conception of community that shares a number of the (...) basic premisesvis-á-vis political life associated with communitarianism, but which nevertheless accommodates the reservations expressed by communitarianism’s liberal and radical critics. (shrink)

Imitation recognition provides a viable platform from which advanced social cognitive skills may develop. Despite evidence that non-human primates are capable of imitation recognition, how this ability is related to social cognitive skills is unknown. In this study, we compared imitation recognition performance, as indicated by the production of testing behaviors, with performance on a series of tasks that assess social and physical cognition in 49 chimpanzees. In the initial analyses, we found that males were more responsive than females to (...) being imitated and engaged in significantly greater behavior repetitions and testing sequences. We also found that subjects who consistently recognized being imitated performed better on social but not physical cognitive tasks, as measured by the Primate Cognitive Test Battery. These findings suggest that the neural constructs underlying imitation recognition are likely associated with or among those underlying more general socio-communicative abilities in chimpanzees. Implications regarding how imitation recognition may facilitate other social cognitive processes, such as mirror self-recognition, are discussed. (shrink)

Indonesia's unique demographic structure, cultural diversity, and largely pastoral lifestyle mean that land administration has always been a complex issue and historical developments have contribut...

Recognition is one of the most debated concepts in contemporary social and political thought. Its proponents, such as Axel Honneth, hold that to be recognized by others is a basic human need that is central to forming an identity, and the denial of recognition deprives individuals and communities of something essential for their flourishing. Yet critics including Judith Butler have questioned whether recognition is implicated in structures of domination, arguing that the desire to be recognized can motivative individuals to accept (...) their assigned place in the social order by conforming to oppressive norms or obeying repressive institutions. Is there a way to break this impasse? Recognition and Ambivalence brings together leading scholars in social and political philosophy to develop new perspectives on recognition and its role in social life. It begins with a debate between Honneth and Butler, the first sustained engagement between these two major thinkers on this subject. Contributions from both proponents and critics of theories of recognition further reflect upon and clarify the problems and challenges involved in theorizing the concept and its normative desirability. Together, they explore different routes toward a critical theory of recognition, departing from wholly positive or negative views to ask whether it is an essentially ambivalent phenomenon. Featuring original, systematic work in the philosophy of recognition, this book also provides a useful orientation to the key debates on this important topic. (shrink)

Should madness be recognized as grounds for identity? Should society recognize and validate madness as diversity, be it psychological, behavioral, or emotional? To answer these questions, we might turn to medical consensus about which mental, behavioral, or emotional states count as mental illness. Unfortunately, the criteria for determining which mental health phenomena fall within the boundary of mental illness remain open to debate, creating what is known as "the boundary problem." Common approaches to resolving the boundary problem include naturalism, a (...) position that aims to answer the problem by positing a scientific concept of disorder based on value-free judgments about species-typical functioning. In An... (shrink)

Recognition is one of the most debated concepts in contemporary social and political thought. Its proponents, such as Axel Honneth, hold that to be recognized by others is a basic human need that is central to forming an identity, and the denial of recognition deprives individuals and communities of something essential for their flourishing. Yet critics including Judith Butler have questioned whether recognition is implicated in structures of domination, arguing that the desire to be recognized can motivative individuals to accept (...) their assigned place in the social order by conforming to oppressive norms or obeying repressive institutions. Is there a way to break this impasse? -/- Recognition and Ambivalence brings together leading scholars in social and political philosophy to develop new perspectives on recognition and its role in social life. It begins with a debate between Honneth and Butler, the first sustained engagement between these two major thinkers on this subject. Contributions from both proponents and critics of theories of recognition further reflect upon and clarify the problems and challenges involved in theorizing the concept and its normative desirability. Together, they explore different routes toward a critical theory of recognition, departing from wholly positive or negative views to ask whether it is an essentially ambivalent phenomenon. Featuring original, systematic work in the philosophy of recognition, this book also provides a useful orientation to the key debates on this important topic. (shrink)

