The Embodied 'I'. A Phenomenological Contribution to Axel Honneth's Theory of Recognition

A

Ph

enom

enolo

gi

ca

l Contrib

utio

n

to Axel

Honn

eth

’s

Theory of

Rec

og

nition

The Embodie

d ‘I’

Master Thesis

Master Thesis Research master Philosophy Lizabeth Dijkstra Student number 0522082 August 4th, 2014

Graduate School of Humanities University of Amsterdam Supervisor: Dr. Julian Kiverstein Second reader: Dr. Robin Celikates

1

T

ABLE OF

C

ONTENTS

Table of Contents ... 1

Foreword & Acknowledgements ... 2

Introduction ... 4

Part 1. Honneth’s Recognition Theory Background, Relevance and Problems ... 5

1. Social philosophy and the question on the human nature ... 5

2. The basis of Critical social philosophy... 6

3. Perspectives on Freedom and Intersubjectivity ... 9

4. Honneth’s recognition theory ... 14

5. A Critical Remark on Honneth’s Subject Theory ... 21

Part 2. Adaptations to the Idea of Resistance Honneth’s Responses to Critical Remarks ... 26

6. Grounding Resistance in Omnipotentiality ... 28

7. Honneth’s Positive Notion of Resistance ... 29

8. Symbiosis as the Ontogenetically Primary Form of Recognition ... 32

9. The Problems with Symbiosis ... 34

Part 3. The Prereflective Self An Alternative View on the Problem that Remains ... 44

10. Henrich and Frank on the Epistemic Prereflective Self ... 46

11. Subjectivity, Experience and Self-Awareness in Phenomenology ... 52

12. Self and Other: Intersubjectivity in Phenomenology ... 56

13. Integrating Phenomenology and Social Theory ... 60

Conclusion and Discussion ... 63

Epilogue: Reification, Affect & Empathy The Phenomenological model and Honneth’s Recent Work ... 65

2

F

OREWORD

&

A

CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

During the Fall semester of 2012, I became familiar with the work of Axel Honneth’s through a tutorial on recognition by Dr. Robin Celikates. Despite my sympathy for the general insights that the work of Honneth offered, I was as well struck by the fierce critique on Honneth, provided by Joel Whitebook which met with my own intuitions. I felt that Honneth’s ideas on the subject in recognition were incomplete and did not provide sufficient links with recent contemporary neuropsychological research. A couple of months later, I learned about a perspective on subjectivity that was completely new to me. Through a course on the neurophilosophy of self by Julian Kiverstein, I gained insight in phenomenology as the theory of experiences and their inherently subjective nature. I was struck by these new ideas on subjectivity. It was at that moment that I developed the idea that a combination of these two fascinating topics might be interesting. After all, whereas the one theory seemed to be in need of a refined idea on subjectivity, the other provided such insights.

The road between the original idea and the final result of this investigation as I present it here, was longer than I expected. The reason for this has been an exchange to The New School for Social Research in New York; an experience which has changed my perception of myself, including all the ideas I had of myself as (not being) a philosopher. All these experiences culminated in attending the lectures on recognition by Axel Honneth himself at Columbia University. His kind invitation to discuss my intuitions during a coffee break for me formed one of the highlights of my stay in New York. His encouragement to explore my ideas has resulted in this final piece of work for my research master. But whereas the encouraging words of Axel Honneth have been important, this thesis would not have been written without the enduring and significant support of a number of people. First, I want to thank Julian Kiverstein, for his unselfish dedication of valuable time, his sharp and always insightful comments, his critical questions, and above all his encouragement and faith in a good ending of the project. I would also like to thank Robin Celikates, not only for being my second reader and critical interrogator, but also for being one of the most supportive and knowledgeable teachers in the philosophy department. I have learned a lot from you, not in the least the value of a critical perspective.

This thesis is the ultimate example of how big projects cannot be completed without a significant number of good friends and family. They have been my greatest supporters, not just for writing a thesis when time seemed too short, but also for pursuing my ambitions and exploring the world. Finally, I want to thank my parents: heit en mem, Jan en Yke, for their fundamental love, support and

3

encouragement along each step of the way these past 26 years. I have always sincerely appreciated the feeling of support, faith and guidance in the extraordinary way you have provided it. Sometimes it takes a master’s thesis on the conditions for being a full, self-affirmative person to really understand the fundamental importance of what it means.

4

I

NTRODUCTION

The central question that this thesis intends to answer is whether a phenomenological account of subjectivity can provide a valuable addition to the recognition theory of Axel Honneth. In The

Struggle for Recognition (2005) Axel Honneth takes over the Hegelian point that the process of

recognition is central in for normative development in a twofold way. By describing the process through which subjects mutually grant each other normative statuses, recognition provides an explanation for the development of both a social normative framework, as well as for the development of a subjective normative status. Situations of misrecognition are then the ground for judging certain social situations as pathological. Such situations can be improved through a struggle for recognition, in which the misrecognized subject actively pursues a more sufficient form of affirmative acknowledgment.

In part 1 I will extensively explore the background of Honneth’s theory. This will show why questions on the nature of the subject touch upon a fundamental characteristic of Honneth’s theory of recognition. I will then turn to a critical article by Joel Whitebook, who criticizes Honneth’s account of the subject that is involved in instances of misrecognition. Whitebook asks for both a stronger resisting potential in Honneth’s subject and a clarification on the nature of this subject itself. Whitebook's own alternative for answering both issues lies in a classical psychoanalytic concept of a prereflective ego which has an innate aggressive drive. I approve of his two critical questions, but I disagree with his solution. In part two I will therefore first discuss the first issue on the nature of resistance that Whitebook brings up. In fact I will show that Whitebook’s own solution is outdated and that Honneth reacts to the first criticism with a more up-to-date understanding of resisting potential through introducing the idea of primary intersubjectivity.

As this part will show though, those adaptations cannot take away all questions that have been raised by the critiques of Whitebook. Part 3 therefore deals with the notion of the prereflective self, and the relation that Honneth has to such a concept. Additionally, in this part I will also discuss the phenomenological view on the prereflective self and its relation to intersubjectivity. Finally, I will explore whether this phenomenological account can provide a valuable understanding of the subject within Honneth’s recognition theory. Although my central argument will then be clear, I end this thesis with an epilogue in which I briefly discuss Honneth’s most recent work. By adding this to my central argument, I want to show the relevance of my proposal in relation to the most recent developments in his theory.

5

P

ART

1.

