A conflict arises from two basic insights concerning what recognition is. I call them the mutuality–insight and the adequate regard–insight. The former is the idea that recognition involves inbuilt mutuality: ego has to recognize the alter as a recognizer in order that the alter’s views may count as recognizing the ego. There always needs to be two–way recognition for even one–way recognition to take place. The adequate regard –insight in turn is that we do not merely desire to be classified (...) as recognizers, but to be treated adequately, in the light of any and all of our normatively relevant features. Both of these insights build on a third central idea, that recognition from others matters because it is relevant to one’s practical relations–to–self: say, respect from others is relevant for self–respect. But crucially for this paper, the two insights pull in different directions – they are in tension when it comes to deciding the scope of “recognition”. This paper is an attempt to negotiate the tension by comparing and assessing more and less restricted views on “recognition”. I discuss four issues on which definitions of recognition may be more or less restricted. The first question concerns the scope of possible recipients of recognition, and the second question possible recipient-dependent conceptual restrictions on whether recognition has taken place at all. On these questions I try to be true to both of the two conflicting insights. The mutuality–insight leads naturally to a strict conception of recognition (only recognizers can be recognized; recognition takes place only when two–way recognition takes place). By contrast, the adequate regard –insight leads to an unrestricted view (also other beings than recognizers can be treated adequately, and one–way adequate regard is conceptually possible). I argue that the tension between these is best negotiated by a two–part story, which will distinguish terminologically recognizing (and being recognized) from successfully giving and getting recognition. It is slightly unfortunate to have to draw such technical terminological distinctions, but drawing this distinction helps to make substantive points that upon reflection need to be made, given the mutuality–insight and adequate regard–insight. Or so I argue. The other two questions are: what sort of responses to what sort of features amount to recognition. Again, the adequate regard –insight would lead to an unrestricted normativist view: any kinds of responses that are normatively called for by any normatively relevant features may be cases of recognition. The mutuality – insight might motivate a narrower suggestion developing the idea that only other recognizers (or persons) can be recipients of recognition : only the kind of features that can only be had by other recognizers (or persons) can serve as the basis of recognition, and only the kind of responses, which are forms of taking the other as a recognizer (or a person) count as recognizing . I will argue that while such responses to such features are an important subclass of recognition, the unrestricted normativist view captures the full scope of recognition better. We should not in advance define recognition in a restricted way which rules some cases out (even though the mutuality–insight might seem to motivate some restrictions). We can fully preserve the force of the mutuality–insight with the two–part story, without restricting the scope of features and responses that amount to recognition. (shrink)

Dieses Buch ist ein Klassiker der philosophischen Anthropologie und Arnold Gehlens wichtigstes Buch. Es fasst Gehlens Modell vom Menschen als eines auf Handlung und kulturelle Kompensation angewiesenen und sich damit eigentatig von der ihn bedrohenden Umwelt entlastenden "Mangelwesens" gultig zusammen. Auch wurde in "Der Mensch" 1950 erstmals Gehlens Institutionenlehre skizziert, die er aus der Revision seiner ursprunglichen Theorie "oberster Fuhrungssysteme" entwickelte. Gehlens Hauptwerk war "ohne Zweifel der fortgeschrittenste Versuch, die Philosophische Anthropologie an die Erkenntnisse empirischer Disziplinen zu binden". Diese Ausgabe (...) bringt die textkritische Edition der Kritischen Gesamtausgabe mit dem Text der 4. Auflage von 1950, der die letzte tiefgreifende Umarbeitung darstellt, die Gehlen an dem erstmals 1940 erschienenen Text vornahm. (shrink)

This text explores the ethical significance of identity, including our gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion and sexuality, for our obligations to others and to ourselves.

