WINNER OF THE SIMON HAILWOOD ESSAY PRIZE. This paper discusses the problem of alienation from nature, considered through the phenomena of reification and de-objectification. I propose understanding alienation as the result of a distorted relation between the subjective and the objective and I suggest a tentative solution via the combination of two ethico-political practices: releasement and reappropriation. In doing so, I put forward a structural-ethical critique and response to our current ecological crisis.

What is recognition and why is it so important? This book develops a synoptic conception of the significance of recognition in its many forms for human persons by means of a rational reconstruction and internal critique of classical and contemporary accounts. The book begins with a clarification of several fundamental questions concerning recognition. It then reconstructs the core ideas of Fichte, Hegel, Charles Taylor, Nancy Fraser, and Axel Honneth and utilizes the insights and conceptual tools developed across these chapters for (...) developing a case for the universal importance of recognition for humans. It argues in favour of a universalist anthropological position, unusual in the literature on recognition, that aims to construe a philosophically sound basis for a discourse of common humanity, or of a shared human life-form for which moral relations of recognition are essential. This synthetic conception of the importance of recognition provides tools for articulating deep intuitions shared across cultures about what makes human life and forms of human co-existence better or worse, and thus tools for mutual understanding about the deepest shared concerns of humanity, or of what makes us all human persons despite our differences. -/- Recognition and the Human Life-Form will appeal to readers interested in philosophical anthropology, social and political philosophy, critical theory, and the history of philosophy. It also provides ideas and conceptual tools for fields such as anthropology, education, disability studies, international relations, law, politics, religious studies, sociology, and social research. (shrink)

This paper argues that relations of mutual recognition (love, respect, esteem, trust) contribute directly and non-reductively to our flourishing as relational selves. -/- Love is important for the quality of human life. Not only do everyday experiences and analyses of pop culture and world literature attest to this; scientific research does as well. How exactly does love contribute to well-being? This chapter discusses the suggestion that it not only matters for the experiential quality of life, or for successful agency, but (...) that it actualizes our nature as “relational selves” (Chen, Boucher & Kraus 2011). I defend a hybrid or pluralist theory, which sees humans not only as subjects of experiences, or agents, or valuers, but also as relational selves. Expanding from love to other interpersonal relations, thriving relations of mutual recognition (love, respect, esteem, trust), contribute directly and non-reductively to our flourishing as relational selves. The paper will start by putting forward the proposal (Section 2), and then discussing it in relation to important alternatives. The focus is on alternatives which hold that love, and other forms of mutual recognition, are important for well-being, but only indirectly. One kind of challenge against the constitutive role of relations to others for well-being comes from the traditional theories that accommodate relations in some indirect ways (Section 3). A second kind of challenge admits that perhaps love is central to well-being in a direct way, but do we have reason to believe that other forms of mutual recognition are as well? (Section 4) Yet another kind of challenge is that love matters for the quality of lives in some other way than contributing to its prudential value: love is good, but is it good for us? (Section 5) A fourth kind of challenge concerns what we are, and the nature of “essentialism” involved in the approach stressing relational selfhood: cannot, say, motherhood contribute to one’s good life even if motherhood is contingent and not essential? (Section 6). In debates on recognition the idea that mutual recognition is also relevant for well-being has been put forward, for example in Axel Honneth’s (1992, ch.9 ) ”formal” theory of good life. Whatever else constitutes good life, relations of recognition form its backbone (cf. Ikäheimo 2014). Surprisingly little however is written about mutual recognition and well-being in detail, or recognition in comparison to traditional theories of well-being. This chapter aims to fill some of that void, and at the same time defend the view that well-being is one of the normative notions with which mutual recognition has a constitutive relationship. (shrink)

