Anders Petersen

An Interview with Axel Honneth The Role of Sociology in the Theory of Recognition

Axel Honneth, the successor of Jürgen Habermas at the Department of Philosophy, University of Frankfurt, has over the last decade written several important essays and a handful of comprehensive books in social philosophy and critical theory. At the centre of his work we find a new and insightful theory of the good life, that of human self-realization, which was completed in his path-breaking study The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts (Honneth, 1996a). Honneth’s approach can be summarized as follows: the possibility of realizing one’s needs and desires as a fully autonomous and individual being, that is, the possibility of identity formation, depends on the development of self-confidence, self-respect, and self-esteem. It is important to note that these three concepts serve as theoretical, technical concepts, and their meaning differs from our everyday usage (Zurn, 2000: 16). What is important to Honneth is that these three forms of relating to oneself can only be maintained in intersubjective, symmetrical and reciprocal relationships, since they ensure a successful life. Each form of self-relation is situated within three corresponding modes of recognition: (a) emotional support as experienced in primary relationships; (b) cognitive respect in legal relations; and (c) social esteem within a community of shared values. Therefore, violations of recognition patterns, withheld recognition or forms of disrespect such as abuse, denial of rights, exclusion, denigration and insult, can be viewed as distortions of the good life (Honneth, 1996b). Thus, Honneth is concerned with pointing out the disruptions, pathological distortions, everyday troubled identities and experiences of humiliation, suffering and injustice, ranging from the relatively harmless case of not greeting someone to the serious case of stigmatization (Honneth, 2000b: 27). The task is therefore, according to Honneth, to elucidate and diagnose those developmental processes that can be characterized as social pathologies (Honneth, 1996b: 370). Although Honneth’s work is primarily focused on social philosophy, it invites and inspires new sociological thinking. First, his recent appointment as director for the Institute for Social Research at Frankfurt University, whose work is primarily empirical, allows Honneth to situate and further develop his theory European Journal of Social Theory 5(2): 265–277

Work and Recognition Reviewing New Forms of Pathological Developments

The article deals with the relationship between work and recognition, taking Axel Honneth’s social-philosophical theory of the struggle for recognition as its point of departure. In order to give sociological substance to Honneth’s theory, we turn to three contemporary social theorists - Jean-Pierre Le Goff, Christophe Dejours and Emmanuel Renault. In spite of many differences, their work is united by a critical description of the logic of work and its consequences for individual individuation. These theorists agree that the growth of autonomy, flexibility and mobility has destabilised individual and collective identity formation and has led to an increase in social pathological illnesses such as stress and depression. By juxtaposing these analyses with Honneth’s theory on recognition, we conclude that the contemporary logic of work is unable to provide adequate forms of recognition. Individuals are seemingly caught up in a continual battle for recognition without ever having the possibility of receiving proper respect.

Authentic self-realization and depression

The central point of this article is that the burgeoning depression rates of our day may be understood in relation to the normative demand for self-realization with which contemporary western individuals are confronted. The article argues that the expectation of lasting fulfilment of authentic self-realization may be regarded as a chronic stress factor for the individual and risks creating depression. The modern view of depression supports this perspective. Depression is today regarded as the precise opposite of successful self-realization, and consequently, as a repression of life’s possibilities for self-realization. The article also discusses how treatment with antidepressants fits into this interpretive frame — how antidepressants can be regarded as a kind of action technique which can support the individual in attempts to realize his or her authentic self. Finally, the article discusses the possible problems which may arise from this treatment approach.

Depression - a social pathology of action

This article argues that the epidemic of depression is to be understood alongside the normative conditions of self-realisation associated with the emergence of the new spirit of capitalism. In the new spirit of capitalism, active realisation of the authentic self is an institutionalised demand, which is expected to be converted into praxis. This is interesting in relation to the phenomenon of depression, as it means that contemporary depression may be understood, not as a clinical and subjective condition, but as a mode of action. What is applauded in todays society is precisely what depressive individuals lack – namely the ability to realise themselves in accordance with contemporary normative values. Thus, within present-day society, depression and the institutionalised/capitalist demands for self-realisation have become each others antitheses.

Who and What Does Involvement Involve? A Multi-Sited Field Study of Involvement of Relatives in Danish Psychiatry.

This article gives an account of aspects of a multi-sited field study of involvement of relatives in Danish psychiatry. By following metaphors of involvement across three sites of the psychiatric system—a family site, a clinical site and a policy site—the first author (J.O.) investigated how, and on what grounds, involvement of relatives is perceived in Danish psychiatry. Paradoxically, the current understanding of involvement of relatives fails to take into consideration the perspectives of the relatives per se and families that were being studied. By analyzing involvement from a discourse theoretical perspective laid out by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, the aim of this study is to show how the dominant discourse about involvement at the political and clinical sites is constituted by understandings of mentally ill individuals and by political objectives of involvement. The analysis elucidates how a psycho-ideological discourse positions the mentally ill person as weak, incapable, and ineffective. By contrast, the supporting relative is positioned as a strong, capable, and effective co-therapist. Furthermore, the analysis considers how this dominant discourse of involvement is constituted by a broader discourse of neoliberalism and market orientation, which justifies involvement as a subtle institutionalization of social control. The article highlights that the role of the relative as a co-therapist may be contested by the families’ discourse, which emphasizes issues concerning the responsibility toward the mental health of the ill individual as well as toward the psychological milieu of the family.