H

ONNETH

’

S

R

ECOGNITION

T

HEORY

B

ACKGROUND

,

R

ELEVANCE AND

P

ROBLEMS

1. S

OCIAL PHILOSOPHY AND THE QUESTION ON THE HUMAN NATURE

From the beginning of the Western philosophical tradition, social and political philosophy has dealt with questions concerned with the social interactions between humans. In the Classical socio-political theories of Aristotle, humans were considered to be fundamentally socio-political beings. Independent from the necessary, socio-economic activities, the political human nature was considered to be of a more distinguished kind due to the capacity of language. For Aristotle, this unique capacity of speech and reason enables human beings to communicate over their moral values and virtues. As such they are able to constitute their own social formations based on the optimal form to realize the human potential, thereby transcending animalistic or barbarian forms of cohesion. Mutually, these social arrangements are the necessary condition for all aspects of the human nature to evolve according to their potentiality (Aristotle I.2.1253.a1-a39). In effect, the social arrangements that constituted the political community were not just something that simply existed; they were considered to be necessary and essential for the full realization of this unique human potential as a zoön politikon (Honneth, SR 7).

The central concern of modern social philosophy sounds quite different though from this classical notion. Rather than a teleological purpose for man’s political nature, the main question in modern social philosophy is about defining justifiable structures which bind individuals into a society. This search for justification implies that social theories can no longer be grounded in shared ideas on a human potential which inherently leads people to arrange a political society such as to enable an optimal realization. Rather, the apparent lack of a shared thought on what inherent human capacity should be realized leads to the need for reaching a new agreement over a basic ground for socialization. This change is the consequence of a shift in perspective in our thinking about the human nature, starting in the late Middle Ages and early Modernity. With the rise of commercial trade and the decline of the traditional, small-scale communities, the idea rose of man as a primary selfish being rather than a zoön politikon striving for nobility and virtuous self-flourishing. This was strikingly described by Machiavelli, who saw man not as a noble political being, but as primarily interested in the preservation of his own life and possessions. As a consequence, man will live with others first and foremost in a state of mistrust and fear (Honneth, SR 8). The purpose of a social constellation thus becomes fundamentally different; instead of forming a positive, enabling environment for development and potential, now the question becomes first and foremost how the

6

social structure can prevent people from mutual violence and destruction. The first modern perspective on this issue was developed by Thomas Hobbes. During a time characterized by political instability and social quarrel, Hobbes argued that the central role for any social bond should be to provide social and political stability and safety. To secure this, the Hobbesian state has an absolutist nature, whose protective capacity is guaranteed by the individuals’ consent to complete obedience (Hobbes). Although this absolutist nature of the social contract was loosened by subsequent thinkers such as Locke and Mill, the central idea of man as having a fundamentally individualistic nature did not change. In effect, the theoretical paradigm that developed from this view is characterized as atomistic in nature. Starting from the perspective of the singular individual, it sees the social dimension as something which is co-created on the basis of rational deliberation in the form of a social contract, rather than as a pre-existent structure into which the individual enters without explicit rational reflection. Morally justifiable actions or principles have to be rationally defendable; that is, in an imagined state of nature, they should be agreeable upon by all in order to become part of the contract (Honneth, SR 9;12).

Stemming from the focus on the preservation of safety and stability for all, the atomistic tradition has been mainly concerned with issues that arise within the relation between the institutionalized state and its civilians. Its main moral benchmark and point of debate thereby is the notion of justice. The principle of justice refers to the requirement for moral principles that in order to have universal value, such principles need to be rationally defendable. After all, the capacity for reason is the only shared ground between the atomistic individuals who make up a society. Following the practice of unprecedented and impartial rational deliberation, social constellations or moral principles are judged on their potential to become as it were ‘part of the social contract’. That is, they are tested for their universalizability. A just moral value or action is one which can be rationally argued for and which as such is not grounded in intuitions, religious motivations or other personal grounds. In contrast, injustice becomes the principle upon which situations can be judged as social deficits; these are situations of which the conditions do not live up to this standard of rational universalizability. Stated differently, social situations that are considered to be ‘wrong’ or unjust are defined by their failure to account for a primary rational equality amongst autonomous individuals (Honneth, GuF 19).

2. T

HE BASIS OF

C

RITICAL SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY

With the rise of social stability and a bourgeois public sphere that took hold during early Modernity, an alternative view rose on the central purpose for social structures. The French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau is considered by many to be the originator of this line of modern social thought.

7

Contrary to the Hobbesian model of the human nature as aggressive and competing, Rousseau argues that this image of mankind is already corrupted by social processes. To really understand the human nature in itself, Rousseau writes that one should initially think of the human being as totally unaffected by social interaction (Honneth, PoS 7; Rousseau 17; 35). As a consequence, he sees human nature as characterized by amour de soi, a basic individual aim for self-preservation and pleasure that one has and which is – apart from some necessary interactions – independent of others and of reason. Added to this is pitié, a natural intuition of compassion with other human beings. The competitive and aggressive character, which Hobbes ascribed to the human nature, only develops in increasingly instrumental and conflictual relations with others, after the rise of societies as producing more persistent and intensified contact with others. The amour de soi gets corrupted and is supplemented by the amour propre; a type of self-love which seeks satisfaction in relative well-being (Rousseau 46-49). Pleasurable living starts to mean ‘being better than others’ and instead of one’s own independent wellbeing, status becomes the main aim. Rousseau thus argues that the envy and struggle that characterize the social domain are not part of the human nature, but are in fact an external product of higher order human interaction (Honneth, PoS 9; Varga and Gallagher 246).

In effect, the question for Rousseau becomes how society can acknowledge mankind’s uncorrupted state of amour de soi, which Rousseau considers to be a comparative standard or ideal original state of existence. Only in this state could mankind be said to be really free, simply driven by one’s own desires which would not exceed basic natural longings. The regulating interference which a social bond necessarily enforces upon its constituting individuals depicts for Rousseau a loss of both individual independence and the initial basic form of compassion. Although a return to the original state is both unthinkable and unwanted, Rousseau argues that a socio-political model for society should provide the conditions for human freedom in the form of flourishing and well-being according to one’s own standards. What returns in his work is the classical idea of human nature consisting of more than just the struggle for survival. But at the same time, the essence of Rousseau’s thinking is modern in the sense that his concept of amour de soi is much more individual than the classical idea of a political human nature. It now includes the whole normative idea of a good life, which is independent and lived in accordance with an authentic insight into one’s own passions and values, rather than with supra-individual virtues and ideals of beauty (Taylor, EA 27; Varga and Gallagher 244).