The growing appreciation of the global environmental crisis has generated what should have been a predictable response: those with power are using it to appropriate for themselves the world’s diminishing resources, augmenting their power to do so while further undermining the power of the weak to oppose them. In taking this path, they are at the same time blocking efforts to create forms of society that would be ecologically sustainable. If there is one word that could bring into focus what (...) is wrong with this response it is ‘democracy’. Democracy means power in the hands of the people, which, by definition, means opposition to the concentration of power. It is inconceivable that if we had genuine democracy, where people were fully informed of the issues, they would not choose to share the burdens of scarcity and organize to live in accordance with the limits of their environment. Yet the notion of democracy is problematic. Those striving to concentrate power are pursuing this in the name of democracy. They have identified democracy with the imposition of free markets and the freedom of people to use their wealth to dominate others. In this paper I will show how process philosophy provides the basis for justifying and further developing the traditional notion of democracy to counter this reformed notion, providing a vision of a democratic form of society that could address environmental problems. To achieve this, I will argue, it is necessary to reformulate the grand narrative of civilization on the basis of human ecology, a science which, construing humans as participants in a creative nature, can replace economics as the master science for formulating public policy. (shrink)

One of the most influential recent developments in supposedly radical philosophy is ‘posthumanism’. This can be seen as the successor to ‘deconstructive postmodernism’. In each case, the claim of its proponents has been that cultures are oppressive by virtue of their elitism, and this elitism, fostered by the humanities, is being challenged. In each case, however, these philosophical ideas have served ruling elites by crippling opposition to their efforts to impose markets, concentrate wealth and power and treat everyone and everything (...) as mere instruments in a way that is not only undermining democracy and threatening economic, social and political stability through growing inequality, but is crippling efforts to deal with the global ecological crisis. Philosophers, Nietzsche claimed, are physicians of culture. Why should people claiming to be philosophers, or at least aligned with philosophers, subvert their own calling? In this paper I will suggest that with the expansion of education and the rise of neoliberalism, those involved in education and research, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, have been proletarianized, and most have accepted this proletarianization. They have been reduced to a fraction of the proletariat - wage-slaves without economic security and therefore dependent on the will of others on whom they are dependent. They are not ordinary wage-slaves, however, but wage-house-slaves, having salaries rather than wages. If, as Marx argued, social being determines consciousness, posthumanism can be understood as the expression of ressentiment of these house-slaves at their condition while simultaneously serving to affirm their superiority to field-slaves while serving their masters. Their work is supported because it provides ideological cover for their masters, the new transnational managerial class or corporatocracy as they expand their power through information technology, while absolving this corporatocracy from responsibility for the consequences of their growing power. In making this claim I will argue that the real target of deconstructionists and posthumanists, although this is now seldom appreciated, has been the humanism of the New Left, a revival of the Radical Enlightenment inspired by Renaissance civic humanism and the German Renaissance. (shrink)

This essay offers a comparative analysis of the notion of trust in Hegel and Confucius. It shows that Hegel’s two senses of trust depend upon his theory of recognition and recognitive struggle. The competitive thrust of Hegel’s account of trust, it argues, introduces a series of problems that cannot be adequately resolved within his theory, since it presupposes the kinds of trusting relations—self-, intersubjective- and world-trust—that it purports to explain. This essay then turns to the Confucian notions of xin 心 (...) and li 理 to address the problems in the Hegelian account. It concludes by outlining the Confucian account’s salience for critical social theory. (shrink)