Stakeholder recognition constitutes a firm’s experience of affirmation and acknowledgment from stakeholders and is deemed essential for organizations to develop positive self-relations and a sense of themselves as morally responsible social actors. Through an in-depth case study, I show how a firm’s varied experiences of stakeholder recognition for its corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts alternately facilitated and hindered the performativity of its aspirational CSR talk through two key processes: (a) a recognition-attainment process whereby the experience of stakeholder recognition helped turn (...) aspirational CSR talk into “substantive” talk with the performative potential to catalyze other CSR practices; and (b) a subsequent recognition-commodification process induced by a perceived misrecognition that ultimately rendered such talk “ceremonial.” Elucidating stakeholder recognition as an undertheorized boundary condition of aspirational CSR talk, this study adds to performative approaches to CSR communication. It further contributes to research on recognition by demonstrating the explanatory potential of Axel Honneth’s notion of recognition in researching business and society interactions. (shrink)

Bibliography of the latest research results show that, "Mueller commentary" because that "exchanges of alienation" and greatly deepened the whole "Paris Manuscripts" theory of meaning and significance. The findings from the perspective of the history of philosophy to support and evidence, as follows: in the "Mill commentary" in the invention can obviously see that Hegel's recognition of the important impact of Marx, Hegel and Marx acknowledged topic a major advance. Marx on the mutual recognition among people under capitalist conditions occur (...) in a serious distortion and alienation reveals the highlights in the "Mill commentary" from the perspective of monetary and exchange of commodities' exchanges of alienation, "the note. The latest research results in philology shows: The alienation of communication put forward in "comments on Mill" extremely deepens the theoretical connotation and meaning in "Paris manuscripts". The research results can he supported and elaborated in philosophical history perspective, that is, Hegel's recognition obviously shown in "comments on Mill" makes a great impact on Marx and progress made by Marx. The rewlation which is about deformation and alienation of recognition between individuals under capitalist conditions is embodied in the interpretation of "alienation of communication" in the exchange of money and commodity perspective in "comments on Mill". (shrink)

Agonistic recognition in education has three interlinked modes of aesthetic experience and self-presentation where one is related to actions in the public realm; one is related to plurality in the way in which it comes into existence in confrontation with others; and one is related to the subject-self, disclosed by ‘thinking. Arendt’s conception of ‘thinking’ is a way of getting to grips with aesthetic self-presentation in education. By action, i.e., by disclosing oneself and by taking initiatives, students and teachers constitute (...) their being. The way Arendt theorizes action (vita activa) makes it essentially unpredictable and destabilizing, which does not seem to fit into what should be expected from education. In the article I will argue that it should have a place by virtue of the debate, challenge and contest it offers. But education should also be defined from a specific kind of contemplation called ‘thinking’ to become the cultivation of a faculty of judgment in education—thinking (vita contemplativa) as a common virtue in education. Arendt’s demarcation between truth and meaning does from the point of view of agonistic recognition in education call for ‘thinking’ as a qualification of political and moral meaning–the ‘taste’ to be established in the individual, by individual judgements but always judged in relation to members of a community. (shrink)

Robert R. Williams offers a bold new account of divergences and convergences in the work of Hegel and Nietzsche. He explores four themes - the philosophy of tragedy; recognition and community; critique of Kant; and the death of God - and explicates both thinkers' critiques of traditional theology and metaphysics.

In this significant contribution to Hegel scholarship, Robert Williams develops the most comprehensive account to date of Hegel's concept of recognition. Fichte introduced the concept of recognition as a presupposition of both Rousseau's social contract and Kant's ethics. Williams shows that Hegel appropriated the concept of recognition as the general pattern of his concept of ethical life, breaking with natural law theory yet incorporating the Aristotelian view that rights and virtues are possible only within a certain kind of community. (...) He explores Hegel's intersubjective concept of spirit as the product of affirmative mutual recognition and his conception of recognition as the right to have rights. Examining Hegel's Jena manuscripts, his _Philosophy of Right_, the _Phenomenology of Spirit_, and other works, Williams shows how the concept of recognition shapes and illumines Hegel's understandings of crime and punishment, morality, the family, the state, sovereignty, international relations, and war. A concluding chapter on the reception and reworking of the concept of recognition by contemporary thinkers including Derrida, Levinas, and Deleuze demonstrates Hegel's continuing centrality to the philosophical concerns of our age. (shrink)