Depression: Diagnosis and suffering as process

Abstract The high rates of depression – as well as the widespread diagnosis of depression – are both controversial and contested in contemporary late-modern society. Issues of flawed definition have been voiced to account for the bourgeoning rates of depression and the diagnosis has been subject to criticism of medicalization and pharmaceuticalization. Others have stated that the actualization of depression is to be seen in light of societal and structural transformations. Be that as it may, depression is affecting more and more people and the diagnosis is prevalent. In this context, a more nuanced understanding of how people relate to, experience and ascribe meaning to their suffering as depression and being diagnosed as such is needed. This article draws on qualitative interviews from Denmark and Norway to explore lay accounts of depression in contemporary late-modern society. The findings reveal that lay accounts of suffering, including living with the diagnosis of depression is a dynamic process, meaning that people vacillate in and out of various perspectives of suffering and categorization to make it fit their specific life situation and prospects of the future. In this article we thus highlight the perspectives of thoroughly analyzing suffering and the diagnostic experience by applying the overall concept of process, which takes on different meanings in the course of the analysis.

Fra Anomi til Anerkendelse: om den øgede fokusering på depressioner og stigningen i forbruget antidepressiva

Der argumenteres for at det kan betaie sig at tage Durkheims antagelse alvorligt, nemlig at samfundets mentale tilstand afhænger af dets evne til normativ integration. Hvor Durkheim betegnede sin samtid som anomisk på grund af den permanente konkurrence og de voldsomme økonomiske udsving, påpeges det her at nutidens neo-liberale økonomiske idé resulterer i en forøget fokusering på depression og en stigning i forbruget af antidepressiva. Dette vises ved hjælp af Alain Ehrenberg der analyserer det normative indhold i depression og antidepressiva og Christophe Dejours der knytter den neo-liberale ide til et begreb om lidelse på grund af manglende anerkendelse. Durkheim er blevet kritiseret for ikke at kunne levere et normativt alternativ til sin samtidsdiagnose som kunne være med til at afvikle den anomiske tilstand, og nærværende artikel vil derfor forsøge at pege på Axel Honneths socialfilosofiske alternativ der på én gang kan være med til at forklare fokuseringen på depression og agere som filosofisk terapi. Dette gøres ved at pege på manglen på anerkendelse som en mulig forklaring, ligesom tilstedeværelsen af anerkendelse i sig selv kan udgøre et alternativ.

Introduction: thematic section on social pathologies of contemporary modernity

Social pathology was once a mainstream concern of the social sciences, but over the years it has become associated with conventional, ‘old fashioned’, or normatively conservative standpoints. For instance, the social science focus on social pathologies of the early and mid-twentieth century was on specific topics, such as alcoholism, crime and delinquency and (what was seen at that time as) sexual deviance. Conscious of this problematic antecedence and its narrowly ideological and moralistic legacy, this Social Pathologies of Contemporary Modernity thematic section of Distinktion breaks decisively from this anachronistic context, as indicated by its three distinct emphases: the focus on the Social – i.e. historical and cultural as opposed to reductive psychological and biomedical – sources of Contemporary epidemic pathologies; and, extending beyond the urgency of the new pathologies and beyond the immediate and particular context(s) of the present societ(ies) in which they occur, the analysis extends to encompass principles and processes of global Western modernity as a whole. Our central hypothesis is that the characteristic malaises and disorders of our times are related to cultural pathologies of the social body and disorders of the collective esprit de corps of contemporary society. Hence, our focus is on understanding contemporary problems of health and well-being in the light of radical changes of social structures and institutions, extending to deep crises in our civilization as a whole in the wake of two recent and ongoing ‘revolutions’, namely the conditions of post-modernity and the hegemony of neo-liberalism. The social pathologies of contemporary modernity – depression, stress-related illnesses, eating disorders, suicide and deliberate self-harm, to name just a few – are the subject of much discussion today, and they are the problems recognized and targeted by mental health professionals and in public health campaigns promoting mindfulness and well-being. While sympathetic to these problems and while aware of these developments in public mental health promotion and appreciative of them insofar as they are well-intentioned, this thematic section of Distinktion is concerned with understanding more widespread social pathologies than fall within the conventional remit of mental health and well-being.

The Presence of Grief: Research-Based Art and Arts-Based Research on Grief:

The authors involved in the creation of this text collaborate on a research project called The Culture of Grief, which explores the current conditions and implications of grief. The authors mostly employ conventional forms of qualitative inquiry, but the present text represents an attempt to reach a level of understanding not easily obtained through conventional methods. The group of authors participated as members of the audience in an avant-garde theatrical performance about grief, created by a group called CoreAct. The artists of CoreAct create their art through systematic research, in this case on grief, and we as researchers decided to study both the development of the play and its performance, and to report our impressions in fragments in a way that hopefully represents the nature of grief as an experienced phenomenon. We use Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s concept of presence to look for understanding beyond meaning in grief and its theatrical enactment.

Arlie R. Hochschild

This chapter introduces to the ideas of American interactionist and feminist writer Arlie Russell Hochschild and her important work on emotions and interaction. Hochschild has made a major impact on interactionist thought since the mid-1970s with her work on emotions. Equally inspired by classic interactionism (Goffman) as well as critical social theory (such as Marx and Mills), Hochschild has created a unique framework for critically investigating and understanding social life in contemporary capitalist society. In this chapter, we revisit her by now classic work on emotion work and feeling rules in relation to her empirical studies of American corporate culture in The Managed Heart (1983). After that we will move into her much publicized thesis of the commercialization of human feeling in regard to her ideas of time-traps, outsourced selves and the commercialization of a multitude of intimate aspects of people’s lives. The chapter will show how – according to Hochschild – interactionism needs to incorporate an appreciation of emotions in order more fully to capture some of the major shifts in the lives of people in late capitalist societies.