Artikkelen er en fenomenologisk og hermeneutisk betraktning av Trondheims minnepark for 22. juli-ofrene. Bakgrunnen ligger i et etisk moment av hermeneutisk selvkritikk, som utspilte seg i storsamfunnets reaksjoner på terroren, og som parken må sees i lys av. Artikkelen tar utgangspunkt i at flere av diktene som er slipt inn i minneparkens hvite betong, tematiserer behovet for mellommenneskelig anerkjennelse. Ved hjelp av kunstteoretikeren Bourriaud og filosofene Fichte og Hegel synliggjøres det hvordan dette temaet – mellommenneskelig anerkjennelse – kan sies å (...) være integrert i parkens helhetlige estetikk. Siste del drøfter ved hjelp av Gadamer hvordan anerkjennelse også er relevant for aktiviteten med å gå omkring og lese diktene i parken. Til sammen belyser artikkelen hvordan minneparken utgjør en sammenveving av det etiske og det estetiske, og hvordan ordet minne her har to betydninger. Med parken minnes vi ofrene for terroren i betydningen kollektiv hukommelse, eller in memoriam. Samtidig blir vi påminnet vår evne til å være i relasjon med andre mennesker, og til å vokse i relasjonelt samspill. Den siste betydningen er filosofisk, og spiller på betydningen gjenerindring. Nøkkelord: hermeneutisk selvkritikk, anerkjennelse, deltakelse, hverdagslighet, lesning English summary: "Becoming fully oneself by being seen." On the connection between ethics and aesthetics in Trondheim's Memorial Park for the July 22 victims This article presents a phenomenological and hermeneutical consideration of Trondheim's Memorial Park for the July 22 victims. The background evolves in an ethical and hermeneutical form of self-criticism, which emerged in Norway in the public reactions to the terror. The article observes the fact that several of the poems embedded in the white concrete of the Memorial Park promote the need for interpersonal recognition. Through considering ideas of Bourriaud, Fichte, and Hegel, the author demonstrates how this very theme of interpersonal recognition is integrated into the park's overall aesthetics. The author considers how recognition is also relevant to the activity of reading the poems in the park through evoking Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics. In sum, the article demonstrates how the Memorial Park constitutes a joining of the ethical and aesthetic dimensions and how the word memorial [Norwegian: minne] here gains two meanings. In the park we remember the victims of the terror in the sense of collective memory, or in memoriam. At the same time, we are reminded of our ability to be in relationship with other people and to grow in relational interaction. The latter sense is philosophical and draws on the meaning of recollection. Keywords: hermeneutical self-criticism, recognition, participation, everyday life, reading. (shrink)

This article aims to locate the connections between Hegel’s philosophy and psychoanalytic theory, with a particular focus on the model of intersubjectivity, as drawn from his Phenomenology of Spirit. The roots of the encounter between the philosophy of Hegel and psychoanalytic theory can be traced back to Jacques Lacan and the less well‐considered figure of Jean Hyppolite. Lacan, as a psychoanalyst, used Hegel’s thought in his own theory, as is well known, while Hyppolite was arguably one of the first to (...) write from a philosophical angle about the links between the two seemingly opposed systems of thinking. I will give a broad overview of the use of Hegelian philosophy in psychoanalytic theory from the Hyppolite–Lacan relationship through to contemporary thinkers in the fields of philosophy and psychoanalysis. Although recently the figure of Slavoj Žižek has popularised the Hegel‐psychoanalysis connection, there remains much more to be explored in this branch of Hegel studies that widens the scope beyond the Lacanian‐Marxist version he employs. This article will survey existing literature (in the English language) and thus illuminate the key texts in the history of Hegel’s impact on psychoanalytic theory and the concept of intersubjectivity and gesture towards the future potential of this line of inquiry. (shrink)

In this paper I rely on recent literature that emphasises the importance of recognition in Hegel's philosophy in order to apply the recognition-theoretic approach to the notion of sacrifice in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Firstly, I conduct a preliminary analysis by examining the general meaning of sacrifice as a form of determinate negation. Secondly, I focus on two phenomenological moments (the struggle between ?faith? and ?pure insight?, and the cult) in order to answer the question, ?Is a real (effective and (...) unselfish) sacrifice possible?? Finally, I argue that sacrifice should be considered as a Darstellung, and I explain the twofold connection between sacrifice and recognition. I conclude that there is no sacrifice without recognition, and the process of recognition is intrinsically sacrificial. (shrink)

: This paper explicates and defends the thesis that individual rational judgment, of the kind required for justification, whether in cognition or in morals, is fundamentally socially and historically conditioned. This puts paid to the traditional distinction, still influential today, between ‘rational’ and ‘historical’ knowledge. The present analysis highlights and defends key themes from Kant’s and Hegel’s accounts of rational judgment and justification, including four fundamental features of the ‘autonomy’ of rational judgment and one key point of Hegel’s account of (...) ‘mutual recognition’. These themes are linked to Kant’s and Hegel’s transformation of the modern natural law tradition. The results explain why Kant’s and Hegel’s philosophy are indeed the origins of the properly pragmatic account of rationality, why the pragmatic account of rationality provides genuine rational justification and why this pragmatic account of rational justification is consistent with realism about the objects of empirical knowledge and with strict objectivity about moral norms. > Russian translation : Nelly Motroshilova, ed., К 200-летию выхода в свет «Феноменологии духа» Гегеля, 195–219. > Turkish translation : ‘Hegel’in Tinin Görüngübilimi’nde Karşihkh Onanma ve Ussal Gerekçelendirme’. MonoKL 4–5 :212–231. (shrink)

