Axel Honneth and the Critical Theory of Recognition by Volker Schmitz (z-lib.org)

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Axel Honneth
and THE Critical
Theory of
Recognition
EDITED BY
VOL KER S C HM I TZ
Political Philosophy and Public Purpose
Series Editor
Michael J. Thompson
William Paterson University
New York, NY, USA
This series offers books that seek to explore new perspectives in social
and political criticism. Seeing contemporary academic political theory
and philosophy as largely dominated by hyper-academic and overlytechnical debates, the books in this series seek to connect the politically
engaged traditions of philosophical thought with contemporary social
and political life. The idea of philosophy emphasized here is not as an
aloof enterprise, but rather a publicly-oriented activity that emphasizes
rational reflection as well as informed praxis.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14542
Volker Schmitz
Editor
Axel Honneth
and the Critical
Theory of Recognition
Editor
Volker Schmitz
Department of Political Science
Indiana University Bloomington
Bloomington, IN, USA
Political Philosophy and Public Purpose
ISBN 978-3-319-91979-9
ISBN 978-3-319-91980-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91980-5
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Series Editor’s Foreword
Critical theory has undergone immense transformation since its inception at the University of Frankfurt in the 1920s. Initially conceived as
an interdisciplinary research program that would seek to explain the
pathological effects of administrative capitalist society on the individual
and culture, it has morphed into a largely academic branch of theory and
philosophy. Critical theory’s reception in the United States was in many
ways reborn with the maturation of the student movements of the 1960s
and the search by young, radical intellectuals for a theory of society that
would be able to open up the new forms of power and domination that
were characteristic of the “affluent society.” Many of these new social
movements saw issues of race and gender now as coeval with, if not at
times more salient than those of class. The new social movements were
therefore uneasy with the doctrines of the “old left” as well as Marxist
theory as a whole. For them, it was generally insensitive to the liberatory
aspirations of the social movements that were beginning to emerge in
the 1960s and 1970s. Movements for civil rights, feminism, alternative
sexualities and the decolonization movements as well all seemed to be
defined by problems that the edifice of Marxist theory could not immediately solve.
Critical theory tried to deal with this problem in a direct way with
its response to the postmodern challenge during the 1980s and
1990s. Postmodern and post-structural theory now challenged the
Enlightenment rationalism upon which critical theory was based. In their
view, postmodern politics would be one that created open social spaces
v
vi Series Editor’s Foreword
within the totalizing edifice of modernity for different identities and
movements. The rationalism of Kant, Hegel, and Marx had to be dispensed with, for it was now viewed as a tradition that sought to absorb
“difference” into a totality. Postmodernism promised a negation of this
totality as well as kind of rationalism that promoted it. For them, reason
itself was the illness that seduced us into a search for reconciliation and
for holism when really all that was fragmentation and difference. What
counted now was the extent to which any movement was able to articulate its interests and have space for those interests made within society.
Critical theory did not, however, give up on its moorings in rationalism. Jürgen Habermas made a strong defense against the ­postmodern
forces in his The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity in 1985, where
he sought to show that a move from monocentric forms of reason to a
­paradigm of intersubjective communication based on speech-act t­heory
was the proper theoretical means to achieve democratic will-formation
as well as cultivate a culture of legitimacy for democratic politics. Out of
this move too came the work of Axel Honneth who sought to demonstrate that Habermas’ model was too narrow. Honneth accepted the
shift to the intersubjective paradigm, but he thought that it was too cognitive, too epistemic in nature. He went back to the youthful writings
of Hegel to investigate the foundations for his ideas about recognition
(Annerkenung). For Honneth, recognition was not only an intersubjective-cognitive pattern of socialization, it also contained within it the
moral and psychological prerequisites for forming the desire for emancipation and a contest for dignity. A “struggle for recognition” was now a
means by which different groups could mitigate the problems of domination and oppression since all individuals possessed the innate capacity
to become aware of a denial of their dignity and respect (Achtung) as
well as the denial of dignity and respect toward others, and to struggle
to achieve that respect. In this way, Honneth believed he had found a
solution to the problem of maintaining rationalism while also accommodating the legitimate demands of contemporary social struggles.
The robustness of this paradigm is now in question. What began
with a “struggle for recognition” soon became a more conservative theory about the rational nature of modern social forms. Honneth’s more
politically aware youthful writings seem to have given way to a more
academic, philosophical system-building. Volker Schmitz’s collection
of essays seeks to interrogate this general move and, more specifically,
Series Editor’s Foreword vii
to call into question the extent to which the theory of recognition can
fulfill the claims of a critical theory of society. Whereas most of the chapters that follow agree with the normative dimensions of such a project,
they question the strength of recognition theory—as Honneth has construed it—to deal with the broader and deeper problems of modern society. How can recognition theory deal with the pathologies of modern
consciousness and culture; with the increasingly hostile social contexts
of neoliberalism and austerity; how can it deal with the declining consciousness and moral awareness of individuals to immigration and the
harsh forces of social inequality? Schmitz has been able to assemble a fine
series of polemical essays that raise genuine concerns about the nature
of recognition no less than the future of critical theory as a whole. The
essays that follow should therefore be seen not only as a critical conversation with the ongoing tradition of critical theory, but also an endeavor to
widen the scope for critical consciousness and a more politically robust,
publically engaged form of critique.
New York, NY, USA
Spring 2018
Michael J. Thompson
Acknowledgements
The editor is indebted to series editor Michael Thompson for his trust
and guidance throughout the process; to John Stegner at Palgrave
Macmillan for his inimitable combination of strong support and mild
harassment; to Bill Scheuerman for his patience and advise over the
years; and, above all, to the authors of this volume.
ix
Contents
1
Introduction: Answers to Axel Honneth1
Volker Schmitz
2
Reciprocity and Self-Restriction in Elementary
Recognition13
J. C. Berendzen
3
Reifying Reification: A Critique of Axel Honneth’s
Theory of Reification41
Konstantinos Kavoulakos
4
The Recognition of No-Body69
Lauren Langman
5
Bourgeois Illusions: Honneth on the Ruling Ideas
of Capitalist Societies97
David A. Borman
6
Losing Sight of Power: The Inadequacy of Axel
Honneth’s Theory of the Market and Democracy125
Gregory R. Smulewicz-Zucker
xi
xii Contents
7
Axel Honneth and the Tradition of Radical Reformism145
Volker Schmitz
8
Can Honneth’s Theory Account for a Critique of
Instrumental Reason? Capitalism and the Pathologies
of Negative Freedom173
Mariana Teixeira
9
Critical Theory Derailed: Paradigm Fetishism
and Critical Liberalism in Honneth (and Habermas)207
Harry F. Dahms
10 The Failure of the Recognition Paradigm in Critical
Theory243
Michael J. Thompson
11 The Mirror of Transformation: Recognition and Its
Dimensions After Honneth273
James E. Block
Index283
Notes on Contributors
J. C. Berendzen is associate professor of Philosophy at Loyola
University New Orleans. He has published multiple works on Frankfurt
School critical theory (focusing particularly on Max Horkheimer), and is
also a scholar of French existentialism and phenomenology.
James E. Block has taught Political Theory, Political Culture and
American Studies at DePaul University for three decades. He has written A Nation of Agents: The American Path to a Modern Self and Society
(Harvard/Belknap University Press) and The Crucible of Consent:
American Child Rearing and the Forging of Liberal Society (Harvard
University Press). In addition, he has written many essays on historical and contemporary themes, runs workshops on alternative education
and social activism, and authors a blog on the contemporary crisis in
American society entitled Beyond the Collapse.
David A. Borman is associate professor of Philosophy and Political
Science at Nipissing University (Ontario, Canada). His research concerns
both critical social theory and contractualist metaethics. He is the author
of The Idolatry of the Actual: Habermas, Socialization, and the Possibility
of Autonomy (SUNY Press, 2011) and has published papers in such
journals as Res Publica, Dialogue, Philosophical Forum, Social Philosophy
Today, and Philosophy and Social Criticism, as well as several chapters in
edited anthologies.
xiii
xiv Notes on Contributors
Harry F. Dahms is a professor of Sociology, Co-Director of the Center
for the Study of Social Justice, and Co-Chair of the Committee on Social
Theory at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. He is the editor of
Current Perspectives in Social Theory and a director of the International
Social Theory Consortium. He is the author of The Vitality of Critical
Theory (2011), has edited and co-edited a dozen other books, and has
published in Sociological Theory, Current Perspectives in Social Theory,
Comparative Sociology, Critical Sociology, Basic Income Studies, Bulletin
of Science, Technology and Society, and other journals, along with chapters
in encyclopedias and handbooks. Currently, he is finishing a book manuscript, Modern Society as Artifice: Critical Theory and the Logic of Capital.
Konstantinos Kavoulakos is associate professor of Social and Political
Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy and Social Studies at the
University of Crete (Greece). His research focuses on an investigation of the 20th century tradition of critical social thought. His most
recent books include Ästhetizistische Kulturkritik und ethische Utopie.
Georg Lukács’ neukantianisches Frühwerk, (Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter,
2014), and Georg Lukács’s Philosophy of Praxis. From Neo-Kantianism to
Marxism (forthcoming with Bloomsbury, 2018).
Lauren Langman is a professor of sociology at Loyola University of
Chicago. He has long worked in the tradition of the Frankfurt School
of Critical Theory, especially relationships between culture, identity
and politics/political movements. His latest books are on American
Character, God, Guns, Gold and Glory (Brill) and Inequality in the 21st C:
Marx, Piketty and beyond (Brill).
Volker Schmitz is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political
Science, Indiana University, Bloomington.
Gregory R. Smulewicz-Zucker is the managing editor of Logos: A
Journal of Modern Society and Culture. His most recent book is The
Political Thought of African Independence: An Anthology of Sources
(Hackett Publishing). He is co-editor, with Michael J. Thompson, of
Anti-Science and the Assault on Democracy: Defending Reason in a Free
Society (Prometheus). He has degrees in history, philosophy, and political science from the University of Cambridge, The Graduate Center,
CUNY, and Rutgers University.
Notes on Contributors xv
Mariana Teixeira is associate researcher at the Brazilian Center
for Analysis and Planning and was a Visiting Researcher at the Free
University-Berlin. She received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the
University of Campinas with a dissertation on social pathologies, suffering, and resistance in the work of Axel Honneth. Mariana has published on critical theory, Marxism, post-colonialism, and feminism, and
is a member of the editorial board of the academic journals Ideias and
Dissonancia: Critical Theory Journal.
Michael J. Thompson is a professor of Political Theory in the
Department of Political Science, William Paterson University. His
previous books include The Politics of Inequality (Columbia, 2012), The
Domestication of Critical Theory (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016) as well
as the editor of The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Theory (Palgrave,
2017). His forthcoming books include, The Specter of Babel: Political
Judgment and the Crisis of Modernity, (SUNY) and Twilight of the Self:
The Eclipse of Autonomy in Modern Society (Stanford).
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Answers to Axel Honneth
Volker Schmitz
In 1968, Jürgen Habermas published an edited volume of Antworten
auf Herbert Marcuse. It comprised the reactions from a multitude of
young scholars on Marcuse’s theoretical and political positions at the
time, unified by a theme of vehement rejection. Habermas’s casual and
often witty introduction is particularly interesting in light of the past fifty
years of Frankfurt School research. Beyond its more substantive themes,
his rationale for presenting Marcuse at his 70th birthday with a collection of unruly criticisms still rings true today and informs the spirit of
this, a much more modest volume: “Metacritique alone can do honor to
a philosopher of critique.”1
Looking back, that slim volume on Marcuse can be seen as the expression of a decisive turning point in the history of the Frankfurt School.
In the wake of political setbacks and historical tragedies, it marked a collective decision to replace the “prescientific” and perhaps tacitly metaphysical commitments of the first generation of Frankfurt scholars with
an empirically grounded program of social research, drawing at least as
much on the formerly maligned American tradition of positivism and
pragmatism as on the critical variants of continental philosophy from
Kant to Hegel and Marx.
V. Schmitz (*)
Department of Political Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
© The Author(s) 2019
V. Schmitz (ed.), Axel Honneth and the Critical Theory
of Recognition, Political Philosophy and Public Purpose,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91980-5_1
1
2
V. SCHMITZ
Despite its overwhelming scholarly success, this change—best exemplified by Habermas’s “communicative turn” shortly after—has also
attracted a number of critics worried about the increasing separation
between the Frankfurt School of critical theory and concrete political
struggles. The new focus on communicative rationality and proceduralism facilitated the tradition’s entry intro wider discourses of political
philosophy, but some scholars have consistently expressed concern that
its success came at the price of giving up its transcendental and perhaps
utopian dimension.2 In recent years, Axel Honneth has emerged as the
leading figure of Frankfurt’s “third generation,” characterized by its
ambivalent stance on the changes instituted by their predecessors. His
work has been characterized by the explicit ambition to modernize the
Frankfurt School, in an attempt to reconcile the changes inaugurated by
Habermas with the original self-understanding of the tradition.
On the one hand, Honneth embraces Habermas’s methodological
sophistication and commitment to exacting scientific standards. On the
other, his work has been motivated by a concern over the narrowing
horizon that came with it, its silence on crucial dimensions of social life
(work, above all), and its inability to pay heed to the subjectively experienced injuries and non-communicative forms of oppression in contemporary society. In the late 1970s, Honneth began to develop his critique
into two projects: a theory of recognition and a (new) framework for
critical theory in the Frankfurt tradition. Where the different parts of
Honneth’s work stand in relation to one another is not a question that
can be answered with certainty. As the essays collected in this volume
suggest, there may be as many answers as there are readers, and the conscious decision for any one of them tends to shape the general thrust of
interpretations. Similarly, the question whether it is useful to talk about a
“third” generation of the Frankfurt School unified by a distinct paradigm
remains itself a matter of debate: although we can speak, with Jacques
Rancière, of an “ethical turn” that finds its strongest manifestation in
Frankfurt School theory in Honneth’s work revolving around “ethical
consensus” (Sittlichkeit) and social institutions, it is far from clear how
far this “ethical” turn strays from the more general “normative” orientation that has characterized the work of Habermas and theorists working
within his paradigm.3
1
INTRODUCTION: ANSWERS TO AXEL HONNETH
3
Axel Honneth’s Theory of Recognition
The first project eventually jumpstarted Honneth’s international reputation with the publication of The Struggle for Recognition in 1995.4 Based
upon a novel interpretation of Hegel’s early works, Honneth developed
an updated typology of modes of recognition. Combining what he called
“anthropological form” with historically contingent content, Honneth
posited that both an individual’s identity formation and the maintenance of a non-pathological modern society required the recognition
of every member in three areas: love, respect, and esteem. Respectively,
these modes ensure any subject’s recognition as (a) an individual human
being loved for her (private) particularity, (b) an equal citizen treated
with respect qua citizenship and the non-discriminatory rule of law, and
(c) a unique contributor to society esteemed for her particular (public
and socially effective) merit.
The Struggle for Recognition met with great success and was welcomed
most enthusiastically by scholars from two very different traditions. On
the one hand, Honneth added to the congruity between critical theory
and more solidly established schools: arriving at a time when debates
between “liberals” and “communitarians” had reached its zenith,
Honneth’s work came to be seen as a vital contribution to the debate—
despite his oft-stated lack of interest in that particular discourse. On
the other hand, long-grumbling critics of the changes to the Frankfurt
School during Habermas’s most productive period welcomed Honneth’s
attempt to re-open avenues to a more ambitious and potentially also
more political and even radical analysis of modern society and its shortcomings. In due course, the book and Honneth’s subsequent writings in
the 1990s and early 2000s spawned a renewed interest in critical theory
and a rich collection of engaging and intellectually sophisticated secondary literature.5
Perhaps the two most interesting debates following the publication
of Struggle for Recognition and Honneth’s debate with Nancy Fraser
in Redistribution or Recognition6 were concerned with issues on which
Honneth had chosen to remain relatively silent in order to lay out
the basic structure of his theory of recognition more clearly: “power”
and “capitalism.” Where the issues did not intersect, “power”-related
responses to Honneth’s work focused primarily on the issue of “normalization” and charges of neglect for marginalized voices glossed over in
assumptions of consensus. Concerns in this vein come from a wide range
4
V. SCHMITZ
of political and intellectual positions but tend to highlight “hidden”
coercion within a kind of recognition that affirms the individual through
affirmation of her inferior status.7
Even more divisive proved the role of capitalism. In Habermas’s work,
capitalism was theorized to “colonize” our everyday life, but it remained
somewhat outside the main focus of his analysis because it did not, by its
very nature, follow the imperatives of communicative rationality. Because
it functioned by a different medium, capitalism was both a threat and
elusive. In contrast, Honneth’s theory posited that nothing in modern
society was beyond the reach of intersubjective agency and “communication” in a wider sense. Where Habermas was methodologically barred
from fully incorporating the role of capitalism into his theory, Honneth,
it seemed, would ultimately be compelled to do so head-on—an expectation strengthened not only by his ambition to re-connect with the first
generation of the Frankfurt School but also by his frequent and explicit
references to socialist thinkers such as E. P. Thompson.
In the meantime, Honneth prolifically extended his framework of recognition and used it as a backdrop to a sketch of neo-Deweyan theory of
democracy in the late 1990s, formalizing, to some extent, his vision of
“teleological liberalism” that he separated strictly to competing theories
of liberalism he considered to be abstract and a-historical. Drawing on
Hegel, John Dewey, and G. H. Mead, Honneth developed a narrative
of “directed” progress that could not be understood without recourse
to concrete history and change brought about through the struggles of
marginalized groups and social movements.8
A New Frankfurt School?
Apart from the merit of individual contributions, the literature—both
critical and appreciative—on Honneth’s theory of recognition had a
lasting impact on his second major project: the reformulation of critical theory in the Frankfurt School. Although he had written numerous
essays and collection on the topic, dating back to the late 1970s, this
project came to full fruition only with the publication of Freedom’s Right
in 2014 (2011).9 In what read like both a new focus of his research and
a response to the more skeptical readers of Struggle for Recognition,
Honneth elaborated a critical theory that finally provided his longstanding project of “teleological liberalism” with an “immanent” foundation, following years of critical engagement with Hegel’s later writings.
1
INTRODUCTION: ANSWERS TO AXEL HONNETH
5
Rather than the reliance on revolutionary speculation or abstract norms
of communicative rationality that he identified in the preceding generations of the Frankfurt School, Honneth posited that social progress can
be read through a “normative reconstruction” of its institutions—in particular, the family, the market, and the public sphere. These institutions
pointed the way toward ever more progressive arrangements, Honneth
argued, because they all relied for their social function on some form of
ethical consensus throughout society and came with an inherent “normative surplus” that precluded stagnation and the uncritical acceptance of
the status quo.
Good deeds rarely go unpunished, and Honneth’s clarification of previously ambiguous positions proved no exception. Immediately more
controversial than his earlier work, Freedom’s Right and its central idea
of “social freedom” drew criticism from several directions. Critical theorists inclined towards liberalism were concerned by what they saw as a
dismissive attitude toward the achievements of Kantian moral philosophy
and the tradition of the rule of law, as well as an unnecessary surrender
of Habermasian procedures of justification; those closer to poststructuralist theories bemoaned the book’s tendency—already suspected to play a
role in Honneth’s earlier writings—toward “normalization”; and those,
finally, who had put their hopes into a renewal of the (however vaguely)
Marxist orientation of the first Frankfurt generation were baffled primarily by Honneth’s unorthodox reconstruction of the idea of the “market”
and what they saw as an increasingly uncritical analysis of societal “consensus.” The importance of Freedom’s Right for the general course of
critical theory can be seen in the number and forcefulness of reactions.10
Many of the participating thinkers were motivated by some variant of
the same questions: did Honneth’s turn from Hegel’s early writings to
a qualified embrace of The Philosophy of Right confirm lingering worries
that any theory focused on ethics would ultimately tend to normatively
justify a given status quo? Could the turn to ethics be taken without
neglecting social structures and losing the ability to subject contemporary society to the kind of radical criticism embodied in the first generation of the Frankfurt School?
In response, Honneth published a concise blueprint for a new Idea of
Socialism, in an effort to dispel the direct as well as implied accusations
of a tacit conservatism underlying his theory.11 Honneth now stressed
the democratic and radical dimensions of the “teleological liberalism”
he had espoused since the 1990s. Perhaps not surprisingly, Honneth’s
6
V. SCHMITZ
proposals for a new socialism failed to satisfy much of its audience:
skeptics wondered whether a resurgence of socialism could be of any
use whatsoever, while the usual socialist suspects remained irritated by
Honneth’s continued resistance to acknowledge Marx and his intellectual heirs as a crucial pillar of Frankfurt School legacy.
Because of his ambitions to both revive and reorganize the project of
critical theory, the importance of Honneth’s work continues to transcend
the horizon of his substantive contribution more narrowly conceived.
At every turn of his highly productive career, the debates occasioned
by his most recent publications indicate that there always appears to
be something more at stake. That 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of
Habermas’s volume on Marcuse is, of course, entirely accidental—
but there could be worse occasions to subject the current director of
Frankfurt’s Institute for Social Research to the kind of “metacritique”
reserved for significant thinkers at a time of crisis.
This Volume
The authors collected in this volume approach Honneth’s work from
different backgrounds, employ a wide variety of methodologies, and
write in different genres, ranging from the sober scholarly analysis to
programmatic and political appeals. Their intellectual and political diversity characterizes this entry in the Political Philosophy and Public Purpose
series, and it would do them and the originality of their thought a great
disservice to falsely attribute to them a single, unified chorus of intent.
What unites them is a feeling of critical appreciation of Honneth’s work:
some are more critical, some more appreciative, but they all strive to
bring to light the impact, the achievements, and the potential pitfalls of
Honneth’s “ethical turn” and the second phase in critical theory’s orientation toward the normative foundations of modern society that began
with Habermas’s exploration of procedures of justification. They share
with Honneth and each other a deep commitment to critical scholarship,
however different their propositions may be.
This book opens with several explorations of Honneth’s use of recognition, with particular emphasis on the more recent advances he has
proposed on the issue. J. C. Berendzen draws on two separate projects
Honneth pursued in the 2000s and proposes a synthesis of Honneth’s
“elementary recognition” with his work on the fourth chapter of Hegel’s
Phenomenology (Chapter 2). Konstantinos Kavoulakos provides a critical
1
INTRODUCTION: ANSWERS TO AXEL HONNETH
7
reading of Honneth’s Tanner Lectures on “reification” and posits that
the neglect of social structures endangers the critical potential of this
particular feature of critical theory (Chapter 3). In Chapter 4, Lauren
Langman criticizes the latently abstract character of Honneth’s variant
of recognition and calls for greater attention to the bodily dimension of
social life and a comprehensive account that includes considerations of
political economy as much as insights from psychoanalysis.
In Chapter 5, David A. Borman traces the impact of scholars of class
consciousness and labor throughout Honneth’s career and argues for a
return to these radical roots of the project of recognition. Gregory R.
Smulewicz-Zucker focuses his attention on the role of the market in
the democratic theories of Honneth, John Dewey, Robert A. Dahl,
and Charles Lindblom (Chapter 6). Volker Schmitz reviews Honneth’s
recent work in light of the project of “radical reformism” that has periodically appeared on the scene of critical theory since the 1960s and
promised a non-revolutionary path to democratic socialism (Chapter 7).
Providing a bridge to the concluding and future-oriented final
chapters of the book, Mariana Teixeira addresses one of critical theory’s long-standing themes in her chapter on “instrumental reason” in
Honneth’s work, arguing that this thread has become excessively marginal in the third generation of the Frankfurt School (Chapter 8).
The book concludes with three authors who offer their evaluation of
Honneth’s work within critical theory and the Frankfurt School. In
Chapter 9, Harry F. Dahms suggests that critical theory would benefit from greater conceptual clarity as far as the term, critical theory, is
concerned, and shows how since the 1980s, an overly strong emphasis
on paradigms has facilitated a shift away from efforts to illuminate the
constitutional logic of modern societies in its socio-historically specific
manifestations; the projects of Honneth and Habermas should not be
understood as located in the tradition of critical theory as Horkheimer
conceived of it, and as especially Marcuse and Adorno developed it further, but instead as a normative project of critical liberalism.. Michael J.
Thompson argues that the “recognition paradigm” as a whole has failed
to revive the critical spirit of the Frankfurt School and proposes a return
to the tradition’s roots in its first generation (Chapter 10). In contrast,
James E. Block draws a parallel between the concepts of “recognition”
and “history,” and argues that neither is inherently progressive or conservative, and that a different variant of (self-)recognition may better
serve the emancipatory intent of critical theory (Chapter 11).
8
V. SCHMITZ
Notes
1. Jürgen Habermas, Introduction to Antworten auf Herbert Marcuse, ed.
Jürgen Habermas (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1968), 9. Translation mine.
2. The spectrum of authors expressing such concerns is wide and reflects the
ever-increasing number of thinkers who have influenced writers of the
second-generation Frankfurt School. In the Anglophone work, it includes
sympathetic readers of Habermas from Seyla Benhabib to Maeve Cook as
much as “Marcusian” writers, in a loose sense, such as Andrew Feenberg
or Stanley Aronowitz, but also thinkers who have worked on connecting
the Frankfurt School to post-structuralist theories, such as Nancy Fraser
or Amy Allen.
3. Cf. Jacques Rancière, “The Ethical Turn of Aesthetics and Politics.”
Critical Horizons, vol. 7, no. 1 (2006): 1–20. Rancière applies the
term to what he detects as a general trend but voices similar concern in
debate with Honneth several years later. See Axel Honneth and Jacques
Rancière, Recognition or Disagreement: A Critical Encounter on the
Politics of Freedom, Equality, and Identity (New York, NY: Columbia
University Press, 2016).
4. Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social
Conflicts (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995). For additional essays
deepening his central ideas of the period see Axel Honneth, The I in We:
Studies in the Theory of Recognition (Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity
Press, 2012).
5. While by no means exhaustive, the following are among the outstanding works on Honneth’s theory of recognition. Among edited volumes,
excellent publications include: Danielle Petherbridge (ed.) Axel Honneth:
Critical Essays (Leiden: Brill, 2011); Bert van den Brink and David
Owen (eds.) Recognition and Power: Axel Honneth and the Tradition
of Critical Social Theory (Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press, 2007); and, more generally on the topic of recognition
and social theory, Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch and Christopher F.
Zurn (eds.) The Philosophy of Recognition: Historical and Contemporary
Perspectives (Plymouth: Lexington Books, 2010). An excellent collection of reactions to Honneth’s innovations can be found, in German, in
the Festschrift for Honneth’s 60th birthday: Rainer Forst, et al., (eds.)
Sozialphilosophie und Kritik (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2009). Outstanding
examples of critical monographies on Honneth and/or recognition
include: Patchen Markell, Bound By Recognition (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2003); Jean-Philippe Deranty, Beyond Communication:
A Critical Study of Axel Honneth’s Social Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 2009);
Lois McNay, Against Recognition (Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity
1
INTRODUCTION: ANSWERS TO AXEL HONNETH
9
Press, 2008). Following his increasing importance in the field, Honneth’s
theory has also become a staple of most general discussions of contemporary critical theory. See, for instance: Maeve Cooke, Re-presenting the
Good Society (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006), ch. 3.
6. Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth, Redistribution of Recognition? A
Political-Philosophical Exchange (London and New York: Verso, 2003).
7. Honneth has addressed this concern of “ideological recognition” repeatedly, most clearly in his “Recognition as Ideology” in: van den Brink
and David Owen, Recognition and Power, 323–347. For a concise and
insightful example of this line of critique, see Amy Allen, “Recognizing
Domination: Recognition and Power in Honneth’s Critical Theory.”
Journal of Power, vol. 3, no. 1 (2010): 21–32.
8. Axel Honneth, “Democracy as Reflexive Cooperation: John Dewey
and the Theory of Democracy Today.” Political Theory, vol. 26, no. 6
(1998): 763–783. A discussion of this thread can be found in several
of the edited volumes listed above, as well in Simon Thompson’s overview of recognition-based theories of democracy: Simon Thompson, The
Political Theory of Recognition: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge and
Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2006). The concept of “teleological liberalism” can be found in Struggle for Recognition as well as Recognition or
Redistribution?
9. Axel Honneth, Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2014). For some of Honneth’s
most important essays on the subject throughout his career, see the essay
collections: The Fragmented World of the Social (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 1995) and Disrespect: The Normative Foundations of
Critical Theory (Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2007) An
important work connecting Honneth’s work on recognition and critical theory can be found in his Tanner Lectures, published as Reification:
A New Look at an Old Idea (Oxford and New York: Oxford University
Press, 2008). An interview of Honneth on these themes is particularly:
Goncalo Marcelo, “Recognition and Critical Theory Today: An Interview
with Axel Honneth.” Philosophy and Social Criticism, vol. 39, no. 2
(2013): 209–221.
10. The vigor of this debate is captured in a series of immediate responses to
Freedom’s Right: see the articles by Fabian Freyenhagen, Timo Jütten,
Lois McNay, David N. McNeill and Jörg Schaub, as well as Honneth’s
rejoinder, in Critical Horizons, vol. 15, no. 2 (2015): 107–226. Notable
and recently published books include: Jonas Jakobsen and Odin
Lysaker (eds.) Recognition and Freedom (Leiden: Brill, 2015); Danielle
Petherbridge, The Critical Theory of Axel Honneth (London: Lexington
10
V. SCHMITZ
Books, 2013); Christopher Zurn, Axel Honneth. A Critical Theory of the
Social (Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2015).
11. Axel Honneth, The Idea of Socialism: Towards a Renewal (Cambridge and
Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2017).
Selected Bibliography
Allen, Amy (2010) “Recognizing Domination: Recognition and Power in
Honneth’s Critical Theory.” Journal of Power, vol. 3, no. 1: 21–32.
Cooke, Maeve (2006) Re-presenting the Good Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Deranty, Jean-Philippe (2009) Beyond Communication: A Critical Study of Axel
Honneth’s Social Philosophy. Leiden: Brill.
Forst, Rainer, Martin Hartmann, Rahel Jaeggi and Martin Saar, eds. (2009)
Sozialphilosophie und Kritik. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Fraser, Nancy and Axel Honneth (2003) Redistribution of Recognition? A
Political-Philosophical Exchange. London and New York: Verso.
Freyenhagen, Fabian (2015) “Honneth on Social Pathologies: A Critique.”
Critical Horizons, vol. 15, no. 2: 131–152.
Habermas, Jürgen (1986) “Zum Geleit.” In Jürgen Habermas (ed.) Antworten
auf Herbert Marcuse. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 9–16.
Honneth, Axel (1995a) The Fragmented World of the Social. Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press.
Honneth, Axel (1995b) The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of
Social Conflicts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Honneth, Axel (1998) “Democracy as Reflexive Cooperation: John Dewey and
the Theory of Democracy Today.” Political Theory, vol. 26, no. 6: 763–783.
Honneth, Axel (2007a) Disrespect: The Normative Foundations of Critical Theory.
Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Honneth, Axel (2007b) “Recognition as Ideology.” In Bert Van den Brink and
David Owen (eds.) Recognition and Power. Cambridge and New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press, 323–347.
Honneth, Axel (2008) Reification: A New Look at an Old Idea. Oxford and New
York: Oxford University Press.
Honneth, Axel (2012) The I in We: Studies in the Theory of Recognition.
Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Honneth, Axel (2014) Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic
Life. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Honneth, Axel (2017) The Idea of Socialism: Towards a Renewal. Cambridge and
Malden, MA: Polity Press.
