poliTE-Literatur-Datenbank

Nance, Michael (2016): Hegel's social and political philosophy. Recent debates. In: Philosophy Compass 11 (12), S. 804-817. DOI: 10.1111/phc3.12384

Abstract: This article discusses three topics that have been the subject of debate in recent scholarship on Hegel's social and political philosophy: first, the relevance of Hegel's systematic metaphysics for interpreting Hegel's social and political writings; second, the relation between recognition (Anerkennung), social institutions, and rational agency; and third, the connection between the constellation of institutions and norms that Hegel calls ethical life (Sittlichkeit) and Hegel's theory of freedom. This article provides a critical overview of the positions in these three debates. In the case of the first debate, I clarify the conceptual terrain by distinguishing between several kinds of systematicity that are at issue. In the case of the second debate, I argue that the views of two of the major participants, Axel Honneth and Robert Pippin, are in fact compatible. In the case of the third debate, I seek to clarify the connection in Hegel between two different ideas of freedom in ethical life, each of which has been emphasized by different interpreters of Hegel: the idea of freedom as non-alienation and the idea of freedom as social freedom. I conclude with a discussion of the ways in which ethical life, for Hegel, enables the freedom of individuals.

Keywords: alienation and recognition, Anerkennung, Disziplin, Erkenntnistheorie, Hegel, Ontologie, Philosophie, RECOGNITION, Soziale Angemessenheit, Sozialphilosophie, Überblick

Angella, Marco (2015): Work, recognition and subjectivity. In: European Journal of Social Theory 19 (3), S. 340-354. DOI: 10.1177/1368431015594443

Abstract: Recently, following the social and subjective consequences of the neoliberal wave, there seems to be a renewed interest in work as occupying a central place in social and subjective life. For the first time in decades, both sociologists and critical theorists once more again regard work as a major constituent of the subject's identity and thus as an appropriate object of analysis for those engaged in critique of the social pathologies. The aim of this article is to present a succinct analysis of Axel Honneth's thoughts on the concept of work and to propose an approach granting it a more substantial role in social theory. To this end, this article will embark upon a reappraisal of the importance of the material and psychological dimensions of the subject's interactions in the world of work. It aims to demonstrate that the normative demands associated with these dimensions are, like the normative demands of recognition, immanent and universal. In other words, it will argue that the normative ideals related to individuals' bodily and psychic life (in the workplace and beyond) are not necessarily utopian in the negative sense (abstract and unrealistic). If this is indeed the case, theorists could take these normative demands for emancipation as a guide to analyzing the sociological, political and moral implications of the transition from the Fordist' to the post-Fordist' organization of labor.

Keywords: alienation and recognition, Anerkennung, Arbeit, Disziplin, Honneth, Honneth und aktuelle Kritische Theorie, Pathologie, Philosophie, Soziale Angemessenheit, soziale Pathologien, Sozialphilosophie

Decker, Kevin S. (2012): Perspectives and ideologies. A pragmatic use for recognition theory. In: Philosophy & Social Criticism 38 (2), S. 215-226. DOI: 10.1177/0191453711427260

Abstract: 'Recognition' is a normative concept denoting the ascription of positive status to a group or an individual by (an) other(s). In its larger meaning, it carries the implication that when a group or an individual can justifiably expect such a positive status-ascription, its denial (misrecognition) is unjustified and unethical. I discuss the role that the concept of recognition can play at the intersection of two philosophies, pragmatism and contemporary critical theory. My perspective is one that embraces the 'pragmatic turn' in critical theory and sees the possibility of reciprocal benefit for pragmatism in how critical theory handles issues of material culture, alienation and networks of power. I argue that a critical social theory incorporating pragmatist presuppositions ought to bring the concept of recognition to bear in how it isolates and treats the 'real interests' of groups and individuals who have suffered and continue to suffer from broad social ascriptions of negative status, or who, through lack of voice and access to the public sphere, remain paralysed to participation in a thriving liberal democracy. In doing so, I do not construe recognition primarily as 'positive tolerance' or understanding of cultural, ethnic, or gender identity, but as a minimally substantive tool for understanding, and potentially correcting, how misrecognition impacts the collective and individual agency of the historically oppressed.

Keywords: alienation and recognition, Anerkennung, Anerkennung als menschliche Grundkategorie, Disziplin, Favoriten, Honneth, Honneth und aktuelle Kritische Theorie, Modelle/Theorien, Philosophie, Pragmatische Einbettung der Anerkennungstheorie, Pragmatismus, Soziale Angemessenheit, Sozialphilosophie

Canivez, Patrice (2011): Pathologies of recognition. In: Philosophy & Social Criticism 37 (8), S. 851-887. DOI: 10.1177/0191453711413701

Abstract: Recognition is not only a response to social pathologies. It is also an unstable and often ambivalent relationship that has its own pathologies. Owing to the intertwining between recognition and power, certain forms of recognition turn out to be forms of alienation in or from the world. Such pathologies affect inter-individual recognition as well as the recognition between individuals and the socio-political institutions. The article proposes a joint reading of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and Philosophy of Right, which provide norms for identifying and dealing with these pathologies. The norm for inter-individual recognition is set out in the Phenomenology of Spirit, the norm for state/citizen recognition in the Philosophy of Right. The analysis envisages two other aspects of recognition: the interference of the 'I-Me' with the 'I-You' relationship and the incorporation of the 'I-We' into the 'We-Us' dimension of recognition. As regards the interpretation of Hegel's practical philosophy, the article analyses the link between Hegel's concept of recognition and his theory of action. In this view, the highest form of recognition has more to do with reconciliation - reconciliation between human beings, reconciliation with the 'finitude of action' - than with the problematic of individual and collective identity.

Keywords: alienation, alienation and recognition, Anerkennung, Anerkennung als menschliche Grundkategorie, Disziplin, Entfremdung, Entfremdung bei Hegel, finitude of action, Hegel, Hegels Begriff der Anerkennung, Menschsein als Voraussetznug für soziale Angemessenheit?, Philosophie, power relationships, RECOGNITION, Soziale Angemessenheit, Sozialphilosophie, universal freedom

Lynch, Richard A. (2008): The Alienating Mirror. Toward a Hegelian Critique of Lacan on Ego-Formation. In: Human Studies 31 (2), S. 209-221. DOI: 10.1007/s10746-008-9083-z

Abstract: This article brings out certain philosophical difficulties in Lacan's account of the mirror stage, the initial moment of the subject's development. For Lacan, the "original organization of the forms of the ego" is "precipitated" in an infant's self-recognition in a mirror image; this event is explicitly prior to any social interactions. A Hegelian objection to the Lacanian account argues that social interaction and recognition of others by infants are necessary prerequisites for infants' capacity to recognize themselves in a mirror image. Thus mutual recognition with another, rather than self-recognition in a mirror, is what makes possible subsequent ego-formation and self-consciousness. This intersubjective critique suggests that many of the psychoanalytic consequences that Lacan derives from the mirror stage (e.g., alienation, narcissism, and aggressivity) may need to be rethought.

Keywords: alienation and recognition, Anerkennung, Anerkennung als menschliche Grundkategorie, Disziplin, Entfremdung, Favoriten, Lacan, Modelle/Theorien, Philosophie, (post)strukturalistische Ansätze, postmodern, Poststrukturalismus, Psychoanalyse, Psychologie, Soziale Angemessenheit, Sozialphilosophie, Theorie des Spiegelstadiums (Lacan)