This article explores Axel Honneth’s attempts to reconnect the struggles of workers with the normative content of modernity through Hegel’s intersubjective account of recognition. The importance of Honneth’s writings lies in his attempt to extend Habermas’ account of normative self-constitution to labor via the morally motivated struggles of workers to correct the modern maldistribution of social worth. To this extent, the expansion of ethical life is predicated on the struggles of excluded participants to gain inclusion within the normative content of (...) modernity. From this perspective Habermas’ attempt to legitimate the exclusion of labor (by the system) from the normative content of modernity appears unjust and unjustified. Unfortunately, Honneth shares with Habermas a tendency to locate the economic system beyond the (culturally defined) limits of ethical life. He thereby fails to acknowledge the extent to which workers play a major role in re-moralizing the former via the de-reification of the latter. (shrink)

We show how an epistemology informed by cognitive science promises to shed light on an ancient problem in the philosophy of mathematics: the problem of exactness. The problem of exactness arises because geometrical knowledge is thought to concern perfect geometrical forms, whereas the embodiment of such forms in the natural world may be imperfect. There thus arises an apparent mismatch between mathematical concepts and physical reality. We propose that the problem can be solved by emphasizing the ways in which the (...) brain can transform and organize its perceptual intake. It is not necessary for a geometrical form to be perfectly instantiated in order for perception of such a form to be the basis of a geometrical concept. (shrink)

A central question along which phenomenological approaches to sociality or intersubjectivity have diverged concerns whether concrete interpersonal encounters or sharing a common world is more fundamental in working out an adequate phenomenology of human sociality. On one side we have philosophers such as the early Sartre, Martin Buber, Michael Theunissen, and Emmanuel Levinas, all of whom emphasize, each in his own way, the priority of some mode of interpersonal encounters (broadly construed) in determining the basic character of human coexistence. On (...) the other side, we have philosophers such as the early Heidegger and the early Merleau-Ponty (and here I would also include Gadamer and the later Wittgenstein), who argue that an adequate account of human sociality must begin, in the proper order of understanding and hence explanation, with how we always already exist in a shared or common world. Which side is right in this debate? I argue that once we correctly understand the precise sense (or way) in which the common world is more fundamental than concrete interpersonal encounters, this enables us to understand how there is no real opposition between the phenomenological conception of the common world and the experience of the other, even in its radical otherness. (shrink)

Interpretations of Hegel’s social and political thought tend to present Hegel as critic of modern individualism and defender of institutionalism or proto-communitarianism. Yet Hegel has praise for the historically emancipatory role of individualism and gives a positive role to individuals in his discussion of ethics and the state. Drawing on Hegel’s analysis of the category of ‘individual’ in his Logic, this chapter shows that Hegel criticizes the conception of ‘individual’ as a simple and argues instead that it is a term (...) in need of specification or completion. Hegel’s revisionary logic of the category of ‘individual’ is both interesting in itself and useful as an interpretative tool, because it shows the consistency of his various statements about individuals in his practical philosophy. (shrink)

Argues that love plays an essential—if often implicit—role in Hegel's mature theory of moral subjectivity and political community.