1
INTRODUCTION: ANSWERS TO AXEL HONNETH
11
Honneth, Axel and Jacques Rancière (2016) Recognition or Disagreement: A
Critical Encounter on the Politics of Freedom, Equality, and Identity. New
York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Jakobsen, Jonas and Odin Lysaker (2015) Recognition and Freedom. Leiden:
Brill.
Jütten, Timo (2015) “Is the Market a Sphere of Social Freedom?” Critical
Horizons, vol. 15, no. 2: 187–203.
Marcelo, Gonzalo (2013) “Recognition and Critical Theory Today: An interview
with Axel Honneth.” Philosophy and Social Criticism, vol. 39, no. 2: 209–221.
Markell, Patchen (2003) Bound By Recognition. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
McNay, Lois (2008) Against Recognition. Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity
Press.
McNay, Lois (2015) “Social Freedom and Progress in the Family: Reflections on
Care, Gender and Inequality.” Critical Horizons, vol. 15, no. 2: 170–186.
McNeill, David N. (2015) “Social Freedom and Self-Actualization: ‘Normative
Reconstruction’ as a Theory of Justice.” Critical Horizons, vol. 15, no. 2:
153–169.
Petherbridge, Danielle, ed. (2011) Axel Honneth: Critical Essays. Leiden: Brill.
Petherbridge, Danielle (2013) The Critical Theory of Axel Honneth. London:
Lexington Books.
Rancière, Jacques (2006) “The Ethical Turn of Aesthetics and Politics.” Critical
Horizons, vol. 7, no. 1: 1–20.
Schaub, Jörg (2015) “Misdevelopments, Pathologies, and Normative
Revolutions: Normative Reconstruction as Method of Critical Theory.”
Critical Horizons, vol. 15, no. 2: 107–130.
Schmidt am Busch, Hans-Christoph and Christopher F. Zurn, eds. (2010) The
Philosophy of Recognition: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Plymouth:
Lexington Books.
Thompson, Simon (2006) The Political Theory of Recognition: A Critical
Introduction. Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press.
van den Brink, Bert and David Owen, eds. 2007 Recognition and Power: Axel
Honneth and the Tradition of Critical Social Theory. Cambridge and New
York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Zurn, Christopher F. (2015) Axel Honneth: A Critical Theory of the Social.
Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press.
CHAPTER 2
Reciprocity and Self-Restriction
in Elementary Recognition
J. C. Berendzen
No contemporary thinker has done more with Hegel’s concept of recognition than Axel Honneth, who has taken Hegel’s discussions of recognitive relations and developed them into an intricate social theory.
Originally, Honneth developed this view out of Hegel’s early Jena period
writings. This was based on the assertion that Hegel’s post-Jena works
developed a “monological concept of spirit” that obscured an earlier
emphasis on intersubjective interaction.1 Using Hegel’s putatively intersubjectivist earlier view, Honneth elaborated a conception of recognition
as developing in specific, substantive ways in different types of social settings (following the Hegelian categories of love, rights, and solidarity).2
In the past decade, however, Honneth has changed his view both on
Hegel’s development of the concept recognition, and on the character of
recognition in general.
One seemingly curious element of Honneth’s The Struggle for
Recognition is that it ignores Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, which
is the work that people would most directly associate with the idea of
struggling for recognition. As noted above, this was driven by Honneth’s
J. C. Berendzen (*)
Loyola University New Orleans, New Orleans, LA, USA
© The Author(s) 2019
V. Schmitz (ed.), Axel Honneth and the Critical Theory
of Recognition, Political Philosophy and Public Purpose,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91980-5_2
13
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J. C. BERENDZEN
belief that after the Jena period, Hegel’s work moved from intersubjectivism to idealism. But Honneth has recently paid more attention
to Hegel’s post-Jena writings, and he now argues that “Hegel sought
throughout his life to interpret objective spirit, i.e. social reality, as a set
of layered relations of recognition.”3 This has resulted, among other
things, in Honneth reconsidering ch. IV of the Phenomenology, especially in the essay “From Desire to Recognition: Hegel’s Grounding of
Self-Consciousness.”4
Around the same time that he began re-evaluating Hegel’s discussions
of recognition, Honneth also added to his own theory by considering
what he calls “elementary recognition.” Especially as developed in his
2005 Tanner Lectures (published as Reification: A New Look at an Old
Idea), elementary recognition is seen as a basic level of affective engagement with one’s environment that must be in place before one can take
up cognitive relations to others.5 Mature forms of social relation that
move beyond this basic level are seen to be possible only on the basis of
this antecedent form, and elementary recognition is now also taken to
be the ontological basis for the more substantive forms of recognition
described in The Struggle for Recognition.
On its face, these two developments—Honneth’s study of Hegel’s
Phenomenology and his discussion of elementary recognition—would
seem to be largely unrelated. In Reification there is little substantive
discussion of Hegel, and Honneth develops his conception of elementary recognition via consideration of other thinkers (such as Lukács and
Heidegger). Phenomenology of Spirit is not cited in Honneth’s lectures.6
On the other hand, “From Desire to Recognition” does not refer to
“elementary recognition” or reference Reification. As I plan to show in
this paper, however, the two works discuss very similar ideas and complement each other quite well. Most significantly, I think that the expansion of some ideas developed in “From Desire to Recognition” can help
respond to criticisms that have been leveled against the view presented in
Reification.
To show this, this essay will proceed in the following fashion. Part one
will summarize Honneth’s conception of elementary recognition as it is
developed in Reification, and consider prominent criticisms of the view.
The main criticism is summarized by Honneth as the claim that he “is
guilty of employing an overly optimistic anthropology” that inappropriately builds a kind of moral goodness (which is particularly suitable
to his purposes) into human nature.7 Part two will then shift gears to a
2
RECIPROCITY AND SELF-RESTRICTION IN ELEMENTARY RECOGNITION
15
consideration of Honneth’s reading of ch. IV of Hegel’s Phenomenology
by describing the movement in Hegel’s text from “Life” and “Desire”
to “Recognition.”8 Part two will also show how the ideas that are developed in Honneth’s analysis of Hegel map quite well onto the ideas
discussed in Reification. Part three will elaborate on one element of
Honneth’s analysis of Hegel, namely the contention that Desire leads
to a form of protomorality, which is connected to subjects’ reciprocal
self-restriction of their desires. Part four will then argue that if one augments Honneth’s conception of elementary recognition with the Hegelinspired idea of proto-moral reciprocal self-restriction, this can help
overcome the criticisms discussed at the end of part one.
Before beginning, I would like to make two important notes regarding this project. First, what I am proposing here goes beyond Honneth’s
stated aims in “From Desire to Recognition.” He does not claim to
be drawing out any broad theoretical implications from Hegel’s text.
Rather, his essay stands as more of an exegetical work. Second, my aim is
not to assess the exegetical adequacy of Honneth’s interpretation. Thus
the qualification that the view is “Hegel-inspired.” While I will look to
Hegel’s text to bolster some of Honneth’s points, my primary focus is
to question whether the claims that Honneth makes about Hegel might
help support his use of the concept of elementary recognition. This aim
largely swings free of the question of whether Honneth presents a correct interpretation of Hegel.
Elementary Recognition in Reification
“Reification” is the titular topic of Honneth’s Tanner Lectures, and
the focus of the lectures is on a reinterpretation of that central Marxian
concept. But the reinterpretation of reification is accompanied by
a reinterpretation of Honneth’s own central concept, recognition.
Honneth argues that reification should be thought of as “forgetfulness of recognition”—but the “recognition” that is forgotten is a newly
described form, “elementary recognition,” that Honneth speaks of variously as being “existential,” “anthropological,” or “social-ontological.”
Furthermore, “this ‘existential’ mode of recognition provides a foundation for all other, more substantial forms of recognition.”9
He begins his reinterpretation of reification by considering György
Lukács’s view, which Honneth credits for moving beyond a narrow,
economistic understanding of reification.10 Narrowly, reification can
16
J. C. BERENDZEN
be thought of as the trend toward objectifying people, and social relations, due to the increasing influence of capitalist commodity exchange.
Simply speaking, as commodity exchange affects more and more spheres
of everyday life, people begin to be thought of as things (with use values to be calculated) like commodities. Insofar as we regard other people and our social relations as thing-like, we take the perspective of a
detached observer who calculates those “things’” use value as though
they are to be fit into transactions. But Lukács’s locates the true problem associated with reification at a deeper level, as the observational attitude goes beyond an epistemic attitude of calculation.11 As Honneth
puts the point, “the subject is no longer empathetically engaged in
interaction with his surroundings, but is instead placed in the perspective of a neutral observer, psychically and existentially untouched by his
surroundings.”12
This behavior becomes the normal course of action, as an ingrained
habit. Socialization within the capitalist system makes reification a deepseated, fundamental form of “praxis,” and as such it cannot be thought
of as a mere cognitive error (as though it could be corrected by adjusting
one’s beliefs regarding “thingness”). For a similar reason, Lukács holds
that it is not helpful to think of the behaviors associated with reification
as involving violations of moral principles, because those behaviors are
in the main not primarily due to the voluntary, principled choices of the
individual actor.13 The problem is not with chosen principles, but with
socially ingrained habits and the social structures that develop and support those habits.
While Lukács’s rejects a particular kind of moralizing interpretation
of reification, there is clearly a normative element to his view. Honneth
emphasizes this, and summarizes the point as follows:
If reification constitutes neither a mere epistemic category mistake nor a
form of moral misconduct, the only remaining possibility is that it be conceived as a form of praxis that is structurally false. The detached, neutrally
observing mode of behavior, which Lukács attempts to conceptualize as
“reification,” must form an ensemble of habits and attitudes that deviates
from a more genuine or better form of human praxis. This way of formulating the issue makes it clear that this conception of reification is in no
way free of all normative implications. Although we are not dealing with
a simple violation of moral principles, we are indeed confronted with the
much more difficult task of demonstrating the existence of a “true” or
“genuine” praxis over and against its distorted or atrophied form.14
2
RECIPROCITY AND SELF-RESTRICTION IN ELEMENTARY RECOGNITION
17
The important normative work of this theory of reification, then, is
going to be done by the description of the “‘true’ or ‘genuine’ praxis” to
which reification is opposed. One could then use that conception of true
praxis to critique those social formations that cause our habitual action
to deviate from it. Honneth uses the idea of “elementary recognition” to
describe this genuine praxis.
By drawing elements from Martin Heidegger’s phenomenological
analysis of “care” and John Dewey’s analysis of the emotional attachments at the heart of human action, Honneth connects this true praxis
to a form of activity where we are immersively engaged with our worlds.
And he ends up connecting this with recognition:
Just as is true of the mode of care, in interaction the world is not centered around us; instead, we experience situations in such a way that we
“take care” to maintain a fluent interaction with our surroundings…I will
refer to this primordial form of relating to the world as “recognition” in its
most elementary form.
This claim is followed by a slogan that becomes a key part of Reification:
“recognition comes before cognition.” Before we think about the world,
we act in the world—and we do so in a way that exhibits a corporeal,
emotive interest in that world which supports our actions.
In the first instance, it seems odd to refer to this emotive engagement with the world as “recognition.” First, the fact that it is a form of
pre-cognitive, embodied engagement makes the use of the term “recognition,” with its connection to cognition, a bit idiosyncratic.15 Secondly,
Honneth’s claim is initially curious because taking a particular stance
toward the world in general does not directly touch on the character of
our interactions with other people (and it is dealing with other people
that is pertinent for recognition).
In my opinion the idiosyncratic terminology can be accepted as a bit
of terminological jargon, I think, because of the clear links that are eventually drawn between elementary recognition and other forms of recognition. But making that link requires dealing with the second point.
Importantly, Honneth goes on to argue that this general emotional
engagement with the world is a necessary precursor for properly dealing with other persons. This is shown, for Honneth, by recent studies on
autism.16 Drawing on the work of Peter Hobson and Michael Tomasello,
Honneth argues that autistic children face difficulties in interacting with
18
J. C. BERENDZEN
other people not because of cognitive deficits (such as linguistic deficits)
that would hamper interaction, but because of emotional deficits. The
point is summarized most clearly in the following passage:
Hobson and Tomasello contend that a child could not make all these
advances [in learning how to interact appropriately with other people] if
he or she had not already developed a feeling of emotional attachment to
a psychological parent, for it is only by way of this antecedent identification that the child is able to be moved, motivated, and swept along by the
presence of a concrete second person in such a way as to comprehend this
person’s changes of attitude in an interested way.17
The basic contention is that because the autistic infant lacks the more
general emotional engagement with his or her overall environment, he or
she will not be attached enough to the objects in that environment that
happen to be persons to properly grasp that objects’ personhood.
Honneth thus thinks that these studies on autism provide empirical support for the idea that the “ability to take over the perspective
of another person is itself rooted in a kind of antecedent interaction
that bears the characteristic features of existential care.”18 This “existential care” would thus undergird all possible empirical permutations
of social recognition. Honneth also takes the studies on autism to support the idea that elementary recognition is an “anthropological” or
even “ontological” category, because they suggest that existential care
is at the heart of human ontogenesis. Having an embodied, emotionally involved relation to the world is a necessary part of normal human
development. Reification would involve the forgetting of recognition
insofar as the habituated objectifying stance “forgets” or “conceals”
this initial emotional engagement and obscures it with a detached
perspective.19
If Honneth’s theory of elementary recognition is correct, it provides
a powerful new normative grounding for his social theory overall. In
general, Honneth takes social critique to be rooted in the explication
of “moral experience,” or the experiences of those who face injustice.20
Typically in Honneth’s work those experiences are theoretically elaborated in terms of the theory of recognition; for example, the experiences
of those who suffer bigotry can be thought of in terms of a form of disrespect corresponding to the recognition category of solidarity. But If
those experiences could be further elaborated in terms of the distortion
of a deeper, more fundamental element of human nature (elementary
2
RECIPROCITY AND SELF-RESTRICTION IN ELEMENTARY RECOGNITION
19
recognition), this would provide an even more powerful foundation for
mounting a critique of the practices that have led to those experiences of
disrespect.
This might be a bit of wishful thinking (or perhaps wishful theorizing) on Honneth’s part, however, or so the three commentators on his
Tanner Lectures all seem to think. While those commentators (Judith
Butler, Raymond Geuss, and Jonathan Lear) present somewhat different
points of criticism (not all of which will be considered here) they agree
on one main point. As Honneth restates their criticism, his view “reads
too much intersubjective sympathy into the initial human situation” and
thus presents “an overly optimistic anthropology.”21 It should be noted
that Honneth leaves himself open to this criticism by using some ambiguous terminology. His use of the term “care,” for instance, has this problem; while the technical Heideggerian use of that term may not imply a
positive moral valuation, the claim that elementary recognition involves
a “style of caring comportment” may blur the line between the technical
and standard uses of “care.” Furthermore, on the same page as the previous quote Honneth speaks of recognizing the world’s “significance and
value,” and suggests that elementary recognition involves a “constant
assessment of the value that persons or things have in themselves.”22 So
while his overall claim is that elementary recognition does not entail any
positive valuation, some of his language does not always clearly support
that claim.23 If Honneth’s only error is misstating his point in a couple of
instances, this should not be fatal for the overall view. But the three commentators clearly think that the problem is deeper, and affects Honneth’s
theory as a whole.
To examine this criticism in more detail I will focus on the version
presented by Jonathan Lear, because I think it is the best developed version in the three commentaries. Lear begins by construing Honneth’s
theory as presenting “a secularized version of the fall”; elementary recognition amounts to a prior, original condition of humanity which is good,
and reification is a less good condition that has resulted from a distortion of the prior condition.24 Before mounting any specific criticism of
Honneth’s theory Lear notes that we should be suspicious of such secularized fall narratives:
There will be a tendency in any theory that has this structure to build too
much goodness into the prior condition. For it is that prior goodness that
is not only supposed to help us recognize and criticize our present bad
20
J. C. BERENDZEN
condition; it is meant to validate some image of how we might go forward. The posterior condition’s claim to legitimacy is based in part on its
claim to be the inheritor of the original goodness of the prior condition.
Might we then unwittingly be building too much goodness into that prior
condition?25
Lear takes Honneth to be making this mistake. Interestingly, he agrees
with a large part of Honneth’s conception of elementary recognition;
as he notes, we should “agree with Honneth that an emotively laden
capacity for recognition is a crucial part of infant development.”26
Lear thus agrees that something like elementary recognition—an
affectively based, precognitive involvement with the world of the type
that Heidegger called “care,”—is a necessary part of human development. The problem, though, is that it is wrong to associate some positive moral valence with this “care,” because attitudes that we would
typically take to be morally wrong can exhibit the relevant affective
involvement.27 The person who hates someone else, or who is revolted
by someone else, may do so on the basis of some close, emotionally
engaged connection to the other.
To make this point Lear uses the example of the narcissist.28
Narcissists can be “charming,” “emotionally engaged,” and “attuned to
the needs of others.” But this behavior works in the service of the narcissist manipulating others for their own good. Lear’s point is that while
there is a sense in which the narcissist objectifies the other, they do not
seem to lack the basic affective engagement with others. If they totally
lacked elementary recognition, their narcissism would not be as effective,
because they would not be able to engage people for their own purposes.
“It is not” as Lear puts it “as though they are treating other people simply, say, as a car that has run out of gas,” which is the kind of treatment
that would seem to come out of a total forgetting of elementary recognition. Lear notes that the moral failing of the narcissist may plausibly be
described in terms of some recognitional deficit, but one could not pin
that deficit on a lack of elementary recognition. And if people can satisfy the basic components of elementary recognition yet engage in multiple morally problematic instances of disrespect (via hatred, narcissism,
etc.) this is a problem for Honneth’s analysis. Most of the normative
force of the concept of elementary recognition would be lost, because
one would no longer be able to pin many common moral injuries on its
“forgetting.”
2
RECIPROCITY AND SELF-RESTRICTION IN ELEMENTARY RECOGNITION
21
In his “Rejoinder” to Butler, Geuss, and Lear, Honneth emphasizes
that elementary recognition should not be seen as containing positive
moral norms.29 While it is the basis for further forms of recognition, it
is in itself morally neutral. Honneth also restricts his analysis in a fashion
that more or less concedes Lear’s criticism, and greatly reduces the role
that elementary recognition might play in his critical theory.
First, Honneth emphasizes that he is considering a literal rendering
of reification, which “presupposes that we completely fail to perceive the
characteristics that make these persons into instances of the human species in any true sense.”30 The upshot of this is that reification cannot be
confused with “instrumentalization”; the fact that one uses another person for one’s own purposes does not imply that one completely misses
the instrumentalized person’s personhood. While Honneth does not
directly mention it, it is not hard to think of him conceding Lear’s narcissist example in this case. This also shows that any instance that genuinely forgets elementary recognition would be extreme. Honneth
maintains that some important social problems meet this threshold (he
mentions slavery, for instance), but he now notes that “by committing
to this literal, ontological meaning of [reification], we greatly restrict the
scope of what can count as a case of reification in the social world.”31
Towards the end he notes that his points in the rejoinder “demonstrate
just how improbable true cases of reification are for the social lifeworld as
a whole.”32 Thus, by the end of the work the concept of elementary recognition has been stripped of most of its normative potential.
My view is that while Lear and the other commenters raise some
important points that need to be addressed, Honneth’s rejoinder concedes too much to them. While elementary recognition should not
be seen as containing positive moral norms, it can be thought of as
“proto-moral” in a way that closely connects it to the more developed forms of social recognition than Honneth’s rejoinder suggests.
Furthermore, when it is thought of this way, the hard distinction that
Honneth draws between literal reification and instrumentalization breaks
down, and the idea of “forgetting” elementary recognition becomes
much less improbable. In order to establish these points, I am going to
take a seeming detour through Honneth’s analysis of ch. IV of Hegel’s
Phenomenology. While it is not Honneth’s stated aim to do so, my argument is that in that analysis Honneth develops an idea that is very close
to elementary recognition, and explains the sense in which it can be
thought of as “proto-moral.”
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J. C. BERENDZEN
Life, Desire, and Recognition in Ch. IV of Hegel’s
Phenomenology
Prima facie, Hegel’s discussion of “Self-Consciousness” in ch. IV of the
Phenomenology only partly matches Honneth’s main concerns. On the
one hand, the chapter is one of the primary points in Hegel’s corpus
where the concept of recognition is taken up. But on the other hand,
the main topic of the chapter seems to be broadly epistemological, and
concerns the development of a form of cognition that grasps consciousness’ role in constituting its experience of the objective world. Honneth
argues, however, that the development of this form of cognition depends
upon a pre-cognitive, embodied link between the subject, its environment, and others. In this regard, Honneth’s analysis connects well with
the issues discussed in Reification. To see this more clearly, we need to
examine the development of Hegel’s view, as Honneth construes it.
At the outset of the chapter (in §167) Hegel describes consciousness
as having two moments. In the first moment, “self-consciousness is in
the form of consciousness, and the whole expanse of the sensuous world
is preserved for it.”33 This moment corresponds to the realist object consciousness discussed in the previous sections of the Phenomenology, and
it is directly and intimately tied to the environment of which the subject is conscious. But it is now conceived of as one moment of a selfconsciousness whose second moment is “the unity of self-consciousness
with itself.”34 This second moment, if seen as separate from the consciousness of the objective world,“is merely the motionless tautology of
‘I am I.’” Hegel clearly has Fichte and Kant in mind here, and is alluding to a kind of formal self-identity that can be attached to our various
cognitive acts.35 When thought of this way, consciousness is entirely
self-referential and divorced from the subject’s environment. The problem for Hegel is to show that the two moments are in fact thoroughly
united, and that the “I am I” conception of self-consciousness is stunted
insofar as it is not thought of in terms of a subject who is situated within
an environment. In Honneth’s words, the developing consciousness
must come to see that “the activities of my consciousness are active and
modify reality.”36
The concept of “Desire” comes on the scene at this point as a way of
initiating the link between the two moments of consciousness. Notably,
the German term which is translated as “Desire” is “Begierde,” which is
often taken in a corporeal or animalistic sense, and could be rendered
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23
as “appetite.”37 This sense of the term is, unsurprisingly, important
for Honneth, and leads him to a somewhat unique conclusion regarding Hegel’s distinction from his idealist forebears. Hegel is often
interpreted as critiquing Kant and Fichte for having a conception of
self-consciousness that does not grasp its internally complex, constitutive
relation to otherness.38 This critique centers on a point about the internal character of cognition. But Honneth finds in this section another critique of Kant and Fichte:
[W]hen Kant and Fichte conceive of self-consciousness as the activity by
which consciousness merely observes itself, they lose sight of more than
just the active, synthesizing side of consciousness…it also suggests that the
rational self, of which the subject is seen as possessing knowledge, is free
of all natural determinations and thus lacks any kind of organic liveliness.
Hegel appears to claim that the philosophy of consciousness denies the
subject any kind of direct, unmediated experience of its own corporeality.39
The body and “corporeality” are not directly mentioned in the “SelfConsciousness” chapter, but Honneth builds this claim out of Hegel’s
discussion of Life, and the fact that “the object of immediate desire is
a living thing.”40 By drawing on these elements of the text, Honneth
claims that the unification of the two moments of consciousness does
not involve merely bringing together two internal aspects of the subject’s
experience. Rather, it requires seeing the subject’s conscious experience
as being inextricably connected to the subject’s bodily experience of
engaging with an environment.
At the beginning of §168 Hegel notes that the object, or the “first
moment” of consciousness, has “for us,” the phenomenological observers, “returned into itself,” and “through this reflection into itself, the
object has become Life.”41 Toward the end of the “Consciousness”
chapters of the Phenomenology, the consciousness that reached the point
of understanding came to see that the objective world has a complex,
holistic, internally differentiated structure, which is there called “Life”
on analogy with systematic, internally differentiated and self-stabilizing
organisms. Much of the discussion from §168–§172 involves explicating
this structure, and it is described, in sum, as a unity which is broken up
into differentiated parts that relate to one another, the totality of which
then further maintain a complex unity. These relations are also conceived
dynamically, in terms of fluidity and process.
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So, at the end of the “Consciousness” chapters, the observed consciousness has come to grasp that the objective world exhibits this
organic character. What it has not grasped, but what the phenomenological observer has grasped, is that the observed consciousness is itself
a part of this organic structure. Of course, to put the point in terms of
“grasping” in this way focuses things on a kind of cognition. But the
broader point does seem to be that the conception of self-consciousness
as the merely self-observing “I am I” does not properly describe consciousness’s existence in a living being that takes part in organic processes. And this gives some purchase to Honneth’s idea that corporeality,
and not just cognition, is at stake. So we have reached the point where
we could say that for Hegel, the kind of self-consciousness that is fully
worthy of the name must somehow arise from the bodily desires of a living being.
On Honneth’s reading, Hegel is arguing that one’s corporeal engagement with the world is a necessary precursor to full self-consciousness.
Here he borrows from Frederick Neuhouser’s argument that Desire is a
transcendental condition of possibility for selfconsciousness.42 The main
point is that true self-consciousness could not be attained merely internally via cognition, because true otherness cannot be encountered in that
fashion. In order to see oneself as oneself, an encounter with otherness
is required. This is because one must be able to differentiate oneself as
a discrete entity separate from other things. As Neuhauser puts it, the
other is “necessary as a kind of contrasting background” against which
the self stands out.43 This otherness cannot merely come from cognition,
because our cognitive relation to other objects would involve relations to
our own mental representations, which ultimately are within us and thus
not truly other. But the corporeal experience of Desire involves a genuine engagement with other objects in our environment, and this provides
the condition of possibility for our cognition of otherness to be genuinely of an other. While this point will be expanded on in what follows, it
is worth noting that we are beginning to see a connection with the views
described in Reification, insofar as Honneth is attributing to Hegel the
view that cognition is necessarily preceded by an engaged affective relationship with one’s environment.
At this point one can also begin to see a link to Honneth’s anthropological aims. Hegel is, on his view, rooting the development of
self-consciousness in an experience which is deeply seated in our basic
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25
biological and corporeal existence. Of course this takes on more import
as Hegel makes the shift from Desire to Recognition, because it is with
Recognition that the supposedly “proto-moral” character of our basic
relations to one another comes out.
Recognition arises, in the “Self-Consciousness” chapter, out of a kind
of initial failure of Desire. The Desire of the observed consciousness
is, in the first instance, aimed at “negating,” or consuming, the things
present to it in its consciousness of the external world. This marks an
early, incomplete realization of consciousness’ inherence in Life; it seeks
to take part in the organic process in a one-sided way by destroying the
objects to which it is related. This is problematic, because it is unsatisfactory to place oneself in a broader process by destroying the other parts of
that process. As Honneth puts it, the initially destructive aspect of Desire
leads the subject to entertain “false ideas about its relation to the world”
because it cannot fully grasp that it is a part of the dynamic interactions
of Life.
For Hegel, this dissatisfaction can only be overcome when the
observed consciousness confronts another object like itself, which also
engages in such negating acts. A crucial point for Honneth in explaining
why Hegel makes the transition to discussing the necessary confrontation with another consciousness is that only another consciousness could
be “an element of reality that can only change its own state on the basis
of the first subject’s presence.”44 In particular, Honneth focuses quite a
bit of his interpretation on Hegel’s claim that the subject must encounter
another subject that can carry out the same kind of negation “an ihm”
(“within itself”).45 This means that the other subject must both attempt,
via Desire, to negate the subject, but then also negate itself.
For Honneth, the other’s negation of itself should not be thought
of as self-consumption or self-destruction. It is better thought of as the
other restricting itself, or adjusting its own activities, due to its confrontation with the first subject’s negating activities. And, crucially, the first subject, in interacting with the other subject, will engage in the same kind of
selfrestriction in the face of the other’s actions. The activity is reciprocal.
This reciprocal relation would more properly fit with the concept of Life
than the relation of consumption initially associated with Desire, because
it involves a dynamic exchange between interrelated entities.
This point should be relatively easy to see when sketched in basic
terms. There is a crucial difference between confronting an object one
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desires to consume versus confronting an object that also has such
desires. Imagine that in the first instance we have a hungry subject (who
we will call Alpha) who comes upon, and eats, a piece of food. While this
would fit broadly within the interchange of “Life,” the relation between
Alpha and the food is fairly one-sided and there is not much interaction
beyond consumption. Imagine in the second instance that Alpha comes
upon not just the food, but also another subject, Beta, who is also hungry and desires the food. Interaction is likely to be much more robust in
this case, because Alpha would now not only act, but also react to Beta’s
actions, and vice versa.
This simplistic example can also help illustrate why confronting
another subject would, on Hegel’s view, be necessary for genuinely
causing the first subject to grasp its place within Life. When Alpha confronts Beta, a second subject that changes its own state (i.e. adjusts
its activities), Alpha will notice Beta’s adjustments, and have to react
in kind. Furthermore, the Alpha will notice that Beta is adjusting its
actions because of the actions of Alpha. Alpha will thus have to adjust
its actions in relation to Beta’s adjustments, and thus the two become
involved in a complex interchange of adjustments. For one capable of
self-consciousness, this confrontation of reciprocal adjustments or
“negations” will eventually cause the subject to see (or recognize) itself
as involved in a dynamic way in this interaction, and thus the move to
proper self-consciousness will begin (in which case the two moments of
consciousness discussed earlier would be united). This is why the subject
could only really find itself to be an active part of Life by mutually interacting with other living beings.
We can now sum up the links that Honneth is drawing between
Life, Desire, and Recognition. The subject is, one might say, always
already caught up within Life, or the dynamic organic structure of the
world. Desire names the subject’s corporeal motivation to fully take
part in this organic structure, but Desire initially falls short because of
its emphasis on consumption. Desire can only lead the subject to fully
take part in Life through a confrontation with another subject, which
requires self-restriction. This then leads to Recognition. But importantly,
Honneth is suggesting that the initial confrontation with the other subject involves a kind of corporeal, pre-cognitive reciprocal interaction.
One can thus say that Desire leads to a corporeal, pre-cognitive level of
Recognition which is the condition of possibility for the development of
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27
self-consciousness, and thus also for the further forms of Recognition
through which self-consciousness develops.
This discussion of Life, Desire, and Recognition in Hegel is quite relevant to the discussion of elementary recognition in Reification. Recall
that elementary recognition is initially discussed in terms of the subject having a bodily, emotionally engaged relation to its environment.
This facet of elementary recognition corresponds well to initial Desire.
As mentioned above, Desire can be thought of as a kind of direct bodily engagement with the world that precedes cognition. As is noted in
section one, it is important for the concept of elementary recognition
that the engagement with the subject’s environment necessarily links
up with a bodily engagement with another person. The justification for
the move from engagement with the environment to engagement with
other persons is not entirely clear in Reification. But the interpretation
of Hegel on offer here can make that link clear. To truly be fully engaged
with one’s environment is to be fully a part of Life, and per the above
explanation we only fully engage with Life when we experience interactions with other subjects. Recall that in the discussion of autism in
Reification, Honneth notes that the child must be “moved, motivated,
and swept along by the presence of a concrete second person in such a
way as to comprehend this person’s changes of attitude in an interested
way.”46 Following the Hegelian view, we can say that this motivation and
“sweeping along” should naturally happen when the initial aim of Desire
is linked to the other’s self-negation. We are more fully motivated, initially in a bodily sense, when the environment we interact with contains
beings that adjust their actions on the basis of our actions, and which in
turn require us to adjust in the same way.