In this chapter I distinguish between a) recognition of persons, b) normative acknowledgement and c) institution-creating acceptance. All of these go beyond a fourth, merely descriptive sense of the word “recognition,” namely identification or re-identification of something as something. I distinguish four aspects of "taking someone as a person": R1 A Belief that the other is a person, and can engage in agency-regarding relations.R2 Moral Opinion that the choice whether and when to engage with persons is ethically significant.R3 Willingness to (...) refrain from wronging the other person, and to respond adequately to the normatively relevant features of the other (regardless of whether the willingness is ultimately selfish or not).R4 Unselfish Recognitive Attitudes explaining such willingness; such as genuine respect or genuine concern or solidarity. The second section asks: is mutual recognition between individuals necessary, sufficient, paradigmatic or desirable for group agency? I also ask: is interaction or communication necessary for mutual recognition? I also ask what kinds of groups emerge from mutual recognition as persons? The third section studies more briefly acknowledgement and normativity (Reasons, Values, and Principles). The fourth section discusses the nature of acceptance necessary for the existence of institutions. -/- . (shrink)

The objective of this article was to gain insight into the community health practices of the Awá-Camawari indigenous people of the Vegas Chagüi Chimbuza reservation, situated within the Ricaurte municipality of the Nariño Department. The methodology was qualitative, with a review of the literature supported by the hermeneutical historical approach. Interviews were conducted with 16 informants and two petition rights holders. The findings indicate that there has been minimal progress in the community-differential health model. There are shortcomings in (...) public health policies for indigenous peoples, which have weaknesses and intermittencies that hinder changes. The practices are based on traditional medicine. In conclusion, there are routes that can be taken to guarantee the right to community health, with alliances and strategies that can be used to build collective interest plans that overcome the status quo. (shrink)

Lately, in educational research and debate, there have been discussions on a trend sometimes named as a ‘therapeutic turn’ in education. Mindfulness-oriented activities represent one therapeutic approach in education, aiming for virtues such as patience and trust. A large part of the critical viewpoints on therapeutic education among young students seem to concern problems of integrity, privacy and the autonomy of the student. It is therefore, I suggest, fair to say that meetings between teachers and students are of special concern (...) within the realm of therapeutic education. The aim of this study is to shed light upon two teachers' reflections upon their own work and their students' within a mindfulness-oriented approach in a Swedish secondary school. I turn to Iris Marion Young, a theorist who has dealt with questions of communicative ethics and respectful meetings, for guidance. I find Young's concepts of recognition and distance through the act of greetings interesting and possibly fruitful for discussing qualities in teacher–student relations in therapeutic education from a professional ethical point of view. The analysis shows that Life Competence Education has the potential to be an arena within youth education where traditional roles, hierarchies and relations within education may be challenged. Likewise, because of this potential, it may also function as an arena where traditional structures and hierarchies of education are reaffirmed. (shrink)

This article explores the duality of law with regard to the LGBTQ+ community, examining both its historical regulation of non-heteronormative genders and sexualities and its contradictory potential to transcend such regulations over time. Situated within a postcolonial analytical framework, it undertakes a thematic overview and narrative appraisal of research materials, drawn from a diverse array of social science disciplinary intersections, spanning the timeline from 1990 to 2022, that expounds on the intricate and overlapping imbrications between law and the LGBTQ+ (...) community in India. It was observed that the extant academic deliberations on the subject are dispersed across disciplinary boundaries within the larger scope of humanities and social sciences, necessitating an integrative approach. By delving into the historical antecedents of the subject matter, the current findings are situated within four domains, namely: i) the colonial nexus; ii) the postcolonial public redress; and iii) other domains of sustained legal contestation, such as healthcare, workplace, media censorship, and the fraught terrain of identity and legal lexicon. (shrink)