In this response I first address the criticisms of omission by discussing some of the elements of the original project that were excluded in the final version (section 1). In section 2 I respond to Howard’s criticism that I assume too much transparency in conscience. In section 3 I discuss the problem of evil and the transition in the Phenomenology of Spirit from conscience to religion. I focus here especially on the distinction between Objective and Absolute Spirit, and on how (...) that distinction plays out differently in the Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Right. In section 4 I take up the specifically political issues of conscience, responding to Speight’s suggestion that conscience should have a transformative role and to De Nys’s query about the State’s relationship to dissenting moral and religious views. Finally, in section 5 I take up the issues of whether I and Hegel do justice to the range of uses of conscience and whether or not the Hegelian view is too optimistic about modernity. (shrink)

The concept of recognition (Anerkennung in German) has been in the center of intensive interest and debate for some time in social and political philosophy, as well as in Hegel-scholarship. The first part of the article clarifies conceptually what recognition in the relevant sense arguably is. The second part explores one possible route for arguing that the „recognitive attitudes‟ of respect and love have a necessary role in the coming about of the psychological capacities distinctive of persons. More exactly, it (...) explores the possibility that they are necessary in the kind of intersubjective relationship in which normal human infants engage in the pre-linguistic communicative practice of pointing things to others, as described by Michael Tomasello. If an incapacity to participate in the already Gricean communicative practices of pointing makes it also impossible for the infant to learn symbolic communication, and if without the immediately intrinsically motivating other-regarding attitudes of recognition communicative pointing does not get off the ground (at least among the most intelligent animals currently known to exist), then the capacity for recognition may be a decisive difference between humans and their closest non-human relatives. That is, it may be why only human infants, but no other animals, are capable of embarking on a developmental journey that normally leads to full-fledged psychological personhood. If this is so, then the concept of recognition, today mostly discussed in social and political philosophy and Hegel-studies, could turn out to be a very useful tool in cognitive scientific work interested in specifically human forms of social intentionality, cognition, volition and so forth. (shrink)

This paper covers the theme of the death of God considered from a Hegelian standpoint. For Aristotle, the image of God as ‘thought thinking itself’ was an image of the knowledge aspired to in philosophy. With the notion of God becoming man and his insistence on the icon of the Cross, Hegel challenged the Aristotelian goal of philosophy as immutable knowledge of an ‘ultimate’ reality. Hegel viewed the crisis of normativity as strictly linked to the conception of the self. It (...) is Nietzsche who is best known for alluding to the full significance of this image for modern life, but Hegel’s thought on the complex relations of philosophy and religion in the modern world can be regarded as an attempt to think through this same historical phenomenon. In this paper, I focus on the philosophical relevance of Hegel’s notion of the death of God. I argue that unpacking the significance of the ‘truths’ presented symbolically in modern Christianity is crucial in unders.. (shrink)

In this paper I provide an interpretation of Hegel’s account of ‘recognition’ (Anerkennung) in the 1802-3 System of Ethical Life as a critique of Fichte’s account of recognition in the 1796-7 Foundations of Natural Right. In the first three sections of the paper I argue that Fichte’s account of recognition in the domain of right is not concerned with recognition as a moral attitude. I then turn, in section four, to a discussion of Hegel’s critique and transformation of Fichte’s conception (...) of recognition. Hegel’s transformation consists, I argue, in the claim that a comprehensive account of recognition in the domain of right must be concerned with recognition as a moral attitude. (shrink)

This paper argues that Hegel's depiction of knowledge, as presented in the Encyclopaedia philosophy of subjective Spirit, is founded on what he deems to be the practical interests of self-consciousness. More specifically, it highlights the significance of the will in Hegel's understanding of the cognitive process. I begin with a survey of the relation between category-formation and the notion of self-determining freedom in the Logic , and therewith draw attention to the unity of thinking and willing in the Concept. I (...) then indicate how Hegel's philosophy of subjective Spirit should be read as the applied logic of the Concept, according to which the socially constituted self-conscious I seeks to realise its claims to freedom through its theoretical cognitions of objects. As part of what could be called Hegel's integrative theory of the faculties, I finally argue that the will underscores both the determinate character of our theoretical cognitions and the reflexivity of knowledge in general. On this score, I maintain that Hegel, whose relation to Kant and Fichte I also consider, is of the view that it is with reference to willing that we can account for the self-referential nature of reason in toto as the actualised unity of theoretical-practical subjectivity. (shrink)