By using this original anthropological foundation of mankind as an ideal, Rousseau was the first to enable the judgment of social situations on the basis of promoting a good, i.e. a free life. Flourishing

8

aims at the realization of something truly human; i.e. positive freedom as something which is of a ‘higher’ order than simple existence which Hobbes wants to protect. In addition, the introduction of this normative ideal paved the way for theories of alienation; the idea that a social situation can lead humans to drift away from their original nature in a negative way (Honneth, PoS 10-11). The ideas of Rousseau are therefore considered as a starting point for critical social theory. The consequences of this expanded justification that social theory has to provide are twofold. First of all it expands the range of topics that are considered relevant for social theories. Atomistic theories have – arguably – restricted their scope of interest to social arrangements which can be deliberatively argued for or against. Their aim is to justify social and moral arguments through testing them for their universalizability by reason. Normative practices or convictions outside this scope are considered as threatening to the idea of individual autonomy, since they cannot be actively and reflectively adopted as one’s own. With its focus on justification and respect for autonomy, this approach has led to successful discussions on issues that question individual versus social responsibility like healthcare, property protection and most notably economical distribution. But it seems unable to address the already existing, underlying normative judgments and practices that have given rise to the issues at hand (Honneth, GuF 22).

Secondly and more importantly, what truly distinguishes this approach from the atomistic view is that it provides a different measure for judging social arrangements as unwanted or immoral. After all, the term ‘unjust’ sometimes does not seem to cover the real issue at hand. Socioeconomic actions, situations or practices may technically respect human autonomy, but can nevertheless lead to situations of suffering or an inability to live life freely according to basic own standards, and therefore create a sense of moral friction. With a concrete notion of ‘good life’ at hand, there arises a possibility to morally judge these constellations. Rather than being unjust, they can now be said to be distortions, or pathologies even, in the general social aim for human flourishing (Varga and Gallagher 244). The critical perspective is more than just an additional note to the range of issues which social structures should address. As noted above, the shift towards emphasizing the importance of ‘a good life’ instead of ‘life’ in general provides the approach with a strong normative potential. It is this normative potential that makes critical social theory a serious alternative for the atomistic social theories. But it is not immediately clear how the diagnosing of pathologies works (Varga and Gallagher 245). Yes, there is the intuitive notion of human suffering and the obstruction of human flourishing – in one way or another – which forms a criterion. But what still needs further clarification is how the criteria of basic human needs are defined and, in addition, how their individual nature can be respected in a social structure without undermining that social structure itself.

9

3. P

ERSPECTIVES ON

F

REEDOM AND

I

NTERSUBJECTIVITY

The question on how exactly social structures can account for individual needs was taken up by Hegel, in a time where Modernity had developed itself further and where the effects of an increasing individualization now had become visible. For the early Hegel, modern phenomena like political disinterest, apathy and economic impoverishment prove why a social theory grounded on purely individually interests cannot account for a healthy political society. Contrary to Rousseau Hegel argues that socialization in itself is not the problem, but that the ideas of a ‘social contract’ – which Rousseau himself had used as well to translate individual interests into a general will – presuppose a too narrow and instrumentalist view on the individual subjects which engage in interpersonal relations (Honneth, PoS 11). By purely focusing on others as mature rational agents in a legal sense, i.e. as abstract bearers of rights, social contract theories can result only in negative conceptions of freedom. That is, they can agree upon violations of their rights, but they cannot account for their individual freedom outside of the legal domain. The result is that although individuals in modernity are granted a level of individual freedom which was therefore unthinkable, their socially acknowledged freedom does not entail any reference to one’s individual, positive freedom which was so important for Rousseau. The lack of a social acknowledgment of the subject as being more than just a legal agent, i.e. as being a unique individual person, leads Hegel to the alternative view that real respect for individual freedom is essentially grounded in sufficient social recognition of the person in both legal and personal or individual ways (Honneth, SR 12; Honneth, PoS 12).

HEGEL’S INTERSUBJECTIVE TURN AND THE ORIGINAL STRUGGLE FOR RECOGNITION

This shift in perspective on the relation between social relations and human nature is the ground for the so-called intersubjective turn in critical theory. Basically this turn leads to a concretization of Rousseau’s anthropology. Whereas Rousseau’s uncorrupted human status involved a retrospective idea of solitary lives in a fictitious state of nature, a central thought in the work of Hegel is the fundamentally social engagement of human beings which as such has to account for their individualities. To get around the inherent flaws in social contract theories, the early Hegel develops a view on the community as an ethical unity, i.e. an integrated community of free citizens who share certain normative values, rather than as a multitude of abstract rational subjects (Honneth, SR 12-13). According to Hegel, every social multitude of conscious beings, albeit of the most atomistic and egoistic kind of singulars, already contains various interpersonal relations on various levels outside of the legal sphere. All these interpersonal encounters – not just legal ones – should therefore be accounted for in a social theory in order to provide a full description of society. In addition, his idea of a social unity requires a certain basis of mutuality and complementary agreement beyond the

10

legal sphere. In his Jena writings, Hegel described the development of this basic social foundation of a multitude through the encounter of two of its constituting self-consciousnesses. Here a struggle for recognition emerges. Since each self-consciousness takes itself to be absolutely free, the confrontation with another consciousness leads to a violent attempt to nihilate this other self-consciousness. A struggle will arise, which can only end when both self-consciousnesses give up their claim on absoluteness in favour of an overarching sphere of universal consciousness of which they are both constitutive elements (Milisavljević 144). Hegel uses this process of a struggle for recognition as the integrative model which enables both socialization and individualization of a basic situation of pure coexisting multitude. The notion of recognition thus encompasses the Hobbesian idea of struggle and even presupposes a certain egoistic starting point of the involved self-consciousnesses, but it lacks the purely atomistic starting point. It is exactly in the relation between two individuals that any form of moral subjective development takes place. As soon as the individual becomes a subject, this is only by and through a social process of recognition. The subject is therefore moral by definition; it is only through the recognition of the other that the subject can be a subject (Milisavljević 145).