Furthermore, this Desire-motivated corporeal interaction with the
other stands, on Honneth’s interpretation, as the condition of possibility for the further elaborated forms of Recognition that are described in
the Phenomenology (such as that discussed in the dialectic of mastery and
servitude).47 One could read the rest of the Phenomenology as (in part)
displaying the subject’s attempts to make this initially implicit, corporeal
basis for Recognition explicit on a higher, self-conscious “spiritual” level
through Recognition’s more developed forms. This relation between
the initial level of Recognition and its development clearly matches well
with Honneth’s claim in Reification that elementary recognition is the
ontological basis for other forms of recognition. This makes the link
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between Honneth’s views on elementary recognition and his interpretation of ch. IV of Hegel’s Phenomenology even stronger. In each case,
Honneth emphasizes that an initially pre-cognitive corporeal link with
one’s environment and others is the basis for fully developed forms of
recognition.
There are, however, some differences between what Honneth says
about elementary recognition in Reification and his discussion of the
Life-Desire-Recognition movement in the Phenomenology. Elementary
recognition, for instance, is prominently described as involving an emotional attachment. This is clearly seen in the consideration of autism,
where the deficit is described in terms of the inability to emotionally
attach to the other. This point also plays a prominent role in the criticisms of Honneth’s view, given that the commentators stress the possibility for emotionally laden yet morally negative engagements with
others (involving, for instance, hatred, revulsion, or fear). On the other
hand, while the talk of desire suggests emotional engagement, emotion
does not otherwise play as prominent a role in Honneth’s analysis of
Hegel. The emphasis is rather on a more general bodily engagement
with others. There are, on the other hand, two things that play an
important role in Honneth’s analysis of Hegel that are not as emphasized in the discussion of elementary recognition. The first is the discussion of negation as self-restriction, which is not present in the analyses
of elementary recognition in Reification. The second is the emphasis
that this self-restriction is reciprocal. While reciprocity is a key component of Honneth’s discussions of recognition in general, it is not much
discussed in Reification.
These differences are crucial to the argument I want to make
regarding combining Honneth’s analysis of elementary recognition
with his analysis of Hegel. If we re-interpret elementary recognition
in light of the movement of Life-Desire-Recognition in Hegel, that
will lead us to downplay the emphasis on emotional attachment and
emphasize self-restriction and (especially) reciprocity. This change will
enable us to defend the concept of elementary recognition against the
criticisms discussed in part one in more robust fashion than Honneth
does in his rejoinder. To see why the emphasis on self-restriction and
reciprocity is so important, though, we need to look more closely
at an element of Honneth’s analysis of Hegel that has not yet been
discussed—the idea that the Desire-driven form of corporeal interaction is “proto-moral.”
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The Proto-Morality of Desire
The upshot of Honneth’s analysis of ch. IV of Hegel’s Phenomenology is
that subsuming one’s individual desires in the face of the other is a basic
part of being an embodied, living being, and this comes prior to cognition. All forms of robust, socially developed recognition (which would
involve some kind of cognition), then, are elaborations and extensions
of this basic corporeal element. As is noted above, there are two key elements to this implicit corporeal precursor to recognition: it is necessarily
reciprocal and it involves mutual self-restriction.
First, the interaction of the subjects within Life is reciprocal.
Importantly, it is reciprocal in a structural or formal sense; in intersubjective encounters, “both [subjects] must perform a negation upon themselves in which they distance themselves from what is their own.”48 This
basic structural reciprocity is present even when the actual interactions
are in some sense clearly unequal. When confronting another subject one
could, especially if one is in some way stronger, attempt to maintain the
earlier standpoint of consumptive desire. Imagine that, in the Alpha-Beta
example above, Alpha is much stronger than Beta. Perhaps, then, the
interactions between the two subjects would amount to them fighting,
Alpha wounding Beta, and Alpha winning the food while Beta retreats.
The interaction between the two animals in this story is still structurally
reciprocal, despite the asymmetry present. Merely by having to take part
in the fight, Alpha had to adjust its own behavior in relation to Beta’s
actions.
Second, the adjustments the subjects make entail reciprocal selfrestriction. It is this point in particular that leads Honneth to call this
interaction “proto-moral.” The “negation,” or adjustment of one’s
actions in the face of the other, has the implicit character of one checking
one’s desires. Honneth speculates here that this check on one’s desires
can be connected with Kant’s definition of “respect,” which involves
restricting one’s self-love.49 Hegel will later posit a more conscious or
deliberate form of “self-restriction as a necessary condition of all morality.”50 Thus we can think of the bodily form of self-restriction that serves
as the condition of possibility for self-consciousness as being an implicit
version of the forms of self-restriction that are made explicit in morality.
Keep in mind that “Proto,” when used as a prefix, indicates that the
thing described is a precursor to something else. So the early form of recognition Honneth finds in Hegel is taken to be a precursor of morality.
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In order to engage with the other living being, and thus take part in the
overall process of Life, one must be capable of suspending one’s consumptive desires in the face of interaction with the other. This in itself is
not strictly moral, and one can imagine forms of strategic interaction that
meet this basic requirement for ends that are ultimately more egocentric
(as is the case of Alpha and Beta).
This last point shows that Honneth’s comments regarding the proto-morality in Hegel’s view need to be qualified. In connecting the
self-restriction of desire to Kant’s definition of respect, Honneth emphasizes the link between this self-restriction and the restriction of self-love.
On the one hand, this seems fitting. The reciprocal encounter with the
other does require restricting one’s immediate desires. For example, we
can think of the adjustments that are made when confronting Beta as
keeping Alpha from achieving instant gratification via eating the food
immediately. Insofar as desire is not immediately gratified, self-love is
restricted. But this point should not be taken too far, as the Alpha-Beta
example shows. Because the interaction leads to Beta being defeated, and
the food ultimately being eaten by Alpha, self-love is clearly not entirely
restricted in that case. This is fitting given the claim that the interaction
is proto-moral, however. It is not yet fully moral because true restriction
of self-love is not present, yet its precursor is there.
Reciprocity and Self-Restriction
in Elementary Recognition
We must now consider what Honneth’s discussion of the proto-morality
of Life and Desire has to do with elementary recognition. In my view,
elementary recognition should be reinterpreted, following Honneth’s
interpretation of Hegel, as involving structural reciprocity and implicit
self-restriction. Elementary recognition would thus be proto-moral,
per the point made at the end of the previous section. Considering elementary recognition in this way can lead to a strong response to the
critics of Honneth’s view of elementary recognition as it is elaborated
in Reification. We can now consider those criticisms, and see how the
Hegel-inspired view would provide a response to them.
First, consider the basic criticism that elementary recognition is not
morally neutral. This is important for the reason Lear presents; he is right
to say that we should take care to not surreptitiously build too much
goodness into the view in such a way that it skews the “fall narrative.”
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This criticism should be answered by the consideration of the proto in
proto-morality in the previous section. As noted above, the structural
reciprocity of the interaction is compatible with exchanges that can end
up being quite asymmetrical. Also, the self-restriction that is present is
compatible with the exchange ultimately ending in a selfish or uncharitable result. The proto-morality does not require that the interactions be
ultimately moral. What it does require, though, is that the interactions
implicitly contain a structure that, when made properly manifest in our
actions, will enable a more moral result. And this (as will be elaborated
on below) provides a point of critique insofar as certain kinds of immoral
action could be criticized for working against, or failing to make explicit,
the implicit structure of our interactions.
Next, consider the criticism that Honneth fails to consider the fact
that many morally problematic interactions can live up to the standard
of being emotionally engaged, via emotions like hatred and fear. This
criticism is mostly diffused, I think, by the reinterpretation of elementary recognition being considered here. For the Hegel-inspired view,
emotional engagement is not the defining characteristic of elementary
recognition. The emotional element of our interaction with the world
and others may be important insofar as any bodily engagement is likely
to contain an emotional element. But what is really definitional of elementary interaction on this view is that our bodily engagement with the
world and others is structurally reciprocal and involves self-restriction.
When considered this way, the fact that something like hatred exhibits
an affective relation to others is beside the point. What really needs to
be considered is whether actions rooted in hatred live up to, or betray,
the reciprocity and self-restriction that is implicit in our interactions with
others.
There is still a major element of Lear’s criticism that has not been
dealt with, however. Recall that the narcissist was said to in some way be
genuinely attuned to the needs of the other, but still interacts with the
other in a manner that is ultimately oriented toward selfish aims. This
point led Honneth, in the rejoinder, to concede that “instrumentalization,” or treating other people in a strategic fashion oriented toward
one’s own goals, does not meet the threshold of reification. In making
this concession, Honneth is saying that instrumentalization, as is exhibited in the case of the narcissist, is compatible with the requirements of
elementary recognition, so one cannot use elementary recognition as
a critical standard in such a case. Honneth relegates the critical use of
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elementary recognition to very limited cases of extreme behaviors, where
the personhood of the other is wholly denied.
At this point, I would like to set aside the term “reification.” Perhaps
that term should be reserved for the kind of extreme behavior that
Honneth settles on in his rejoinder; my argument here requires no commitment on this terminological issue. What I do want to argue, though, is
that elementary recognition, reinterpreted in the manner discussed here,
is not wholly compatible with instrumentalization. Or, to put the point
another way, elementary recognition can be used as a normative standard
for criticizing behaviors of the type that Lear connects with the narcissist.
Many different types of behaviors could be considered under the
heading of “instrumentalization,” and a full consideration of their various normative deficits or problems would require a full analysis of the
settings in which these behaviors are enacted (and on Honneth’s view,
this would have to be connected with an analysis of the various elaborated forms of recognition). But even with this caveat in place, I think
we can reasonably say that instrumentalization is apt to run afoul of the
norm of reciprocity that is embedded in elementary recognition. This
does not require the extreme “forgetting” of recognition that Honneth
describes. Reciprocity may not be wholly missing from the behaviors of
the narcissist; it is still a part of the structures of the narcissist’s behavior insofar as the narcissist must adjust his or her behavior on the basis
of the actions of the other. But insofar as the narcissist is not really
attuned to the need to restrict his or her self-love on the basis of the
other’s own restrictions, we can say that such instrumental behavior distorts, or fails to live up to, the more “genuine praxis” that is embedded
in the pre-cognitive encounter with the other. In this way one’s developed behaviors can fail to properly make explicit the implicit standard
(as an aside, this seems to be a major lesson of Hegel’s Phenomenology)
and from the point of view of a critical theory like Honneth’s could be
critiqued on that basis.
Conclusion
To conclude, I would like to briefly note a couple of areas that need further development for the view described above to be fully supported.
First, while I believe I have shown that the Hegel-inspired conception
of elementary recognition is not overly optimistic in the sense that it
does not build positive valuations into the initial precognitive situation, it
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33
might still be found overly optimistic, or at least problematic, in another,
more basic sense. Along these lines, it must be noted that the argument
of this paper rests on one large unquestioned assumption. The conception of elementary recognition only makes sense if we accept that our
basic condition is properly describable in the terms that Hegel associates with Life. In other words, one must accept that human being is
in some way properly described in holistic terms as fitting into a larger,
dynamic unity. Clearly, any view that depends upon some type of atomistic anthropology is going to be opposed to such a view. Atomistic views
need not necessarily be associated with the “overly optimistic anthropology” criticism (one could, after all, have an atomistic anthropology
that takes human individuals to be inherently good). But a prominent
strand of such views (of, for example, a Hobbesian type) associate a
kind of self-centeredness or egoism with that individualism. Adherents
of such views may find the very idea of the structural reciprocity in elementary recognition to be overly optimistic, even if it is free of specific
positive valuations. A somewhat different version of this type of criticism
is posed against Honneth by Joel Whitebook, who argues that certain
individualistic anti-social drives—such as “primary narcissism”—are key
components of the individual human psyche from the beginning.51 In
either case, the very basis of the view described here is problematic. For
the purposes of this paper, I am going to rest with the assumption that,
so to speak, real life is like “Life”—I believe this idea can be supported
against the kind of criticism noted here, but that is beyond the scope of
this essay.52
Next, we might consider the empirical viability of the specifics of
the Hegelian view. As is noted above, in Reification Honneth is concerned to argue that elementary recognition is defensible conceptually
and empirically. While the conceptual argument for the Hegelian view is
presented in section two above, one might wonder whether any empirical support can be given for the idea that pre-cognitive reciprocal self-­
restriction plays an important role in human development. This is a large
question that would require much more space than can be afforded
in this essay. I hold out hope, though, that the role of reciprocal self-­
restriction can be substantiated via the same type of empirical means that
Honneth uses to support his view in Reification. I would point to the
wealth of recent empirical work on issues like “primary intersubjectivity,”
the development of joint attention, and of social cognition, as the area
where support for the type of view described here might be found.53
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Thus there is much work to be done to fully support the view that is
described in this paper. I hope to have shown, however, that while he
does not present it as such, Honneth’s analysis of self-consciousness in
Hegel’s Phenomenology can help support the kind of view that he elaborates in Reification, and can alleviate some of the problems he runs into
there. On my view, the combination of these two works should help us
work toward the kind of overall view Honneth is aiming to achieve; a
conceptually and empirically defensible conception of recognition as
being anthropologically rooted.
Notes
1. The quoted phrase is taken from the “Preface” to Axel Honneth, The I
in the We: Studies in the Theory of Recognition, trans. Joseph Ganahl
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012), viii.
2. This view is most fully developed in Axel Honneth, The Struggle for
Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts, trans. Joel Anderson
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996).
3. Honneth, “Preface.” The I in the We, viii.
4. Honneth, “From Desire to Recognition: Hegel’s Grounding of SelfConsciousness.” In The I in the We, 3–18. It should be noted that while
I am here focusing on Honneth’s reconsideration of recognition in the
Phenomenology, Honneth’s reconsideration of Hegel’s post-Jena works
has also lead to sustained studies of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. From
the point of view of Honneth’s overall corpus, the works on Philosophy
of Right are much more prominent (see especially Honneth, Freedom’s
Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life, trans. Joseph Ganahl
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014)).
5. See Axel Honneth, “Reification and Recognition: A New Look at an
Old Idea.” In Reification: A New Look at an Old Idea (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2008), 46.
6. It is cited once in Reification, but this comes within Judith Butler’s reply
to Honneth’s lectures. See Butler, “Taking Another’s View: Ambivalent
Implications.” In Reification, 101.
7. Honneth, “Rejoinder.” In Reification, 147.
8. In this paper I will capitalize these three terms when I am referring specifically to the Hegelian concepts discussed in the Phenomenology (or
in Honneth’s interpretation of these concepts). Other uses will not be
capitalized.
9. Honneth, “Reification and Recognition,” 90, n. 70.
10. I should note that I am summarizing only enough of Honneth’s consideration of Lukács as is necessary to explain the development of “elementary
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35
recognition” as a concept. As such, I am leaving aside some of the major
points of Honneth’s reading of Lukács, such as his claim that Lukács vacillates between an “official,” idealistic interpretation of reification and an
implicit, intersubjectivist interpretation.
11. See Honneth, “Reification and Recognition,” 21–23.
12. Honneth, “Reification and Recognition,” 24.
13. Honneth, “Reification and Recognition,” 25–26. For a criticism of
Honneth’s claim that reification does not involve moral injury, see Timo
Jütten, “What Is Reification? A Critique of Axel Honneth.” Inquiry,
vol. 53, no. 3 (2010): 235–256. Jütten does not think that the kinds
of behaviors that Honneth ultimately connects with reification, such as
slavery, could be totally construed as lacking moral choice. This problem
should not affect the analysis of elementary recognition that I am presenting here.
14. Honneth, “Reification and Recognition,” 26.
15. It should be noted that the terminological oddness described here would
exist in German as well. A similar point regarding the use of “recognition” is raised by Raymond Geuss in his commentary on Honneth’s lectures; see Geuss, “Philosophical Anthropology and Social Criticism.”
In Reification, 124–126. See also Somogy Varga, “Critical Theory and
the Two-Level Account of Recognition—Towards a New Foundation?”
Critical Horizons, vol. 11, no. 1 (2010): 19–33. Varga also notes this
terminological issue, and further argues that it leads to some conceptual problems. Varga is generally sympathetic to Honneth’s view, however, and proposes calling elementary recognition “affective attunement”
instead.
16. Honneth, “Reification and Recognition,” 41–46.
17. Honneth, “Reification and Recognition,” 43–44.
18. Honneth, “Reification and Recognition,” 41.
19. Honneth draws on Heidegger in using the language of “concealment”;
see Honneth, “Reification and Recognition,” 31–33. Part of Honneth’s
point is to argue against the idea, which is potentially in Lukacs’s theory,
that reification could completely do away with our initial engaged stance.
Honneth asserts that the initial stance of elementary recognition is never
completely done away with by reification.
20. Honneth, “The Social Dynamics of Disrespect: On the Location of
Critical Theory Today.” In Disrespect: The Normative Foundations of
Critical Theory (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), 64.
21. Honneth, “Rejoinder,” 147. Note that I have taken these quotes out of
order, but the sense of Honneth’s point is maintained.
22. Honneth, “Reification and Recognition,” 38.
36
J. C. BERENDZEN
23. For a fuller analysis of this problem, see Varga, “Critical Theory and the
Two-Level Account of Recognition.”
24. Jonathan Lear, “The Slippery Middle.” In Reification, 131–132, quote on
131. Lear notes that priority of the prior condition could be worked out
in various ways; the priority could be historical, developmental, conceptual, or ontological. Honneth potentially takes elementary recognition to
be prior in all of these ways. In the lectures he most directly presents it as
ontogenetically/developmentally prior (in the discussion of Hobson and
Tomasello on autism) and conceptually prior (in his discussion of Cavell
on “acknowledgement”), see 40–42. There is potentially some difficulty
here; Judith Butler, for instance, takes the developmental and conceptual
views to not fit together (see 118–119).
25. Honneth, “Reification and Recognition,” 132.
26. Honneth, “Reification and Recognition,” 133.
27. In making this same point, Raymond Geuss notes that Heidegger took
“care” to be prior to and thus compatible with both postive and negative
moral actions. See “Philosophical Anthropology and Social Criticism,”
127.
28. Lear Jonathan, “The Slippery Middle,” 134–135. All of the quotes
regarding narcissism in this paragraph come from these pages.
29. Honneth, “Rejoinder,” 151.
30. Honneth, “Rejoinder,” 148.
31. Honneth, “Rejoinder,” 149.
32. Honneth, “Rejoinder,” 157.
33. G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1977), 105.
34. Hegel, Phenomenology, 105.
35. Quote at Ibid. Various interpreters link Hegel’s discussion here to Kantian
apperception, including Honneth in “From Desire to Recognition,” 5.
36. Honneth, “From Desire to Recognition,” 6.
37. Commentators often point this out; beside Honneth see, for example, Judith Butler, Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in TwentiethCentury France (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 33; Paul
Redding, “The Independence and Dependence of Self-Consciousness:
The Dialect of Lord and Bondsman in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.”
In Frederick C. Beiser (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and
Nineteenth-Century Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2008), 97–98.
38. This way of speaking about the issue can be found, for instance,
in John McDowell, “The Apperceptive I and the Empirical Self:
Towards a Heterodox Reading of ‘Lordship and Bondage’ in Hegel’s
Phenomenology.” In Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and
Sellars (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 154–155.
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RECIPROCITY AND SELF-RESTRICTION IN ELEMENTARY RECOGNITION
37
39. Honneth, “From Desire to Recognition,” 9.
40. Hegel, Phenomenology, 106.
41. Hegel, Phenomenology, 106.
42. Frederick Neuhauser, “Deducing Desire and Recognition in the
Phenomenology of Spirit.” Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 24
(1986): 243–262. See especially 249–251. Honneth cites Neuhauser on
this point at “From Desire to Recognition,” 7.
43. Neuhauser, “Deducing Desire,” 250.
44. Honneth, “From Desire to Recognition,” 14.
45. Honneth, “From Desire to Recognition,” 14–15.
46. Honneth, “From Desire to Recognition,” 43–44.
47. It is worth noting that Honneth’s analysis of ch. IV stops just short of
considering mastery and servitude.
48. Honneth, “From Desire to Recognition,” 15.
49. Honneth, “From Desire to Recognition,” 15. Honneth cites Immanuel
Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. H. J. Paton (New
York: Harper, 1964), 69. Honneth does not claim that Hegel is directly
making this link. He does suggest, however, that we can “assume…that
Hegel was thoroughly aware of the link between his idea of self-negation
and Kant‘s definition of respect” and on this basis speculates that Hegel
would find there to be a moral component to the move from desire to
recognition.
50. Honneth, “From Desire to Recognition,” 15.
51. See Joel Whitebook, “Mutual Recognition and the Work of the
Negative.” In William Rehg and James Bohman (eds.) Pluralism and the
Pragmatic Turn: The Transformation of Critical Theory, Essays in Honor
of Thomas McCarthy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001), 257–291.
For Honneth’s response to Whitebook, see “Facets of the Presocial Self:
Rejoinder to Joel Whitebook.” In The I in We, 217–231.
52. For a general consideration of these potential criticisms of Honneth’s
view see Christopher Zurn, Axel Honneth: A Critical Theory of the Social
(Cambridge: Polity, 2015), ch. 2.6.
53. For a general description of the empirical literature that might be used
to support Honneth’s conception of elementary recognition (which
includes, but goes beyond, the sources Honneth mentions in Reification)
see Somogy Varga and Shaun Gallagher, “Critical Social Philosophy,
Honneth and The Role of Rrimary Intersubjectivity.” European Journal
of Social Theory, vol. 15, no. 2: 243–260. Two big caveats are necessary here. First, Varga and Gallagher take studies on neonatal imitation
to support Honneth’s view, but the very idea of neonatal immitation
has recently been subjected to extensive criticism and should thus be
considered skeptically. On this point see Janine Oostenbroek et al.,
38
J. C. BERENDZEN
“Comprehensive Longitudinal Study Challenges the Existence of
Neonatal Imitation in Humans.” Current Biology, vol. 26 (2016): 1–5.
Second, Varga and Gallagher are not attempting to support the specifics
of the Hegel-inspired view I describe here, and their view (which they call
“affective proximity”) is closer to what Honneth describes in Reification.
Nevertheless, I would suggest that the sources they marshall also provide a good beginning in the search for empirical support for the Hegelinspired view.
Selected Bibliography
Butler, Judith (1987) Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in TwentiethCentury France. New York: Columbia University Press.
Butler, Judith (2008) “Taking Another’s View: Ambivalent Implications.” In
Axel Honneth, with Judith Butler, Raymond Geuss, and Jonathan Lear
(eds.) Reification: A New Look at an Old Idea. Edited by Martin Jay. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 97–119.
Geuss, Raymond. “Philosophical Anthropology and Social Criticism.” In
Reification: A New Look at an Old Idea, 120–130.
Hegel, G. W. F. (1977) Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by A. V. Miller.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Honneth, Axel (1996) The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of
Social Conflicts. Translated by Joel Anderson. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Honneth, Axel (2007) “The Social Dynamics of Disrespect: On the Location
of Critical Theory Today.” Translated by John Farrell. In Disrespect: The
Normative Foundations of Critical Theory. Cambridge: Polity, 63–79.
Honneth, Axel (2008) “Reification and Recognition: A New Look at an Old
Idea.” Translated by Joseph Ganahl. In Reification: A New Look at an Old
Idea, 17–94.
Honneth, Axel (2008) “Rejoinder.” Translated by Joseph Ganahl. In Reification:
A New Look at an Old Idea, 147–159.
Honneth, Axel (2012) “Facets of the Presocial Self: Rejoinder to Joel
Whitebook.” In The I in We, 217–231.
Honneth, Axel (2012) “From Desire to Recognition: Hegel’s Grounding of
Self-Consciousness.” Translated by Joseph Ganahl. In The I in We: Studies in
the Theory of Recognition. Cambridge: Polity Press, 3–17.
Honneth, Axel (2012) “Preface.” In The I in We, vii–xi.
Honneth, Axel (2014) Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic
Life. Translated by Joseph Ganahl. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Jütten, Timo (2010) “What Is Reification? A Critique of Axel Honneth.”
Inquiry, vol. 53, no. 3: 235–256.
2
RECIPROCITY AND SELF-RESTRICTION IN ELEMENTARY RECOGNITION
39
Kant, Immanuel (1964) Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by
H. J. Paton. New York: Harper.
Lear, Jonathan (2008) “The Slippery Middle.” In Reification: A New Look at an
Old Idea, 131–143.
McDowell, John (2009) “The Apperceptive I and the Empirical Self: Towards a
Heterodox Reading of ‘Lordship and Bondage’ in Hegel’s Phenomenology.”
In Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Neuhauser, Frederick (1986) “Deducing Desire and Recognition in the
Phenomenology of Spirit.” Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 24:
243–262.
Oostenbroek, Janine, Thomas Suddendorf, Mark Nielsen, Jonathan Redshaw,
Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini, Jacqueline Davis, Sally Clark and Virginia
Slaughter (2016) “Comprehensive Longitudinal Study Challenges the
Existence of Neonatal Imitation in Humans.” Current Biology, vol. 26: 1–5.
Redding, Paul (2008) “The Independence and Dependence of SelfConsciousness: The Dialect of Lord and Bondsman in Hegel’s Phenomenology
of Spirit.” In Frederick C. Beiser (eds.) The Cambridge Companion to Hegel
and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
94–110.
Varga, Somogy (2010) “Critical Theory and the Two-Level Account of
Recognition—Towards a New Foundation?” Critical Horizons, vol. 11,
no. 1: 19–33.
Varga, Somogy and Shaun Gallagher (2012) “Critical Social Philosophy,
Honneth and The Role of Primary Intersubjectivity.” European Journal of
Social Theory, vol. 15, no. 2: 243–260.
Whitebook, Joel (2001) “Mutual Recognition and the Work of the Negative.” In
William Rehg and James Bohman (eds.) Pluralism and the Pragmatic Turn:
The Transformation of Critical Theory, Essays in Honor of Thomas McCarthy.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 257–291.
Zurn, Christopher (2015) Axel Honneth: A Critical Theory of the Social.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
CHAPTER 3
Reifying Reification: A Critique of Axel
Honneth’s Theory of Reification
Konstantinos Kavoulakos
As early as the 1960s, Jürgen Habermas inaugurated a type of critical
theory, at the heart of which lies the problem of the philosophical clarification of the normative foundations of reason and, thus, of the normative criteria of critical social theory. Since then the wider current of
communicative critical theory, to which Honneth’s theory of recognition
also evidently belongs, has never ceased to pursue this goal that has ultimately been inspired by Habermas’s neo-Kantian philosophical orientation. Within this theoretical school the problem of the foundations of
critique is so fundamental that detecting a “foundational deficit” is always
regarded as a major point of criticism against rival philosophical and sociological theories, while any positive reception of other philosophers or
philosophical schools always depends on the possibility of working out an
implicit normative standard that supposedly permeates their work.
This is precisely the case with Honneth’s attempt to positively draw on
Lukács’s theory of reification and to reinterpret it in the frame of the theory
of recognition he has been developing since the beginning of the 1990s.
K. Kavoulakos (*)
Department of Philosophy and Social Studies,
University of Crete, Rethymno, Greece
© The Author(s) 2019
V. Schmitz (ed.), Axel Honneth and the Critical Theory
of Recognition, Political Philosophy and Public Purpose,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91980-5_3
41
42
K. KAVOULAKOS
Thus, it is no surprise that in his Reification. A New Look at an Old Idea
(2008, German original: 2005) he explicitly links his elaborations on
Lukács’s theory of reification to the question on the normative foundation of critical theory, although he acknowledges that this issue is
indeed alien to Lukács’s own philosophical self-understanding.1 Even so,
Honneth aspires to derive the normative criterion implicitly contained
in Lukács’s work. What strikes us is that he searches for this theoretical fundament of Lukács’s theory of the 1920s in the anthropological
substratum of human existence—a perspective Lukács explicitly and categorically repudiated in History and Class Consciousness2—and not in a
philosophical theory of history, as the title of this classic work alone obviously implies.
Things become even more perplexed, since in his book Honneth does
not even hint at Lukács’s theory of history.3 This total oblivion in respect
to the problem of history becomes of course understandable in view of
the project Honneth outlined, e.g., in his early essay on the “Pathologies
of the Social”.4 In this long essay, Honneth presented the anthropological and the historico-philosophical grounding of the criteria of a critical
social philosophy capable of locating and describing social pathologies
as two possible paths that separate in the course of the development of
modern social philosophy. In our contemporary context, then, a historico-philosophical grounding of the ethical criteria of critique is totally
ruled out, because of the growing awareness of the metaphysical nature
of all teleological readings of history. Therefore, Honneth assures us
that only the path of a “weak” philosophical anthropology stays open,
one that would remain sufficiently strong to transcend historical relativism though. Thus, in his opinion, “the survival of social philosophy …
depends on the success with which the claim of a weak, formal anthropology can be justified in the future.”5
In his book on reification, Honneth searches for precisely this paradoxically weak-strong anthropological fundament of social critique
through alluding to Lukács’s theory of reification. He therefore totally
excludes any reference to the problems of a theory of history. The content of the book is admittedly very rich and I have to confine myself here
to dealing with two main questions: firstly, whether Honneth’s interpretation of Lukács is plausible and, secondly, to what extend Lukács’s
critical theory can be helpful in pointing out the limits of Honneth’s
theory of reification itself. In order to answer the first question, I examine Honneth’s critique of what he calls Lukács’s “official version” of
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REIFYING REIFICATION: A CRITIQUE OF AXEL HONNETH’S THEORY …
43
the theory of reification (Section The Problem of the Philosophical
Fundaments of Lukács’s Theory of Reification) and his interpretation
of the so-called unofficial version of it (Section Is There an “Unofficial
Version” of Lukács’s Theory of Reification?). Then I proceed to answer
the second above-mentioned question by deploying Lukács’s theory to
summarize from a unitary point of view some of the dispersed critiques
of Honneth’s theory of reification that have been formulated in the relevant bibliography (Section Reifying Reification).
The Problem of the Philosophical Fundaments
of Lukács’s Theory of Reification
It is clear that with his book on reification Honneth brought Lukács and
his History and Class Consciousness back to the international discussion.
However, even a superficial reading of Honneth’s update of Lukács’s
theory of reification discloses the magnitude of the theoretical gap
between them. Indeed, Honneth makes no effort to conceal this chasm
separating him from what he calls the “official version” of Lukács’s theory of reification. On the contrary, he clearly states his opposition to it
in a few brief remarks. These remarks signify the fact that he takes the
established interpretation of History and Class Consciousness for granted
without further examining the critiques prominent theorists of critical
theory like Adorno and Habermas have exerted against this classic work.
Combining these critiques, Honneth contends that Lukács remained
imprisoned in an idealist way of thinking closely linked to the outdated
“paradigm of production” and an idealist “philosophy of identity.”6
According to the fundamental view underlying his theory of reification, only
that kind of practice, in which the object can be thought of as a product of
the subject, is undistorted. However, such a theory represents an immediate
retreat to obsolete conceptualizations of German idealism.7 To comprehend
which obsolete notions and conceptualizations Honneth has in mind one
needs to have recourse to the critiques of Adorno and Habermas.
Although Adorno occasionally recognized the significance of History
and Class Consciousness, particularly in respect to the constitution of a
social theory and critique of knowledge,8 at other points, especially in
Negative Dialectics, he formulated a rather devastating critique of it.