"The Nordic welfare states have arguably been successful in terms of social solidarity – although the heavily institutional and state-driven solutions as opposed to community- or family-based ones in various issues from child to elderly care may have made it seem as mere ‘quasi-solidarity’ in comparison to more communitarian ideals. This essay approaches such social solidarity in terms of Axel Honneth’s recognition-theoretical framework – arguing that there’s much more potential in Honnethian ideas of recognition and esteem than in Honneth’s (...) official view in Struggle for Recognition linking social solidarity only to social esteem based on contributions to the shared good. The first section briefly introduces Honneth’s three forms of recognition and also distinguishes social solidarity from other relevant notions of solidarity. It points out that there is far from perfect overlap between the ideas of social solidarity and social esteem. Of the three main forms of Honnethian recognition, one can link the notion of social solidarity to respect and care as well, and not primarily to esteem. In the final section these forms of mutual recognition will be discussed in the context of justifying basic income which arguably institutionalises high solidarity, yet is prima facie more straightforward to justify in terms of respect or care than in terms of esteem. The reason is that esteem is supposed to be conditional on differential merits, capacities, contributions or achievements whereas basic income is supposed to be unconditional. Furthermore, section two points out that there may be varieties of esteem and some of such varieties of “politics of esteem” may not that centrally be related to social solidarity. It distinguishes between three contexts of social esteem. One is related to the minimum standing as free from discrimination in terms of disesteem, another is related to one’s being a contributor to the shared social ends in some publicly defined role, and the third is related to excellence in one’s personal projects of self-realisation. The third section articulates some challenges to any kind of ‘politics of esteem’: how to decide whether something is or is not esteem? How would a good society respond to these kinds of cases – especially ones compatible with the modern universalistic ethos? What to think of the positive duties and permissions to engage in the “esteem services” of actually forming opinions and giving recognition? And finally, how to see the relation between social esteem and social solidarity? The sections four to six then go through the three kinds of cases (non-discrimination, contributions, self-realisation), answering the four questions: is this really a kind of esteem? Is it compatible with the ethos of universalism? How to distribute the related duties and permissions? How is it related to social solidarity? These sections map the ethical and political consequences of the claim that full human agency is dependent on positive relations to self, including self-esteem, and that these relations are deeply dependent on the recognition from other individuals and institutions such as the state. The basic Honnethian idea is that a good society is sensitive to the dynamics of self-relations and recognition. For example, the invisible housework by women should get due recognition, and welfare services should not be delivered in a stigmatising or demeaning fashion as stigmatising practices may lead to an internalised sense of inferiority and low self-esteem. Section seven finally takes up the question of basic income in light of the various forms of recognition and esteem, to be followed by a brief conclusion. ". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 17.1 (2003) 73-75 [Access article in PDF] Retrieving Experience: Subjectivity and Recognition in Feminist Politics. Sonia Kruks. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2001. Pp. xii + 200. $35.00 h.c. 0-8014-3387-8; $16.95 pbk. 0-8014-8417-0. Sonia Kruks' latest book, Retrieving Experience, is a valuable contribution to ongoing debates about the relevance of feminist philosophy in a period of relative political quietism. It also offers timely (...) reminders of historical continuities between phenomenological and postmodern conceptions of subjectivity and political engagement. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty, Beauvoir, Fanon, and the later Sartre, Kruks proposes to "explore women's embodied experiences" and to "ask whether they might not offer some means to help build affective bonds among women who are in many ways radically different from one another" (6). The book approaches this task by means of two secondary issues. First, should feminist thought be oriented by phenomenological or postmodernist theoretical strategies? Second, can women's embodied experience be the conceptual basis for political and epistemological practices that avoid the pitfalls of "identity politics" or an "epistemology of provenance"? The answer to both questions comes through the notion of praxis developed in Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason. By thinking of embodiment as praxis or work, a strategy implicit in Beauvoir's idea that "one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." Kruks seeks to resolve the ethical affront of finding one's individuality reduced to the "generality" of a collective—the ethical affront to which feminists of various generations and theoretical persuasions must respond.Retrieving Experience explores the significance of recognition as a political norm. Identifying Sartre's Anti-Semite and Jew as a pivotal work in the history of identitarian theorizing, she situates recent appeals for race- and gender-based political mobilization in the United States with respect to the dialectical relationship between the Look, shame, and recognition existentialists observed in situations of anti-Semitic and colonial domination during and immediately after the Second World War. Legitimating knowledge gained under oppressive conditions formed an important element of African, Southeast Asian, and ultimately African-American and feminist resistance to cultural imperialism. However, Kruks warns, discourses of "recognition" risk placing the blame for group domination on individuals' face-to-face interactions while concealing the role of state and economic institutions in enabling social disdain to systematically damage a group's quality of life. Moreover, they suggest that the experience of subjugation alone justifies knowledge claims or counts, without further elaboration, as an act of political engagement. Kruks argues that knowers and actors need to identify conceptual and practical mediations enabling individual interactions, experiences, and strategies to prompt the recognition and transformation of [End Page 73] group situations. Sartre's notion of praxis, she suggests, explains how an individual can participate in a collectivity while acting autonomously or acquiescing to subjection.The most important passages in Retrieving Experience examine the affective aspects of the decision to take up a political identity or engage in political action. Going beyond Sartre's account of mediations, Kruks suggests that the sensory and emotional qualities of embodiment are themselves mediators, the products of praxis as well as its vehicles. Since any act of social knowledge involves the emotions, affect plays an important role in the process whereby individuals from different cultural, economic, and bodily situations learn about and shape one another's' environment through the act of knowledge. Individuals, then, may have a moral responsibility to learn about others in a way that gives them "sympathetic bodies." Drawing on Maria Lugones' social epistemology, Kruks argues that "world-traveling" or existing simultaneously in several communities or sets of power relations is a bodily act, but also a fully cultural, ethical act rather than a natural way of being. One is not born, but becomes, an embodied knower. Understanding female embodiment as a kind of work or "world-traveling" praxis enables feminist solidarity—"respectful recognition" to replace a historically implausible "sisterhood" or a distinct epistemological perspective as a regulative ideal for feminist politics.But how far can the... (shrink)