Mutual recognition then works in two ways. Its dual importance is due to its basic characterization as a process of reciprocal, affirmative identification.1 It refers to the granting of a certain normative status to a person as being free and equal by others, who are themselves mutually judged as such by the subject. Thereby it connects the development of a positive relation-to-self to the social framework within which one forms a personal identity per se. The experienced mutual respect and recognition thus lead the individuals to feel part of a shared unity, which each of them will then uphold and accept as an individual-transcending entity. This way, recognition accounts as a means to both develop individual identities as well as to reproduce social structures by positively acknowledging individuals as moral persons, i.e. as individuals who are accepted to take part in and co-constitute social discourses (Mattias). Equally so, pathologies caused by an insufficient inclusion of the full individual in the social sphere, i.e. without recognition of one’s personal and unique individual dimension, become visible both within the individual and in the society as a whole. Individuals feel that they do not receive the respect for every aspect of their personality which they do grant to others, and thereby feel restricted in developing a fully affirmative relation to themselves. On the other hand, society as a whole cannot account for the specificities of its constitutors and becomes a totality of lifeless and mechanistic institutions (Honneth, PoS 12).

1

For alternative classifications which put a strong emphasis on the distinction between recognition and acknowledgement, see for example Ikäheimo, Heikki, Laitinen, Arto. ‘Recognition and Social Ontology: An Introduction.’ Recognition and Social

Ontology. Ikäheimo, Heikki, Laitinen, Arto (Ed.). Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 2011, 1-21. Another alternative view in this

11

Hegel distinguishes love, law and ethical life as the three consecutive levels upon which such mutual recognition has to take place. Struggles over recognition constantly take place as the subject develops itself along the three mentioned stages. As such, relations between individuals progressively change in a continuous interaction with the also developing individuals themselves (Honneth, SR 17). The process of recognition functions as the integrative model which enables both socialization and individualization of the whole, individual person as a social being. The internalization of social norms is a crucial part of developing a free individual (Deranty, RAS 5). Hegel’s model thus overthrows Rousseau’s model, by showing that Rousseau’s retrospective idea of an original state as a normative ideal is unnecessary and can be replaced by concrete interpersonal relations which respect a proper individual autonomy. An essential move that Hegel makes here is to acknowledge that both social relations and human nature itself are ethical and dynamic structures (Varga and Gallagher 245).

C

N

H

In his later works though Hegel starts to take a different stance towards his own model of the struggle for recognition. Instead of perceiving recognition as a social means, i.e. an ethical force which drives the development of social relations, he starts to emphasize the individual development of the involved self-consciousness in the process. The specific dual dimension of the development of both identities and ethical unities thereby fades to the background (Honneth, SR 63). The struggle for recognition becomes one stage in the development of the self-consciousness into a recognized rational, acting subject. Contemporary Hegelian scholarship in Anglo-American social and political philosophy by authors like Robert Pippin, Robert Brandom and Terry Pinkard focuses on this more normative interpretation of recognition (Bernstein 29). Each of these authors has a different take on how Hegel’s work should be interpreted. Yet what they have in common is that they view Hegel’s work primarily as a continuation of Immanuel Kant’s critical project (Ikäheimo en Laitinen, RS 6). Focusing on the more individual perspective in the later Hegel, their idea on the type of freedom which Hegel tries to defend differs from the broader, Rousseau-inspired notion which rises from the early Hegelian works. Essential according to these contemporary thinkers is that Hegel, like Kant, is looking for a justification of freedom as personal autonomy and moral agency. Real freedom, according to Kant, consists in the ability to rationally explain one’s own actions and to take responsibility for them, thereby escaping external causalities. Real freedom, in other words, is rational autonomy (Deranty, RAS 3).

Hegel’s merit, according to these normative theorists, lies in his philosophy being a mere attempt to improve Kant’s idea of autonomy. What Hegel points out is the lack of a proper explanation of the

12

nature of rationality in Kant’s critical theory. Whereas rationality for Kant is something substantial, Hegel adds social reality as the ground for rationality and the normativity that arises from it. Reason, instead of being an absolute individual trait, is something that emerges in the social dimension. Through the exchange of reasons people in a society establish a coherent pattern of norms; as such this intersubjectively constituted reason gains authority over both individual and collective daily life. According to Deranty, these authors see recognition basically as a reciprocal recognition of someone

as being rational (RAS 3). Autonomy is based upon this capacity for rationality, and the process of

recognition means nothing more than the positive affirmation of the ability to provide reasons for one’s actions. As Pippin argues in an article that specifically addresses this issue, recognition is the answer to the question of freedom. And freedom is not something that deals with concrete personal integrity or Rousseau’s notion of self-realization; instead, it consists in being recognized in one’s capacity for practical reason and moral autonomy (Pippin 155-156). The only difference with Kant is that the authority for considering a person as rational and autonomous no longer comes from some abstract universal principle, but from a socially constructed reality of intersubjective normative practices.

T

M

D

H

’

T

M

With their emphasis on the development of the free self-consciousness as a recognized autonomous agent, the discussed contemporary moral interpretations of Hegel seem to favour a transcendental interpretation of the social over the more concrete primacy of the social that characterizes Hegel’s earlier works. With its more formal emphasis on recognition as the ground for a moral framework through practical reason, this line of interpretation is thus less interested in the critical content of Hegel’s earlier work. There recognition is still closely tied to Rousseau’s anthropological notion of humans’ positive freedom, forming the integrating process for concrete individuals into a social unity. As has become clear in the exploration of Hegel’s original struggle for recognition, this model can account for a specifically critical analysis of social pathologies through signalling concrete misrecognition of individuals on each of the three proposed levels. The aspect of misrecognition as directly corrupting one’s self-realization became the central focus for Hegel’s most influential interpreter and student: Karl Marx. Hegel’s ideas on the specific content of the self-realization that recognition enables remain rather vague and thin-defined. The economist Marx, in contrast, developed a new interpretation of misrecognition, based on a strong anthropological notion of mankind as characterized through material labour.

For Marx, labour is a central aspect of every person’s existence, being the central process through which man establishes a valuable relation with both other individuals and the material world. The

13

problem with modern capitalism is that it uses man’s creative labour power as its own means of production. That is, man’s labour is no longer an expression of one’s own productive capacity, but is mainly turned into a productive force for the external company or cooperation. This is where Marx fundamental critical capacity through the notion of alienation comes in. Economic exploitation leads the individual to alienate from its anthropological core; a human being who expresses itself freely through labour. Such alienation occurs in twofold. Not only does it create a distance between the individual and the products and profits of its labour. Most fundamentally alienation occurs between the individual and the central notion of what Marx defines as what it means to be human: labour as the capacity for creativity and self-expression. Elements of both Rousseau's and Hegel's theories are central to Marx’ theory. But his theory adds an essential adaptation to both his predecessors. By turning self-determined material labour into the main condition for human flourishing, Marx’s idea translates the normative measure of the critical theory from an abstract ideal into concrete socioeconomic relations and positions. The main measure for judging social pathologies is now no longer an abstract reference to an inner nature, but is formed by concrete and material social relations between expressive individuals. Later he adapts the main pathological condition, alienation, into the even more concrete concept of reification. By letting go of any even slightly speculative anthropological content, Marx now defines pathologies as situations in which humans are not treated as subjects, but as mere producing objects. That is, socioeconomic relations between people form the basis for a critical evaluation of society. Pathologies rise from distorted recognition in these relations, which in turn affects the psychological status of the involved individuals (Honneth, PoS 15; Varga and Gallagher 247).