Indeed, this critique became a model of what to think of Lukács’s early
Marxist theory—a model that influenced more or less all theorists in the
next generations of the Frankfurt School. In Negative Dialectics Adorno
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K. KAVOULAKOS
ascribed to Lukács a false and highly problematic (because of its supposedly idealist character) identification of reification and objectification. For
Adorno reification “is the reflexive form of false objectivity.”9 In other
words, it is the form, in which the society of commodity exchange is
reflected in men’s consciousness. Therefore, the theory that concentrates
all its attention on this “form of consciousness”10 can only have an idealist orientation. Against such a theory, Adorno insists that “the trouble
is with the conditions that condemn mankind to impotence and apathy”
and not “primarily with people and with the way conditions appear to
people.”11
For Adorno, the main predecessor of Lukács’s idealist theory of reification is Fichte, whose philosophical subjectivism could not bear the
heteronomous dependence of the subject upon anything alien, anything
thing-like. Therefore, he aimed at an idealistic liquefaction of things,
their absorption in the “pure actuality” of the absolute action of a subject that poses itself and, at the same time, the world.12 This Fichtean
attitude is repeated in Lukács, who “looks upon thingness as radical
evil,” wants “to dynamize all entity into pure actuality” and, therefore,
“tends to be hostile to otherness, to the alien thing that has lent its name
to alienation, and not in vain.”13 This otherness, the independence of
which is negated by idealism, is the Adornian non-identical that should
be acknowledged by true theory. In the reified object two elements are
“intertwined,” which critical thinking has to distinguish: “the object’s
unidentical side and the submission of men to prevailing conditions of
production, to their own functional context which they cannot know.”14
According to Adorno, Lukács fails to make this distinction. As
a result, his critique of reification repeats the mistake of identifying
thought that shows up as omnipotent only because it ignores the object
as the non-identical. This tendency is, according to Adorno, also characteristic of the historico-philosophical construction that supports
Lukács’s critique of reification. In a discussion with Horkheimer in 1939,
Adorno claimed that Lukács followed an “idealist conception of dialectics,” according to which “the particular and real movement in history
is deduced from a general and conceptual movement.”15 This methodological trend corresponds to Lukács’s “excessive Hegelianism,” the
“idealist extremity” of History and Class Consciousness Adorno discerned
elsewhere, while simultaneously connecting it with Lukács’s deification
of the Communist Party with all its disastrous political effects.16
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REIFYING REIFICATION: A CRITIQUE OF AXEL HONNETH’S THEORY …
45
Adorno’s remarks on the idealist character of Lukács’s philosophy of
history did not remain unnoticed by Habermas, who continued the same
line of criticism. Thus, at a time when he was still investigating the relation between materialist dialectics and social sciences, he claimed that
historical materialism cannot be constituted on the grounds of a dialectic “that, as it precedes and lies at the basis of all history, it is actualized
according to the ticking clock of metaphysical necessity.”17 Using this
argument he opposed Lukács’s notion of the “objective possibility” of
proletarian class consciousness and revolution, since—in his opinion—it
is equivalent to the “dialectical identification of a necessity, in view of
which even the greatest decision has become a natural thing under the
laws of nature.”18 And he added that, “as it originates from the dialectics of absolute consciousness, Lukács’s category of objective possibility
implies the historical necessity”19—this fact can explain Lukács’s unconditional identification with actually existing socialism.
In The Theory of Communicative Action (1981) Habermas offers a
more detailed elaboration of his thesis that Lukács’s critique of reification is based on a metaphysical philosophy of history. The influence of
Adorno’s critique becomes more obvious here: The problem is Lukács’s
espousal of Hegelian dialectics, despite all his critical reservations about
it. Hegelian logic is the basis of Lukács’s attempt to reunite the different moments of reason that separate in modernity because of the phenomenon of reification.20 Although Lukács thinks in the young Hegelian
way, i.e., in terms of the practical realization of theory, “praxis” remains
dependent here on theory, as it represents nothing more than the
notion of a “revolutionary actualization of philosophy.”21 Thus, Lukács
seeks to substitute his dialectical philosophy of history for metaphysical
knowledge, which—in modernity—has lost its power to form a unitary,
dominant worldview. Lukács’s metaphysics of history even claims to
determine the subject of the realization of reason through practice. As
for Adorno and Habermas too, the possibility of an authoritarian political action is built into the conditions of the constitution of his metaphysical theory of the proletariat as the identical subject-object of history.22
Naturally, defending Lukács against these very serious theoretical
and political accusations would exceed the frame of this chapter. I confine myself to noting that this—still dominant today—interpretation of
Lukács’s early Marxist work relies upon a rather superficial reading of
some of its key notions such as the identical subject-object of history, the
overcoming of the antinomies of bourgeois thought, nature as a social
46
K. KAVOULAKOS
category, etc. In fact, Lukács used the language of German idealism—to
which he critically resorted in the famous section on “The antinomies
of bourgeois thought” in the framework of his search for alternatives to
formalist dualism—to speak about the new reality emerging out of crisis
and revolution in the period after the World War I. The exact meaning
of these formulations cannot be inferred without a reconstruction of the
overall spirit of Lukács’s theory. The latter was in fact sealed by Hegelian
dialectical schemes of thought; however, Lukács regarded such dialectical
schemes through spectacles tinted by Marx, Weber, and neo-Kantianism.
These multiple influences on how to understand dialectics represent
a complex aspect of his theory that is still worth investigating today. His
particular prism of understanding and critiquing Hegel entailed a great
sensibility towards the problem of otherness (that makes up the focus
of Adorno’s critique) or the problem of the irrational content of knowledge and praxis as Lukács describes it in the reification essay of History
and Class Consciousness. Adorno’s and Habermas’s critiques failed to
acknowledge this sensibility and only touched the surface of a Leninist
political philosophy and a supposedly determinist philosophy of history.
Thus, they interpreted Lukács as a kind of a dialectical formalist, whereas
he was actually all too well aware of the risk run by all kinds of thinking,
even the dialectical one, to regress to the contemplative stance of formalist dualism.23
At the time of its occurrence Lukács’s dialectical philosophy was particularly groundbreaking. Lukács’s bourgeois education rendered him
capable of confronting the economism of the “opportunist,” social
democratic theorists of the Second International on a remarkably high
philosophical level, to defend revolutionary politics and lay solid philosophical foundations for it. By combating all forms of philosophical and
scientific formalism, Lukács searched for a way to theorize on the significance of the so-called subjective factor in history, without downplaying
the importance of the objective social-historical conditions. This aspiration led him to formulate an openly dialectical theory of the interrelation of subjective and objective moments in the historical process, in
which the crisis and violent interruption of “normal” causal relations in
society opens up the (objective) possibility—and not the “necessity,” as
Habermas claimed—for a collective subject to intervene and change the
course of events in an emancipative direction.
This subjective intervention is not executed by an autonomous, dominant subject, as all subjectivity remains dependent on the otherness of
3
REIFYING REIFICATION: A CRITIQUE OF AXEL HONNETH’S THEORY …
47
the tendencies and junctures arising within the objective historical process. After all, the “subject of history” itself must be understood as an
open process of subjectification in permanent dialectical interrelation
with conditions it does not control.24 Lukács referred in this context to
the “living dialectics of action,”25 which his critics were never interested
in thematizing. Hence, a new understanding and critique of his early
Marxist philosophy demands an adequate examination of his notion of
materialist dialectics—an examination offered neither by Adorno, nor
Habermas or his disciples.26
In Honneth’s book on Reification, the classic critique of Lukács’s
alleged “idealism” is supplemented by critical hints as to his purportedly
determinist methodology in the field of social science. Honneth ascribes
to Lukács the view that “the expansion of commodity exchange” is the
“social cause” of the phenomenon of reification.27 Closely related to
this interpretation is the thesis that Lukács’s “reductionism” results in a
“totalization” of the instrumental rationality of capitalism.28 Generally,
this critique is simply incomprehensible; Lukács could not distance himself more clearly from economism than he did when he argued that “it is
not the primacy of economic motives in historical explanation that constitutes the decisive difference between Marxism and bourgeois thought,
but the point of view of totality.”29 Thus, it is not enough to note, as
Honneth does, that reification is a phenomenon Lukács firstly analyses in
respect to the economic sphere. Lukács could not possibly claim, and in
fact never claimed, that the predominance of the commodity form is the
economic cause that explains the phenomena of bourgeois society.
Instead of such an assertion, Lukács uses a formulation that calls
for interpretation: In his opinion, in opposition to what is the case in
pre-capitalist societies, in capitalism the “commodity form” or “commodity structure” is “the prototype (Urbild) of all forms of objectivity
and all forms of subjectivity that correspond to them.”30 If the commodity is the “prototypical form,” then in bourgeois society there must
be other structural forms in other social fields apart from the economic
sphere, which constitute variations of it. The relation between them will
not be that of cause and effect, but should rather be described as a relation of structural homology. Thus, instead of a mechanistic explanation
of the genesis and functioning of capitalism, in Lukács we have a holistic presentation of the fundamental “form of objectivity” that permeates
the relation of bourgeois society to nature, the relations between men, as
well as the relation of man with himself.31
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K. KAVOULAKOS
This presentation may start from the field of economy, but it extends
to the rest of the fields of social life, detecting the structural homologies between their forming principles, without attempting to reduce
them to an “economic basis.”32 In the final analysis, Lukács’s dialectical
theory was developed from the beginning as a critique of the methodological presuppositions of every kind of reductionism, including economic reductionism, i.e., as a critique of the formalist-rationalist model
of knowledge. Therefore, it is correct that, by definition, in Lukács
there “can be no question of economy as a historical-universal basis of
reduction.”33
Equally problematic is Honneth’s thesis that Lukács succumbs to a
kind of functionalist determinism.34 As Kurt Beiersdörfer aptly shows,
Lukács’s social theory can be reconstructed in contemporary terms as a
“genetic functionalism” or a “critical systems theory” that synthesizes
Weber’s interpretive sociology with Marx’s historical systems theory. As
the genetic-historical and the structural-functionalist moments of this
theory are dialectically mediated and mutually balanced, its interpretation as a timeless, formalist analysis of social structures must be ruled
out35: Structures and their functions are always thought of as historical,
while historical practice is always mediated by existent social structures.
When Lukács talks about the “function” of a moment within the concrete totality36 he does not draw upon functionalism or systems theory;
rather he refers to a theory of historically concrete dialectical relations
between structures and agency.37 The difference between this approach
and ordinary functionalism becomes even clearer if one considers the fact
that, for Lukács, the usual functionality of social formations includes its
opposite, namely its disintegration in periods of crisis. After all, normal
functionalism or systems theory are, because of their methodological
constitution on the basis of formalist rationality, totally alien to Lukács’s
historical-materialist dialectic.
I am aware of the fact that these short remarks do not suffice to clarify
the methodological presuppositions of Lukács’s theoretical project of the
1920s. However they might at least indicate that a much more elaborate reconsideration of these presuppositions is needed today to seriously
reexamine their established interpretation that impedes an adequate
understanding of Lukács’s initial philosophical and socio-theoretical
project. Such a possibility is missed in Honneth’s attempt at its reconstruction. Instead, he discards its so-called official version and turns his
attention to an alleged “unofficial version” I examine in the next section.
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Is There an “Unofficial Version”
of Lukács’s Theory of Reification?
Before going into Honneth’s theory of reification at least a very brief
clarification of what reification means in Lukács’s early Marxist work is
necessary. As I have already suggested above, the pivotal concept of his
dialectical theory of modern society is the “form of objectivity.”38 Lukács
adopted this concept from neo-Kantian epistemology, an adequate
knowledge of which he had acquired before joining the Communist
Party at the end of 1918.39 Lukács radicalized the concept by ascribing historicality to it and by extending its scope to all human practices.
Reformulated in this way, the “form of objectivity” represents a historically finite cultural structure that permeates the whole spectrum of life in
a certain society: its worldviews, practices, behavioral norms, social institutions, the subjects’ self-understanding, and scientific knowledge, etc.40
Through locating its historically specific form of objectivity a dialectical-holistic theory of the bourgeois epoch becomes possible, in juxtaposition to the mechanistic social-democratic and bourgeois social theory.
Lukács links the modern form of objectivity to the concepts of “commodity form,”41 the abstract “form of equivalence,”42 “calculability,”43
“rational objectification,”44 “formal rationalization”45 or “formalism,”46
etc. According to Lukács, the social generalization of the modern form
of objectivity brings about the “phenomenon of reification,”47 which he
firstly explains in terms of Marx’s analysis of commodity fetishism.48
Very briefly, due to the phenomenon of reification, dominant social
relations appear as something “thing-like,” something that cannot be
changed, something independent from human will. The social generalization of the commodity form begets the naturalization of a definite
social relation, its “reification” as the veiling of its social-historical character. At the same time, it creates a system of social laws that are imposed
on individuals with the force of quasi-natural necessities. This is why
Lukács calls their system “second nature.”49 Furthermore, a similar naturalization of the calculative criteria implemented in other fields of society beyond economic life in the narrow sense can be detected in modern
society. In this way, bourgeois society blocks all criticism against its institutional framework and prevents its transformation by human practice.
Let us now turn to Honneth’s theory of reification. In the light of
the established critical rejection of the philosophical presuppositions
of Lukács’s theory of reification, Honneth feels obliged to search for
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K. KAVOULAKOS
an “unofficial version” of it in order to restore its true core. As I have
already noted above, he turns his attention to the problem of the normative foundations of Lukács’s theory. He detects an implicit fundament that has “only an indirectly normative character.”50 This is the
case, because the nature of this criterion is anthropological; it refers
to the notion of “a more genuine or better form of human praxis.”51
As a consequence of this normativist shift, Honneth replaces Lukács’s
historical-dialectical understanding of the phenomenon of reification
with a consideration of the primordial anthropological conditions of
human life, the very “foundations of our existence”52 and their secondary infringement or distortion in actual social life. On this basis, he
interprets reification as the eclipse of the recognitional attitude that is
necessary for human ontogenesis.
Of course, Honneth is right to connect the phenomenon of reification
with “a form of praxis that is structurally false” and not with “a mere
epistemic category mistake nor a form of moral misconduct.”53 This is
how Lukács thought of reification too. However, abandoning the dialectical-holistic perspective leads to a series of significant alterations of
Lukács’s theory of reification, which probably lie outside the boundaries
of the interpreter’s legitimate freedom. Instead of describing the consequences of the social implementation of a socio-ontological category—
namely the calculative “form of objectivity”—Honneth’s “reification”
has the same trivial meaning one could give to it in everyday talk:
Reification “designates a cognitive occurrence in which something that
doesn’t possess thing-like characteristics in itself (e.g. something human)
comes to be regarded as a thing.”54 However, for Lukács, as for Marx,
what “takes on the character of a thing” is “a relation between persons”55
and not merely “something human.”56 One wonders about the fact that,
although Honneth accurately cites Lukács’s definition,57 he does not
realize the obvious fact that this definition essentially deviates from his
interpretation.58
Be that as it may, Honneth’s idiosyncratic interpretation of reification
allows him to reconstruct the “unofficial version” of Lukács’s theory that
is supposedly based on the model of an “intersubjective attitude on the
part of the subject.”59 In the light of this attitude reification appears as
“an atrophied or distorted form of a more primordial and genuine form
of praxis, in which humans take on an empathetic and engaged relationship toward themselves and their surroundings.”60 To further elaborate on this intersubjective attitude, Honneth develops a multifaceted
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argument on the original significance of recognition as a basis of the
constitution of the self and its relations to others, and particularly of
the objectification that is entailed by the cognitive relation of man to
the world.61
His “recognition-precedes-cognition claim”62 allows Honneth to
reformulate Adorno’s critique that is frequently found in the bibliography on Lukács: On this critique he erroneously identified objectification
and reification. According to Honneth, Lukács’s “fundamental idea”63
is the following: Commodity exchange implies calculating prospective
profits and therefore forming a “purely objective, as far as possible emotionless stance.”64 This attitude becomes individuals’ “second nature,”
insofar as socialization processes establish it as a “habit” in all fields of
everyday life.65
Like the concept of reification, the concept of “second nature” is
interpreted by Honneth in the same sense we use it in everyday talk: It
is nothing but the sum of the socially established attitudes and behavioural patterns of men66—an interpretation that has nothing to do with
Lukács’s use of the term. The latter refers to the immediate facticity of
social structures permeated by “reified laws.”67 In contemporary terms
one can identify second nature with the social system; after all it consists in an “ineluctable sequence of known, knowable, rational systems of
laws”68 that are externally imposed upon men, in a fashion analogous to
the laws of (first) nature, i.e., independently of men’s will.
Nonetheless, from Honneth’s peculiar point of view, reification is
thought of as a secondary neutralization of the primary recognition and
emotional engagement with other persons and objects in the world,
accompanied by its permanent replacement by the ontogenetically derivative objectifying attitude of the cognitive subject.69 By taking objectification as a cognitive procedure, as “objectifying thought,”70 Honneth
interprets Lukács’s concept of reification as “a kind of mental habit or
habitually ossified perspective”71 that takes the place of the original
empathetic engagement of the subject with other humans and objects.
This interpretation relies on a modification of the meaning of Lukács’s
concept of “contemplation.” Honneth understands it as the “emotionally neutral,” detached stance” of a “neutral observer, psychically and
existentially untouched by his surroundings.”72 However, Lukács did
not use the term “contemplative” to describe any psychological fact,
but rather the passive practical stance of subjects that adapt to a given
and unchangeable social-historical world.73 Be that as it may, Honneth
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K. KAVOULAKOS
interprets “contemplation” as “a stance of indulgent, passive observation,” while the stance of “detachment” (Teilnahmlosigkeit)—a term
originally used by Lukács to describe the passive, non-participative attitude of the members of bourgeois parties—is supposed to mean that
“the agent is no longer emotionally affected by the events in his surroundings, instead letting them go by without any inner involvement,
merely observing their passing.”74 Thus, for Honneth, Lukács “understands ‘reification’ to be a habit of mere contemplation and observation,
in which one’s natural surroundings, social environment, and personal
characteristics come to be apprehended in a detached and emotionless
manner – in short, as things.”75
Having so radically modified Lukács’s theory of reification, Honneth
reformulates the standard critique that Lukács identifies reification with
objectification in general. If objectification leads to reification—in the
sense given to it by Honneth—then one is, together with Honneth’s
Lukács, obliged to assume that the institutionalization of specific social
practices, such as market exchange or bureaucratic administration, must
go hand in hand with the total substitution of the fundamental recognitional stance by the objectifying attitude.76 But how could it be possible, asks Honneth, to totally substitute a “secondary” and derivative for
a “primary,” constitutive stance?
In Honneth’s opinion, because of his problematic “conceptual strategy,” Lukács is compelled to “hold that every social innovation that
requires that we neutralize our original act of recognition and make this
neutralization institutionally permanent is a case of reification.”77 Social
rationalization seems then to propel a totalization of reification in all
fields of life. However, this supposition is at odds with Lukács’s alleged
need to simultaneously retain the assertion that the “original stance of
empathetic engagement can never be lost – since, after all, it lies at the
base of all social relations.”78
For Honneth, what we can learn in view of the alleged impasse of
Lukács’s “conceptual strategy” is that the concept of reification “must be
understood differently than Lukács understands it in his own work.”79
To avoid the totalization of reification, which is supposedly implied in
Lukács’s understanding of it, Honneth suggests a distinction between
two cognitive attitudes: one in which an “intuition” (Gespür)80 or a
“consciousness”81 of “antecedent,” original recognition is retained and
one in which it is lost. Honneth connects the second kind of cognitive
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attitude with the concept of the “forgetfulness of recognition”: “I
thereby mean to indicate the process by which we lose the consciousness of the degree to which we owe our knowledge and cognition of
other persons to an antecedent stance of empathetic engagement and
recognition”.82
Reification as forgetfulness of recognition means then “that in the
course of our acts of cognition we lose our attentiveness to the fact that
this cognition owes its existence to an antecedent act of recognition.”83
Honneth considers the causes of such a “reduction of attentiveness”84 as,
on the one hand, the one-sided focus of a subject on an aim that discards
other, possibly more fundamental goals and, on the other hand, the
influence of social “prejudices” and “thought schemata” on its behavior. As an example of the first case Honneth mentions the tennis player
“who, in her ambitious focus on winning, forgets that her opponent
is in fact her best friend, for the sake of whom she took up the game
in the first place.”85 The second case is not illustrated by Honneth on
the grounds that it is all too “well known.” This is obviously the case
of social exclusion and discrimination of minorities, in which we should
rather speak of a “denial” of or “defensiveness” towards the original recognition of the other.86
It is not difficult to draw a conclusion from this reconstruction of
Honneth’s argument. His “unofficial version” of Lukács’s theory of reification is his own, at least highly eclectic construct that has very little to
do with Lukács’s original theory. Fairly early on, Frederick Neuhouser
rightly noted that only “very little of Lukács’s original view – and even
less of Marx’s – remains in the theory of reification that Honneth develops.” Therefore, in his opinion, his “allusions to Lukács, though rhetorically understandable, tend to obscure the fact that Honneth’s book is
much less a reconstructive enterprise than the erection of a new edifice
on a thoroughly cleared plot of ground.”87 This suspicion is strengthened by the fact that Honneth’s interlocutors (Judith Butler, Raymond
Geuss and Jonathan Lear), who contribute to his thin volume,88 are
basically concerned with the problems of recognition and much less
with Honneth’s references to Lukács, which they do not question at all.
However, even if Honneth’s theory of reification cannot be understood
as a reformulation or an update of Lukács’s theory, it may still remain
cogent and useful for the purposes of critical theory.
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K. KAVOULAKOS
Reifying Reification
In this section, I put aside the interpretive issue that kept me preoccupied in the previous section and proceed to a substantial critique of
Honneth’s reformulation from a Lukácsian standpoint. From this
point of view, it is characteristic that Honneth’s separation of the concept of reification from its dialectical theoretical framework reproduces
what Lukács called the “antinomies of bourgeois thought.” Rüdiger
Dannemann clearly acknowledges the danger that Honneth’s attempt at
a reconstruction of Lukács’s concept of reification might “become part
of the very reification that it undertook to reveal.”89 In fact, Honneth’s
theory can be considered a case of a reified concept of reification.
Although Honneth critiques Lukács’s tendency towards idealism,
a similar kind of tendency to ignore the materiality of social structures
can be traced in his own thought. As one commentator notes: “With his
theory of recognition, Honneth grasps crucial dimensions of the normative order of capitalist social relations, but he does so at the expense of
neglecting the material constitution of those relations.”90 It is characteristic that, whereas in the beginning of his essay he connects reification
with a “structurally false form of praxis,”91 as he unfolds his argumentation he shifts his critique from praxis to “knowledge” or “cognition.”92
In fact, as we have already seen, in the greatest part of his essay reification is interpreted as a mental “habit of perceiving” oneself “and
the surrounding world as mere things and objects.”93 It is understood
as a “reduced attentiveness” for original recognition, its “forgetfulness”
and its replacement by a purely cognitive attitude, etc. As the material
dimensions of the phenomenon of reification are absorbed by its mental
dimension, the fact that the concept of “second nature” is interpreted
in a way that totally eliminates Lukács’s historical-materialist reference
to the social mechanisms and their material laws, namely as the sum of
man’s acquired mental habits, does no longer surprise us.
This idealist reduction of reification goes hand in hand with the
espousal of a kind of methodological individualism. Honneth analyzes
the attitude connected with reification as an attitude of the individual.
However, as Feenberg aptly notes in his critique of Honneth’s understanding of reification, “Lukács’s discussion of reification focuses on social
processes, specifically on what today we would call the dialectic of structure and agency,” while “the individual is of only marginal interest” to
him.94 As has already been pointed out, after his turn from a theory of the
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interrelation of social institutions or cultural structures and human behavior to methodological individualism, a social explanation of “reification”
seems to lie totally beyond the capabilities of Honneth’s interpretation.95
For Honneth, Lukács’s non-reductive, dialectical holism has
become so alien that, although the declared aim of History and Class
Consciousness is to contribute to the clarification of the methodological
foundations of Marxism,96 he goes so far as to complain that the theoretical basis of the social generalization of the phenomenon of reification
“isn’t clear from the text.”97 It is exactly this blindness towards dialectical method that leads Honneth to the claim that a kind of economic
reductionism is involved here. Furthermore, in his opinion, the generalization of the phenomenon in bourgeois society is supposedly explained
through functionalist arguments or with the aid of Weberian views about
the expansion of the fields of instrumental-rational action.98
As I have already argued in Section The Problem of the Philosophical
Fundaments of Lukács’s Theory of Reification, in this way Honneth
totally overlooks Lukács’s concept of the “form of objectivity”, a concept of central importance for the reconstruction of the social and cultural totality that determines the framework of every causal or functional
link between particular phenomena.99 Timothy Hall is right to note that
“Honneth’s engagement with Lukács’s social theory is minimal and,
in general, reliant on Habermas’s critique in volume 1 of The Theory
of Communicative Action”—therefore “he ends up imputing a basesuperstructure model of society on Lukács and rejecting his account of
the origin of reifying behavior as reductive.”100
Even more questionable is the fact that in Honneth’s reconstruction a
classic formalist tendency towards separating different fields of social life
spontaneously occurs—such as the economy from interpersonal relations,
ideology, politics, etc.101 The purpose of such a fragmentation of contemporary society is to blunt the “totalizing” edge of Lukács’s critique
and to locate spheres of social life (such as the capitalist market or the
bureaucratic organization), in which “observing, detached behavior has a
perfectly legitimate place,” while its retention is required “for reasons of
efficiency” in “highly differentiated societies.”102 With such authentically
functionalist arguments Honneth discards Lukács’s systems-theoretically
“naïve” orientation.
However, this theoretical perspective does more than acquit the
capitalist economy and the bureaucratic organization of the state in
advance by declaring them innocent of the phenomenon of reification.
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K. KAVOULAKOS
Furthermore, the problem with it is that Honneth’s explicit rejection of
the mechanistic explanation and his implicit opposition to the dialectical-holistic explication do not open the way for another model of illuminating the social roots of reification. In this way even the social basis of
the phenomenon of the emotionally neutral stance towards others, which
Honneth understands as “reification,” is obscured. This tendency is further strengthened due to the elaboration of reification through concepts
of a philosophical anthropology that replaces Lukács’s social-historical
perspective.
Alone Honneth’s preference for anthropology would suffice to
demonstrate the great distance that separates him from Lukács, who
emphatically rejected philosophical anthropology as a kind of reified
thought. For Lukács, an anthropological theory can be nothing but ahistorical.103 Indeed, the antecedent, original recognition that is necessary
for the constitution of human subjects can only be thought of as a universal, ahistorical, constant element of human existence that we find in
all societies and epochs. Accordingly, its “forgetfulness” must be understood as a kind of constant anthropological trait or at least as a permanent possibility of an individual slip into “reification”—even more so,
since it is not explained through a social cause. This inevitably amounts
to an ontologization or—in Lukács’s terms—a reification of reification.104
Finally, even if it were possible to overcome the opposition between
history and ahistorical anthropology in theory, it remains unclear how
this theory would have consequences for praxis. Clearly, no critical theory can abandon the demand of its internal connection with an emancipative social praxis without ceasing to be critical. But what exactly is
the practice Honneth refers to in his theory of the forgetfulness of
recognition? It is not by accident that he remains silent on that issue.
After all, there is no meaning in combatting an ontological or anthropological characteristic of human existence. In any case, the fact that
Honneth exclusively locates the phenomenon of reification on the level
of “thought” or “cognition” motivates the interpretation that de-reification has to be something equivalent: some kind of an “inner changing”
of the individual. Even if we are today compelled to reduce our expectations of the “principle of praxis,” which Lukács connected with revolution, Honneth’s version of it is admittedly too thin.
All the above-mentioned elements of a critique of Honneth’s theory of reification strengthen the suggestion of its reifying tendency.
In the final analysis they all have to do with Honneth’s abandonment of
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Lukács’s dialectical social-historical method. They thus lead to misrecognition of its basic aim to demonstrate the historically contingent character
of capitalist social relations. The result of Honneth’s attempt at a recognition-theoretical reformulation of Lukács’s classic theorem is in every
respect disappointing. Paraphrasing Honneth’s above cited conclusion
about Lukács’s failure to teach us what reification is,105 one could say
that what we can learn from its Honnethian reformulation is that such a
reinterpretation must be constructed differently from the way Honneth
understands it in his own work—at least insofar as it is supposed to be
understood as a reinterpretation of Lukács.106
Honneth seems to have achieved what he aimed for in 1999—to take
Lukács’s theory out of its “isolation” and to integrate it into the “discussions that are to a great extent determined by analytic philosophy.”107
However the cost of this success is too high: Interpreting reification as
“forgetfulness of recognition” obscures Lukács’s radical initial idea that
human relations are reified as long as their historicality is forgotten and
they are transformed into an irresistible system of blind, compulsive,
seemingly natural laws—a system that reduces people to passive observers of an independent, external process.
Conclusion
In this chapter I pointed to the fact that Honneth’s reception of Lukács’s
theory of reification relies on a problematic reading of it, the reliability of which he takes for granted. No wonder that in order to update
Lukács’s initial idea he has to discard so many essential aspects of it—that
are supposed to signify its “idealist” character—and to highlight others that stand in its periphery (if one assumes that they belong to it at
all). However, even more problematic is the fact that Honneth’s update
can easily be critiqued from a Lukácsian standpoint as a theoretical perspective that facilitates the ontologization and, thus, the reification of
the very phenomena it aspires to criticize. This tendency did not remain
unnoticed by Honneth’s interlocutors in his thin volume, even though
it was differently expressed than it has been in this chapter. For example,
Raymond Geuss questioned the possibility of grounding social critique
on the notion of the primordial, antecedent recognition: “If care (or recognition) is a precondition of everything and anything, including hatred
and indifference, it cannot be the basis of an ethics or social criticism.”108
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K. KAVOULAKOS
In the final analysis, this argument amounts to the same as what I have
developed in my critique of reifying reification.
The deeply problematic character of the notion of reification as forgetfulness of recognition is probably the reason for which Honneth
did not return to his project of Reification after the publication of
the English translation of this book. Instead, with his opus magnum
Freedom’s Right (The Social Foundations of Democratic Life, 2014,
German original: 2011) he made a new shift towards a social-historical
reconstruction of the notion of social freedom underlying the institutional framework of modern societies.109 With its Hegelian outlook,
Honneth’s new argumentative strategy points to the very direction he
hitherto repudiated, namely the direction of a historical reconstruction
of values.
However, from a methodological standpoint this historical reconstruction must remain a mere “in-between,” i.e., a theory positioned between
an empirical and a strictly normative approach to these values without a
clear methodological status, as long as Honneth continues to refuse to
reflect upon the theoretical-logical presuppositions of such a mediating
reconstructive theory.110 Such logical presuppositions were discovered
and discussed more than 200 years ago, although for the time being
they seem to have fallen into oblivion—at least within the framework of
contemporary communicative critical theory. Honneth’s back and forth
from a more anthropological to a more historical, from a more substantial to a more formalist, from a more transcendent to a more immanent
perspective is a clear indication of the need to reconsider the problems
of mediating between antithetical theoretical poles. This has always been
the task of a dialectically constituted theory.
Notes
1. Axel Honneth, Reification. A New Look at an Old Idea, ed. Martin Jay
(Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 20. Previously,
in 1999, Honneth pointed out the lack of explicit normative foundations in Lukács’s social critique (cf. Axel Honneth, “Reflexionen über
den Klassiker des philosophischen Marxismus und das Schattenreich der
philosophischen Kultur.” Interview by Rüdiger Dannemann, Lukács
1998/99. Jahrbuch der Internationalen Georg-Lukács-Gesellschaft,
vol. 3 (1999): 76). This criticism is a continuation of Habermas’s critique of the old Frankfurt school; therefore, it totally overlooks the
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reasons of Lukács’s (and Adorno’s) abstinence from a “normative”
justification that would correspond to a “reification of ethics” (on this
issue cf. Jean Grondin, “Reification from Lukács to Habermas.” In Tom
Rockmore (ed.) Lukács Today. Essays in Marxist Philosophy (Dordrecht:
D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1988), 97–102).