Such love, though it expends itself in generosity and thoughtfulness, though it give birth to visions and to great poetry, remains among the sharpest expressions of self-interest. Not until it has passed through a long servitude, through its own self-hatred, through mockery, through great doubts, can it take its place among the loyalties.most readers will be at least generally familiar with the details of Hegel’s so-called struggle for recognition, his account of the emergence of communal life in chapter 4 of (...) the Phenomenology of Spirit. “Consciousness,” the argument’s protagonist, at a certain stage interprets its desire for wisdom as a desire for the regard of another; it first tries to secure it by forcing the.. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to incorporate trans‐national actors and institutions into citizenship theory both theoretically and empirically. We analyze three cases of recognition movements promoting gender, ethnic/minority and indigenous rights. Using one societal context, Sweden, we map the processes and mechanisms of power and agency (boundary‐making and brokering) that shape how trans‐national institutions and actors offer new forms of leverage politics to recognition movements as well as constrain their agency. These mechanisms of power are formalized in a model (...) showing the multi‐level effects of leverage politics on recognition movements. Our three cases of recognition politics demonstrate the increasingly complex links between actors in policy communities across regional, national, European and international levels. They also reveal the processes implicit in our model: that policy imports are reframed when translated into specific national political cultures; and more broadly, that national citizenship frames of membership and inclusion are not easily dislodged. (shrink)

Community engagement (CE) is gaining prominence in global health research. A number of ethical goals–spanning the instrumental, intrinsic, and transformative–have been ascribed to CE in global health research. This paper draws attention to an additional transformative value that CE is not typically linked to but that seems very relevant: solidarity. Both are concerned with building relationships and connecting parties that are distant from one another. This paper first argues that furthering solidarity should be recognized as another ethical goal for (...) CE in global health research. It contends that, over time, CE can build the bases of solidaristic relationships—moral imagination, recognition, understanding, empathy—between researchers and community members. Applying concepts from existing accounts of solidarity, the paper develops preliminary ideas about who should be engaged and how to advance solidarity. The proposed approach is compared to current CE practice in global health research. Finally, the paper briefly considers how solidaristic CE could affect how global health research is performed. (shrink)