In Totality and Infinity Levinas presents the 'face to face' as an account of intersubjectivity, but one which maintains the absolute difference of the Other. This essay explores the genesis of the 'face to face' through a discussion of Levinas in relation to Buber. It is argued that Levinas' account of subjectivity shares much in common with Fichte's theory of subjectivity. It is further argued that while the 'face to face' clarifies and opposes traditional problems in social ontology, the 'face (...) to face' is unable to avoid the traditional problems of social ontology that it seeks to avoid. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Fichte's attempt to reconcile the dualism of concept and intuition requires the overcoming of any idea of a thing-in-itself. At the same time he preserves the idea of an external constraint on the I's self-positing. This central role for the realist constraint of the check conflicts with recent interpretations of Fichte that see his project as advocating the exclusivity of the space of reasons. The striving subject confronts and unifies the opposition between the realistic (...) and idealistic elements in the Wissenschaftslehre. It is argued that as striving, reason's drive for self-determination is a process of self-transformation, as consciousness confronts the limitations of its inadequate explanations of the objects of experience. (shrink)

Anstoß e intersubjetividad son dos conceptos fundamentales a partir de los cuales Fichte explica la importancia de la exterioridad en la actividad del yo. En la presente investigación analizo estos dos conceptos centrales en la filosofía temprana de Fichte. Primeramente presento una nueva interpretación del término Anstoß y analizo la relación entre ambos conceptos. Después argumentaré que ambos conceptos forman parte de un proyecto general que consiste en mostrar el carácter holístico de la subjetividad. Se trata, grosso modo, de mostrar (...) la coherencia y continuidad de estas dos líneas de argumentación a las que remiten los dos conceptos con miras al establecimiento de lo que Fichte mismo llamó “historia prágmática del espíritu humano”. La idea central de este artículo es mostrar que los dos conceptos son complementarios sin contradecirse, formando parte de un proyecto general en Fichte. (shrink)

The main goal of this paper is to argue the relevance of Hegel’s notion of the Trinity with respect to two aspects of Hegel’s idealism: the overcoming of subjectivism and his conception of the ‘I’. I contend that these two aspects are interconnected and that the Trinity is important to Hegel’s strategy for addressing these questions. I first address the problem of subjectivism by considering Hegel’s thought against the background of modern philosophy. I argue that the recognitive structure of Hegel’s (...) idealism led him to give the Trinity a decisive role in his philosophical account. Next, I discuss the Trinity by analysing the three divine persons. This analysis paves the way for the conclusion, where I argue that the Trinity represents a model for re-thinking the ‘I’ in a way that overcomes a ‘naïve realist’ and a ‘subjective’ account of the self. I suggest that Hegel’s absolute idealism can be conceived as an approach to the ‘I’ that considers the role of acts of mutual recognition for the genesis of self-conscious thought, and that the Trinity is the Darstellung of the relational and recognitive structure of the ‘I’. (shrink)

This is a case study of goldsmith craft apprenticeship learning and recognition. The study includes 13 participants in a goldsmith's workshop. The theoretical approach to recognition and learning is inspired by sociocultural theory. In this article recognition is defined with reference to Hegel’s understanding of the concept as a transformed struggle of granting acknowledgement to another person plus receiving acknowledgement as a person. It is argued that the notion of recognition can enhance sociocultural notions of learning. In analysing the case (...) study of apprenticeship learning, the article suggests that recognition is expressed in the act of participants staking their lives to prove their autonomy, in work activity in terms of the role of artefacts and in the form of abstract and concrete recognition. Finally recognition is discussed in relation to learning and development. The study concludes that recognition is an important category not only to explain apprenticeship learning but also to give a sociocultural explanation of learning in general. (shrink)

This article makes several conceptual proposals for a closer analysis of recognition more or less in line with Axel Honneth's account of recognition: (1) a proposal as to the genus of recognitional attitude and recognition, (2) a sketch of an analytical scheme intended to be heuristically useful for analysing the different species of recognitional attitude and recognition, (3) some proposals as to the precise contents of self-conceptions involved in each species and subspecies of recognition, and (4) suggestions as to the (...) relation of the species of recognitional attitude to social settings and concrete personal relationships as well as to the totalities of attitudes instantiated in these settings and relationships. A guiding idea is that the somewhat mechanistic Meadian vocabulary of 'urges' and 'internalizations' of Honneth's original formulations should be replaced with formulations where recognition is consistently conceptualized as consisting of attitudes with propositional or judgmental content. (shrink)

