Chapter Ten Thinking with Axel Honneth and Nancy Fraser
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Paul Michael Garrett
Abstract
Among the few things I took in during my stint in the Philosophy Department at Humboldt was the idea – I forgot whose – that the underlying motive for all human action is the desire for recognition – recognition of one’s worth and dignity as a human being, without which one was a nonperson; a slave. The concept had articulated very precisely the obscure cravings of my soul, and it had lodged itself in my imagination. It had felt incontrovertible. (Lasdun, 2007, p 133)
Like the central character in James Lasdun’s (2007) novel Seven lies, a number of writers located within the field of social work appear to have become fixated with the ethics and politics of recognition. Many have made thoughtful contributions stressing the relevance of this theorisation for practitioners’ day-to-day encounters with the users of social services.
Within philosophy, ‘recognition designates an ideal reciprocal relation between subjects in which each sees the other as its equal … one becomes an individual only in virtue of recognizing, and being recognized by, another subject’ (Fraser, 2003, p 10). The German philosopher Hegel (1770–1831) coined the phrase the ‘struggle for recognition’ (‘Kampf um Anerkennung’), but it was the early 1990s that marked a resurgence of academic interest in this theme. According to Charles Taylor (1992, p 26), ‘recognition is not just a courtesy we owe people’, it is a ‘vital human need’.
The ‘two most prominent main contemporary theorists of recognition’ are the neo-Hegelian philosophers Taylor and Honneth (Fraser, 2003, p 28). Published in 1992, the former’s The politics of recognition, variously referred to as a ‘catalytic essay’ (Markell, 2003, p 2) or ‘signal essay’ (McNay, 2008, p 2), probably remains the single most influential work on the theme in contemporary political theory.
Abstract
Among the few things I took in during my stint in the Philosophy Department at Humboldt was the idea – I forgot whose – that the underlying motive for all human action is the desire for recognition – recognition of one’s worth and dignity as a human being, without which one was a nonperson; a slave. The concept had articulated very precisely the obscure cravings of my soul, and it had lodged itself in my imagination. It had felt incontrovertible. (Lasdun, 2007, p 133)
Like the central character in James Lasdun’s (2007) novel Seven lies, a number of writers located within the field of social work appear to have become fixated with the ethics and politics of recognition. Many have made thoughtful contributions stressing the relevance of this theorisation for practitioners’ day-to-day encounters with the users of social services.
Within philosophy, ‘recognition designates an ideal reciprocal relation between subjects in which each sees the other as its equal … one becomes an individual only in virtue of recognizing, and being recognized by, another subject’ (Fraser, 2003, p 10). The German philosopher Hegel (1770–1831) coined the phrase the ‘struggle for recognition’ (‘Kampf um Anerkennung’), but it was the early 1990s that marked a resurgence of academic interest in this theme. According to Charles Taylor (1992, p 26), ‘recognition is not just a courtesy we owe people’, it is a ‘vital human need’.
The ‘two most prominent main contemporary theorists of recognition’ are the neo-Hegelian philosophers Taylor and Honneth (Fraser, 2003, p 28). Published in 1992, the former’s The politics of recognition, variously referred to as a ‘catalytic essay’ (Markell, 2003, p 2) or ‘signal essay’ (McNay, 2008, p 2), probably remains the single most influential work on the theme in contemporary political theory.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents vii
- About the author x
- Preface and acknowledgements xi
- Introduction 1
-
Debating modernity
- ‘How to be modern’: theorising modernity 21
- ‘Solid’ modernity and ‘liquid’ modernity 43
- Modernity and capitalism 57
- Modernity, neoliberalism, crisis 77
-
Theorists
- Thinking with Antonio Gramsci 103
- Thinking with Pierre Bourdieu 123
- Thinking with Jürgen Habermas 153
- Thinking with Michel Foucault 167
- Thinking with Axel Honneth and Nancy Fraser 189
- Alternative directions? Alain Badiou, Antonio Negri and Italian Autonomist Marxism, Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello 205
- Conclusion: looking for the ‘blue’ 231
- References 237
- Index 275
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents vii
- About the author x
- Preface and acknowledgements xi
- Introduction 1
-
Debating modernity
- ‘How to be modern’: theorising modernity 21
- ‘Solid’ modernity and ‘liquid’ modernity 43
- Modernity and capitalism 57
- Modernity, neoliberalism, crisis 77
-
Theorists
- Thinking with Antonio Gramsci 103
- Thinking with Pierre Bourdieu 123
- Thinking with Jürgen Habermas 153
- Thinking with Michel Foucault 167
- Thinking with Axel Honneth and Nancy Fraser 189
- Alternative directions? Alain Badiou, Antonio Negri and Italian Autonomist Marxism, Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello 205
- Conclusion: looking for the ‘blue’ 231
- References 237
- Index 275