The main contribution of this paper is a new account of how a community may introduce a term for a natural kind in advance of knowing the correct scientific account of that kind. The account is motivated by the inadequacy of the currently dominant accounts of how a community may do this, namely those proposed by Kripke and by Putman. Their accounts fail to deal satisfactorily with the facts that (1) typically, an item that instantiates one natural kind (...) instantiates several - 'the higher-level natural kinds problem', and (2) natural kinds often occur in nature in impure form - 'the composition problem' .On the account I propose, a term for a natural kind gains its reference by being associated with a recognitional capacity for that kind. I show how members of a scientifically ignorant community could have a recognitional capacity for a natural kind, say gold, as opposed to a certain kind of appearance, for instance the appearance that gold actually has. I argue that members of such a community can have recognitional capacities for particular natural kinds despite the actual or possible existence of duplicate kinds, e.g. water. After developing the account in detail, I show how it can deal with the two problems faced by Kripke's and Putnam's problem. The case of natural kind terms is crucial to the central debate in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind about whether we can refer non-descriptively to objects and kinds in the world. I take the account I propose to be a non-descriptive account of linguistic reference to natural kinds that can be used to support externalism in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

According to Frege, we need a criterion for recognising when different sentences express the same thought to make progress in logic. He himself hedged his own equipollence criterion with a number of provisos. In the literature on Frege, little attention has been paid to the problems these provisos raise. In this paper, I will argue that Fregeans have ignored these provisos at their peril. For without these provisos, Frege’s criterion yields wrong results; but with the provisos in place, it is (...) of no use for Frege’s purposes. This is connected to what Frege took to be the ‘greatest difficulty for philosophy’: natural language sentences don’t just express thoughts; they convey evaluations and communicative hints. Because of this, Frege’s recognition criterion for thoughts cannot be applied to them and we cannot make logical progress by ‘recognising a thought in different linguistic guises’. (shrink)

This book proposes, from a civil perspective —such as that developed by Stefano Zamagni— and a cordial perspective —such as that developed by Adela Cortina—, orientations to design an economy in tune with what the historical moment demands. Among other things, this comes from encouraging institutions, organisations and companies to include in their designs aspects as important for carrying out their activities as cordial reciprocity, mutual recognition of the communicative and affective capacities of the linked or linkable parties, public commitment (...) and the active participation of civil society. The book first shows the conceptualisation of the process of self-interest as operating for one’s own benefit and its inclusion in the orthodox economic model. In Chapter 2 it then displays some of the logical/formal and experimental limits of the axiomatic economics model to discover the possibility of building bridges between theoretical modelling and factual validation. Chapter 3 demonstrates the fragility of a rationality model based on the paradigmatic figure of homo oeconomicus. Chapter 4 reflects on the critical process that has identified reciprocity as a determining factor for human cooperation, turning this behaviour into a paradox in which the lack of a reasonable explanation from the selfish perspective becomes inconsistent in the predominant economic theory. Chapter 5 is from a moral point of view it describes and criticises the different approaches to reciprocity observed by sociologists, biologists, psychologists and economists. Chapter 6 analyses three mutual recognition proposals as possible foundations for human cooperation, highlighting one of them –cordial recognition, developed by Cortina– because it is more closely related to studies of reciprocity, particularly the most recent contributions from the neurosciences. Chapter 7 proposes cordial reciprocity as a horizon of meaning for the various approaches to reciprocity observed. Chapter 8 explores the possible emergence and development of cordial goods, a type of relational and communicative good that enables joint actions to take place in different contexts of human activity. Chapter 9 analyses the application and implementation of cordial reciprocity at the macro, meso and micro levels of the economy. And finally, it proposes guidelines for designing a monitoring and compliance system which, based on the communication, storage and processing of big data and the committed participation of stakeholders, offers businesses the possibility of inspecting their underlying dimensions of morality, emotions and responsibility. (shrink)