T

F

S

Marx’ work then gives rise to a line of thought which retains the central thought in Rousseau’s work, i.e. the idea that there is some valuable specific capacity for development and flourishing in humans beyond their basic striving for existence. The idea that such flourishing should be enabled and supported by a social bond is still prevalent in the contemporary field of critical social theory or

Gesellschaftskritik. The so-called Frankfurt School is the main representative tradition of this strand

of philosophy since it originated at the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research in the 1920’s. The basic aim of critical theory is a striving for social inquiry which as such is very much aware of the material situatedness in the world of its own means for knowledge and understanding. That is, it follows the central idea that each practice is itself a concrete given in social relations; an idea which can be traced back to the theories of both Hegel and Marx. Specifically, they apply this critical approach to thought and knowledge. Evaluating thought itself as grounded in a dynamic social world provides critical theory with a specific self-understanding, which links to the inherent capacity to influence

14

and change our own way of thinking through critical self-reflection. Correspondingly, freedom for critical theorists does not lay so much in being free from restrictions by others, but rather in a capacity for change and self-realization (Anderson, HFS 35). The Frankfurt School therefore opposes social research which sees the social world as simply ‘given’ and treats it as something which can be observed from an external, objective perspective. Such research also undermines social dynamics; when society is produced by humans, it means that social practices are never stable or ‘what they are’, but that they could be different. Social research itself can be a main factor of influence for such alterations.

This perspective on critical self-reflection also becomes the main method for conducting critical social research. Instead of observing law-like objectifications on the status-quo, critical social research should be grounded in the subjective experiences of participants in the social world. Through these, the critical approach can then reveal ideological social structures which constitute ‘pathological’ situations, i.e. situations which oppress or restrict the positive account of freedom as a developmental capacity. But critical theorists not only try to unmask implicit such pathological ideologies and convictions within our own understandings of social practices and their origins. In addition, they also appeal to humans’ capacity to emancipate themselves from those socio-economic premises and conditions which cause oppression, exploitation, and other forms of interaction which inflict upon humans’ positive freedom (Anderson, HFS 36). The Frankfurt School thus has turned Rousseau’s original critical idea into a theoretical framework that allows for defining social pathologies in concrete, societal or intersubjective terms. But a central problem for the Frankfurt School arises with the definition of human flourishing and an idea of what social pathologies exactly entail. After all, the narrow Marxist focus on expression through labour as material production does no longer account enough for grounding a critical and transformational potential in a social theory. But without a notion of what central human aspect it is that social theories have to account for, critical theory will lose its normative power.

4. H

ONNETH

’

S RECOGNITION THEORY

The problem of justifying the normative force of critical theory is particularly relevant for the most prominent contemporary representative of the critical tradition of the Frankfurt School, Axel Honneth.2 This is due to Honneth’s specific take on the intersubjective turn as one of the central achievements of the critical tradition. For Honneth, the critical capacity of his theory is fundamental

2

Axel Honneth does not explicitly identify himself as being the successor of a particular school of thought. Yet as Joel Anderson (2011) argues, his fundamental intersubjective take on social theory combined with his original insights are good reasons to label him as a third-generation thinker in the Frankfurt School.

15

and he wants the critical measure to target social pathologies in their fundamental – and sometimes more obscured – basis. That is, Honneth wants to explicate a measure which allows us to judge the injured integrity of individuals or groups as pathologies, rather than as simple situations which arouse undefined moral unease. As such, a critical theory of recognition allows for a stronger and more intuitive notion of normativity than the atomistic approach (Habermas, ALA). Following his predecessor Jürgen Habermas, Honneth appreciates Marx’s anthropology of mankind as inherently expressive. What Honneth especially values in Marx though, is his acknowledgement of the

psychological effects of social pathologies in which this expressive nature is corrupted through

alienation. Honneth wants to clarify though what it is exactly that is being expressed, as well as what it is that requires sufficient affirmative acknowledgment by others (Anderson, TI xi). Thus instead of relating this psychological effect to an anthropological understanding of self-expression through material labour, Honneth relates it to the possibility of developing and expressing a personal identity

per se, i.e. ‘sensing, interpreting, and realizing one’s needs and desires as a fully autonomous and

individuated person (…)’ (Anderson, TI xi) within social processes and practices. For his formulation of the critical capacity in social theory, Honneth thus returns to the central concept in Hegel’s early philosophy; the idea of mutual recognition. Here the very possibility of identity-formation depends on the three-staged process of recognition in love, law and ethical life. Honneth agrees that each of these spheres is crucial in the building up of an autonomous personal identity.

Although different from Marx’ view, this focus makes Honneth’s interpretation of Hegel then also explicitly anthropological, and thereby fundamentally different from the normative interpretations of Hegel. Both agree that the internalization of norms which takes place in recognition is fundamental for individual freedom. But whereas the normative Hegelians restrict this importance to the sphere of being acknowledged as a relative abstract reasonable agent, for Honneth it is essential that recognition applies to a broader notion of personhood, including one’s affective personal life and one’s unique identity. That is, for Honneth recognition plays a genetic role in the development of concrete persons as the socio-psychological individuals that make up society. The idea of flourishing thus gets a different meaning in Honneth’s work, which is more complex than the original account of both Rousseau and Marx. For Honneth, becoming a ‘full’ self does not mean that a certain inherent potential must be developed. More radically, Honneth sees the ability to fully sense and express one’s need as constituting the self. His self is therefore not restricted to Marx’ notion of homo laborans or Rousseau’s idea of an amour de soi. The self which develops itself is unrestricted by any ideal, it is the ability to develop any practical identity or self within the social structure which is the ideal (Deranty, BC 275). Honneth takes recognition to be of a more fundamental nature, as the process which enables the person to take part in any kind of

16

intersubjective process in the first place. Only when one both recognizes oneself as worthy of the recognition as others and is recognized as an individual, autonomous person in the broader sense, one will feel bound to the social sphere at all; each level of recognition is essential in order for the person to have access to the normative social practice and finally express itself as a normative, rational subject (Deranty, RAS 5). For any social norm to exist at all it is necessary that there are individuals who feel subjected to that norm, who take themselves as people who share it; ‘as being normatively significant, and more precisely, as being normatively significant to itself’ (Deranty, BC 276). Social pathologies then do not only rise from economic misrecognition of one’s labouring capacity, neither from a misrecognition of one’s rational argumentations for action, but from a misrecognition of one’s identity in any of the mentioned spheres. Misrecognition in each sphere will prevent the individual from forming a fully affirmative relation-to-self and becoming a fully autonomous person.