I Ville verdier oppfordrer Sigurd Hverven til å anerkjenne at planter, dyr, arter og naturområder på jorda i løpet av naturhistorien har oppnådd et mylder av verdier. I senere tid har mennesker fått makten til å ødelegge mange av disse naturverdiene. Det gir oss som lever nå et nytt ansvar for naturen. I boka undersøker Hverven hvordan mennesker kan erkjenne natur, hva natur er og om naturen har verdi i seg selv. Tankegangen munner ut i et historisk forankret imperativ: Tenkning (...) og praksis må innrettes slik at jordas verdifulle evne til å frembringe og opprettholde mangfold ikke skades ytterligere. (shrink)

A widely debated question in current research centres on determining the precursors to G. W. F. Hegel's theory of recognition. Until now Fichte, Rousseau and Aristotle have been discussed. However, the present paper analyses a further surprising correspondence between Marsilio Ficino's theory of love and Hegel's theory of recognition. Here it is shown that Hegel studied Ficino in 1793 and that we can discover syntactical, semantical, and structural vestiges of Ficino's De amore II 8 in Hegel's early fragments on religion (...) (1793) and love (1797), which are closely related to the general theory of recognition found in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Not only may this thesis be relevant for Hegel or Ficino scholarship, but it could also be a further indication that social theories with normative content are an integral characteristic of (early) modern self-consciousness. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine Robert Williams’s account of Hegel’s concept of divine “personhood.” I endorse Williams’s claims that God, for Hegel, is not a person but exhibits only personhood, and that divine personhood realises itself in a human community based on mutual recognition. I take issue, however, with Williams’s further claim that Hegel also takes God and humanity to stand in a relation of mutual recognition to one another, since this claim, in my view, risks turning God into a (...) person after all. To conclude, I briefly consider a difference between Williams and myself concerning the relation of right to mutual recognition. (shrink)

Indigenous cultural possessions constitute a diverse global issue. This issue includes some culturally important, intangible tribal objects. This is evident in the Australian copyright cases viewed in this study, which provide examples of disputes over traditional Indigenous visual art. A proposal for the legal recognition of Indigenous cultural possessions in Australia is also reviewed, in terms of a new category of law. When such cultural objects are in an artistic form they constitute the tribe's self-presentation and its mechanism of cultural (...) continuity. Philosophical arguments for the legal recognition of Indigenous intellectual `property' tend to assume that the value of Indigenous intellectual property is determinable on external criteria. (shrink)

La filosofía feuerbachiana supone un relevante paso en la superación de cierta tradición filosófica basada en categorías meramente especulativas y metafísicas, y ello a partir de una concepción ética y antropológica que enraíza directamente con la perspectiva del reconocimiento recíproco. No obstante, el peso que adquiere la dimensión afectiva en la propuesta ética de Feuerbach problematiza, de hecho, la posibilidad de considerar la perspectiva del reconocimiento como contenido normativo de la moral a la hora de formular pretensiones de universalidad. En (...) este sentido, el presente trabajo trata de reflexionar sobre la actualidad del pensamiento feuerbachiano a partir de la reconstrucción de dicha perspectiva recognoscente, teniendo en cuenta tanto sus límites como posibilidades. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se lleva a cabo un análisis comparativo de las concepciones fundamentales de la “autoconciencia” de J. G. Fichte y G. H Mead. Tal análisis busca demostrar, como tesis central, que ambas concepciones convergen en la configuración de una idea del sujeto autoconsciente en la que la interacción intersubjetiva se pone a la base de condición de posibilidad del “yo” (Fichte) o del “sí mismo” (Mead). Esta demostración obliga a explicitar los modelos de intersubjetividad que subyacen a (...) las respectivas nociones de autoconciencia, representados, en el caso de Fichte, en la teoría de la “exhortación” y, en Mead, en la teoría de la “asunción de roles”. En esta exploración se busca poner de manifiesto que ambas nociones describen un orden de la intersubjetividad práctica en virtud de la significación normativa contenida en ambos modelos, es decir, en virtud de las actitudes y comportamientos que exigen de los sujetos para toda relación intersubjetiva lograda. Esta significación normativa permite apropiarse finalmente del sentido último que encierran ambas nociones de la autoconciencia: el que ésta es, para ambos pensadores, un fenómeno posible sólo por la mediación social que le precede y en la que se halla originariamente inmersa. (shrink)