From the perspective of Marek J. Siemek’s theory of modernity, one of the most important problem is to include conflicts into institutional framework of the modern society. He reinterprets Hegel’s dialectics of the struggle for recognition by conceptual tools of Hobbes and Marx in order to uncover hidden assumptions and conditions of possibility of the social rationality. For Siemek, law as purely formal, autopoetic social system or social subject, which produces individual subjects, is the first of the conditions of possibility (...) of modernity. The second one is the convergence of formal and material presuppositions of law—or, speaking generally—the convergence of form and content of the social reason. Form and content, facticity and normativity, instrumentality and communicativity are aspects of the process of rationalization andof the only one reason, self-generating in the history. So for Siemek, the Hegelian model of the struggle for recognition gains its theoretical power only when it is interpreted from the perspective of economical, technical and legal rationalization of modernity. Only such perspective is able to construct “the transcendental social philosophy” which starts from critique of “the non-instrumental reason”. (shrink)

Charles Taylor called for a retrieval of the ethic of authenticity that has been distorted in modern notions of autonomy and self-fulfillment. Via exchanges with others who matter to us, he proposed that human identities develop through the use of rich language draped in shared horizons of significance. The fostering of these dialogical ties beyond purely instrumental purposes, along with the recognition of the human dignity in all, may avert the fallen ideal of authenticity. Nonviolent communication affords the skillful dialogue (...) with others cradled in a shared sense of significance and supports the development of a meaningful identity—one that is formed through the realization of what exists beyond the self. The purpose of this article is to argue that nonviolent communication facilitates the retrieval of the ethic of authenticity. Narratives from nursing students’ journals on the use of nonviolent communication skills will be used to support the argument. (shrink)

La fonction d’auteur se transforme en raison des nouvelles potentialités du numérique, particulièrement de la communication scientifique directe. Néanmoins, le statut de l’auteur d’un discours scientifique répond dans l’univers numérique aux mêmes critères que dans le monde de l’imprimé. Ce sont surtout les modalités d’expression et de diffusion des résultats de la recherche qui changent en raison d’infrastructures et de pratiques scientifiques d’un nouveau genre. Notamment, le dépôt de données dans des systèmes d’information homologués par les chercheurs est reconnu de (...) plus en plus comme une forme de publication. En cela, on assiste à une remise en question et à la proposition de nouveaux modèles d’évaluation et de reconnaissance. La révolution numérique provoque une restructuration des acteurs du système de communication scientifique qui, pour l’heure, donne à voir un tableau d’ensemble fragmenté.New digital potential is profoundly changing the authorship function, especially in direct scientific communication, although authorship of a scientific discourse nevertheless obeys the same criteria in the digital world as in print. What has mainly changed are the methods used to express and disseminate research results, because of the appearance of infrastructures and scientific practice of a new type. In particular, posting data to researcher-approved information systems is increasingly recognised as a legitimate form of publication. This implies that models for evaluation and recognition are being brought into question and new models are being proposed. The digital revolution is transforming the role structure of a scientific communication system where the overall picture, at present, is fragmentary. (shrink)

This book takes up the tension between globalization and community in order to articulate a new theory of global justice. Although the process of globalization is not new, its current manifestation and consequences are. At the same time, there is a growing recognition of the importance of community, identity and belonging. These two facts have generally been understood to be fundamentally in tension, both theoretically and descriptively. This book seeks to resolve this tension, and then draw out the (...) implications for a theory of global justice and an understanding of the value and purpose of community. Importantly, the book argues, not only does an acceptance of the significance of the fact of globalization and the importance of community call for cosmopolitan duties and obligations, but it also calls into question the legitimacy and justification of the traditional nation-state. (shrink)