2. Cf. Georg Lukács, History and Class Consciousness. Studies in Marxist
Dialectics, trans. Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
1971), 185–197.
3. Characteristically, the word “history” appears only once in the text in a
reference—irrelevant to Lukács—to the distinction between history and
logic (cf. Honneth, Reification, 46).
4. Initially published in 1994; cf. Axel Honneth, Disrespect. The Normative
Foundations of Critical Theory (Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press,
2007), 3–48.
5. Honneth, Disrespect, 42.
6. Unfortunately, this reading of Lukács that has a long history within
the Frankfurt school continues to remain unchallenged by its younger
successors—see, e.g., Rahel Jaeggi, “Verdinglichung – ein aktueller
Begriff?” Lukács 1998/99. Jahrbuch der Internationalen Georg-LukácsGesellschaft, vol. 3 (1999): 70–71; Titus Stahl, “Verdinglichung und
Herrschaft. Technikkritik als Kritik sozialer Praxis.” In Hans Friesen,
Christian Lotz, Jakob Meier and Markus Wolf (eds.) Ding und
Verdinglichung: Technik- und Sozialphilosophie nach Heidegger und der
Kritischen Theorie (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2012), 303–304.
7. Cf. Honneth, Reification, 27.
8. See Adorno’s relevant remarks in a recently published lecture of
1960 in: Theodor W. Adorno, Philosophie und Soziologie (1960).
Nachgelassene Schriften, ed. Dirk Braunstein, vol. IV.6. (Berlin:
Suhrkamp, 2011), 136. See also his lecture of 1963/64 on “Problems
of Dialectics” in: Theodor W. Adorno Archive, Vo 8831–8832 (quoted
in Dirk Braunstein, Adornos Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (Bielefeld:
Transcript, 2011), 41).
9. Theodor W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, trans. E.B. Ashton (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973), 190.
10. Adorno, Negative Dialectic, 191.
11. Adorno, Negative Dialectic, 190.
12. Cf. Adorno, Negative Dialectic, 189.
13. Adorno, Negative Dialectic, 191.
14. Adorno, Negative Dialectic, 192.
15. Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, “Diskussion über Dialektik
(1939?).” In Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 12, ed.
Gunzelin Schmid Noerr (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1985), 527. The dating
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K. KAVOULAKOS
of the discussion is uncertain. It is very likely that it took place in 1931
instead of 1939 (see the editor’s note in: ibid., 526).
16. Cf. Theodor W. Adorno Archive, Vo 8831–8832 (quoted in Braunstein,
Adornos Kritik, 41).
17. Jürgen Habermas, “Literaturbericht zur philosophischen Diskussion um
Marx und den Marxismus (1957).” In Jürgen Habermas, Theorie und
Praxis. Sozialphilosophische Studien (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1971), 443.
18. Habermas, “Lieteratubericht,” 444.
19. Habermas, “Lieteratubericht,” 444. Already in 1994, a very same critique was espoused by Honneth (cf. Honneth, Disrespect, 25–26, 38).
20. Cf. Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, vol. 1
(Reason and the Rationalization of Society), trans. Th. McCarthy
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), 362.
21. Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action, 364.
22. Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action, 364–365.
23. This becomes particularly clear in his brief remarks on the formalist tendency in Hegel’s philosophy of history in Lukács, History, 140–149.
24. See my interpretation of Lukács’s philosophy of history in Konstantinos
Kavoulakos, “Back to History? Reinterpreting Lukács’ Early Marxist
Work in Light of the Antinomies of Contemporary Critical Theory.”
In Michael J. Thompson (ed.) Lukács Reconsidered. Critical Essays in
Politics, Philosophy and Aesthetics (London and New York: Continuum,
2011), 159–165.
25. Cf. Lukács, History, 296.
26. I reconstruct the main lines of such a new understanding in my:
Konstantinos Kavoulakos, Georg Lukács’s Philosophy of Praxis. From NeoKantianism to Marxism (London and New York: Bloomsbury, forthcoming, 2018).
27. Honneth, Reification, 22, similarly: 28. In a similar interpretative line,
Arato and Breines critically refer to the reductionism and the primacy
of economy in Lukács (cf. Andrew Arato and Paul Breines, The Young
Lukács and the Origins of Western Marxism (London: Pluto Press,
1979), 122).
28. See Honneth, “Reflexionen,” 76, 82.
29. Lukács, History, 27.
30. Lukács, History, 83, my emphasis.
31. Lukács, History, 88.
32. Cf. Andrew Feenberg, The Philosophy of Praxis. Marx, Lukács, and the
Frankfurt School (London and Brooklyn: Verso, 2014), 73–77.
33. Kurt Beiersdörfer, Max Weber und Georg Lukács. Über die Beziehung von
verstehender Soziologie und westlichem Marxismus (Frankfurt and New
York: Campus 1986), 132, similarly: 166.
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REIFYING REIFICATION: A CRITIQUE OF AXEL HONNETH’S THEORY …
61
34. See, e.g., Honneth, Reification, 23.
35. Cerutti emphasizes the fact that “Lukács does not understand the category of totality objectivistically as ‘extensive-substantial completeness’,
nor functionalistically as interaction”. Cerutti instead stresses the dialectical nature of Lukács’s theory that postulates the adaptation of logical
forms to the historical content in question (see Furio Cerutti, “Hegel,
Lukács, Korsch. Zum dialektischen Selbstverständnis des kritischen
Marxismus.” In Oskar Negt (ed.) Aktualität und Folgen der Philosophie
Hegels (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1970), 195–196).
36. For example, in Lukács, History, 13, 186–187.
37. Feenberg and Beiersdörfer interpret Lukács’s position in this direction
(see Feenberg, Philosophy of Praxis, 114–119, 224–230; Beiersdörfer,
Max Weber und Georg Lukács, 132–133, 201–202).
38. This term is already used in the introductory passage of Lukács’ reification essay (cf. Lukács, History, 83). Unfortunately, the English translation often overlooks the central importance of this concept and renders
it invisible by circumlocutions.
39. Cf. Konstantinos Kavoulakos, Ästhetizistische Kulturkritik und ethische
Utopie. Georg Lukács’ Neukantianisches Frühwerk (Berlin and Boston:
Akademie Verlag (De Gruyter), 2014).
40. Cf. Feenberg, Philosophy of Praxis, 54–55, 64–67, 76–77.
41. Lukács, History, 83.
42. Lukács, History, 87; the term disappears in the English translation.
43. Lukács, History, 88; translation altered.
44. Lukács, History, 92.
45. Lukács, History, 98, translation altered.
46. Lukács, History, 109.
47. Lukács, History, 83.
48. Cf. Lukács, History, 83.
49. Lukács, History, 86.
50. Honneth, Reification, 21.
51. Honneth, Reification, 26.
52. Honneth, Reification, 21.
53. Honneth, Reification, 26.
54. Honneth, Reification, 21. It has been correctly noted that Honneth
takes reification in its literal sense (cf. Andrew Feenberg, “Rethinking
Reification.” In Timothy Bewes and Timothy Hall (eds.) Georg Lukács:
The Fundamental Dissonance of Existence (London and New York:
Continuum, 2011), 102; Timo Jütten, “What Is Reification? A Critique
of Axel Honneth.” Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 53, no. 3 (2010): 236). It is ironic that, interpreting him in this
doubtful manner allows Honneth to ascribe to Lukács an “ontologizing
62
K. KAVOULAKOS
everyday understanding of the concept of reification” and to conclude
that he lacks the appropriate categorial means to conceptualize phenomena “that he often grasps in a phenomenologically accurate way”
(Honneth, Reification, 21).
55. Lukács, History, 83, my emphasis.
56. Jütten aptly points out the contradiction that occurs between this literal meaning of the concept and Honneth’s position that reification
should not be interpreted as a deviation from a moral norm (Jütten,
“What Is Reification?” 242–245). Fabian Kettner’s reading of Lukács
shows how easy it is to assume this naïve understanding of reification as objectification of other persons or even as self-objectification,
while at the same time correctly interpreting it as “naturalization” of
social relations (cf. Fabian Kettner, “Die Theorie der Verdinglichung
und die Verdinglichung der Theorie.” Lukács 2002. Jahrbuch der
Internationalen Georg-Lukács-Gesellschaft, vol. 6 (2002): 106).
57. Cf. Honneth, Reification, 21.
58. Honneth’s blurred focus on the transformation of “something human”
into a thing rather matches Lucien Goldmann’s problematic concept
of reification that relies upon the opposition of the “human element”
and the “mechanism” (cf. Lucien Goldmann, “Die Verdinglichung.”
In Lucien Goldmann, Dialektische Untersuchungen (Neuwied:
Luchterhand, 1966), 111).
59. Honneth, Reification, 27.
60. Honneth, Reification, 27.
61. Cf. Honneth, Reification, 28–52.
62. Jütten, “What is Reification?” 239–240.
63. Honneth, Reification, 24.
64. Honneth, Reification, 25.
65. Cf. Honneth, Reification, 25, 28.
66. Cf. Honneth, Reification, 23–25, 28, 32–33.
67. Cf. Lukács, History, 86, 128.
68. Lukács, History, 129.
69. Cf. Honneth, Reification, 54.
70. Honneth, Reification, 54.
71. Honneth, Reification, 53.
72. Honneth, Reification, 24.
73. Also Feenberg sees that clearly in Feenberg, “Rethinking Reification,”
104–105.
74. Honneth, Reification, 24.
75. Honneth, Reification, 25.
76. Cf. Honneth, Reification, 53.
77. Honneth, Reification, 54–55.
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REIFYING REIFICATION: A CRITIQUE OF AXEL HONNETH’S THEORY …
63
78. Honneth, Reification, 55.
79. Honneth, Reification, 55.
80. Honneth, Reification, 56. The word does not appear in the English
translation.
81. Honneth, Reification, 56.
82. Honneth, Reification, 56.
83. Honneth, Reification, 59.
84. Honneth, Reification, 59.
85. Honneth, Reification, 59. In his “Rejoinder” to criticism, Honneth
admits that the example of the tennis player “was most likely a poor
choice”. Therefore he replaces it with the example of the “activity of
war”, during which the “purpose of annihilation becomes so much
a purpose in itself that even in the perception of those not involved
(e.g., women and children), all attentiveness for fellow human qualities
is lost”. This supposedly leads to treating them “as lifeless, thing-like
objects that deserve to be murdered and abused” (ibid., 155–156).
86. Honneth, Reification, 59. Jütten cogently notes that Honneth’s examples represent cases of obvious violation of moral or even legal rules,
thus they cannot be considered as cases of reification in the non-ethical
sense assumed by Honneth himself (cf. Jütten, “What Is Reification?”
242–245).
87. Frederick Neuhouser, “Axel Honneth: Verdinglichung.” Notre Dame.
Philosophical Reviews (March 7, 2006), accessed June 11, 2015,
https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/24979-verdinglichung/.
88. Cf. Honneth, Reification, 97–143.
89. Rüdiger Dannemann, “Verdinglichung, Entfremdung und Anerkennung.
Zwischenüberlegungen zu den Bedingungen der Möglichkeit, eine
radikale Gegenwartstheorie zu reformulieren.” In Christoph J. Bauer,
Britta Caspers, Niklas Hebing, Werner Jung and Holger Wendt (eds.)
Georg Lukács. Werk und Wirkung (Duisburg: Universitätsverlag RheinRuhr, 2008), 105. In this article, Dannemann plausibly critiques Rahel
Jaeggi’s interpretation of alienation and Honneth’s theory of reification.
He clearly discerns Honneth’s tendency towards a de-radicalization of
Lukács’s initial idea (cf. ibid., 102–105).
90. Anita Chari, “Toward a Political Critique of Reification. Lukács,
Honneth and the Aims of Critical Theory.” Philosophy and Social
Criticism, vol. 36, no. 5 (2010): 599–600.
91. Honneth, Reification, 26.
92. Christoph Henning discerns this tendency towards a problematic “epistemological re-interpretation” of reification in Honneth (cf. Christoph
Henning, “Von der Kritik warenförmiger Arbeit zur Apotheose der
Marktgesellschaft.” In Hans Friese, Christian Lotz, Jakob Meier
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K. KAVOULAKOS
and Markus Wolf (eds.) Ding und Verdinglichung. Technik- und
Sozialphilosophie nach Heidegger und der Kritischen Theorie (Munich:
Wilhelm Fink, 2012), 250–254).
93. Honneth, Reification, 23.
94. Feenberg, “Rethinking Reification,” 101; see also Timothy Hall,
“Returning to Lukács: Honneth’s Critical Reconstruction of Lukács’
Concepts of Reification and Praxis.” In Michael J. Thompson (ed.)
Lukács Reconsidered. Critical Essays in Politics, Philosophy and Aesthetics
(London and New York: Continuum, 2011), 197.
95. See Chari, “Toward a Political Critique,” 598–601. Chari connects this
inability with Honneth’s “interactionist model of intersubjectivity”,
which “is less able to grasp the material conditions of social struggles”
(ibid., 598). Other commentators make similar remarks on the limitations of a concept of reification that is too narrowly related to intersubjective relations (e.g. Titus Stahl, “Verdinglichung als Pathologie zweiter
Ordnung.” Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, vol. 59, no. 5 (2011):
737; Dirk Quadflieg, “Zur Dialektik von Verdinglichung und Freiheit.
Von Lukács zu Honneth – und zurück zu Hegel.” Deutsche Zeitschrift
für Philosophie, vol. 59, no. 5 (2011): 707–708).
96. Cf. Lukács, History, xliii.
97. Honneth, Reification, 23.
98. Cf. Honneth, Reification, 23.
99. Also see Feenberg’s illuminating remarks on Lukács’s non-reductionist
theory of the relation between economy and culture, based on the concept of the form of objectivity (Feenberg, Philosophy of Praxis, 63–67).
100. Hall, “Returning to Lukács,” 204. However, as Hall adds, “it is pretty
clear that this is not what Lukács understands by the ‘economic structure’ of modern societies” (ibid.).
101. Henning connects this tendency with Honneth’s implicit adoption of the
neoclassic view that economy is a separate field of exclusively economic
exchange (cf. Henning, “Von der Kritik,” 248).
102. Honneth, Reification, 28; see also Honneth, “Reflexionen,” 78–79.
103. Cf. Lukács, History, 185–197. As Merleau-Ponty notes “[t]he very concept of man must be rendered dialectical; and if by man one understood
a positive nature of attributes, Lukács would no more accept this idol
than any other” (Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Adventures of the Dialectic,
trans. Joseph Bien (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973),
56). Also Hall stresses Lukács’s rejection of anthropology in his own critique of Honneth’s reading (cf. Timothy Hall, “Justice and the Good
Life in Lukács’s History and Class Consciousness.” In Timothy Bewes
and Timothy Hall (eds.) Georg Lukács: The Fundamental Dissonance
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REIFYING REIFICATION: A CRITIQUE OF AXEL HONNETH’S THEORY …
65
of Existence. Aesthetics, Politics, Literature (London and New York:
Continuum, 2011), 126).
104. Jütten formulates a similar critique of Honneth’s anthropological orientation (cf. Jütten, “What Is Reification?” 246–247).
105. Honneth, Reification, 55.
106. Theorists of the younger generation of critical theory prove to be
more successful in updating aspects of Lukács’s reification theory.
Jütten proposes a positively predisposed reconstruction of this theory
through a charitable reading of Lukács’s allusions to German idealism,
which he interprets as a defence of a concept of “social freedom” (cf.
Timo Jütten, “Verdinglichung und Freiheit.” Deutsche Zeitschrift für
Philosophie, vol. 59, no. 5 (2011): 717–730). Also Stahl’s call to comprehend reification as a “second order pathology” seems to update an
essential part of Lukács’s idea of a structural obstruction of the practical
transformation of established social practices (cf. Stahl, “Verdinglichung
als Pathologie”).
107. Honneth, “Reflexionen,” 85–86.
108. Honneth, Reification, 127.
109. Cf. e.g., Piet Strydom, “Review Essay: Honneth’s Sociological Turn.”
European Journal of Social Theory, vol. 16, no. 4 (2013): 530–542.
110. Robert Pippin is right to complain about this refusal (cf. Robert Pippin,
“Reconstructivism: On Honneth’s Hegelianism.” Philosophy and Social
Criticism, vol. 40, no. 8 (2014): 725–741).
Selected Bibliography
Adorno, Theodor W. (1973) Negative Dialectics. Translated by E.B. Ashton.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Adorno, Theodor W. (2011) Philosophie und Soziologie (1960). Nachgelassene
Schriften. Edited by Dirk Braunstein. Vol. IV.6. Berlin: Suhrkamp.
Arato, Andrew and Paul Breines (1979) The Young Lukács and the Origins of
Western Marxism. London: Pluto Press.
Beiersdörfer, Kurt (1986) Max Weber und Georg Lukács. Über die Beziehung von
verstehender Soziologie und westlichem Marxismus. Frankfurt and New York:
Campus.
Braunstein, Dirk (2011) Adornos Kritik der politischen Ökonomie. Bielefeld:
Transcript.
Cerutti, Furio (1970) “Hegel, Lukács, Korsch. Zum dialektischen
Selbstverständnis des kritischen Marxismus.” In Oskar Negt (ed.) Aktualität
und Folgen der Philosophie Hegels. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 195–210.
66
K. KAVOULAKOS
Chari, Anita (2010) “Toward a Political Critique of Reification. Lukács,
Honneth and the Aims of Critical Theory.” Philosophy and Social Criticism,
vol. 36, no. 5: 587–606.
Dannemann, Rüdiger (2008) “Verdinglichung, Entfremdung und Anerkennung.
Zwischenüberlegungen zu den Bedingungen der Möglichkeit, eine radikale
Gegenwartstheorie zu reformulieren.” In Christoph J. Bauer, Britta Caspers,
Niklas Hebing, Werner Jung and Holger Wendt (eds.) Georg Lukács. Werk
und Wirkung. Duisburg: Universitätsverlag Rhein-Ruhr, 91–107.
Feenberg, Andrew (2011) “Rethinking Reification.” In Timothy Bewes and
Timothy Hall (eds.) Georg Lukács: The Fundamental Dissonance of Existence.
London and New York: Continuum, 101–120.
Feenberg, Andrew (2014) The Philosophy of Praxis. Marx, Lukács, and the
Frankfurt School. London and Brooklyn: Verso.
Goldmann,
Lucien
(1966)
“Die
Verdinglichung.”
In
Lucien
Goldmann, Dialektische Untersuchungen. Neuwied: Luchterhand, 71–120.
Grondin, Jean (1988) “Reification from Lukács to Habermas.” In Tom
Rockmore (ed.) Lukács Today. Essays in Marxist Philosophy. Dordrecht: D.
Reidel Publishing Company, 86–107.
Habermas, Jürgen (1971) “Literaturbericht zur philosophischen Diskussion um
Marx und den Marxismus (1957).” In Jürgen Habermas, Theorie und Praxis.
Sozialphilosophische Studien. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 387–463.
Habermas, Jürgen (1991) The Theory of Communicative Action, vol. 1 (Reason
and the Rationalization of Society). Translated by Th. McCarthy. Cambridge:
Polity Press.
Hall, Timothy (2011a) “Returning to Lukács: Honneth’s Critical
Reconstruction of Lukács’ Concepts of Reification and Praxis.” In Michael J.
Thompson (ed.) Lukács Reconsidered. Critical Essays in Politics, Philosophy and
Aesthetics. London and New York: Continuum, 195–210.
Hall, Timothy (2011b) “Justice and the Good Life in Lukács’s History and Class
Consciousness”. In Timothy Bewes and Timothy Hall (eds.) Georg Lukács: The
Fundamental Dissonance of Existence. Aesthetics, Politics, Literature. London
and New York: Continuum, 121–137.
Henning, Christoph (2012) “Von der Kritik warenförmiger Arbeit zur
Apotheose der Marktgesellschaft.” In Hans Friese, Christian Lotz, Jakob
Meier and Markus Wolf (eds.) Ding und Verdinglichung. Technik- und
Sozialphilosophie nach Heidegger und der Kritischen Theorie. Munich: Wilhelm
Fink, 243–272.
Honneth, Axel (1999) “Reflexionen über den Klassiker des philosophischen
Marxismus und das Schattenreich der philosophischen Kultur.” Interview by
Rüdiger Dannemann. Lukács 1998/99. Jahrbuch der Internationalen GeorgLukács-Gesellschaft, vol. 3: 73–89.
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67
Honneth, Axel (2007) Disrespect. The Normative Foundations of Critical Theory.
Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press.
Honneth, Axel (2008) Reification. A New Look at an Old Idea, ed. Martin Jay.
Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Honneth, Axel (2014) Freedom’s Right. The Social Foundations of Democratic
Life. Translated by Joseph Ganahl. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno (1985) “Diskussion über Dialektik
(1939?).” In Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 12, ed. Gunzelin
Schmid Noerr, Frankfurt: Fischer, 526–541.
Jaeggi, Rahel (1999) “Verdinglichung – ein aktueller Begriff?” Lukács 1998/99.
Jahrbuch der Internationalen Georg-Lukács-Gesellschaft, vol. 3: 68–72.
Jütten, Timo (2010) “What Is Reification? A Critique of Axel Honneth.”
Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, vol. 53, no. 3: 235–256.
Jütten, Timo (2011) “Verdinglichung und Freiheit.” Deutsche Zeitschrift für
Philosophie, vol. 59, no. 5: 717–730.
Kavoulakos, Konstantinos (2011) “Back to History? Reinterpreting Lukács’
Early Marxist Work in Light of the Antinomies of Contemporary Critical
Theory.” In Michael J. Thompson (ed.) Lukács Reconsidered. Critical Essays
in Politics, Philosophy and Aesthetics. London and New York: Continuum,
151–171.
Kavoulakos, Konstantinos (2014) Ästhetizistische Kulturkritik und ethische Utopie. Georg Lukács’ Neukantianisches Frühwerk. Berlin and Boston:
Akademie Verlag (De Gruyter).
Kavoulakos, Konstantinos (forthcoming, 2018) Georg Lukács’s Philosophy of Praxis.
From Neo-Kantianism to Marxism. London and New York: Bloomsbury.
Kettner, Fabian (2002) “Die Theorie der Verdinglichung und die
Verdinglichung der Theorie.” Lukács 2002. Jahrbuch der Internationalen
Georg-Lukács-Gesellschaft, vol. 6: 97–114.
Lukács, Georg (1971) History and Class Consciousness. Studies in Marxist
Dialectics. Translated by Rodney Livingstone. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1973) Adventures of the Dialectic. Translated by Joseph
Bien. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Neuhouser, Frederick (2006) “Axel Honneth: Verdinglichung.” Notre Dame.
Philosophical Reviews (March 7). Accessed June 11, 2015. https://ndpr.
nd.edu/news/24979-verdinglichung/.
Pippin, Robert (2014) “Reconstructivism: On Honneth’s Hegelianism.”
Philosophy and Social Criticism, vol. 40, no. 8: 725–741.
Quadflieg, Dirk (2011) “Zur Dialektik von Verdinglichung und Freiheit.
Von Lukács zu Honneth – und zurück zu Hegel.” Deutsche Zeitschrift für
Philosophie, vol. 59, no. 5: 701–715.
Stahl, Titus (2011) “Verdinglichung als Pathologie zweiter Ordnung.” Deutsche
Zeitschrift für Philosophie, vol. 59, no. 5: 731–746.
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K. KAVOULAKOS
Stahl, Titus (2012) “Verdinglichung und Herrschaft. Technikkritik als Kritik
sozialer Praxis.” In Hans Friesen, Christian Lotz, Jakob Meier and Markus
Wolf (eds.) Ding und Verdinglichung: Technik- und Sozialphilosophie nach
Heidegger und der Kritischen Theorie. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 299–324.
Strydom, Piet (2013) “Review Essay: Honneth’s Sociological Turn.” European
Journal of Social Theory, vol. 16, no. 4: 530–542.
CHAPTER 4
The Recognition of No-Body
Lauren Langman
Critical Theory was a legacy of Marx’s imminent critique of the capitalist mode of production based on class struggle in which the bourgeoisie
owned private property and maintained economic, political, and cultural domination over the proletariat, whose labor power, sold as a commodity, augmented the exchange value of the materials that the worker
transformed into commodities sold on the market. While the worker
sold labor power and received wages just adequate to sustain his/her
life, the capitalist appropriated the “surplus value”, the unpaid labo the
worker added to raw materials which was congealed within commodities
produced to gain exchange value on the market. Capitalism produced
wealth for the bourgeoisie and suffering for the alienated, exploited,
dehumanized worker was who was reduced to nothing more than his/
her abstract value. The worker who owned neither the tools of production nor the commodities produced, became alienated, that is to say as
he sold his labor producing goods he became objectified, reduced to little more than an object, a thing devoid of humanity, a cost of production, devoid of recognition and bereft of agency e.g., rendered powerless
while estranged from his/her fragmented community and thwarted in
the full realization of his/her humanity (species being). Marx writes:
L. Langman (*)
Loyola University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
© The Author(s) 2019
V. Schmitz (ed.), Axel Honneth and the Critical Theory
of Recognition, Political Philosophy and Public Purpose,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91980-5_4
69
70
L. LANGMAN
The object produced by labor, its product, now stands opposed to it as
an alien being, as a power independent of the producer…. The more the
worker expends himself in work the more powerful becomes the world of
objects which he creates in face of himself, the poorer he becomes in his
inner life, and the less he belongs to himself.1
Not only is the individual alienated from the product he produces,
but from the production process itself. And this is extremely important,
recall, as human beings are defined by their work. He does not own the
tools, set the pace, or determine his actions on the job.
However, alienation appears not merely in the result but also in the process
of production, within productive activity itself…. If the product of labor is
alienation, production itself must be active alienation…. The alienation of
the object of labor merely summarizes the alienation in the work activity
itself…. This is the relationship of the worker to his own activity as something alien, not belonging to him, activity as suffering (passivity), strength
as powerlessness, creation as emasculation, the personal physical and mental energy of the worker, his personal life…as an activity which is directed
against himself, independent of him and not belonging to him.2
Marxism was an expression of the emancipatory promise of the
Enlightenment to free people from domination and ameliorate suffering
so that people might find creative self-filament. But that was not to happen since the domination of capital was largely sustained through both
the enfeeblement of the alienated worker and the elite control of culture
and ideology that was a product of the material conditions of the society; ultimately, ideological power was secured by control of the means of
coercion. As Marx put it, the ideas of every society were the ideas of its
ruling classes, and those ideas generally legitimated, if not celebrated, the
ruling classes.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, with the growth of mass
production and as greater numbers of workers were concentrated in
mines, factories, railroads, ships, etc., the communist parties grew. But
their primary focus was on the economic system, giving rise to what
Gramsci called “economism,” the reduction of the social and cultural
moments and processes of capitalism to economic factors. Marx’s writings on culture ideology and politics were ignored. Economies and
became ensconced as the “official” version of Marxism by the Second
Internationale. This move was sharply condemned by Karl Korsch, who
4
THE RECOGNITION OF NO-BODY
71
was quite critical of the rejection of Marx’s philosophy, especially its
humanism. Meanwhile, Georg Lukács critiqued the reification of consciousness within language that had been colonized by the bourgeois
logic of “formal rationality,” a term used by Weber to explain the modern form of social action in which the fundamental goal was attaining
the most efficient forms of administration, production and marketing.
For critical theorists, “Instrumental Reason” became one of the major
ideological values legitimating capitalism as the most efficient way of
administration and production. But meanwhile, the reification of consciousness and its domination by rational logic led to the objectification, indeed the dehumanization of the worker. Moreover, it led to the
thwarting of the development of a “critical class consciousness among
workers insofar as “distorted consciousness” rendered the historically
arbitrary social arrangements as “normal.” Furthermore, it was not
until the 1930s that the Paris Manuscripts were found and alienation
became a primary concern for some Marxist scholars. A number these
scholars, embracing philosophy, especially Hegel’s dialectic, as well as
the humanism of Marx, dissatisfied with the “official” Marxism, created
the Institute for Social Research, loosely affiliated with the University of
Frankfurt and subsequently known as the Frankfurt School of Critical
Theory.
When Max Horkheimer became the director of the Institute, he,
along with a core of talented, prolific scholars, including Theodore
Adorno, Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm, made a
concerted move to forge an interdisciplinary, multidimensional critique
of domination and suffering, in which the Marxist critique would be
enhanced by other perspectives, beginning with Max Weber’s critique of
“formal rationality,” which they saw as an organizational principle maximizing the profits of capitalism, as well as one of the major ideological forces legitimating the capitalist mode of production. Their analyses
of “Instrumental Reason” as a dehumanizing force played a central role
in their critique of late capitalism. Furthermore, the psychodynamic perspectives of Sigmund Freud and Wilhelm Reich influenced Erich Fromm,
sociologist and psychoanalyst, who introduced the Freudian theory
of character into the critique of domination, not simply as a structural
condition, but insofar as socialization contexts, practices, and values
impacted childhood and character development is such that the dominant cultural norms, values and understandings were internalized as an
essential aspect of character, the superego. This led to large-scale studies
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L. LANGMAN
of sado-masochistic authoritarianism as an aspect of character marked
by a tendency to submit to “strong,” powerful leaders while demanding
the obedience and compliance of subordinates, coupled with an intense
hostility projected toward subaltern “out groups.” Moreover, authoritarianism was associated with conformity and dogmatic black-and-white
thinking. Authoritarianism then typically served to reproduce the social
order and its class system. At times of crisis, authoritarianism was likely
to dispose support for the powerful leaders, collective narcissism exalting one’s own group, ethnocentrism, racism, anti-Semitism, and indeed,
fascism.
Secondly, the other side of ideological domination was the growing
role of the “culture industries” that offered an “entertaining” mixture
of propaganda a.k.a. “infotainment,” distraction, deception and “one
dimensional” thought. Moreover, the cultural values that maintained
the reproduction of the system were mediated through the socialization processes, in which identification with the socializers and their values became insinuated within the individual, mediated initially through
parents, and subsequently through schools, mass media, national celebrations, etc.
Jürgen Habermas, Adorno’s assistant, eventually became the director
of the Institute. Meanwhile, his work moved from the historical materialist perspective of the early Frankfurt school to a communicative theory of society in which several of the fundamental tenets of the early
Frankfurt school were lost, especially its specific critiques of capitalism
and the material basis of suffering, the centrality of ideological domination-especially when disseminated to the culture industries, the psychoanalytic understandings of character, desire repression, internalization
and ambivalence thwarting human fulfillment, and finally the earlier concerns of alienation/reification, rooted in the nature of class domination/
private property/wage labor. Habermas’ move to discourse influenced
the work of Axel Honneth, who argued that “the struggle for recognition” was the fundamental basis for a contemporary iteration of critical
theory.3 But, as will be argued, his notion of recognition within interpersonal relationships exists in an encapsulated realm quite apart from
the larger structural aspects of society, namely capitalist domination that
is mediated through rational bureaucratic institutions and sustained by
hegemonic ideologies. If the interpersonal focus obscures, if not ignores,
the larger structural moments at the same time, actors tend to be disembodied and disconnected from their own biology, which of course is
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the fundamental basis of emotion, desire, thought, a speech enabling larynx, and opposable thumbs that allow for the use of tools. The embodiment or the materiality of the individual plays little or no role in his
framework.
