Abstract
I argue that Axel Honneth (2012), reappropriated Colwyn Trevarthen's distinction between primary and secondary intersubjectivity,into his critical social theory. How the concept of primary intersubjectivity gets re-incorporated, or indeed, re-cognized in Honneth’s conception of recognition, however, is a complex issue that Iexplore in this essay. It is linked to questions not only about child development, but also about whether one should understand recognition in terms of a summons (Aufforderung), following Fichte, or in terms of a struggle, as Honneth, following Hegel, suggests, or in terms of a gift, as Ricoeur, following Hénaff suggests.
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Notes
- 1.
Research on this paper was supported by the Humboldt Foundation’s Anneliese Maier Research Award.
- 2.
Fichte (2000), 31.
- 3.
Nance (2012), 612.
- 4.
Fichte (2000), 39.
- 5.
Fichte (2000), 42.
- 6.
Nance (2012), 622.
- 7.
Honneth (1995), 16.
- 8.
Honneth (1995), 16.
- 9.
Honneth (1995), 17.
- 10.
Ibid.
- 11.
Honneth (2008a), 17.
- 12.
Honneth (1995), 19.
- 13.
Honneth (2008a), 43.
- 14.
Ibid., 45.
- 15.
Ibid., 46.
- 16.
- 17.
- 18.
Honneth (1995), 98–99.
- 19.
Honneth 1995, 99. Honneth (2012) also writes: “It is true that infants’ early experiences of fusion do not have an intersubjective structure owing to the fact that they lack a sufficiently differentiated partner with whom a relationship would need to be formed; but paradoxically, we can only grasp this early state by employing the concept of primary intersubjectivity.” For Honneth it is paradoxical to call it primary ‘intersubjectivity’ precisely because, on Winnicott’s view, it is not intersubjective.
- 20.
Honneth (1995), 100; emphasis added.
- 21.
Ibid., 101.
- 22.
Honneth (2012), 15.
- 23.
Ibid., 17.
- 24.
Ricoeur (2005), 174.
- 25.
Marcelo (2011), 117.
- 26.
Taminiaux (1997), 55.
- 27.
Sartre (1976), 131.
- 28.
Taminiaux (1997), 177.
- 29.
Taminiaux (1997), 55.
- 30.
Hegel (1997), 409.
- 31.
- 32.
Ricoeur (2005), 69.
- 33.
Ibid., 216, 218.
- 34.
Ibid., 219.
- 35.
- 36.
Ricoeur (2005), 235.
- 37.
Marcelo (2011), 116.
- 38.
On some explanations primary intersubjectivity is hardwired in the activation of mirror neurons, so that a basic motor resonance or a basic empathy is automatic. There are various debates about this issue, as well as debates about the nature of neonate imitation. For the young infant, however, whether the response is spontaneous or automatic, it involves a process that draws the infant into what eventually becomes full-fledged intersubjective interaction. As Reddy (2015) suggests, as the infant develops, she (the infant) comes to recognize the other’s response as a response to (or recognition of) her.
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Gallagher, S. (2017). The Struggle for Recognition and the Return of Primary Intersubjectivity. In: Fóti, V., Kontos, P. (eds) Phenomenology and the Primacy of the Political. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 89. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56160-8_1
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