As rational agents, we are engaged in practices of mutual accountability. We produce reasons that explain and justify what we do. In producing reasons, we address demands of explanation and justification. Where do such demands come from? This is one of the central questions of this chapter. My contention is that in the attempt to make sense of and justify their actions, rational subjects construct reasons in an ideal dialogue with others. In the practice of exchanging reasons, rational subjects address (...) others under different descriptions. To assess the normative force of reasons, it is thus relevant to ask to whom reasons are addressed. On some philosophical accounts, reasons have a local authority insofar as they address others as members of the same community. This is the particularistic view. By contrast, on some other philosophical accounts, reasons are public and universal and address others as equals. This is the universalistic view. I deploy this distinction to articulate some issues about how to understand and measure the normative relevance and impact of web communication in the recent development of antimafia culture. The basic claim is that web communication broadens the scope of the relevant others and thus allows for reasons that have appeal independently of territorial belonging. The focus of the argument will be on the practices of “placing oneself in a space” as distinct sources of normativity. While the argument I produce is largely speculative and exploratory, I hope that it suffices to call attention to some aspects of the antimafia movement, which deserve closer scrutiny, such as the nature of the resources available because of the impact of web communication. As an example of this communication, I take into consideration Libera, an important non-profit organization, which fights the mafia by making a particularly effective use of social networks in building a virtual community of empowerment. (shrink)

The recognition of a pattern of abstract marks as language is simultaneously obvious and undertheorized. Contemporary “asemic poetry” splits the recognition of language from its lexicality, providing an opportunity to consider this recognition directly. It reveals the necessary intervention of an “intentional function” that justifies considering markings as if they were encoded, i.e., as language. This essential moment of sign formation in written communication typically passes automatically without the need for consideration, but asemic poetry specifically allows meditation on that point (...) of transition, allowing the role of cultural knowledge to become apparent in its identification, as well as the Romantic heritage which rejects mechanical reproduction and automation. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The purpose of the article lies in studying the main socio-anthropological measurements of the problem of recognition represented primarily by the philosophy of recognition of Alex Honneth, which is actualized by the struggle of the Ukrainian people for their existence and national-cultural recognition. A consistent analysis of the communicative paradigm in contemporary philosophy led to the understanding of its transformation into the reality of the problem of recognition and the identification of the main forms of recognition in it, which (...) determine an individual’s perception of the social space as fair or unfair, where his dignity is disrespected. _Theoretical basis._ Turning to the works of Jurgen Habermas, Otfried Hoeffe, Ernst Tugendhat, Stefan Gosepath, and Thomas Rentsch made it possible to supplement the mainly procedural, theoretical-communicative way of philosophizing with a philosophical-anthropological, existential, contextual principle of awareness of recognition as a fundamental principle of justice and the understanding that the brutal, unjust destruction of the "living world" of a person and the state is synonymous with their physical destruction. The thesis of Francis Fukuyama about the relationship between the desire for recognition and human dignity inherent in human nature has acquired an important theoretical and methodological meaning. _Originality._ The article investigates the modern philosophical discourse of the problem of recognition in the socio-anthropological measurements, in the context of the relationship between recognition, the "living world" and justice, non-recognition, humiliation of human dignity, and injustice. And it was also found that the image of recognition represented by modern philosophical thought, as a horizon and condition of human existence, is based on the following components: justice, solidarity, dignity, and care. Exactly addressing the problem of recognition made it possible to answer the question about the anthropological-ontological, existential meaning of the desire of individuals, nations, and states for recognition and outline the ways of transforming recognition as a variant of "communicative utopia" into a real socio-cultural project. _Conclusions._ In contrast to justice, the theory of recognition comes from asymmetrical human relations, which, in the struggle for recognition, must become symmetrical. Although justice takes precedence over ethics of care and recognition, they are not actually in competition with each other, but belong to different but complementary dimensions of human existence. The perspective of philosophical understanding of the problem of recognition itself requires the deepening of its analysis with an existential-anthropological understanding rooted in a new, tragic life experience. Only under such conditions, it is possible to overcome the gap between often abstract philosophical reflections and real personal and social practices. (shrink)