Political Economy
The most evident and most common critique of Honneth has been the
encapsulation of recognition—dignity—interaction apart from either the
larger political economy, or class positions within that economy. It was
clear to Marx that alienated labor of capitalist production left the worker
estranged, bereft of community as well as his/her” species being, objectified, and powerless—devoid of agency, rendered a commodity, his/her
selfhood was reduced to a thing devoid of recognition, and thus he or
she was left without dignity.4 While Marx did not focus on the micro
level of interaction, the notion of “productive forces” consisted of the
means of production and the social relations associated with them, and
although Marx was talking about classes, his analysis is very clearly seen
in individual social action. Capitalism exposed the cash nexus of social
relations, whether between the owner and worker, landlord and tenant,
or the merchant and his/her customer. Thus, while Honneth’s analysis
of interaction/recognition may well apply in face-to-face situations, all
such interactions exist within a larger political economy. Within this
political economy, most individuals are located within a particular class
position and within each class, there are variations by gender, gender orientation and race. Otherwise said, one of the central concepts in contemporary social analysis, if not critique, is intersectionality, meaning
actors occupying several subject positions, which plays little or no role.
Fraser5 argued that Honneth’s perspective attempted to conflate recognition, a social psychological moment of interaction, with distribution,
an aspect of class structure/political economy. She argued that recognition as a social, psychological and cultural moment in which identities
may face cultural injustices in the distribution of recognition, was not
only analytically different from distribution, but can lead to radically different implications, both descriptively and in terms of a critical normative
perspective.6 Here, the distribution of recognition is an aspect of markets
that exist at a much different level than social interactions; these markets may be just or unjust distributions of goods, services and wealth,
and can be distinguished as different levels of analysis. For Fraser, these
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differences are fundamental, and she offers a dualistic theory of recognition.7 As McQueen8 puts it:
The disagreement over whether or not distribution can be made to supervene on recognition arises from the differing interpretations of recognition. According to Fraser and Honneth, one can understand recognition
as either (a) a matter of justice, connected to with the concept of a universal ‘right’ (Fraser’s position); or (b) a matter of self-realization, connected
with historically-relative cultural conceptions of the ‘good’ (Honneth’s
and Taylor’s position). In (b) Fraser draws out the Aristotelian idea of
eudaimonia (flourishing), which runs throughout Honneth’s teleological
account. Unlike Honneth and Taylor, Fraser does not look to situate the
injustice of misrecognition in the retardation of personal development.
Rather, she identifies it with the fact that ‘some individuals and groups are
denied the status of full partners in social interaction simply as a consequence of institutionalized patterns of cultural value in whose construction
they have not equally participated and which disparage their distinctive
characteristics or the distinctive characteristics assigned to them.9
Fraser’s dualistic theory of distribution, as opposed to the more monistic theories of Honneth and Charles Taylor, argues for the integration
of both; recognition can be seen in terms of notions of justice and universal “rights,” or as an aspect of self-realization tied to cultural notions
of desirability. Her concern is the extent to which socially based aspects
of recognition and misrecognition are based on social constructions of
identities, in which certain dominant groups control the discursive practices of the identity constructions of subordination/subalterity that
denigrate, humiliate and misrecognize or deny recognition. Honneth
places more concern on misrecognition as thwarting self-realization. It
is almost a truism that conditions of unequal and unfair distributions,
namely extreme poverty, especially when based on social constructions of
race, gender etc., thwart self-realization for the majority, especially those
simply struggling to survive. But Honneth’s framework can little address
these political, economic and ideological aspects of recognition. As many
have suggested, when he moved from Marx’s critique of capitalism and
class based inequality to Durkheim’s view of an organic society, “morally integrated” schools and national rituals, the questions of domination,
exploitation, and alienation were cast aside; yet we might question the
morality of a society in which a few men have half the wealth while millions go homeless and hungry every day.
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Thompson similarly argues, quite correctly, that the theory of recognition cannot provide a critique of the larger structures of domination
and inequality, namely political economy, class systems, institutions, and
cultural patterns, especially the law; today, the most important aspect
moment of domination is neoliberal global capitalism.10
Honneth fails to keep in view the centrality of the ways that the logics of
capitalist social structures and systems shape the cognitive and intersubjective patterns of self and society. …By seeing Honneth’s theory of recognition in this light, we can see how this strand of critical theory has
recalibrated its concerns away from the structural systemic nature of social
power and domination and toward the phenomenological and microrelational levels of sociation. 11
Thompson goes on to say:
…for Hegel recognition was not the object, but the mechanism allowing
rational agents to comprehend the essential properties of social life: specifically that each was not a self-formed, independent subject but rather
ensconced in webs of interdependencies that could be brought to rational
reflection and consciousness only under the conditions of modernity. And
once this was grasped by rational agents, it would shape and guide their
rational wills. Recognition was an entry point, not an axiomatic thesis that
underwrites all of Hegel’s political ideas. Honneth’s reading of Hegel’s
philosophy of Right seems to be at odds with Hegel’s actual intentions,
since Hegel is not interested in the phenomenon of recognition per se, but
in the institutional, objective socio-political forms that a modern society
engenders and which can instantiate freedom. He thereby distorts Hegel’s
project and reads the totality of its argument through one narrow feature
of his philosophical system.12
The interpersonal struggles over recognition and identity render the
larger political economy, class or institutional factors of power and domination opaque at best, irrelevant at worst. By masking the reality that
many interpersonal struggles over recognition are indeed rooted in
institutional/ideological factors, identity politics, often disparaged by
ruling class intellectuals as collective narcissism extolling and celebrating
ascribed differences, is not simply an issue of recognition/misrecognition,
but such movements and mobilizations can be seen as subaltern
challenges to the nature of structural power that serves to maintain
­
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subservience, inequality and economic exploitation, as well as denigration and misrecognition. This is especially true in the cases of women
and racial/ethnic minorities who, much as Taylor suggested, have mobilized to gain recognition. Such mobilizations are not only based on
claims for recognition and social equality, but, as noted by Fraser, the
fairness of economic distributions that differentially allocates rewards
(or punishments) on the basis of race, ethnicity or gender. Moreover,
besides misrecognition, the erasure of their humanity and income inequality, many women face constant sexual harassment and sometimes
assault. Thus, a long history tells us, capitalist imperialism has typically sustained itself by denigrating the colonized subaltern’s identity
and culture, resulting in his or her enfeeblement. This was quite clear
to Frantz Fanon, who saw colonialism in terms of cultural domination,
e.g., the denigration and erasure of the subaltern’s culture and identity
as fostering violence toward the self that rendered the subaltern compliant, but whose humanity, which surely includes the recognition of that
humanity, could only be reclaimed through violent revolutionary struggle. Similarly, within capitalist societies, socioeconomic status is typically attributed to the qualities of the person, ignoring the nature of the
opportunity structure and the differential impacts of racism, sexism, or
ethnicity. Thus, those who “fail” economically, are somehow blamed for
their “failures” and typically humiliated or shamed. Like sexism, institutional racism is located in the structures and ideologies of societies and/
or its institutions, and again, the structural factors may impact concrete
interactions, but once more the structures of power play in the role in
Honneth’s perspective.
For Honneth, echoing Taylor, the denial of recognition and the
thwarting of self-realization, a normative promise of democracy, triggers
emotional responses, which in turn dispose people toward social action,
beginning with joining in social movements that contest misrecognition, lack of recognition, and/or dignity. And as one who does study
social movements, I would applaud this notion of bringing dignity into
the study of social movements. But at the same time, when one actually
studies global justice movements on the ground, it quickly becomes evident that the demands for recognition and dignity are clearly tied to the
questions of the structural basis of the distributions of wealth and power
that are based on the organization of the economic system; the seeming
unfairness and corruption of authorities may be widely experienced, but
these are moments of the political economy that exist on a very different
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level than the context of interpersonal relationships.13 Thus, it is not by
accident that the Spanish activists called themselves the “indignados,”
the indignant ones, motivated by skyrocketing unemployment rates and
the descent to precarity which has been structural in origin, not recognition as such. Notwithstanding, similar emotional reactions to disrespect,
the “misrecognition – denial of recognition” at the level of the system
is not the same as within interpersonal relationships. Yes, certain individual elites, the personifications of capital, may well be disparaging and
disrespecting in public statements (and more likely than not in their personal lives), but that is quite apart from the context of face-to-face interaction. And let’s not forget that the massive demonstrations of Occupy
Wall Street were directed toward the injustices of distribution in a society where the 1% garnered the vast majority of the wealth, while the rest
have faced stagnation, if not decline. Yes, they demanded recognition,
but not simply recognition of their own hardships, but recognition of
the fundamental injustice of vast economic inequality and crises of financial capital, as well as a government that is far more concerned with
maintaining the profits of the few than the needs of the many.
The Body
The struggle for recognition between the Master-Slave was the basis for
consciousness in Hegel’s Phenomenology and became a central theme in
the 1844 Manuscripts. We need to recall that for Hegel, the struggle
for recognition was between embodied actors, and the initial moment
took place when the embodied slave, engaged in work, physically transformed nature and, in doing so, differentiated his/her self from the natural world, which was the prerequisite to self-consciousness in which the
self-consciousness of one was highly dependent on recognition of the other.
But let us note that before the two parties entered into the struggle,
each was an embodied agent, that is to say there is a materiality to their
being. As Hudis notes, the unity of self-consciousness requires reconciliation with a living body; citing Hegel he notes, “the object of immediate
desire is a living thing [lebendiges].”14 Anyone who presumes that the
dialectic of Hegel’s phenomenology is a struggle between disembodied
actors should reread Hegel.
The perception, if not apperception and recognition, of the Other
presupposes a body with sensory apparatus, especially eyes, ears, and in
certain cases, a sense of taste, touch and smell of the embodied Other.
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But the processes of receiving, organizing and interpreting perceptions, much as Kant argued, is an active process that takes place in the
present, but has been shaped by earlier socialization and experiences,
the acquisition of certain frames and cognitive maps, as well as emotional responses. Thus, whether or not a person notices, acknowledges,
recognizes or misrecognizes the Other is a function of the individual’s
own developmental history, located within a particular social context and
class location, and intricately tied to emotions. Consider, for example, an
evangelical Christian visiting a big city and suddenly seeing two embodied and embroiled gay men making out. For cosmopolitan urban dwellers, this might not even register, but for the rural, evangelical Christian,
there may be an extremely powerful emotional relationship insofar as
perception of “perverted sinners” might evoke the emotion of <disgust>,
rooted in the avoidance/rejection of that which might be harmful, like
the spitting out of spoiled food, for example. Thus, as any intro textbook
would note, interpretation mediates between perception and understanding/action. Ergo, the perception of mutual perceptions of Master-Slave
will be framed within a matrix of domination/subordination, and the
“struggle for recognition” will be initially framed, already located in a
particular social position of domination subordination; before the actual
struggle began, the parties were already located structurally in conflicting
positions.
Otherwise said, for Hegel, and subsequently Marx, the embodied
worker transforming nature was an essential moment for the creation of
the self, self-consciousness, and the recognition of the other. As Fox has
argued,15 not only did Marx have an implicit theory of human nature,
but a fundamental aspect of that nature was its embodiment, insofar as
the worker was embodied, while his/her sufferings and joys—what few
there s/he might have, were essential moments of bodily experiences.
Indeed, the relationship between the body and its suffering, given that
such suffering was a consequence of political economy, elicited bodily
based emotions that might become the basis of resistance, mobilization
and hopefully the transcendence of capital. As will be argued, ignoring
the centrality of the lived body of the worker, as well as the consumer,
limits the relevance of Honneth’s paradigm for understanding the salience of political economy, ideology and embodied desire. There is little
quarrel with Honneth that the need for recognition, whether of tensions, frustrations of emerging selfhood, and subsequent interactions,
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is absolutely necessary for the healthy development of the self and subsequent social relations. Nevertheless, at the same time, recognition is
part of a larger set of experiences that are not only little considered by
Honneth’s focus on morality, rather than the larger political economy
or the underlying characterological basis of morality, but also further
ignores the importance of embodiment ranging from the tensions and
frustrations of infancy to the nature of work as alienating or fulfilling.
Ideology
One of the fundamental projects of critical theory was the critique of
ideology, especially how imminent critique of Reason, the keystone of
the Enlightenment project of emancipation, revealing that it became
an ideological buttress to justify and celebrate capitalism, but ultimately
imprisoned and dehumanized people within the “iron cages” of Reason.
In much the same way, the Frankfurt school addressed nationalism as
the means by which elites not only garnered legitimacy by claiming to
be the “voice of the heretofore repressed people”, but in so doing, the
elites were able to mobilize vast numbers of people to fight, bleed or
die in various wars of imperialist conquests. Finally, the most important ideological force sustaining global capital and maintaining capitalist hegemony today may be consumerism, which is the accumulation of
things, especially fashions and accoutrements that display the self, and/
or experiences that range from cultural pleasures of music or theater, to
Caribbean cruises or visits to Disneyland. To borrow page from Gramsci,
a contemporary of the early Frankfurt school, the major function of
hegemonic ideologies is to cloak and mystify class domination, to render historically arbitrary class arrangements (as well as hierarchies of
race, gender, religion, ethnicity, etc.) as normal, natural, and in the best
interests of the masses. Those who dissent tend to be marginalized as
bizarre, pathological and immature, which effectively neutralizes any particular critique of injustice, domination, or even differential recognition
that might result from misrecognition. As previously noted, as a result
of socialization, ideology qua “normative” values became an internalized and embodied aspects of character as such and acted as a material
force that typically served to reproduce domination. Given the salience
of repression as a defense, such forms of domination are recalcitrant to
any form of logic, reasoning, or facts.
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Emotion
As has been suggested, perhaps first by Darwin, one of the fundamental qualities of human beings as embodied creatures is that we are born
with a hardwired “affect system” consisting of a repertoire of about
eight or nine basic affects. These affects become socialized and transformed into a variety of emotional responses that, depending on one’s
culture and socialization, may or may not be consciously felt, and may
or may not impel certain actions. The socialization of basic affects into
the complex panoply of human emotions marks the intersection between
culture, bodily based reactions and conscious experiences that often rest
on archaic, preverbal experiences. These become further shaped by various social factors and expressed and/or experienced according to various “feeling rules.”16 As a result, we feel various joys and pleasures
being with friends and lovers, listening to our favorite music or reading
our preferred literature, which might include surfing the web or checking our Facebook page. Conversely, we might feel a degree of antipathy if not outright hatred toward our enemies. Positive recognition by
others generally brings us a certain degree of surprise and joy, while
not being recognized or misrecognized might bring a certain degree of
anger, shame or humiliation. To his credit, Honneth does consider the
importance of emotions to questions of recognition, misrecognition,
respect and dignity. But surely missing in his primarily phenomenological account is the embodied, visceral basis of those emotions and the
extent to which certain cues elicit them, with the feelings both conscious
and unconscious. Furthermore, the ways those emotions are expressed in
interpersonal relationships are largely shaped by various cultural rules
and norms that also vary by class possession.
Subjectivity
At the core of Honneth’s framework is the nature of the self. At this point,
like his mentor Habermas, he moves away from the classical Marxist psychoanalytic perspective, which posited that capitalist civilization demanded
the repressions of desire; instead he embraced the symbolic interactionist
framework of George Herbert Mead. The symbolic interactionist framework is primarily a cognitive linguistic framework in which selfhood
emerges on the basis of the interchange of various signs and gestures
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between the child and his or her caretakers. With the development of
the cortex, the child eventually acquires language and when he/she does
so, also gains the ability to “take the role of the other” and see oneself
as others do, namely by seeing what Cooley had called “the looking glass
self.” The recognition of one’s selfhood by recognizing it as others see it
becomes a constituent of one’s own identity as a more or less integrated
collection of self-conceptions, which may very well vary the nature of the
self-presentations in different contexts, as Goffman had argued.
The initial critique of this view is that the cognitive linguistic framework of symbolic interactionism rests primarily at the surface level of
personality and focuses largely on the consciously volitional behavioral
aspects of self-presentations and social interactions. A very long tradition
within critical theory has argued that the individual’s character consists
of conscious and unconscious levels, along with desires that may also be
conscious or unconscious. These desires are typically controlled by the
demands of the society, especially the requirements of the political economy. The fundamental conflict between social demands and frustrated
desire, often checked by guilt, is indeed a major factor responsible for
the individual experience of suffering. More central to the argument,
however, is the more political reading of Freud by Wilhelm Reich, whose
initial point was that Freud conflated “bourgeois civilization” with “civilization in general” and that it was only the demands of bourgeois work
that led to repressive sexual morality, which became the initial means of
instilling submission to authority. This ethic of obedience and compliance enabled the constant, repetitious forms of alienated labor typical
of modern factories, offices and stores. But that strict early child rearing, especially when it is repressive of infantile sexuality, became the basis
of the type of authoritarian personality whose political proclivities and
moral absolutism would have important effects on society. However,
for Reich, authoritarianism was not only rooted in the suppression of
bodily desire, but the authoritarian character and its defenses were also
embodied as a particular form of “character armor.” By this he meant
typical attitudes, stances and demeanor, as seen, for example, in social
relationships, which became mirrored in the body through tone, gait,
musculature, and muscular tension that typically resulted from repression of desires. Otherwise said, repression was not simply just a psychosocial process, but was also a deeply embodied aspect of selfhood.
The Frankfurt school initiated large-scale studies of authoritarianism
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that revealed the underlying characteristics of the authoritarian character, which became the psychological fault line disposing the population
to the fervent embrace of Hitler, who spoke to the highly repressed and
thwarted “little man” who had been humiliated, denigrated and indeed
castrated. Hitler, like many autocrats before and since, as the “powerful”
leader, gave his followers voice, agency and a sense of empowerment. We
know how that movie ended.
To borrow a page from Gramsci, a contemporary of the early
Frankfurt school, the major function of hegemonic ideologies is to
cloak and mystify class domination, to render historically arbitrary class
arrangements (as well as hierarchies of race, gender, religion, ethnicity,
etc.) as “normal,” “natural,” “common sense,” and in the best interests
of all. Those who dissent tend to be marginalized as bizarre, pathological and immature, thus neutralizing any particular critique of injustice,
domination, or even differential recognition that might result from misrecognition. As previously noted, as a result of socialization, ideology
qua “normative” values became an internalized and embodied aspect
of character as such and acted as a material force that typically served to
reproduce domination. Given the salience of repression as a defense, such
forms of domination are recalcitrant to any form of logic, reasoning, or
facts.
For the classical perspectives of critical theory, subjectivity, seen as
character structure, desires, internalized norms and values of society,
defenses and emotions at different levels of awareness, was shaped by
the requirements of the political economy; as Erich Fromm put it, the
political economic system of every era generally fosters a typical character type, a “social character” that has internalized the dominant norms
and values of the society and is intrinsically motivated to do that which
is required of him or her. In a parallel argument, Horkheimer basically
argued how the authority relationships within the family mediated the
values of the larger society, such that the identification with the caretakers generally served to reproduce the particular structure of the superego, which might somehow endure after the material conditions that had
engendered that particular constellation had waned.
From what has been said, there follow two extremely important
points, beginning with the historical constitution of selfhood, an issue
that cannot be accounted for in the symbolic interactionist framework
that informed both Habermas and Honneth. But we can see a changing nature of selfhood taking place before our eyes that has important
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implications for questions of politics and morality. In the past few years,
authors and critics have noted an emerging constellation of subjectivity that tends to be many multi-dimensional, highly flexible, described
as multidimensional, mutable, liquid, and even Protean, so named after
the Greek god who could change his shape.17 Whatever else might be
said about this emergent pattern of flexible selfhood, it generally tends
to be highly democratic, tolerant, inclusive, anti-authoritarian, open to
new experiences, and indeed distrustful of individual groups or structures
of power. How the growth of this emerging form of selfhood will play
out cannot be easily predicted, but for a critical theory of our times, a
major and well-documented shift in character needs to be considered
essential for critical theory, again limiting the value of Honneth’s analysis
of critical theory for our time. The nature of the contemporary political
economy, along with cultural changes and the changing forms of subjectivity, have been clearly seen in the massive and rapid movement of
youth toward embracing various leftist political positions. This can be
seen by simply considering the support for Occupy that may have dissipated quite quickly, but was strongly rekindled in the support for Bernie
Sanders. Along with this change in political orientation, we’ve also seen
major changes in morality, a concept central to Honneth, beginning with
the general acceptance of sexuality, homosexuality, gay marriage, cohabitation, legalization of marijuana, etc. Honneth’s framework encapsulates
the interaction—recognition dynamic from larger socio-structural and
cultural factors, themselves subject to their own logics of power, neither
historically changing patterns of subjectivity nor changes in collective
morality, especially given his perspective, which suggests children raised
in authoritarian families internalize authoritarian values such as racism
and sexism or xenophobia if raised in a family where childrearing is nevertheless loving and the child gains recognition. While theoretically consistent, as volumes of contemporary research have shown, many young
people even from these very authoritarian yet loving backgrounds often
later embrace more progressive positions; for example, many such youth
move away from institutional religion, becoming more accepting of sexuality, tolerant of differences, etc. One major factor fostering this “liberalization” of belief and practice is of course education, but to simply
suggest that students in a college class develop more progressive morality
on the basis of recognition from teachers is patently absurd.
On the other hand, Honneth is quite right regarding the importance
of recognition in the development of the self. However, remaining at the
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level of cognition and language, he misses the most important aspects
of that recognition, namely the emotional impact on deeper levels of
personality. To his credit, informed by the English “object relations”
school of psychoanalysis, in particular the work of people like Bowlby
and Winnicott, who have been very concerned with many of the archaic
feelings of infants and children, beginning with fears of abandonment,
annihilation and fragmentation, anxieties, anger, etc. But for Honneth,
the affective side of this tradition is somewhat attenuated in favor of
their concerns with connection and recognition. Following Bowlby,
Honneth appreciates the importance of love and connection in development of a healthy personality or conversely, when denied early empathy
and recognition long before the use of language, by the infant. Healthy
development requires empathic care and recognition of the child’s
needs, including of his/her emerging self. This is generally termed
“good enough mothering,” a preverbal form of recognition/empathy.18
Without early experiences of empathic sensitivity to the developing self,
the cohesion of selfhood becomes problematic and the slightest frustrations can lead to outbursts of “narcissistic rage,” often the precursor of what will later be diagnosed as narcissistic personality disorder-a
constant need for adulation and attention, without the capacity for recognizing the needs of other human beings.19 To make a very complex
argument highly succinct, empathy and the recognition of an infant’s
bodily desires, frustrations and needs, especially securing attachments and
assuaging anxiety, are absolutely critical in the development of selfhood,
which in turn becomes a fundamental aspect in determining a variety of
psychological reactions that dispose particular political attitudes, values,
and behaviors. At this point there is little quarrel with Honneth that
the need for recognition, whether of tensions, frustrations or emerging
selfhood, is absolutely necessary for the healthy development of the self.
But every culture has particular values and practices of childrearing that
might foster, deny or distort recognition. Consider only for a moment
the swaddling of infants or the belief that letting boy infants cry it out
will strengthen them as warriors. Recognition? Of what? Nevertheless, at
the same time, recognition is part of a larger set of experiences that are
little considered by Honneth’s focus on conscious notions of morality
over the underlying characterological basis of morality; what’s further, it
ignores the importance of embodiment ranging from the archaic tensions
and frustrations of infancy rooted in bodily discomforts, including anxiety over helplessness, to the nature of work as alienating or fulfilling.
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As Honneth moves away from the bodily aspects of the affective,
especially intense shame, humiliation or anger, the result is a very shallow form of subjectivity. The ultimate consequence of his perspective is a
“conformist psychology” absent any basis of resistance.20 However limited, and indeed quite obsolete, classical psychoanalytic theory nevertheless sought a dialectical moment between desire and repression, and the
tension between the self and society, especially moments of ambivalence
that challenge the idea of the “over socialization of humanity,” in which
most people tend to be passive and compliant.21 Rather, as more recent
theory and research in social movements has shown, crisis driven emotions, or “moments of madness,” engender resistance that gives rise to
what Marcuse called the “great refusals,” such as mobilizing, contesting
and resistance, in order to transform society. Yes, to gain recognition and
dignity is important for Honneth, but his approach never moves beyond
reforms or legislation within the existing system to the transformation of
that system and indeed, the transcendence of capitalism as the basis of
domination, inequality, alienation, and in turn human suffering. Indeed,
his framework cannot even envision an alternative.
Most social critics today have noted the relationship of contemporary
forms of subjectivity, that is to say for large numbers of people, inasmuch
as work provides little intrinsic gratification or meaning for many people, the consumption of goods, especially fashions and/or experiences
that articulate an identity and lifestyle, become compensatory sources
of meaning an recognition. A long sociological tradition, perhaps going
back to Veblen and Simmel, has pointed out the extent to which people find gratifying identities in the ownership and/or display of various
goods. While to be sure, driving a Ferrari while dressed in an Armani
outfit and sporting a Rolex watch may well grant some kind of recognition, perhaps rooted in envy, it is hardly a basis for a secure sense of
self. An extremely important tradition of the earlier Frankfurt school theory, as well as many influenced by that tradition, has basically seen that
such consumerism, encouraged by the constant bombardment of advertisements promising a variety of gratifications, implants what Marcuse
called “artificial needs” within the self, which Fromm saw as aspects of
the “marketing personality,” in which “having” displaces “being” and as
a result, the consuming self, incapable of ever having enough, is as alienated as the worker. It should again be reiterated that among the most
common roles of consumerism is fashion, in which the decoration and
presentation of the body through the consumption of clothing and other
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bodily decorations, which today may include tattoos and piercings, is not
only a major source of profit, but serves major ideological functions as
well; for example, privatizing the self, diverting attention from the social,
and reinforcing one-dimensional thought that collectively serves to
reproduce structural domination. One final point, notwithstanding the
stagnation of wages for most families in the past few decades, consumerism has endured unabated. How? The proliferation of credit, especially
credit cards, has led to a huge amount of debt and a great deal of insecurity and anxiety over the ability to repay that debt in an ever more precarious economy. Further, for many families, to afford certain “desirable”
lifestyles and identities, it becomes necessary to work two jobs, the result
of which is little time for social and family life. Again, for Honneth, the
struggle for recognition is such that the role of the political economy,
with consumption and consumerism as an ideology and as the basis for
social construction of the consuming self, receives little recognition.
Crisis
As critics like Gandeshar22 have pointed out, one of the most significant
limitations for the Habermas/Honneth turn to linguistics and interaction is not simply the move away from political economy as such, but
with that move, one can quite safely ignore the salience of macroeconomic factors such as structural crises impacting identity and emotion.
Ironically, to make this argument, we might recall that for the early
Habermas23 a legitimation crisis takes place at the level of systems, e.g.,
when the steering mechanisms of the economic system fails to provide
fair and adequate distributions of resources, the political system loses its
legitimacy to organize and regulate society, and/or the cultural systems
fail to integrate the society and provide people with meanings. Crises at
the level of the system then migrate into the life worlds of identity, motivation, and emotion.
This perspective on crisis and its consequences, with faint echoes of
the understandings of the early Frankfurt school’s studies on the rise
of fascism, enables us to understand the linkage between macro social
structures, subjectivities and emotions, specifically how macro social
crises evoke emotions and feelings that fuel the mobilizations of both
the left and the right, but further, whether these movements go to the
progressive left such as Syriza, Podemos or the Sanders campaign, or
the reactionary right such as New Dawn, The National Front or the
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87
Trump campaign. Let there be no mistake, these various forms of
resistance and mobilization have common roots in the bodily emotions evoked by the adverse consequences of neoliberalism, especially
its inequality and increasingly precarious labor conditions and as such,
are fundamentally moral questions. But at the same time, the political
direction that people choose is going to rest upon their class location
and generational and individual character structures, primarily authoritarianism. Yes! People in particular social groups and networks are quite
likely to recognize and affirm each other on the basis of political attitudes and values, but their perspective provides us little help in understanding larger political movements, such as the shift of many societies
to the right; at the same time, that move has encountered a variety of
counter movements to the left. Insofar as these political choices may
very well promote world peace or have life or death consequences, they
need to be central questions for critical theory—and indeed at one time
they were especially consequential when dealing with the rise of fascism, its demise, and the vast devastation of World War II, including
the Holocaust, the use of nuclear weapons and the tens of millions that
perished.
It is at this point where character structure plays a major role as the
switchman on the track of history; the fundamental question here is
whether the switchman pulls the lever to the left or the right. It is at this
point where a very long tradition of research initiated by the Frankfurt
school, suggests that characterological factors, specifically the level of
authoritarianism of the individual or group, typically has more of an
influence than does class position per se to dispose political agendas. In
general, when highly authoritarian personalities face a crisis, they typically react by submitting to powerful authorities, becoming ever more
intolerant, and directing anger at various out groups, typically subalterns,
who are often blamed for the crises. Such anger can lead to collective
violence toward, if not death of, the outgroup. We can simply consider
that the move of many “democracies” to right-wing and more reactionary governments has generally been fueled by a growing anger of large
segments of poor, less educated, and typically more rural voters, as has
been the case with the core of Trump voters in America, along with voters in England, Austria, Hungary Turkey, India, etc. At the same time,
those low in authoritarianism are more disposed toward more progressive inclusive agendas moving to the left. For Thompson, the theory
of recognition pays little attention to authoritarianism and thus is quite
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limited in trying to understand the psychosocial basis of political ideology and mobilizations. As Thompson asks,
…how can the theory of recognition, even if we accept its basic premises as
valid (which, I believe, we cannot), help us in the face of those who explicitly reject the recognition of others? How can it make a political contribution to the problems of nationalism, xenophobia, religious privatism or
ethnic particularism? Indeed, to what extent can we say that the internal or
‘intramundane’ concept of critique that Honneth elaborates can have any
capacity to make those who refuse to recognize the other, do so?24
In my own work on social mobilizations, not only is authoritarianism
quite relevant to political values and behavior, but the classical Frankfurt
school social psychology suggests that the quest for dignity, of which
recognition is just one component, is an essential aspect of most social
justice movements, while many reactionary movements are fueled by
what Nietzsche called ressentiment, which calls for punishment and
revenge for corrupt leaders indifferent to the “people” and various marginal subalterns. Fromm incorporated this insight into his own theory
of destructiveness in which necrophilia, the love of death and destruction, was a consequence of the thwarting of self-realization and selffulfillment. Thus, while the need for recognition does play a major role
in interaction, it remains far too limited an explanation for the politics of
our times.
Honneth’s framework can little acknowledge, let alone address, the
various crises of contemporary capitalist societies that have generally led
to various authoritarian or reactionary populisms. The moral/political
questions of the real world cannot be subsumed simply as struggles for
recognition, no matter how appealing that argument might be. While
Honneth’s framework may make some folks feel good, it does little to
transform society insofar as broad coalitions are needed to foster political
change. Thus it becomes necessary to reclaim the critical moment of critical theory and one important step is to critique the uncritical theory of
Alex Honneth.
