Rasmus Willig

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.

Self-Realization Options Contemporary Marching Order in the Pursuit of Recognition

On a descriptive level, the article points out that Western populations have experienced an increase in possibilities for self-realization, but also that the rise in options has led to a paradoxical increase in different forms of psychic distortion. On a more normative level, it has become clear that the neo-liberal idea of freedom, which seems to state that a free market will facilitate all forms of self-realization options, is incomplete. Application of the neo-liberal idea of freedom makes it clear in two ways that the recognition—graduation semantics are twisted in such a manner that individuals cannot cognitively make sense of what can and cannot be an object of recognition, and that intersubjective recognition relations are eroding to such an extent that commonly shared pathological development tendencies are in danger of being suppressed by the lacking ability to join in a collective will-formation. It seems that the neo-liberal idea of freedom is creating a cognitive discrepancy between a promise for more and more self-realization options through deregulation and the actual stable possibilities for individual self-realization. What is becoming evident is that no secure self-realization options are offered, but rather that the individual has to have options in order to gain recognition.

Recognition and critique: an interview with Judith Butler

In the interview Butler introduces a far broader range of thinkers dealing with the issues relating to the concept of recognition than the existing mainstream focus on the work of Axel Honneth, Nancy Fraser, and Charles Taylor. Butler specifically points out that ‘recognition’ becomes a problem for those who have been expelled from the structures and vocabularies of political representation. To Butler, there are schemes of recognition that determine who will be regarded as a subject worthy of recognition. She terms this ‘differential distribution of recognizability’. The scene of recognition is set by the existing norms and powers, and the subject does not operate independently of what can become an object of recognition. On the other hand, she also points out that without substantial forms of recognition, our lives are at risk. Butler also relates the schemes of recognition to the act of critique. She does so by explaining that the schemes of recognition that establish who will and will not be ‘recognizable’ always have to be considered critically. According to Butler, the task of critique involves establishing a distance from any naturalized version of those contingent and exclusionary schemes – in other words, establishing a reflective distance to the scenes of recognition. Critique becomes a way of challenging the foreclosure of ‘reality’.

Grammatology of modern recognition orders: an interview with Axel Honneth

Axel Honneth has recently published a major book entitled Das Recht der Freiheit. Grundriß einer demokratischen Sittlichkeit, where he, inspired by Hegels philosophy of right, develops a theory of justice in the form of an analysis of modern Western society. The interview, which was conducted by email in the summer of 2011, is about the new book. Honneth presents the notion of ‘democratic ethical life’ (demokratische Sittlichkeit), a core concept in the book, before moving on to explain how the work relates to recent social trends, contemporary theories of justice, and Habermas’ book Between facts and norms. Further, Honneth discusses his intellectual development in comparison with his book The struggle for recognition in order to elaborate on conceptual distinctions in ‘recognition’.

Recognition, social invisibility, and disrespect

This is the horror of being socially invisible. If you can’t love me, then at least detest and despise me! To make people disappear by refusing to take notice of them, by demonstratively seeing through them, is a form of disrespect to be distinguished from outright disrespect in the form of being the object of stigmatizing and devaluating attitudes, gestures, or actions. This distinction was clear already to Adam Smith when he wrote: ‘To be overlooked, and to be disapproved, are things entirely different’ (quoted in Todorov [1995] 2001, 82). Thus, we have two distinct forms of disrespect. The positive counterpart to disrespect is the kind of affirmation that a person receives by being recognized by someone as someone, in the form of being loved or cared about, as being granted equal rights and being treated as an equal, or as being approved of and appreciated for whom one is or what one does. The contemporary discussion of recognition and disrespect, with important forerunners, took off in the early 1990s. Key discussants were at the time Axel Honneth and Charles Taylor. There were also other important contributors to these debates, such as Nancy Fraser and Tzvetan Todorov. Within a decade the topic had entered and become prominent generally in the social sciences, and now discussions of recognition and disrespect are to be found within a broad spectrum of disciplines. From a social science perspective there are at least five dimensions from which issues of recognition, social invisibility, and disrespect can be addressed. Firstly, the topic of recognition has an action-theoretical dimension. To recognize someone is to behave in a certain way towards him or her, by way of attitudes, gestures, or actions. The question is: What exactly does ego do when recognizing an alter? What are the genus and species of recognition (and of disrespect)? Furthermore, in what sense can we recognize specific groups or categories of people? Secondly, there is a dimension that can be described as interaction-theoretical. Here the focus is on interpersonal relationships, comprising two or more individuals, stretching out over time. In this case recognition and disrespect are qualities of unfolding interpersonal relationships. How is it possible to theorize the dynamics, the ups and downs, of such relationships? Thirdly, we have a dimension relating to figurations of recognition. Here the actors are not only individuals, but also different forms of collectives: groups, organizations, and social movements. The more complex a figuration of recognition Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory Vol. 13, No. 1, April 2012, 1–3

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.

An Interview with Arlie Russell Hochschild: Critique as Emotion:

This is the second of two interviews with Arlie Russell Hochschild, Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. In her work, Hochschild explores the many ways we manage our emotions in personal life and perform emotional labor in the workplace.