_Contexts of Justice,_ highly acclaimed when it was published in Germany, provides a significant new intervention into the important debate between communitarianism and liberalism. Rainer Forst argues for a theory of "contexts of justice" that leads beyond the narrow confines of this debate as it has been understood until now and posits the possibility of a new conception of social and political justice. This book brings refreshing clarity to a complex topic as it provides a synthesis of traditions and theories (...) that leads to a truly original approach. Forst makes a four-part distinction to decipher the debate between communitarianism and liberalism. These four parts concern the constitution of the self, the neutrality of law, the ethos of democracy, and the opposition between universalism and contextualism. He shows that a comprehensive theory of justice needs to take these different contexts adequately into account. He discusses recent debates about discursive democracy and feminist critiques of liberalism, and addresses such topics as multiculturalism and civil society. (shrink)

Frontmatter -- VORWORT ZUR ERSTEN AUFLAGE -- VORWORT ZUR ZWEITEN AUFLAGE -- INHALT -- Erstes Kapitel. ZIEL UND GEGENSTAND DER UNTERSUCHUNG -- Zweites Kapitel. DER CARTESIANISCHE EINWAND UND DIE PROBLEMSTELLUNG -- Drittes Kapitel. DIE THESE -- Viertes Kapitel. DIE DASEINSWEISEN DER LEBENDIGKEIT -- Fünftes Kapitel. DIE ORGANISATIONSWEISEN DES LEBENDIGEN DASEINS. PFLANZE UND TIER -- Sechstes Kapitel. DIE SPHÄRE DES TIERES -- Siebentes Kapitel: Die Sphaere des Menschen -- NACHTRAG -- SACHREGISTER -- NAMENSREGISTER -- Backmatter.

In an era of heightened concern about injustice in relations of identity and difference, political theorists often prescribe equal recognition as a remedy for the ills of subordination. Drawing on the philosophy of Hegel, they envision a system of reciprocal knowledge and esteem, in which the affirming glance of others lets everyone be who they really are. This book challenges the equation of recognition with justice. Patchen Markell mines neglected strands of the concept's genealogy and reconstructs an unorthodox interpretation of (...) Hegel, who, in the unexpected company of Sophocles, Aristotle, Arendt, and others, reveals why recognition's promised satisfactions are bound to disappoint, and even to stifle.Written with exceptional clarity, the book develops an alternative account of the nature and sources of identity-based injustice in which the pursuit of recognition is part of the problem rather than the solution. And it articulates an alternative conception of justice rooted not in the recognition of identity of the other but in the acknowledgment of our own finitude in the face of a future thick with surprise. Moving deftly among contemporary political philosophers, the close interpretation of ancient and modern texts, and the exploration of rich case studies drawn from literature, history, and modern politics, Bound by Recognition is at once a sustained treatment of the problem of recognition and a sequence of virtuoso studies. (shrink)

Struggles for recognition are at the same time struggles over what it means to recognize and be recognized. Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth propose two mutually exclusive ways to understand recognition: either as a matter of justice or as a matter of identity. This article argues against the limitations of both of these construals of recognition, and offers a third way of construing it: as a matter of freedom. Recognition is not reducible, empirically or normatively, to any of these, however. (...) Moreover, it needs to be regarded both more critically and more openly since what we are dealing with is a practice and an ideal that is by its very nature deeply contestable and therefore subject to unforeseeable historical and normative change. Rather than trying to fix the meaning of recognition in order to give it a determinate role in ambitious theories of justice, it would be better to proceed more sceptically, attentive both to the complexities of recognition relations and to alternative ways of conceiving them and going on with them differently from before. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION 'Anthropology' does not have quite the same meaning in Germany as it has in English-speaking countries. As the word is used in the latter ...

It is always great good fortune for an author to have his writings meet with a receptive circle of readers who take them up in their own work and clarify them further. Indeed, it may even be the secret of all theoretical productivity that one reaches an opportune point in one's own creative process when others' queries, suggestions, and criticisms give one no peace, until one has been forced to come up with new answers and solutions. The four essays collected (...) here, in any event, jointly represent an ideal form of such a challenge: I am now compelled to make further theoretical developments and clarifications that lead me to a whole new stage of my own endeavours, well beyond what I initially had in mind in The Struggle for Recognition . For this reason, I will not concentrate here on interpretative issues regarding my earlier work but will instead take up the problems and challenges that have occasioned several revisions on my part. For this reason, it makes sense to begin (in section I) with the points that Carl-Göran Heidegren makes, in terms of a history of social theory, regarding my proposed theory of recognition. The issues that still motivate me today can best be expressed via an engagement with the conscientious interpretations he offers. The core of this rejoinder is based on Heikki Ikäheimo's and Arto Laitinen's suggestions and corrections, which they have used to develop my initial approach further, to the point where the theoretical outlines of a precise and general concept of recognition come into view. It is primarily these two contributions that helped me develop a productive elaboration of my originally vague intuitions (section II). By way of conclusion (in section III), I take up the penetrating questions raised by Antti Kauppinen regarding the use of the concept of recognition in the broader context of social criticism; he has compelled me to take on several extremely helpful clarifications, and they give me the opportunity, in conclusion, to summarize my overarching intentions. (shrink)