Honneth’s analysis therefore focusses not so much on the abstract social structures that result from the process of recognition. His social theory aims less for providing an overarching critical framework for overt pathologies in social institutions, as many critical theorists before him have done. Rather he wants to further explicate the process of recognition itself, as well as its relation to the development of an affirmative relation-to-self. It is in this relation, Honneth claims, that the critical potential of the process of recognition can be claimed to arise (Honneth, SR 33). In accordance with Hegel’s original idea in the Jena works, Honneth sees the development of an uncorrupted identity occurring along three different stages, in each of which a different practical relation to oneself evolves in accordance with a coherent social status. This development is not a spontaneous process, but depends on establishing successful ethical relations of mutual recognition on three corresponding social levels. This means that in each of these intersubjective spheres, a specific form of social recognition is required by others whom one also recognizes. This mutuality is necessary in order to develop a corresponding affirmative relation to oneself (Honneth, SR 94-95).

T

The most basic self-relation is self-confidence [Selbstvertrauen], which requires primary and immediate affective relationships of love and friendship. Such relations primarily involve parent-child relations, in which the parent-child develops its basic sense of self-confidence. The importance of relations of love in early childhood experiences is therefore hardly to be underestimated. The dependence of the child in relation to its caregivers does not only involve protection, but also a sufficient, inarticulate understanding of its needs. Although the term self-confidence might sound like it amounts to some type of explicit estimation of one’s own capabilities, Honneth’s

self-17

confidence amounts to a twofold, more basic trust. First there is trust in one’s own body as a reliable source for knowing one’s needs and desires, and secondly in one’s own capacity to express such needs and desires without a fear of rejection or neglect. In the relation with the initial caretaker a proper recognition of these needs must take place; especially in the inarticulate stage, where the child is still fully dependent on its caretaker. As such relations of loving care allow for an embodied basic trust in the stability and trustworthiness of oneself and the world (Anderson, TI xiv). Stemming from the most vulnerable and initial stage of self-development, this relation to oneself is the most fundamental one (Anderson, TI xiv; Honneth, SR 95; Varga and Gallagher 248). Later, other forms of love relations like friendships and romantic relationships allow for maintenance of this basic trust. As speaks from his rejection of Marx’ rigid anthropological take on mankind, Honneth generally insists on defining subjectivity and identity as having a situated, historical nature. Yet it seems as if this notion of basic trust is of a more fundamental nature, as something which would form a precondition for any type of personal development in a social community (Honneth, SR 107).3 Secondly, self-respect [Selbstachtung] develops as soon as the individual enters the sphere of economical and judicial social relations. Kantian in its essence, respect appeals to the mutual recognition of each other’s status as rational and moral agents who are capable of autonomous action. As such, this is the sphere of recognition which the normative interpreters of Hegel value as the only significant level. This form of recognition takes place between individuals in a public sphere and refers to one’s ability to actively participate in situations of deliberation and the exchange of argumentations. The essential role of others here is to grant the subject such a status. Projected onto oneself, self-respect implies a personal claim on being capable of taking part in and being subjected to social constructions like political and moral laws or values. Honneth stresses that it is not impossible to have self-respect without being granted the right to express oneself as such, but that a full sense of self-respect does require that one is being heard and considered a moral agent (Honneth, SR 118-119). Finally, the third form of self-relation is self-esteem [Selbstwertschätzung] which deals with one’s uniqueness rather than with one’s basic equality. It entails each one’s capacity to contribute to the flourishing of a community in a distinct way. It concerns both the sense of being valuable as well as the acknowledgment of that value by society and as such it is very dependent on the web of common values that communities or societies share (Honneth, SR 127). The three domains of social interaction can be seen as consecutive. That does not mean though that the different forms of self-relation substitute each other. Rather, they form additional elements

3

This aspect of the theory is a central issue and will therefore be discussed extensively in the next part, most notably part 2.9. The here provided short summary has an introducing character and merely shows the place of this notion in Honneth’s theory as it is originally set out in The Struggle for Recognition (1995).

18

which develop as the individual moves through the consecutive types of social relations. But such a development – especially in the modern age – is not something which takes place through explicit social conventions, nor is it simply the will of the subject which drives this development. It is exactly here that recognition, according to Honneth, proves its critical potential as the driving force behind the development of the individual through a process of struggle.

S

S

Although it is fundamental for developing stable relations to oneself, social recognition is not a given. In many occasions, situations of misrecognition will occur within the gap that exists between the achieved and self-recognized personal identity on the one hand and the socially recognized identity on the other. The experience of misrecognition or even disrespect violates the experienced self-relation of the individual and as such violates the possibility of expressing oneself according to one’s own standards. In order to regain the recognition that one aims for, the individual has to resist the violation or neglect of its own required status and, in addition, claim appropriate recognition by others through an intersubjective struggle (Honneth, SR 93). Immediately related to the concept as it arises in Hegel’s early Jena works, it is only through struggle that both the subject and the other subject or social entity can expand their own understandings. Through this struggle individuals or collectives can strive for altering the existing patterns of recognition. It is thus within this element of struggle, grounded in occasions of disrespect or misrecognition, that Honneth sees the driving force for social dynamic. In other words, it is the struggle for recognition that accounts for the essential critical potential of his theory. Thereby it represents the main transformative force that each critical theory tries to argue for (Honneth, SR 93).

The importance of the element of struggle then requires a more detailed reflection on its origins. As has been noted in the discussion of the concept as it appeared in Hegel,4 the notion of struggle still encompasses the Hobbesian idea of conflict and even presupposes a certain egoistic starting point for the individuals involved. What it lacks though is a purely atomistic starting point. It is exactly in the relation between two individuals that any form of development takes place (Whitebook 264). But the drive for a struggle for recognition arises from the experience of misrecognition that takes places when one’s experienced identity and one’s socially recognized identity do not match. That is, this drive arises from an experience within the individual, who takes itself as worthy of social recognition is a certain aspect, but does not yet receive proper recognition and as such cannot fully employ the experienced normative identity. Yet what Honneth wants to avoid, is to explain this experience purely from the perspective of a subjective consciousness (Honneth, SR 28-30). Such a

4

19

turn towards a philosophy of consciousness, found in the later works of Hegel himself, is in danger of internalizing the struggle and thereby emphasizing this subjective side of the development. As such, it would lose its powerful critical element, which allows the struggle to account for a development of society as such as well. Whereas the potential for inducing social transition remains, this transition now only accounts for the development of the subject, as an increased integration in consecutive social spheres. But what it can no longer account for from such a perspective is a growing communalization and tolerance of those social spheres themselves as well (Honneth, SR 28).