To draw the various strands of the critique of Honneth together, I
would first argue that his move away from the Marxist critique of
political economy, along with the material basis of ideology that
informed both the early Frankfurt School, and even the early work
of Habermas, meant that for Honneth, an encapsulated realm of
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interaction—recognition—dignity was the basis for thwarting or fulfilling
the self as a basic universal right constitutive of democracy as the foundation for a twenty-first century critical theory. But can the sociocultural,
shaped by the political economy, be reduced to the level of recognition/
misrecognition within interpersonal relationships? Much like Fraser or
Thompson, an encapsulated interpersonal nexus of recognition, and in
turn self-realization and dignity, cannot so easily be decoupled from the
political economy in which one’s rank or position not only provides economic resources, but provides a degree of status; for many people, that
includes occupational status associated with recognition, and in turn dignity.25 I have no quarrel with the fundamental goal of Honneth; mutual
recognition, love, empathy, caring and sharing between social actors regulated by democratically derived moral codes are quite desirable in and
of themselves. Unfortunately, however worthy these goals might be,
ignoring the larger macro social elements, as well as the salience of ideology in determining moral codes quite independently of those encapsulated interactions which may however establish moral codes for a
particular subgroup, does not constitute a critical theory.
We should further note that today, in a world where for most people,
alienated labor is the norm, in services as well as producing goods, most
people find little intrinsic value or meaning in their work activity. Many
people often find that status-based recognition may be based on things
other than their work, such as various aspects of consumerism, whether
popular culture, fashions or the myriad of material objects available in the
advanced capitalist societies. But as most scholarship on consumerism has
shown, the accumulation of goods, even those goods that bring a momentary degree of recognition, fail to provide genuinely meaningful gratification beyond the short-term dopamine-charged moment of purchase.
Nor does Honneth’s framework consider the historical constitution of
subjectivity, in which the larger political economy and its class locations
are mediated through the cultural system and shape historically specific
patterns of subjectivity, which in turn insinuates value orientations within
the person, regulates subsequent social interaction and disposes particular perceptions, indeed often social constructions, of the world. Thus,
Honneth’s perspective fails to adequately deal with the salient issues of
our times, whether legitimation crises, growing inequality, poverty, precarity, the move toward the authoritarian/reactionary governments, climate change, or death and destruction. With the adversities of capitalism
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as they are now, its inequalities and crises in the various movements of its
suffering, beginning with alienation and economic hardship for workers,
reification and dehumanization for all, and the capacity of its forms of
warfare to annihilate millions, the potential is far greater today than was
the case in World War II.
Another lacuna in his framework was based on the extent to which
social actors are embodied, and as such the extent to which we are born
with capacities that make social life possible, an opposable thumb for
making tools (or weapons), a cerebral cortex that allows for abstract or
symbolic thought, and vocal equipment that enables a spoken language
that eventually formed the basis of a written language, as well as mathematics, science, philosophy, and eventually, Frankfurt School Critical
Theory. But with that body, there is also a legacy of bodily based affects
that in lower species serve communicative and/or motivational functions. The lived body, as a locus of experience in center of agency, has
generally been ignored in Western philosophy, especially as idealistic
forms, and Honneth’s framework, implicitly resting upon a body that
recognizes or is recognized, that experiences emotions, continues the
primacy of thought and language and embodiment, plays little or no role
in the lived experiences of actors.
As society changes, so too does the nature of social critique. While
the dominant ideas of every society may be those of its ruling classes,
the specific nature of those classes changes over time, and so too does
the emancipatory critique of domination. Thus it was not by accident
that during the postwar period, between the domestic rebuilding of
the American economy and the Marshall plan for Europe, with growing prosperity and consumerism, as well as mass communication, critical theory moved from its early concerns with alienation, domination,
authoritarianism and fascism, to one-dimensional thought, concerns with
consumerism, aesthetics and eventually, communication, as was evident
when Habermas moved from a dialectical materialist theory of history
to theory of social evolution through communicative action. This of
course changed the direction of critical theory, abandoning the earlier
trenchant critique of market society, namely the capitalist political economy along with Instrumental Reason that had onerous consequences
upon the person as was charted by Adorno, Horkheimer, Fromm and
Marcuse. Instead, concern moved to democratic social philosophy and
the problem of political unification (Habermas’ constitutionalism) and
it was finally seen that the demands for recognition by disembodied,
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asexual claimants are little impacted by larger economic conditions, especially crises, precarity and blocked opportunity. The sectors have been
especially evident in the growing opioid epidemic typically found in the
“culture of despair” of white, working-class, middle-age men, especially
in rural parts of the Appalachian South, where the economic conditions
have rapidly changed and traditional industries, especially mining and
manufacturing, have waned. Such economic shocks undermined their
identities as hard-working men providing for their family, which not only
impacted their self-esteem and eroded their dignity, but also led to opioid addiction and quite often suicide as well. Gaining recognition may
provide gratification for some, but it doesn’t provide jobs for very many.
Another fundamental concern of the early Frankfurt school lost in
the Honneth approach was understanding the rise of fascism and subsequently the embrace of barbarism, culminating in death camps where 11
million people were slaughtered. Adorno raised the question of poetry
after Auschwitz. He said:
Cultural criticism finds itself faced with the final stage of the dialectic of
culture and barbarism. To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. And
this corrodes even the knowledge of why it has become impossible to write
poetry today. Absolute reification which presupposed intellectual progress as one of its elements, is now preparing to absorb the mind entirely.
Critical intelligence cannot be equal to this challenge as long as it confines
itself to self-satisfied contemplation.26
The work of Axel Honneth has shown little concern with the aesthetic,
a distinct moment for the human species, insofar as people like Adorno
and Marcuse have seen aesthetic realms, especially art and music, as
encapsulated moments of freedom, where alternative modes of consciousness being might be envisioned.
One final question needs to be noted: why has Honneth gained such
fame and popularity among the number of progressive intellectuals who
indeed consider themselves critical? Charles Taylor27 gives us a strong
hint with the notion that various discourses regarding the construction
and recognition of identities, subsumed under the rubric of “identity
politics”, had an immediate and I would suggest powerful emotional resonance with large numbers of people who have been denigrated, denied
recognition and in turn left without basic human dignity. Surely we can
think of women, racial/ethnic minorities, LGBTQ, etc., who have been
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marginalized, denigrated and victimized, have felt indignant, aggrieved
and angered, and seek to realize the promise of modern democracy and
universal rights for equality and fairness. This often begins with recognition. Many who do argue for identity politics offer quite compelling
reasons and justifications for the quest for equality. And it would seem as
if most of the critics of “identity politics” tend to be various racists, white
nationalists, homophobes, sexists, etc. But at the same time, it seems as if
most of the defenders of identity politics, such as well-meaning progressives, seek to disconnect the questions of identity, consciousness, subjectivity and self-realization from economic and cultural factors. Or to use
Nancy Fraser’s terms, many argue for a monistic theory of recognition
that conflates economic factors with the social psychological aspects of
interaction, emotion and gratification. And, while many such defenders of identity politics in academics can be found in the social sciences,
humanities and journalism, it seems as if many of the advocates of politics are themselves members of misrecognized groups and at the same
time more likely to be found in various sectors of what might be called
“cultural studies.” That said, given the social movements of the 1960s,
especially feminism, the sexual revolution, gay-rights etc., the immediate
focus of many scholars and activists alike has been to quickly embrace
identity politics by default. Consider the works of Simone de Beauvoir
and Betty Friedan, which played important roles in mobilizing the women’s movement. But what was left unsaid was the economic basis of that
movement, which was discussed by Marxist feminists who pointed out
the importance of World War II, in which vast numbers of women suddenly became salaried workers and gained a sense of agency and empowerment that was subsequently thwarted by the return of millions of men
from the warfront. Further, one consequence of changing gender roles
was a growing pressure to attend college and, in some cases, graduate
and professional education, and to enter more prestigious fields where
they were often thwarted, discriminated against, and faced a great deal of
sexual harassment on the job. Further, feminist issues such as birth control, choice, parental leave etc. are also tied to issues of career progression that have disadvantaged women. Much the same can be said about
racism, and surely the basis of racism in the United States began with
slavery. The ideological justification for the ownership of human beings
was the dehumanization of the slave, which rendered him or her little
more than a pack animal that might have some rudimentary capacities
for speech. The fundamental point here is that discussions of identity
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politics, while to be much valued as part and parcel of struggles for
democracy and universal dignity, are quite often tied to economic factors rooted in the structural and ideological aspects of the larger society;
however, these linkages are frequently ignored. Much the same can be
said about the struggles for gay rights, although in this case, the antecedent factors began with a long-standing ideological celebration of
hegemonic masculinity that is especially salient among economic elites
as well as the highly religious. And in some cases, the elites are highly
religious. For example, for some Evangelical Christians, homosexuality is
seen as undermining heteronormativity and patriarchy. Thus, at a time of
growing economic inequality, environmental despoliation, catastrophic
weather and dangerous saber rattling, one might think the most serious
issues facing the nation are either selling wedding cakes for gay marriages
or gender-neutral bathrooms.
It may very well be that one of the great ironies of our times is that
the ascent of Axel Honneth as the dominant voice of Frankfurt School
of Critical Theory occurred at a time of various economic problems and
crises, from inequality to the precarity of and skyrocketing personal
debt. But while these economic conditions may not be theorized by the
current iteration of the Frankfurt school, as such theorizing began the
move away from political economy, the forces of capitalist globalization, legitimated by neo-liberal ideologies, have nevertheless had major
impact throughout the world. These forces have led to creating vast
wealth through automation, digital communication, artificial intelligence
and robotics, vastly increasing worker productivity and simultaneously
off-shoring semiskilled workers. Market fundamentalism has been celebrated, government benefits have been retrenched, the privatization of
resources and services has created a great deal of wealth, and hundreds of
millions of poor Chinese and Indian peasants have moved from the fields
to the cities. Nevertheless, the result has been growing inequality, the
“hollowing out of the middle classes” in the advanced countries, growing precariat classes, and widening social discontent often assuming various reactionary forms that might include racism, ethnocentrism, ethnic
nationalisms, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and right-wing populism that
often shades into neo-Nazi mobilizations. Indeed, there are minorities
that openly support Nazism. But most of the academic research on these
various movements, whether it be support for Brexit, Farage, Trump,
Hofer, Wilders, Le Pen, Erdogan, or Temer, has pointed out that the
cultural factors, including the quest for seemingly lost dignity, anxiety
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over cultural change, and in turn ressentiment—an intense desire for
revenge and punishment to those deemed responsible for the loss of
dignity—are inextricably intertwined with economic hardships and/or
­
fears of economic uncertainty. But these political, economic and cultural
conditions may not be theorized by the current iteration of the Frankfurt
school, since, as was previously argued, they began the move away from
political economy. The framework of Axel Honneth can little deal with
such major real-world problems that exist outside encapsulated realms
of interaction—recognition—self-realization and dignity. But that said,
another generation of Frankfurt school scholars is emerging and is in the
process of criticizing Honneth, while remaining rooted in the analyses
and critiques of its early founders. They are seeking to revive and renew
the legacy of the early Frankfurt school, updated for the present era. The
cunning of reason works in strange ways.
Acknowledgments The author wishes to thank Kasia Severaid for her editorial
assistance.
Notes
1. In Thomas B. Bottomore (ed.) Karl Marx: Early Writings (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1964), 122.
2. In Bottomore, Karl Marx, 124–125.
3. Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social
Conflicts (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 1996).
4. Cited from Lauren Langman and Dan Albanese, “Political Economy and
the Normative: Marx on Human Nature and the Quest for Dignity.” In
Michael J. Thompson (ed.) Constructing Marxist Ethics (Boston: Brill,
2015), 59–85.
5. Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition?: A
Political-Philosophical Exchange (New York: Verso, 2003).
6. One could argue that this dualism of political economy, subjectivity interaction, was already evident to Marx in his critique of alienated labor
which can be read today as rendering the worker bereft of recognition
and turn dignity as a consequence of wage labor that was the foundation
of capitalism.
7. Fraser and Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition, 14.
8. Paddy McQueen, “Attachment Is Basic Social and Political Recognition.”
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed September 3, 2017, www.iep.
utm.edu/recog_sp/#SH5a.
9. Fraser and Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition, 29.
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10. There is of course a certain “elective affinity” between neoliberalism and
Honneth’s framework in that both emphasize the individual interactional
level, exalt possessive individualism, and obscure gross structural inequality by focusing on the individual and interpersonal. Indeed Honneth’s
move away from political economy obscures the role of neoliberalism in
fostering inequality, pollution starvation etc. To develop this point however would require another paper.
11. Michael Thompson, “Axel Honneth and Critical Theory.” In Beverly
Best, Werner Bonefeld and Chris O’Kane (eds.) The Sage Handbook of
Frankfurt School of Critical Theory (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2018a), 573.
12. Thompson, Axel Honneth, 575.
13. See Tova Benski, Lauren Langman, et al., “From Indignation to Occupation: A
New Wave of Global Mobilization.” Current Sociology, vol. 61, no. 4 (2013).
14. Peter Hudis, “The Ethical Implications of Marx’s Concept of a Postcapitalist Society.” In Michael J. Thompson (ed.) Constructing Marxist
Ethics (Boston: Brill, 2015).
15. John Fox, Marx, the Body, and Human Nature (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2015).
16. Arli Hothschild, The Managed Heart (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1983).
17. Lauren Langman, “After Marcuse—From Repression to Consumption
and Beyond,” Radical Philosophy Review, vol. 20, no. 1 (2017): 75–105.
18. Donald Winnicott, Playing and Reality (London: Penguin Books, 1970).
19. Heinz Kohut, The Analysis of Self (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1973).
20. Cited from Russell Jacoby, Social Amnesia: A Critique of Conformist
Psychology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1976).
21. Neuropsychologists love to show different kinds of pictures to different
groups and compare the activity of brain regions, for example racist’s
brains go bonkers when exposed to interracial couples.
22. Samir Gandeshar, “The Neoliberal Personality.” Logos Journal, vol. 16,
nos. 1–2 (2017), accessed December 22, 2017, logosjournal.com/2017/
the-neoliberal-personality/.
23. Jürgen Haberman, Legitimation Crisis (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975).
24. Michael Thompson, “The Political Dimensions of Economic Division:
Republicanism, Social Justice, and the Evaluation of Economic
Inequality.” In Lauren Langman and David A. Smith (eds.) Twenty-First
Century Inequality & Capitalism: Pikkety, Marx and Beyond (Boston:
Brill, 2018b), 201–222.
25. There may be other emotions as well, anger that gay sex is public, anxiety
about one’s own sexuality, etc.
26. Theodore Adorno, Prisms (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981), 34.
27. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973).
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Selected Bibliography
Adorno, Theodore (1981) Prisms. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Bottomore, Thomas B., ed. (1964) Karl Marx: Early Writings. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Fox, John (2015) Marx, the Body, and Human Nature. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Fraser, Nancy and Axel Honneth (2003) Redistribution or Recognition? A
Political-Philosophical Exchange. New York: Verso.
Gandeshar, Samir (2017) “The Neoliberal Personality”. Logos Journal, vol.
16, nos. 1–2. Accessed December 22, 2017. logosjournal.com/2017/
the-neoliberal-personality/.
Haberman, Juergen (1975) Legitimation Crisis. Boston: Beacon Press.
Honneth, Axel (1996) The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar
of Social Conflicts (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought).
Cambridge: MIT Press.
Hothschild, Arlie (1983) The Managed Heart. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hudis, Peter (2015) “The Ethical Implications of Marx’s Concept of a Postcapitalist Society”. Constructing Marxist Ethics, edited by Michael J.
Thompson. Boston: Brill.
Jacoby, Russell (1976) Social Amnesia: A Critique of Conformist Psychology.
Boston: Beacon Press.
Kohut, Heinz (1973) The Analysis of Self. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Langman, Lauren (2017) “After Marcuse—from Repression to Consumption
and Beyond”. Radical Philosophy Review, vol. 20, no. 1.
Langman, Lauren and Dan Albanese (2015) “Political Economy and
the Normative: Marx on Human Nature and the Quest for Dignity”.
Constructing Marxist Ethics, edited by Michael J. Thompson. Boston: Brill.
McQueen, Paddy (2017) “Attachment Is Basic Social and Political Recognition”.
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed September 3, 2017. www.iep.
utm.edu/recog_sp/#SH5a.
Taylor, Charles (1973) Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Thompson, Michael (2018a) “Axel Honneth and Critical Theory.” The Sage
Handbook of Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, edited by Beverly Best,
Werner Bonefeld, and Chris O’Kane. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publishers.
Thompson, Michael (2018b) “The Political Dimensions of Economic Division:
Republicanism, Social Justice, and the Evaluation of Economic Inequality”.
Twenty-First Century Inequality & Capitalism: Pikkety, Marx and Beyond,
edited by Lauren Langman and David A. Smith. Boston: Brill, 2018
Winnicott, Donald (1970) Playing and Reality. London: Penguin Books.
CHAPTER 5
Bourgeois Illusions: Honneth on the Ruling
Ideas of Capitalist Societies
David A. Borman
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas… For each
new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it is compelled,
merely in order to carry through its aim, to present its interest as the common
interest of all the members of society (…): it has to give its ideas the form of
universality, and present them as the only rational, universally valid ones.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology
This chapter explores the development of Axel Honneth’s position on ideological incorporation, the extent to which the dominant and legitimating
ideas of a society are genuinely endorsed by its sundry members. I will
consider this question only with respect to views of labor and the capitalist economy, a narrowing made necessary by limited space but which
also reflects my own interests. Nevertheless, it offers Honneth the advantage of what ought to be favorable terrain, inasmuch he has repeatedly
argued for the enduring relevance of labor to questions of social theory.1
Granted, his account of economic life in both his middle and recent works
D. A. Borman (*)
Nipissing University, North Bay, ON, Canada
© The Author(s) 2019
V. Schmitz (ed.), Axel Honneth and the Critical Theory
of Recognition, Political Philosophy and Public Purpose,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91980-5_5
97
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has met with a mixed reception: Honneth has himself remarked that
his view of capitalism in Freedom’s Right—which Christopher Zurn has
favorably described as Honneth’s “second magnum opus”2—provoked a
“storm” of criticism in which his critics cast him, to his evident surprise, as
a Right Hegelian defending the status quo rather than the Left Hegelian
he understands himself to be.3 I hope to shed some new light on these
controversies here by approaching them from a different angle: namely, by
offering a largely immanent critique of Honneth’s middle and later works
in light of the earlier. In doing so, I hope to show, first, that his position
on ideological incorporation has changed substantially over the course of
his career, and not in the direction of greater plausibility. As my title and
epigraph suggest, I will argue that these changes involve an increasingly
uncritical acceptance by Honneth of the ideological conceptual repertoire,
the “ruling ideas”, of bourgeois society; but also that this cuts deeply
against the grain of his own earliest and most interesting papers, papers
that drew on a large body of valuable source material from history and
sociology which Honneth has nevertheless continued to cite in support
of his now quite incongruous position. Thus, secondly, I intend to contest claims advanced by Honneth himself and by sympathetic critics, that
as Jean-Philippe Deranty suggests, Honneth’s work “can be seen as the
attempt to provide a consistent theoretical model to extend” the insights
of writers like E. P. Thompson and Barrington Moore, Jr.,4 or as Zurn has
it, that Honneth’s recent work represents a “significant sociological and
historical deepening of the basic normative analysis of the economy that
was first articulated in [his] earliest works.”5
In the first section, I discuss the relevant early work from Honneth,
particularly the essay “Moral Consciousness and Class Domination”
and its relationship to some of the source material mentioned above; in
the second section, I briefly rehearse a criticism advanced by Habermas
against Honneth’s early work which appears—regrettably, in my view—
to have shaped Honneth’s theoretical decisions going forward. In the
third section, I discuss Honneth’s account of labor and “achievement”
in the middle works and, in the last section, his turn to the “normative
reconstruction” of the economy in Freedom’s Right, focusing as I proceed through these final two sections on how Honneth moves toward a
kind of conceptual monism that takes bourgeois norms at face value, and
which contains no trace of his own earlier commitment to uncovering
the “hidden morality” produced by domination.
5
BOURGEOIS ILLUSIONS: HONNETH ON THE …
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Hidden Moralities and Public Transcripts
When Marx writes that “in order to carry through its aim” every revolutionary class must elevate its interests to the status of a universal, he
does not intend to suggest that this is a mere sham: first, it usually is
true that various classes will share at least the negative interest in opposing an oppressive status quo; second, revolutions usually have enabled
some people who are not part of the dominant group to improve their
position or standing. Bourgeois revolutions, for instance, enabled some
well-to-do peasants and even some proletariat to enter the bourgeoisie.
Yet the basis of social power remains particular, according to Marx, so
long as the form of social organization relies on the extraction of wealth
from an underlying population and therefore on the opposition of interests. Barrington Moore—frequently and favorably cited by Honneth—
provides some compelling justification for this view in his account of
the French Revolution which, he argues, was not a revolution at all, but
many revolutions, a series of conflicts running parallel and sometimes,
briefly, merging. The classes involved understood their struggle and its
aims differently: although the working classes, the peasantry and the
urban sans culotte, provided the crucial and bodily force to push the revolution forward at key moments, in the end their “explicitly and strongly
anticapitalist” aims (e.g. regarding land reform, the maintenance of certain traditional rights, opposition to the unfettered market) was subordinated to the bourgeois demand for “private property free of ancient
fetters”.6 Thus, the bourgeois revolution in France, which led to the
institutionalization of bourgeois norms under a banner of universality,
was not the product of any consensus on the superiority of those norms.
Moreover, there is no reason to suppose that the relevant competing
norms, interests, and aims simply disappeared when they lost the contest
for institutionalization.
Of course, the extent of ideological incorporation among the working classes, which Marx did not think significant in the case of the proletariat, becomes a matter of controversy in the twentieth century
and is responsible in part for the pessimism of the later Adorno and
Horkheimer. But on this point, the early Honneth agreed unmistakably
with Marx, arguing that critical theory must be able to identify “empirically effective forms of morality” that are “class-specific”, “hidden
behind the façade of late-capitalist integration” and which are often “not
recognized by the political-hegemonic public”.7 The last consequence
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follows from the fact that these hidden moralities typically take the form
of what Moore called a “consciousness of injustice”, a sense of violation
that preserves, in negative image, implicit conceptions of happiness, justice, and human need, but which are not worked up theoretically and
articulated publicly as principles of justice or as systematic political aims.8
Honneth’s most important sources here are E. P. Thompson, Moore,
and Georges Rudé all of whom agree that the protest against capitalist
modernization by dominated classes was and is motivated by the lived
experience of violations of their implicit moral norms and views of a
good life, and neither by mere calculations of interest nor by generalized
principles. They agree as well in seeing this implicit morality as a hybrid
of modern borrowings from bourgeois and socialist traditions, and recast
traditional elements. As Thompson puts it, even when popular protest
involves the assertion of traditional rights and employs traditional practices (such as “rough music”), “this is not just ‘a traditional culture’. The
norms defended are not identical with those proclaimed by Church or
authority; they are defined within the plebeian culture itself”.9 Indeed,
as the official culture of the state and legal system are “modernized” in
consonance with the emergent capitalist market and liberal state, the customary culture of everyday life for the working classes was freed from
direct “ideological domination of the rulers” and became a bulwark of
resistance to “those economic rationalizations and innovations (such as
enclosure, work-discipline, unregulated ‘free’ markets in grain) which
rulers, dealers, or employers seek to impose.”10 This is not merely a
point of history: Thompson, like Marx himself, concludes that we
cannot accept the view, popular in some structuralist and Marxist circles
in Western Europe, that hegemony imposes an all-embracing domination upon the ruled—or upon all those who are not intellectuals—reaching down to the very threshold of experience, and implanting within their
minds at birth categories of subordination which they are powerless to
shed and which their experience is powerless to correct.11
The early Honneth similarly insists that the fragmentary and inarticulate character of this hidden morality is not a reflection of the “cognitive
inferiority of the lower strata”. It is the product of two other causes: that
the proletariat do not face the need to formulate a systematic justification for their interests which is—as Marx saw—the characteristic problem
faced by ruling classes12; second, that there are various social mechanisms
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which the dominant use to constrain the public articulation of feelings of
injustice, ideally “at such an early point that the consensus character of
societal dominance is not threatened.”13 Such mechanisms range from
simple exclusion to the transformation of “‘class-specific consciousness of
injustice’ into individual pathologies or generally fostering individualistic
action orientations.”14 Today, for instance, the latter is encouraged by a
purportedly meritocratic schooling system linked with competitive labor
markets, both of which promote “the ideology of achievement… which
promises to make life chances dependent upon individual occupational
success.”15
According to the early Honneth, members of dominated classes
accommodate themselves, for pragmatic reasons, to hegemonic normative systems and the institutions they legitimate but, as Thompson also
stressed, “without accepting its claims to normative validity”.16 Thus,
the functionalist argument in favor of bourgeois capitalism as the end of
history moves too fast. As Honneth puts it, commenting on theories of
worker “incorporation” in the welfare state:
In such conceptions… it is concluded from the factual recognition which
the current legitimating ideology enjoys, simply because the members of
society carry out the reproductive tasks assigned to them, that a normative,
though fragile, acceptance of the justifying ideology of the welfare state,
supplemented by technocratic arguments, has taken place… However,
this interpretation of the consensual character of late capitalist domination excludes an interpretation which would be more plausible on the
basis of my categorical considerations: that, on the one hand, prevailing
postulates of legitimacy are accepted only pragmatically, without their even
being capable of examination on the basis of their ethical quality; and that,
on the other hand, this pragmatically accepted system of norms remains
subject to a continuing skepticism fed by effectively controlled feelings of
injustice.17
Thus, the early Honneth rejects “normative functionalism”, the view
that the more or less effective functioning of some institution or social
system counts as proof of its normative acceptability to those who live
under it. Indeed, connecting this with his earlier invocation of Moore,
Thompson, and Rudé, Honneth argues that it is only because functionalism flattens out class conflict and injustice into the single dimension of
the distribution of goods that welfare state compensation could even be
thought a plausible basis for normative consensus among social classes.
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Beneath the façade of normative agreement, we find hidden moralities that enable the dominated to reinterpret their situation. Honneth
adds, with reference to Sennett and Cobb’s The Hidden Injuries of
Class (another frequently invoked source throughout his writing) that
it should hardly occasion surprise that people who are weighed by the
dominant norms and found wanting in talent and intelligence will
develop a “counterculture of compensatory respect”18 that enables them
to maintain a sense of worth in the face of insults to their dignity.
The sociologist Paul Willis offers a detailed analysis of this process
in relation to the purportedly meritocratic schooling system as a filtering mechanism for the occupational sphere. Functionalist theories of
the school implausibly suggest that all students strive identically for success defined in the same manner and that working class students who
fail to excel simply accept the “evidence” of their own lack of merit and
endorse as a proper consequence their future of “screwing nuts onto
wheels in a car factory”. To the contrary, Willis documents the ways in
which these students—he focuses on a group of young men, referred to
as “the lads”— construct a “counter-school culture” that “sees-through”
and subverts the justifying narrative of the school, in which obedience
and discipline are supposed to be exchanged for market-worthy credentials. The working class students studied by Willis develop a “hidden
morality”, in Honneth’s sense, through which they evaluate their situation and options, and which provides them with the ability to maintain
a sense of self-respect even as they fail out or, more often, voluntarily
remove themselves from the contest for credentials. Indeed, this counter-culture justifies a sense of superiority to the “earholes” (as “the lads”
call them), the middle-class conformist students who (at least strategically) endorse and are favored by the norms of the schooling system.19
The anthropologist James C. Scott has elaborated a broader and compelling defense of Thompson and Moore’s shared rejection of ideological hegemony.20 In Scott’s useful nomenclature, we must distinguish
between the “public transcript” governing and legitimizing relations
of domination, and the “hidden transcripts” of both the dominant and
the dominated: the discourse, practices, and norms found among the
privileged or the dominated when they are “offstage”, as it were. The
“public transcript” in situations of dominance offers a reflection of “how
the dominant group would wish to have things appear”, a kind of idealizing self-portrait aimed at legitimizing their power and concealing or
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euphemizing “the dirty linen of their rule.”21 Most importantly for our
purposes, Scott observes:
In the short run, it is in the interests of the subordinate to produce a more
or less credible performance, speaking the lines and making the gestures
he knows are expected of him. The result is that the public transcript is—
barring a crisis—systematically skewed in the direction of the libretto, the
discourse, represented by the dominant. In ideological terms the public
transcript will typically, by its accommodationist tone, provide convincing
evidence for the hegemony of dominant values, for the hegemony of dominant discourse. It is precisely in this public domain where the effects of
power relations are most manifest, and any analysis based exclusively on
the public transcript is likely to conclude that subordinate groups endorse
the terms of their subordination and are willing, even enthusiastic, partners
in that subordination.22
Things look differently behind closed doors. Like Sennett and Cobb,
Thompson, and Willis, Scott notes that “practices of domination and
exploitation typically generate the insults and slights to human dignity
that in turn foster a hidden transcript of indignation” on the part of the
dominated,23 one which seeks to shore up their dignity on a different
basis in part by “seeing through” the legitimating public narrative. The
hidden transcript among peasants includes not just private mockery of
their masters, but practices of poaching, tax and work evasion, and informal mechanisms of group self-regulation such as “rough music” and
ostracism to protect the hiddenness of these acts of protest from informers. Among workers it involves a similar set of tactics for controlling their
labor, enabling small thefts, making life and work difficult for those who
would ‘rat out’ a fellow worker; among working class students like “the
lads”, it involves truancy, feigned misunderstanding, and verbally abusing
teachers when they are just out of earshot.24
Despite the proximity of their hidden transcript to the public narrative, the dominant too have their performances, the need for which arises
from the claims to legitimacy made on behalf of existing relationships: as
Marx insisted, the dominant must make a case that their rule fosters the
true interests of the ruled, and so actions or statements from the dominant that publicly contradict the supposed basis of their legitimate domination are dangerous.25 That the public transcript involves an effort to
legitimate domination means that it also provides a basis for immanent
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critique on the part of the dominated: for instance, that the authority
of rulers was to be exercised paternalistically enabled even slaves in the
U.S. South sometimes to make successful appeals for improved conditions. Although the “rhetorical space” provided for this sort of critique
may be small, its consequences in history have been anything but. To
take just one example: so far from reconciling serfs in passivity, as Lenin
alleged, the public ideal of the “good Tsar” was the inspiration for the
largest and most serious peasant uprisings in pre-Revolutionary Russia.
Like the English working-class’ selective appeal to traditional norms and
privileges, Russian peasants “professed their faith in the Tsar in forms,
and only in those forms, that corresponded to their interests”.26 Readers
of Honneth will recognize the phenomenon described as that which
Honneth, particularly in his middle writings, called the “surplus validity” of institutionalized norms. These critical appeals to the public transcript can involve an extremely sophisticated combination of apparent
conformity and the open critique of superiors. Notwithstanding Hegel’s
romanticized account of the duel as a paradigmatic struggle for recognition, in which the insulted put their demand for dignity above their lives,
actual dominated people, vulnerable in themselves and in their families
to terrifying violence, must often “choke back [their] rage” and settle for
a better approximation to the very ideals that are supposed to legitimate
their domination.27
Such strategic appeals to the public transcript are just one of four
forms of critical discourse identified by Scott. The second is the hidden
transcript itself in which the dominated can and do speak more freely
with one another, imagine acts of revenge, the inversion of the social
order, and so on. A third, also treated in detail by Thompson in his work
on popular culture, takes place at the intersection of the hidden and
public transcripts, and involves the license permitted by the anonymity
of the crowd, but also the use of song, jokes, codes and euphemisms—
public speech with a double and critical meaning for the dominated.