"Contexts of Justice is a study that covers and definitely exhausts the whole range of ten years of one of the most important recent philosophical discussions, that between liberals and communitarians."--Jurgen Habermas, author of Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere "Forst addresses with great insight and acuity the debates over justice between liberals and communitarians that animated the late '80s and '90s...He uses no jargon, he reasons well, his arguments are strong, clear, and accesssible, and he avoids political correctness as (...) well as its opposite."--Andrew Arato, author of Civil Society, Constitution, and Legitimacy. (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.

Study one: Between phenomenology and hermeneutics -- Study two: Between imagination and language -- Study three: Between myth and tradition -- Study four: Between ideology and utopia -- Study five: Between good and evil -- Study six: Between poetics and ethics -- Dialogue 1: Myth as the bearer of possible worlds -- Dialogue 2: The creativity of language -- Dialogue 3: Universality and the power of difference -- Dialogue 4: Imagination, testimony, and trust -- Dialogue 5: On life stories.

In this pathbreaking study, Axel Honneth argues that "the struggle for recognition" is, and should be, at the center of social conflicts.

In this 1989 book Rorty argues that thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein have enabled societies to see themselves as historical contingencies, rather than as expressions of underlying, ahistorical human nature or as realizations of suprahistorical goals. This ironic perspective on the human condition is valuable on a private level, although it cannot advance the social or political goals of liberalism. In fact Rorty believes that it is literature not philosophy that can do this, by promoting a genuine sense (...) of human solidarity. A truly liberal culture, acutely aware of its own historical contingency, would fuse the private, individual freedom of the ironic, philosophical perspective with the public project of human solidarity as it is engendered through the insights and sensibilities of great writers. The book has a characteristically wide range of reference from philosophy through social theory to literary criticism. It confirms Rorty's status as a uniquely subtle theorist, whose writing will prove absorbing to academic and nonacademic readers alike. (shrink)

The only collection of Mead's writings published during his lifetime, these essays have heretofore been virtually inaccessible. Reck has collected twenty-five essays representing the full range and depth of Mead's thought. This penetrating volume will be of interest to those in philosophy, sociology, and social psychology. "The editor's well-organized introduction supplies an excellent outline of this system in its development. In view of the scattered sources from which these writings are gathered, it is a great service that this volume renders (...) not only to students of Mead, but to historians."--H. W. Schneider, Journal of the History of Philosophy. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION Ever since the beginning of the modern phenomenological movement disciplined attention has been paid to various patterns of human experience as ...

One of liberalism’s core commitments is to safeguarding individuals’ autonomy. And a central aspect of liberal social justice is the commitment to protecting the vulnerable. Taken together, and combined with an understanding of autonomy as an acquired set of capacities to lead one’s own life, these commitments suggest that liberal societies should be especially concerned to address vulnerabilities of individuals regarding the development and maintenance of their autonomy. In this chapter, we develop an account of what it would mean for (...) a society to take seriously the obligation to reduce individuals’ autonomy-related vulnerabilities to an acceptable minimum. In particular, we argue that standard liberal accounts underestimate the scope of this obligation because they fail to appreciate various threats to autonomy. (shrink)

In this article a wide range of candidates for features that are defining of personhood are conceived of as interrelated, yet irreducible, layers and dimensions of what it is to be a person in the full-fledged sense of the word. Three layers of personhood -- consisting of person-making psychological capacities, person-making interpersonal significances, and person-making institutional or deontic powers -- are distinguished. Running through the layers there are then two dimensions -- the deontic and the axiological -- corresponding to the (...) recognitive attitudes of respect and love. These recognitive attitudes of 'taking something/-one as a person' are responses to the psychological layer and directly constitutive of the interpersonal layer of the respective dimensions of personhood. The multiplicity of ways to understand what 'personhood' means is only apparently chaotic and reveals, on a closer look, a well-ordered and dynamic internal structure. (shrink)