M

’

N

S

T

‘I’

‘M

’

Despite the fact that Honneth wants to avoid a purely subjective perspective on the process of recognition, he acknowledges that he needs to give an account of subjectivity in order to fully explain the notion of misrecognition. After all, the subject forms a central element in the experience of misrecognition and, as such, in the process of both individual and social development. Honneth finds an explanatory model in the work of George Herbert Mead. According to Honneth, the social psychological theory of Mead provides a naturalistic model for the dualistic concept of the subject as having an experienced self-relation as well as being involved in social recognition (SR 92). The basic aspect of the theory which Honneth values, is the idea that an individual acquires an objectified, reflective relation to oneself through internalizing the attitude of other people in one’s social environment, or the generalized other. Such an objective form of knowing oneself is what Mead defines as self-consciousness.5 Understanding oneself as the cohesive centre of such meanings of one’s actions for others, also leads to an understanding of oneself as such a social agent: this is the notion of the self-reflective ‘me’. Developing a ‘me’ is a complex process: it requires the ability to understand attitudes, but in order to understand these the individual first necessarily needs to have a sense of meaning. One needs to understand how one’s actions can be interpreted by others and then also must be capable of exchanging such interpretations and attitudes. As the product of communicative exchange, self-consciousness only arises after the arousal of a consciousness of meaning in general, i.e. a linguistic, conceptual capacity. But a subject is not simply a pallet of external views which are taken over from the generalized other, i.e. an understanding of how one is seen by others. In addition, this ‘me’ is in a constant exchange with an unregimented, reactive part of the self, which Mead refers to as the ‘I’. In Honneth’s description of the ‘I’, which he takes over from Mead, several aspects seem to be blended together. According to Honneth, in being the spontaneous and creative responsive potential for any upcoming action in man, this ‘I’ precedes the self-conscious account of the self as it arises in exchange with others. It remains abstract and is an

5

It is important to notice that this is a very specific account of self-consciousness. This will be discussed more extensively in part 3.

20

unrestrained source of potentiality. As such, it forms the source of individuation; after all, it is exactly this element of the self which reacts to and reflects upon the cohesive palette of previous socially recognized actions and reactions that form the ‘me’ (Honneth, SR 74-75; Whitebook 274).

The distinction between the ‘me’ and the ‘I’ for Mead explains how a subject can become an object for itself in the first place. Whereas the ‘me’ is a practical relation-to-self, i.e. a relation of reflective knowledge which one can actively control and apply in social settings, the ‘I’ for Mead has a more intuitive character. He distinguishes three elements which the ‘I’ has to account for. First, the ‘I’ forms an immediate, epistemic self-relation, as one’s inherent knowing of the self as a self. But although the ‘I’ in this sense technically is always already there in each experience of the subject, the subject cannot have awareness of it without having acquired the conceptual skills to do so. That is, the subject can only understand itself as having an ‘I’ as soon as it has developed the referential

term ‘I’ (Deranty, BC 248; Mead 174). As such, the subject’s awareness of its ‘I’ is always a mediated

understanding and can only have a retrospective form. After all, as soon as one applies the term ‘I’ this presupposes a certain distance to the user and the referent of the term. In Mead’s words:

‘It is in memory that the ‘I’ is constantly in experience. (…) the ‘I’ in memory is there as the spokesman of the self of the second, or minute, or day ago. As given, it is a ‘me’, but it is a ‘me’ that was the ‘I’ at the earlier time. If you ask, then, where directly in your own experience the ‘I’ comes in, the answer is that it comes in as a historical figure. It is what you were a second ago that is the ‘I’ of the ‘me’ (Mead 174).

With this requisite it becomes clear that for Mead an understanding of the ‘I’ can only arise through the ‘me’, as the aspect of the subject which is involved in the development of linguistic practices through conceptual social exchanges. The ‘I’, then, is always the ‘I’ of the ‘me’. Although the ‘I’ technically precedes the socially constructed ‘me’, it can never grasp itself and therefore does depend on the ‘me’ in a certain respect. Yet in the moment of action, it is the ‘I’ which represents the potentiality, or true agency, of the subject. As such, it can resist the more aware and reflective, controlled action as it would follow from the constructed self-identity of the ‘me’. But due to the impossibility of grasping this immediate ‘I’, it remains a necessarily abstract and without determined content (Deranty, BC 248). Honneth compares the relation between both elements to a dialogue, in which the ‘me’ is the self-consciousness which is reflectively aware of itself. Its dialogue partner, the ‘I’, is of an inherent fictitious character, a creation of the ‘me’ which represents a retrospectively grasped spontaneity (Honneth, SR 75).

It is then exactly in the relation between the ‘I’ and the ‘me’ that the subject, as a coercion between pure spontaneous individuality and social identity, can give rise to the struggle for recognition. It is in the inner friction that exists between the two elements that the ‘me’ gets involved in such

21

situations. If the needs and spontaneous reactions of the ‘I’ differ too much from the reflective ‘me’ that the subject forms in accordance with the perspectives on itself by its social surroundings, then the subject’s ‘me’ has to struggle in order to get recognition for these alternating elements within itself. After all, a full account of a self includes all aspects of one’s personal identity, not just those which have already been recognized sufficiently. A subject can always change and has the inherent potentiality to act spontaneously; it is the ‘I’ which accounts for this potentiality, but it is through sufficient recognition that the ‘me’ has to enclose those actions into its personality (Honneth, SR 82). Here again the duality of the concept of recognition becomes clear though. After all, in order for there to be any possibility to realize the needs of the ‘I’ at all, the subject must have the ability to have these needs acknowledged; it thus must anticipate some sort of social bond in which it can try and reach a satisfactory form of affirmation, which it finds in its inner reflection of that. That is, for successful recognition the subject relies on the ‘me’ (Honneth, SR 83).