Hegel’s theory of freedom is complex and sweeping, and while most interpreters of Hegel will readily agree that it is the centerpiece of his political philosophy, perhaps also of his social philosophy and philosophy of history, they will just as readily disagree about what exactly the theory claims. Such interpretive disagreements have fueled, in large part, the resurgence of interest in Hegelian philosophy over the last few decades.

The ethical and political thinking of Axel Honneth—German philosopher and leading scholar in the third generation of Frankfurt School Critical Theorists—has garnered considerable attention since his seminal Struggle for Recognition. In his writings, Honneth seeks to demonstrate a new outlook for the relationship between the I, the Other, and We: a scheme in which the I and the Other would not be that of assimilation—but a peaceful We, while at the same time preserving their different value systems and identities. This (...) was done by way of a three-tiered model of mutual recognition for understanding societal relations. On the other hand, Honneth’s theory has been criticized by critics such as Fraser and Pensky as Eurocentric, the implied normative superiority of which renders Honneth’s ethical theory prone to the exclusion of the “other” which he so adamantly seeks to affirm. This paper examines the extent to whichHonneth’s response to such critiques liberates his theory from its purported exclusionary and unethical orientation. Neither side of the debate, however, seems to put forth a final formulation of the relationship between the I and the We. In this vein, this research proposes a concretized account of recognition, necessitating, in turn, an interculturaland dialogical approach to this theory. (shrink)

An individual is in the lowest phase of moral development if he thinks only of his own personal interest and has only his own selfish agenda in his mind as he encounters other humans. This lowest phase corresponds well with sixteenth century British moral egoism which reflects the rise of the new economic order. Adam Smith (1723–1790) wanted to defend this new economic order which is based on economic exchange between egoistic individuals. Nevertheless, he surely did not want to support (...) the moral theory of British egoism. His book The Wealth of Nations suits well into the world view of British moral egoism, but in the book The Theory of Moral Sentiments, he presents a moral theory which is the total opposite of moral egoism. Contemporary German intellectuals saw contradiction in Adam Smith’s moral (social) philosophy which they called as Das Adam - Smith - Problem . Smith himself didn’t think that there is any contradiction in a situation where in economic sphere (civil society) individual act egoistically and in ethical sphere (encounter with the imagined Other) he feels humanity and compassion toward his fellow men. Hegel was a passionate reader of Adam Smith and he acknowledged Das Adam - Smith - Problem . He set the task of his social philosophy to overcome this paradox. He wanted to create a theory of a social totality where economic egoism and feelings of humanity are not in contradiction. In the same time Hegel wanted to create a theory on Bildung process where human spirit develops from moral un-freedom (heteronomy) to moral freedom and maturity (autonomy) taking care both aspect of love and reason. In certain Hegel’s texts notion of recognition plays crucial role. That is why modern Hegelians Ludwig Siep, Axel Honneth and Robert Williams consider the notion of recognition to be elementary in Hegel’s threefold theory of developing human spirit from family via civil society to sittliche state . For Hegel family is a sphere where people love their “concrete other” and where feeling surpasses reason. Civil Society is a sphere of private contracts and economic exchanges where cold egoistic and calculative reason surpasses feelings. In the sphere of State the contradiction between family and Civil Society ( Das Adam - Smith - Problem ) is solved by “rational feeling”. According to Hegel State should protect citizens from alienating effect of egoistic reason of Civil Society and cultivate “family-feelings” to rational feelings which integrate citizen into “sittliche community” through reciprocal process of recognition. In this article I want to consider Hegelians Honneth’s and Williams’s relevance to the theory of moral development. (shrink)