Towards a Conflict Theory of Recognition: On the Constitution of Relations of Recognition in Conflict

Abstract

In this paper, we develop an understanding of recognition in terms of individuals’ capacity for conflict. Our goal is to overcome various shortcomings that can be found in both the positive and negative conceptions of recognition. We start by analyzing paradigmatic instances of such conceptions—namely, those put forward by Axel Honneth and Judith Butler. We do so in order to show how both positions are inadequate in their elaborations of recognition in an analogous way: Both fail to make intelligible the fundamental nexus between relations of recognition and individuals’ capacity for conflict. We then move on to reconsider aspects of Hegel's view of recognition—ones that, from our viewpoint, have been unjustly neglected in the debate about recognition: his focus on the constitution of relations of recognition in conflict and on the status of being an author of acts of recognition. On this basis, we then spell out in a more systematic way what we take to be a more convincing conception of recognition. This puts us in the position to gesture at some consequences of this conception in practical contexts, above all with regard to the justification, role and structure of political institutions..

The struggle for recognition of what?

“…Where the Aristotelian view draws a limit is at the idea that we could gain a picture of our form of life that was complete in a sense that left nowhere for the critic to stand. In any case, none of the methods Freyenhagen suggests for getting the whole in view (comparison with past and contemporary outlooks, Bernard Williams' "critical theory test," genealogy, standpoint epistemology, and satire) are ruled out as methods available to neo-Aristotelian reflexive criticism as I defend it here.20 On this point, I agree withBertram and Celikates (2015): "[I]t is not the case that engaging in these practices [of reflexive criticism] requires agents to suspend their first-order practices in order to enter into a process of critical reflection that is relieved of the pressure that accompanies first-order practices. Rather, reflection is an integral component of the firstorder practices themselves" (p. 847).…”

“…The idea of objectively existing, recognition‐meriting value‐properties seemed to lend credence to Nancy Fraser's charge that a version of the “myth of the given” lay behind Honneth's vision of normative critique (Fraser, in Fraser & Honneth, , p. 204). Perhaps sensing a pseudo‐problem, some abandoned the debate altogether as “beside the point,” either because they held that the failure to recognize others' evaluative qualities is not, ultimately, what is at stake in theorizing injustice (Markell, , p. 204) or because they held that recognition, properly understood, is not aimed at others' evaluative qualities at all (Bertram & Celikates, , p. 849). Honneth, for his own part, introduced a complex middle view called “moderate value realism” (, , ), which attempted to reconcile the perception model with a historicized, subjectively mediated conception of value.…”

“…In this respect, I thinkBertram and Celikates (2015) are correct to point out that, despite the emphasis Honneth places upon notions of historical change, revisability, and temporally extended learning processes, "the three principles of recognition he has in view are already established and strive to obtain their full extension as a matter of their telos" (p. 5).10 I am using the phrase "evaluative objectivity" in a broad sense: one is committed to the possibility of evaluative objectivity as long as one thinks that evaluative judgments concerning ethical life can be rationally criticized (as, e.g., false, wrong, misleading, and deluded). To reject the possibility of evaluative objectivity in this broad sense is to give up on the notion that our evaluations of ethical life could ever be wrong, thus returning us to the attribution model.…”

An ideology critique of recognition: Judith Butler in the context of the contemporary debate on recognition

“…Similarly, Bertram and Celikates assume that for Butler “[r]ecognition is as such ‘reifying’ because the ‘recognition of X as Y’ makes it so that X is determined or regarded as Y. Thus, an experience of alienation and misrecognition always accompanies recognition” (Bertram & Celikates, , p. 843). According to McQueen's reading of Butler, recognition can “be experienced as a coercive imposition that undermines .…”

On The Consistency Of Axel Honneth’s Critical Theory: Methodology, Critique, And Current Struggles For Recognition

“…Given this background, which once again shows social praxis partially falling off, would it not be more fruitful to turn to other critical social theories-Foucauldian, for example-or develop approaches coming closer to the first generation of critical theorists (particularly Adorno, where the experience of injustice did not need to relate to large cooperative praxis), thus leaving room for more radical critique of the present? Indeed, as I remarked in outlining what at the beginning of the paper (Part II, section A) appeared to be a methodological dilemma, in order to develop the ambitious theory that I examined, Honneth needs to refrain from going into deeper analysis of the variety of empirical experience, 118 from elaborating a more conflict-oriented model of critical theory, 119 and from proposing a phenomenologically richer account of power relations 120 both in and beyond the Western paradigm of modernity. 121 Had he not refrained from doing so-i.e., had he integrated into his theory dimensions that are not reducible to his concept of recognition-his project of making recognition the ground of his interesting variant of the Frankfurt school model of critical social theory would have failed.…”