5. A

C

RITICAL

R

EMARK ON

H

ONNETH

’

S

S

UBJECT

T

HEORY

Although Honneth provides arguments for his strict focus on the primacy of the social, he also admits that by taking the turn to the consciousness perspective, Hegel’s later theory of recognition actually does gain a substantial clarity on its subjective content (SR 28). This point is taken up by Joel Whitebook in a critical essay on Honneth’s theory. Instead of a regression, Whitebook argues, the turn to a philosophy of consciousness can also be seen as an attempt to clarify the subjective elements in the process of recognition through taking up insights from psychological research into the nature of the subject, rather than leaving the nature of the subject unclear and open for speculations (266; 276). Of course Honneth has provided the Meadian account of subjectivity exactly to tackle this issue, but according to Whitebook this account contains serious deficits. What particularly troubles Whitebook is the way in which Honneth works out the element of struggle in his theory. Fundamental to this is the for Whitebook insufficient explanation of the relation between the ‘I’ and the ‘me’ that Honneth takes over from Mead. As has been discussed above, it is in the relation between the two – or rather in the gap that occurs in their moments of difference – that the motive for resistance arises in the subject. But Honneth’s theory remains remarkably silent on how this misrecognition works exactly. Even when one acknowledges that the actual struggle takes place in the social domain, Whitebook claims that a better understanding of the initial need for struggle is required (275, 281).

Honneth acknowledges that the development of the epistemic self-relation was not Hegel’s primary interest when he was working out his recognition theory in the Jena period. Rather, this development for Hegel forms a ‘necessary though insufficient condition, on the basis of which the

22

identity of the practical ego can constitute itself’ (Honneth, SR 76). That is, for Hegel the development of the ‘me’ as the social element within the subject had priority. But as Whitebook points out, within Mead’s subject it is the ‘I’ that theoretically forms the ground for individual resistance when the subject’s inherent needs for recognition are not sufficiently met by the social domain; those ‘inherent’ needs are the needs of the ‘I’ (Honneth, SR 82; Whitebook 264). What troubles Whitebook then, is that Honneth’s understanding of this indeed very important site of misrecognition turns it into something weak and ill-defined. Explained in terms of an abstract and volatile notion, Honneth’s ‘I’ cannot account for the powerful resistance that is required if the individual wants to actually go against the socially recognized ‘me’. After all, in order for an individual to experience non-sufficient recognition, it seems that there needs to be at least a substantial element within this individual which escapes this recognition and which is significant enough to have a critical or dissatisfied attitude towards it (Whitebook 272). Even if one fully acknowledges the abstract concept of ‘I’ to be the site of deviance from the socially grounded ‘me’-identification, there remains a huge difference between not being recognized and forming an active site for pursuing a change in the external social perception.

It seems as if the temporal dimensions, which Honneth and Mead distinguish so strongly, are too mixed up in the notion of the ‘I’ and let the ‘I’ account for two conceptually different elements. On the one hand the ‘I’ is a pure abstract spontaneity and potentially resisting force in the now, which as such is fully independent, but also volatile and non-substantial. At the same time though, in Honneth’s theory the ‘I’ also reacts to the ‘me’, in the form of a ‘dialogue partner’. Yet the retrospective, conceptual ‘I’ that forms this dialogue partner for the ‘me’ is much more concrete and substantial than the spontaneous resisting potential. In order to account for such an active role and as such for successfully initiating social change, Whitebook argues that the subject needs a stronger concept of the incipient self in the epistemic self-relation(Whitebook 281). In short, Whitebook thus states that Mead’s and Honneth’s interpretation of the ‘I’ as a pure spontaneous capacity for action in the moment, cannot account for the active, resistant initiation site of the final struggle that it also seems to represent. He therefore thinks that the ‘I’ is in need of a more substantial characterization. Only then can Honneth’s theory truly account for the actual struggle that takes place between the individual ‘I’ and the socially constituted ‘me’. After all, its social nature turns the ‘me’ into a particularly strong form of identification, which also requires firm resistance.

The critical claim of Whitebook is grounded in a classical psychoanalytical perspective. This implies that for Whitebook, the development of the individual is first and for all a subjective process, grounded in psychological experiences. As such the process may be influenced by social practices,

23

but these practices are never constitutional for the subject as a full person, as is the case for Honneth.6 Rather, in a normal psychological development, the subject develops itself as a conscious ego through increasingly controlling its basic unconscious instincts or drives. These instincts are the most primitive and immediate constituents of the subject and contain a sexual and an aggressive drive. Consciousness gains strength over its unconsciousness through the increasing internalization of socially acquired mechanisms of control; i.e. by developing a conscience (Ferenczi 213). For Whitebook, this classical psychoanalytic account of the subject is important in that it denies that antisocial behaviour can be interpreted as the effect of certain social processes, like an ‘unenlightened childrearing’ or an ‘irrational social order’ (Winnicott 261). A proper understanding of antisocial behaviour in the subject thus can never take the form of a reactive account; rather, resistance is grounded in the inherently human drive for aggression, which is always already there as a given human nature (Whitebook 261). Equally so, socially given norms then are not neutrally given, but have a certain restraining capacity. The same is the case for the ‘me’; this is also an externally given framework of identity which restricts the individual’s originally infinite forms of self-expression. The encounter of sociality and individuality thus takes a much more conflictual form in Whitebook’s account. In order to represent a significant resistant power that can actually turn over the strong, social ‘me’ as the recognized identity, Whitebook thus refuses Honneth’s account of the ‘I’ as the spontaneous, abstract action potential in the subject which has to account for the subject’s resistance. Whitebook does support the need for such a potential, but argues that it must be grounded in a prereflective, resisting element in the self, which is already inherently characterized by the psychoanalytic aggressive drive (Whitebook 276-277). Only then can it be something which actively resists the socially given recognition.

W

’

A

C

T

S

C

His psychoanalytic background and adherence to the concept of drives takes Whitebook’s alternative view on the ‘I’ into a specific direction, which itself is not unproblematic.7 But proposing an alternative concept for the anterior aspect of the self is not Whitebook’s main goal; rather he collects a range of arguments which support his basic critique on Honneth. Thus apart from his alternative account, his global analysis of the structure of recognition offers a more general critique, which consists of two main issues. First, Whitebook argument points out that there appears to be an important distinction between the actual struggle for recognition, taking place in the ethical or social sphere, and the drives for struggle that are found in the subject’s misrecognition. The Meadian theory of subjectivity tries to resolve this distinction through introducing a dual structure within the

6

See section 1.4.

7

These problems will be discussed more extensively in part 3.11. For now the structure of Whitebook’s critique is the most relevant.