Finally, there are those relatively rare and risky cases in which the hidden transcript is asserted directly and publicly in the face of power,
and which typically produce either swift repression or, in some cases, a
political explosion.28 For the dominated, such acts of public defiance—
articulating aloud something deeply, long, and widely felt—can have a
“charismatic” effect, in Scott’s phrase. When Mohammed Bouazizi, the
Tunisian fruit vendor, set himself on fire in a spontaneous, desperate
protest against corruption and triggered a revolution that spread across
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the Arab world, his act was “charismatic”: that it resonated in the hidden
transcript of Arab societies is evident from the complete failure on the
part of political and social theorists to foresee even the possibility of such
a movement.
The early Honneth attempts to extend Thompson and Moore’s argument into the present by insisting, chiefly against Habermas’s identification of work with instrumental action, that labor relations continue to
harbor a potential for normative conflict based on a hidden morality of
work. Workers, treated like machines, subjected to deskilling and external control—here Honneth relies once again on Moore, as well as Harry
Braverman’s updating of Marx29—continue to experience a “consciousness of social injustice” in the face of the “expropriation of [their] work
activity”.30 Importantly, they perceive this treatment as a threat to their
self-respect and capacity for self-direction, and they respond through
various and now familiar protest tactics, attempts to assert themselves as
more than a machine: truancy, concealed attempts to control the pace
of work, sabotage, and so on. This everyday resistance is, according to
the early Honneth, so inconspicuous as to have passed almost entirely
below the radar of social theory.31 Nevertheless, he insists, “I interpret
these labor struggles, which lie below the threshold of publicly recognized normative conflict, as indicators of a consciousness of injustice
which implicitly lays claim to the right to the autonomous organization
of work.”32
It will be useful to summarize Honneth’s central claims before
proceeding:
(1) The early Honneth repudiates claims of ideological hegemony
and regards the appearance of such consensus as an ideological
product.
(2) He specifically rejects the functionalist attempt to establish the
normative legitimacy of existing institutions on the grounds that
they continue to function and that even the dominated continue
to participate in them.
(3) He regards as an instance of ideological mystification (1) the
bourgeois principle of achievement, according to which educational and occupational success legitimates differential life
chances.
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(4) He argues for the continuing relevance of a hidden morality of
labor, focused on intrinsic features of work and not merely on the
relationship between work and income distribution.
Although I cannot do much to defend the judgment here, apart from
pointing to its considerable empirical basis in the sources already
described, the position that emerges in outline from these claims strikes
me as profoundly attractive and theoretically fruitful. Unfortunately, by
the time of Honneth’s “second magnum opus”, he will have abandoned
all of them—and save for (4), without comment or explanation.
Good-Bye to the Hidden Morality of Labor
Honneth’s retreat from his early views begins with a criticism launched
by Habermas against (4), above.33 Part of Honneth’s aim in defending (4)
was to dispute Habermas’s use of the distinction between instrumental
and communicative action and its consequences for the de-moralization
of the labor question. But Habermas countered that while the desire for
autonomy in one’s labor may be motivated by the experience of deskilling and external control, any justification of that desire or of the “normative regulations” that would follow from it, must follow “the logic of
practical discourse and not the logic of a labor practice which is supposed
to be located somewhere between instrumental action and action oriented to reaching understanding.”34 In other words, if workers indeed
have a right to self-determination at work, then like any other normative
claim, it is legitimate only if it could be justified in a practical discourse
rightly conducted among all affected and not by the mere fact that workers conceive of their activity as ethically relevant. Honneth c­oncedes
this point, arguing that his earlier position is “in need of revision” and,
specifically, that “the criteria for moral assessment cannot be related to
the internal character of the work process itself, but rather only to the
institutional framework in which it is necessarily embedded.”35 In a later
essay, he acknowledges more clearly still that he had treated the “mere
fact” that workers engage in subversive protests aimed at determining
the conditions of their labor as though it were itself sufficient “evidence
to justify demands for more worker control in the workplace.”36 The
idea had been that, insofar as worker resistance reflected a set of implicit
and violated norms regarding autonomy at work, the theorist could
appeal to those norms as immanent criteria for criticizing the capitalist
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organization of labor. And that’s true, in one sense: they are immanent.
But, Honneth notes, that fact alone does not establish that they are justified as criteria. Moreover, it seems clear to the later Honneth that even
if some workers resist deskilling and external direction with implicit reference to a conception of labor as an autonomous, craft-like activity, that
model is too particular to generalize across the variety of modern forms
of labor.37
Honneth claims that it was some time before he saw that Habermas’s
objection also pointed the way toward a more adequate approach, that
shifting the critical focus from the activity of labor to the “norms organizing” labor did not require endorsing Habermas’s functionalist-inspired
view of social labor as part of a “norm-free” economic system that raises
only questions of relative efficiency insofar as its internal operations are
concerned. It need only be shown that the functioning of the capitalist
market and division of labor necessarily “presupposed the existence of a
whole series of moral norms”, such that with reference to those norms
we would again be able “to criticize relations of work from an immanent
perspective”.38 Honneth’s development of this argument comes in two
stages: first, in his middle works, he appeals to the principle of achievement as ethically structuring the division of labor and the distribution
of income, although the importance of achievement is also rooted partly
in a formal conception of the requirements for human flourishing; second, in Freedom’s Right and the shorter works immediately preceding it,
Honneth turns once again to Hegel and to his argument for the necessary ethical anchoring of the economy as a sphere of social freedom,
without which it would lack “the necessary moral legitimacy”.39 It is
noteworthy, however, that Honneth acknowledges a change in his position only with respect to commitment (4): to my knowledge, at least, he
has never publicly retracted (1) (2), or (3).
It is the attempt to avoid Habermas’s criticism that seems to confirm
Honneth in his determination that the economy not be understood as a
norm-free sphere for the play of money and power, since he appears to
believe that conceding this would undermine the possibility of an immanent critique of work. For reasons which I cannot pursue here, I regard
that inference as erroneous: for my immediate purposes, the important
thing to note is that, in making this move, Honneth simultaneously takes
leave—without acknowledgement—of many of the sources he had relied
upon in his early essays and often continues to cite later. There is no mistaking that Thompson and Moore, at least, see the “moral economy”
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and the hidden morality of workers and peasants as having inspired
protest in the face of the threat posed by “monetary rationalizations”
and the imposition of an economic system understood as an “objective
mechanism independent of moral imperatives” and therefore of moral
justification40:
In this sense, the moral economy is summoned into being in resistance to
the economy of the ‘free market’… The rationalizations or ‘modernizations’ of the capitalist market offended against community norms and continually called into being a ‘moral’ antagonist.41
Good-Bye to the Ideology of Achievement
It is not until his debate with Nancy Fraser that Honneth develops a
detailed account of the capitalist economy that answers directly to the
proposal articulated in light of Habermas’s criticism. In the debate with
Fraser, the centrality of the model of human flourishing that was at the
core of The Struggle for Recognition42 is partly displaced, at least in the
first instance, by appeal to the expectations of socialized subjects regarding appropriate forms of recognition in various spheres of life. But,
Honneth adds,
such expectations are the product of the social formation of deep-seated
claim-making potential in the sense that they always owe their normative
justification to principles institutionally anchored in the historically established recognition order. Once we see this internal entwinement of expectations of recognition—or, put negatively, experiences of disrespect—and
historically institutionalized principles of recognition, we also see the initial outlines of how the so far unexplained connection between social discourses of recognition and justification must be construed.43
At first glance, the argument appears to be that what justifies claims for
recognition or esteem for labor is that they reflect expectations rooted
in the institutional structure under which workers have been socialized, such that the expectations are reasonable given the institutions.
While that is true, it is too fast since, according to Honneth, the norms
rooted in the institutional structure of society also require justification,
which “is proportionate to its ability to secure conditions of mutual
recognition under which personal identity-formation, hence individual
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self-realization, can proceed adequately”.44 Thus, “progress” in the institutional development of society can be measured along two dimensions:
increasing inclusiveness in the pattern of social integration, and increasing individuation among its members.45 The relation between these
arguments appears to be reciprocal, though, since the justice reflected
in facilitating social integration based on mutual recognition as well as
increasing the possibilities for individual self-realization is not supposed
to be brought to the process of social evaluation from the outside:
instead, they are justified as criteria “because, and to the extent that, they
are mirrored in the expectations of socially integrated subjects”.46
In the specific case of the economy, the relevant norm is “achievement”, understood as a valued contribution to social reproduction.
Whereas feudal society assigned legal status and individual honor in a
single stroke, the bourgeois revolutions severed the connection between
legal respect and hierarchical esteem distributed on the basis of “individual achievement within the structure of the industrially organized division of labor”.47 Thus, the feudal conception of honor was, on the one
hand “democratized” insofar as all citizens were to be guaranteed equal
respect as legal persons; on the other hand, honor was “‘meritocracized’:
each was to enjoy social esteem according to his or her achievement as a
‘productive citizen’”.48 Of course, what counts as an achievement and
how much specific achievements ought to be valued depend on controversial normative judgments and underlying cultural values. Indeed, this
is how Honneth, in his middle writings, proposes to explain economic
or labor conflicts: as disputes over the appropriate interpretation of the
principle of achievement according to which, in capitalist societies, recognition of individual capacities purports to be regulated.49 In response
to the prima facie implausibility of the claim that inequalities in existing
capitalist economies reflect the distribution of merit, Honneth concedes
that the interpretation of achievement
was hierarchically organized in an unambiguously ideological way from
the start. For the extent to which something counts as ‘achievement’, as
a cooperative contribution, is defined against a value standard whose normative reference point is the economic activity of the independent, middle-class, male bourgeois.50
Thus is the domestic labor predominantly performed by women
excluded from the realm of genuine work deserving of esteem. In fact,
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such “housework” is not simply an example for Honneth: he claims that
it is the most important example and, in fact, it is the only example he
offers throughout the middle writings of the manner in which labor
struggles are fundamentally concerned with a contest of over cultural values regarding the nature of work.51
In Honneth’s view, the fact that the critique of injustice in the economy involves an appeal to the already institutionalized principle of
achievement demonstrates two crucial and interrelated points. First, it
shows that this meritocratic principle contains “a surplus of validity” that
transcends the empirical form of its institutionalization or, as Honneth
elsewhere concludes, that the principle “possess[es] an emancipatory
content”52; at the same time, therefore the admittedly “hegemonic,
thoroughly one-sided valuation of achievement…[nevertheless] represents an institutional framework in which the criteria or principles for
distributing resources in bourgeois-capitalist society can meet with normative agreement”53:
for the time being the individualistic achievement principle is also the one
normative resource bourgeois-capitalist society provided for morally justifying the extremely unequal distribution of life chances and goods… To
this extent, the achievement principle henceforth forms the backdrop of
normative legitimation which, in case of doubt, has to provide rational
grounds for publicly justifying the privileged appropriation of particular
resources like money or credentials.54
Lest the reader interpret this reference to public justification as akin to
Scott’s public transcript, Honneth adds that:
the fact of social inequality can only meet with more or less rational agreement because, beyond all actual distortions, its legitimating principle contains the normative claims to consider the individual achievements of all
members of society fairly and appropriately in the form of mutual esteem.55
My primary aim has been to document Honneth’s abandonment of
the claim that the principle of achievement is fundamentally ideological,
part of the “public transcript” of bourgeois-capitalist societies (commitment (3), above). But it is impossible to ignore that the transformation
of his view, even in the middle writings, is already more far-reaching: it
is not only the particular claim about achievement that is surrendered
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here, but the entire idea of the public transcript and countervailing hidden moralities (commitment (1), above).56 As I noted earlier, the “surplus validity” to which Honneth appeals superficially corresponds to the
strategic invocation of the public transcript described by Scott. But, for
Honneth, this no longer represents merely a strategic move at all, part
of the pragmatic acceptance of subordinates that was not to be taken
as evidence of their normative assent. On the contrary, that the dominated too must (or do) appeal to the principle achievement is here taken
by Honneth as authentic proof of their normative consent. Indeed, he
insists that subjects per se and without caveat can only experience themselves as worthy of esteem insofar as they see their achievements as recognized. This is entirely to deny the role of counter-cultures or hidden
moralities in providing dominated people with the means of shoring up
their dignity in terms other than those provided by the public, institutionalized transcript. Nor is this limited to a claim about the de facto
expectations of people socialized under already existing institutions:
Honneth maintains “that even structural transformations in the economic sphere”, presumably including those that produced existing institutions “are not independent of the normative expectations of those
affected, but depend at least on their tacit consent”.57
A more decisive break with his own earlier views and his chief
sources—Thompson, Moore, Sennett and Cobb—could hardly be
imagined. No one reading Thompson or Moore could possibly conclude
that the story they tell of capitalist modernization supports the conclusion that it occurred with the “tacit consent” of the workers and peasants
upon whom it is imposed. As Moore insists,
On this score it is well to recollect that there is no evidence that the mass
of the population anywhere has wanted an industrial society, and plenty of
evidence that they did not. At bottom all forms of industrialization so far
have been revolutions from above, the work of a ruthless minority.58
Even sympathetic critics like Nicholas Smith, who regard Honneth’s
work as much more continuous in its commitments than do I, have
expressed puzzlement at Honneth’s efforts to invoke Thompson,
Moore, and Sennett and Cobb in support of his own interpretation of
the ethical embedding of the capitalist economy.59 While arguing that
Honneth’s reliance on the principle of achievement overstates its potential as a basis for social integration, Smith appeals, pace Honneth, to
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Sennett and Cobb’s The Hidden Injuries of Class as a “classic source
of insight about the personal and social costs of a culture of individual achievement”.60 For Smith, the “hiddenness” of these feelings and
their motivational connection to acts of resistance at least partly explain
Honneth’s continued references to such sources, yet he sees Honneth’s
use of Sennett and Cobb as nevertheless “misleading” in the context of
his middle works:
For it leaves out of the picture the resistance shown by workers to the very
fact of counting as individual achievers. It does not reflect their degree of
ambivalence towards participating in an achievement-driven ‘competition’
for social esteem. To put it bluntly, it is hard to imagine that the subjects
of Sennett and Cobb’s study would feel anything but discomfort at the
thought that their experiences of moral injury, and methods for coping
with the hurt, amounted to a cultural conflict over the meaning of the
‘achievement principle’.61
Good-Bye to the Critique of Normative
Functionalism
Only the critique of normative functionalism still stands from Honneth’s
earliest convictions: his rejection of the inference from the fact that an
institution continues to function to the conclusion that it must therefore
be at least minimally legitimate to those living under it. In Honneth’s
“second magnum opus”, this claim, too, goes under. The ostensive aim
of the book is to develop a theory of justice that avoids “ideal theorizing”, the reliance on purely external normative criteria for the evaluation
of social institutions. While this is part of the standard argument for the
value of immanent critique, Honneth now proposes to distinguish both
ideal and immanent critique from a third, purportedly superior alternative modeled on Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and which he calls “normative reconstruction”. The idea is to “develop a theory of justice… on
the basis of the structural preconditions actually existing in society”.62
The very possibility of such an approach, as well as its application to
the economy, in particular, relies on the truth of several deeply contentious premises. First, “that social reproduction hinges on a certain set of
shared fundamental ideals and values” which are in fact “universal”.63 As
the title of the book anticipates, it is Honneth’s position that, in modern societies, freedom has become the sole, overarching value according to which all social institutions are judged by all social actors: like
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“recognition” before it, however, the concept of freedom must be sufficiently differentiated according to the relevant institution. Second, that
these ideals and values therefore provide an immanent point of reference
for social critique. But, third, and as we would expect given Honneth’s
response to Habermas, Honneth insists that immanence is not itself sufficient: we require means of demonstrating that these immanent criteria
have a form of justification apart from their merely factual character. In
Freedom’s Right, Honneth proposes that such justification can be had,
without offering an ideal theory of justice, if we can demonstrate “that
the prevailing values are normatively superior to historically antecedent
social ideals or ‘ultimate values’”.64 This he believes he can demonstrate,
without relying on a Hegelian conviction that history is the self-unfolding of reason, since we can infer instead from “the vital preservation of
institutions”, to the conclusion that members of society must see themselves as part of “a social reality that, compared to the past, deserves the
active support of its members”.65 While such an inference smells strongly
of Whiggish history, Honneth insists that the aim of normative reconstruction is not apology but to critique existing practices in light of the
norms already institutionalized in them. This is the fourth and final
premise: that “the same standards according to which these institutions
and practices are picked out of the chaos of social reality [which reflects
their importance to social reproduction] are used to criticize insufficient,
still imperfect embodiments of universally accepted values.”66
In the case of “the capitalist system of the market”, the relevant conception of freedom is not the negative freedom constitutive of modern
law or morality: like the institutions of romantic love and democratic
will-formation, the legitimacy and integrative power of the market rests
instead on its claim to realize “‘social’ or ‘objective’ freedom”.67 Social
freedom, according to Honneth, describes “spheres of action in which
mutually complementary role obligations ensure that individuals can
recognize each other’s free activities as conditions for the realization of
their own aims”.68 Significantly, Honneth actually begins the chapter of
Freedom’s Right devoted to interpreting the market in this manner by
conceding that, today, such a view “probably seem[s] absurd”:
there can be no doubt that the current economic system in the developed
countries of the West… is thus not a sphere of social freedom. It lacks all
the necessary characteristics of such a sphere: It is not anchored in role
obligations to which all could agree, and which interweave with each other
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in a way that would enable subjects to view each other’s freedom as the
condition of their own freedom; it therefore lacks an antecedent relation of
mutual recognition from which the corresponding role obligations could
draw any validity or persuasive power.69
While that sounds decisive, the seventy pages that follow attempt to
show—while still claiming to offer an account rooted in immanent social
analysis—that this depressing list of facts all reflect “misdevelopments”
within the capitalist economy, properly understood.70 This judgement
leans heavily on the first premise described above: the conviction, presented as a postulate of method rather than an empirical claim, that at
some level, the existence and persistence of the capitalist market—its
reproduction—must rest on shared values:
Only after we have managed to identify the implicit assumption that the
modern market should establish and expand social freedom can we begin
the process of normative reconstruction itself… At the end of this reconstructive process, it will be easy to see that the current removal of barriers
to the capitalist market represents a social misdevelopment, one that hollows out and undermines the normative potential of the market.71
Similarly, a few pages later, Honneth writes of the capitalist economy
and its various innovations that “[i]t was intended to satisfy the various needs of a constantly growing population quicker and more effectively”.72 The mysteriousness of the subject of these intentions, of how
to understand the “should” of the market, represents a profound problem for Honneth’s supposed normative reconstruction, since he counts
those intentions as evidence of the essential norms of the market, which
somehow constitute it counterfactually even when those intentions are
contradicted in practice. Moreover, such contradictions did not arise only
after the fact to invalidate some original normative consensus: rather, as
Honneth himself concedes, postulating a normatively significant function
for the market “seems to contradict the actual historical development of
the market system” from the beginning.73
The inelegant label adopted by Honneth to describe his view of the
economy in Freedom’s Right, a “somewhat normative functionalism”,
nicely encapsulates the tortured relationship between the constitutive,
normative claims he makes on behalf of the market and his many empirical and historical concessions. A “somewhat normative functionalism”,
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says Honneth, does not purport to offer a simple description of actual
market operations—nor, apparently, may it be refuted by such descriptions; its “point of reference” is not
the sheer existence of an institutional sphere, but the values and norms it
embodies, provided that the members of society regard them as a condition for being able to consent to the economic order… Just like any other
social sphere, the market also relies upon the moral consent of the participants, such that its existence cannot be explained without reference to the
supplementary norms that legitimate the market in the eyes of economic
actors.74
Thus, according to Honneth, an institution can be said to embody
some norm if members would not consent to the existence of or their
participation in that institution in the absence of a belief that it embodies
that norm; therefore, the existence of the market as an institution cannot be explained except insofar as it is seen as normatively legitimate in
the eyes of market participants. The market, however, surely does exist;
therefore, it must be seen as a normatively legitimate institution in the
eyes of participants. Or, as Honneth summarizes a few pages later, market actors must remain embedded in pre-market norms and values—even
when they act in violation of them—since if they were not, “then subjects would no longer be willing to actively participate in the economy”.75
Despite the caveat, “somewhat normative”, Honneth in fact infers either
from the continued existence of the capitalist market, and/or from the
continued participation of workers and consumers in that market, that it
really must, as an institution—and apart from the depressing details of its
empirical performance—embody consensual norms. It is difficult to see
what could possibly differentiate this position from that repudiated in
“Moral Consciousness and Class Domination”: that we could infer to the
ideological incorporation of workers, their acceptance of the norms of the
public transcript, from “the factual recognition which the current legitimating ideology enjoys, simply because the members of society carry out
the reproductive tasks assigned to them”, a view which ignores that “this
[merely] pragmatically accepted system of norms remains subject to a
continuing skepticism fed by effectively controlled feelings of injustice”.76
Honneth’s abandonment of the promising convictions of his early work,
inspired by a wealth of sociological and historical sources, is thus complete—and remarkably unacknowledged by Honneth himself.77
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D. A. BORMAN
To be fair, Honneth does advance some empirical considerations in
favor of the view induced methodologically above, though the relation
between the two arguments is not clear: that is, that the market in fact
rests on a normative consensus. Yet this evidence is derived from a highly
surprising and seemingly paradoxical source: protests against marketization, on the side of both consumption and production, which Honneth
interprets as proof that the market is properly viewed as a normative
institution since its operations can generate the feelings of injustice and
violated expectation that motivate such protests.78 With respect to consumption, Honneth declares uniformly of eighteenth-century bread
riots and calls for government protection of “fair prices”, temperance
and anti-luxury movements, as well as the consumer cooperative movement that spanned the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—that “[n]
one of these… viewed their moral demands as being external to the
market; rather, all were convinced that their demands were a part of the
normative claims, and thus the conditions of justification, of the market
economy itself”.79 Such an interpretation flies in the face of the very historical sources Honneth so frequently relies upon, none more so than
Thompson who wrote extensively on price-setting riots. Strikingly, however, in this case, Honneth offers no such reference: indeed, this attribution of a specific and substantive conviction to a wide variety of social
movements is advanced without any supporting citation at all.
In the case of protests on the productive side of economic interaction,
Honneth initially concedes—citing Thompson—that early resistance to
the unregulated labor market was motivated by norms and expressed in
vocabulary selectively derived from the traditional “moral economy”.
But, he adds, over time “wage laborers gradually adopted the normative
ideas that the proponents of the new system themselves used to justify
this new organization of labor”.80 In particular, workers increasingly
employed the language of rights—calling, for instance, for a “right to
work” or to safe working conditions—and in a way “that seemed to take
the normative promises of the market seriously”81:
It is not difficult to see that all these demands and accusations only make
sense if the whole idea of a ‘free’ labor contract has been normatively
accepted or at least tolerated. If workers call for a ‘right’ to work, then it
must be the case that people are no longer compelled to work; if worker
safety and sick pay are demanded, then workers must be convinced that
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117
the labor contract obligates employers to provide a series of protective
measures.82
But as the early Honneth recognized, an impoverished worker who
demands a “right to work”, a means of enabling her family to survive,
cannot without cynicism be taken as thereby reflectively endorsing the
liberal theory of the freedom of contract. She may well continue to
regard herself as forced to take employment by her circumstances and by
the background injustice of her society; she may regard capitalists’ control over access to the means of production as a form of coercion.83 She
is obviously and quite simply trying not to lose her home by making the
case that seems likeliest to succeed. She is doing what dominated people
have always done: attempting to exploit the public transcript—here, the
terms under which the bourgeoisie legitimate their own domination—
in order to win some measure of improved treatment. Yet the Honneth
of Freedom’s Right infers directly from the fact that workers “seemed to
take the normative promises of the market seriously” to their genuine
acceptance of those promises which he, in turn, proposes therefore as the
justified and immanent basis for a critical social theory.
Honneth’s conclusion would not follow even if his premise were true;
but in fact, Honneth concedes that it is not entirely true. In attempting
to show that the promise of social freedom through the market formed
the normative point of reference for the “social question” of the nineteenth century, he adds that “we could say that the various wings of the
labor movement, apart from those that were strictly Marxist, sought for
a radical socialization of the freedom of contract presupposed by the
capitalist labor market by defining income, social protections and an
adequate recognition of their labor skills as core elements of this freedom”.84 But this restriction is transparently question-begging: of course
if we exclude those movements that denied the possibility of freedom of
contract under capitalist conditions—and we would have to include not
just Marxists but several other varieties of socialism as well as the tradition of labor republicanism in the United States85— then those that
remain will testify to the in principle normative acceptability of the market. But what could possibly justify that restriction?
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D. A. BORMAN
Conclusion: Bourgeois Illusions and the Future
of Critical Theory
Despite considerable lament in Freedom’s Right about increased stratification in capitalist societies, there is no discussion there of the possibility which the early Honneth gave us theoretical grounds to expect, for
which he advised we ought as critical theorists to go looking: that groups
and individuals whose experiences are not reflected in the public transcript, whose lives are deemed a failure by ruling ideas of success, and
who are cut off from the material means of transforming their circumstances—that these groups and individuals will find it necessary to prop
their damaged self-respect upon some alternative foundation. There is
no guarantee that these hidden transcripts immanent to given patterns of
domination will prove worthy of respect and endorsement: recent years
have served up ample reminder, if any was needed, that discrimination,
misogyny, anti-immigrant scapegoating, and disturbingly free-floating
cynicism towards all claims of justification, also provide means of undercutting the force of the dominant, liberal-bourgeois ideology. A largely
unarticulated sense of grievance at the current system and its purportedly
justifying norms may provide fodder for all manner of political movement. This would not be news to Marx. The aim of the critical theorist,
now as ever, must be Marx’s aim: to illuminate the real causes of existing
misery and its social, alterable basis; to explode the apologies for the persistence of unnecessary suffering and the misdiagnoses that distract the
miserable or turn them against one another; to find its material basis in
the experience and position of the victims of domination and to offer
those victims the intellectual weapons of critical social theory. Not since
his very earliest work has Honneth defended these commitments. But
the future of critical theory is in its past.
Notes
1. Axel Honneth, “Work and Instrumental Action.” In Charles W. Wright
(ed.) The Fragmented World of the Social (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1995), 17
and 40–46; “Labor and Recognition: A Redefinition.” In The I in the We,
trans. Joseph Ganahl (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2014a), 57–58.
2. Christopher F. Zurn, Axel Honneth: A Critical Theory of the Social
(Malden, MA: Polity, 2015), n. 2, 214.
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119
3. Axel Honneth, “Rejoinder.” trans. Owen Hulatt. Critical Horizons, vol.
16, no. 2 (2015): 222 and 204.
4. Jean-Philippe Deranty, “Marx, Honneth, and the Tasks of a
Contemporary Critical Theory.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, vol.
16 (2013): 750. Deranty is referencing Thompson; see also Honneth’s
description of his influences in Marcelo Gonçalo, “Recognition and
Critical Theory Today: An Interview with Axel Honneth.” Philosophy and
Social Criticism, vol. 39, no. 2 (2013): 216.
5. Christopher Zurn, “The Ends of Economic History: Alternative
Teleologies and the Ambiguities of Normative Reconstruction.” In
Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch (ed.) Die Philosophie des Marktes
(Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 2016), 300.
6. Barrington Moore, Jr. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
(Boston: Beacon, 1993), 69; also 73, 77, 84 and 104.
7. Axel Honneth, “Moral Consciousness and Class Domination: Some
Problems in the Analysis of Hidden Morality.” In The Fragmented World
of the Social, 207.
8. Honneth, “Moral Consciousness,” 209, 212.
9. E. P. Thompson, Customs in Common: Studies in Traditional Popular
Culture (New York: The New Press, 1991), 8.
10. Thompson, Customs, 9.
11. Thompson, Customs, 87.
12. Honneth, “Moral Consciousness and Class Domination,” 209.
13. Honneth, “Moral Consciousness,” 212.
14. Honneth, “Moral Consciousness,” 213.
15. Honneth, “Moral Consciousness,” 214.
16. Honneth, “Moral Consciousness,” 215.
17. Honneth, “Moral Consciousness,” 216–217.
18. Honneth, “Moral Consciousness,” 218.
19. Paul Willis, Learning to Labor (New York: Columbia University Press,
1977) 175 and 206; also my discussion in The Idolatry of the Actual:
Habermas, Socialization, and the Possibility of Autonomy (Albany, NY:
SUNY Press, 2011), 107ff.
20. Thompson himself describes both Moore and Scott as having expanded
his own thinking on the moral economy (Customs in Common,
341–343).
21. James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 18.
22. Scott, Domination, 4.
23. Scott, Domination, 7.
24. Scott, Domination, 27; also Willis, Learning to Labor, 26.
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D. A. BORMAN
25. Scott, Domination, 11. Scott mentions the effect of the Nixon tapes and
the failure to conceal the special treatment accorded to party elites in the
USSR. What is compelling in Scott’s analysis is that it allows us to explain
the otherwise puzzling fact that there can be widespread suspicion that
elites privately do not conform in their behavior and values to their public
performance (which has a ‘bullshit’ character, in the Frankfurtean sense);
and yet the public revelation of such hypocrisy can nevertheless be political electrifying.
26. Scott, Domination, 18. On the Russian example, see 97–98, and for others, 68 and 77.
27. Scott, Domination, 37.
28. Scott, Domination, 18–19.
29. Honneth, “Work and Instrumental Action”: citing Moore’s Injustice at
46–47, and Braverman at 26–27.
30. Honneth, “Work and Instrumental Action,” 47–48.
31. Honneth, “Work and Instrumental Action,” 48.
32. Honneth, “Moral Consciousness,” 219.
33. For agreement, see Smith, “Work and the Struggle for Recognition,” 54.
34. Jürgen Habermas, “A Reply to My Critics.” In John B. Thompson and
David (eds.) Held Habermas: Critical Debates (Cambridge, MA: MIT,
1982), n. 11, 312.
35. Honneth, “Author’s Introduction” in The Fragmented World of the Social,
xvii.
36. Honneth, “Labor and Recognition,” 61.
37. Honneth, “Labor and Recognition,” 61.
38. Honneth, “Labor and Recognition,” 62.
39. Honneth, “Labor and Recognition,” 63.
40. Thompson, Customs, 270.
41. Thompson, Customs, 340.
42. Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social
Conflicts, trans. Joel Anderson (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1995c).
43. Honneth, “Redistribution as Recognition: A Response to Nancy Fraser.”
In Joel Golb and James Ingram (trans.) Redistribution or Recognition? A
Political-Philosophical Exchange (London: Verso, 2003), 137.
44. Honneth, “Redistribution as Recognition,” 174.
45. Honneth, “Redistribution as Recognition,” 187.
46. Honneth, “Redistribution as Recognition,” 187.
47. Honneth, “Redistribution as Recognition,” 140.
48. Honneth, “Redistribution as Recognition,” 141.
49. Honneth, “Redistribution as Recognition,” 137 and 140.
50. Honneth, “Redistribution as Recognition,” 141; see also 147.
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121
51. Honneth, “Author’s Introduction,” p. xix and “Redistribution as
Recognition,” 153.
52. Honneth “Redistribution as Recognition,” 150; for the later quote,
see Honneth and Martin Hartmann, “Paradoxes of Capitalist
Modernization.” In The I in the We, op cit., 184.
53. Honneth “Redistribution as Recognition,” 141.
54. Honneth “Redistribution as Recognition,” 148–149.
55. Honneth “Redistribution as Recognition,” 149.
56. Honneth does call attention to a form of hidden protest when he criticizes the reliance of Fraser and Habermas on social movements as a guide
for the identification of social injustice (“Redistribution as Recognition,”
113); but the effort by the theorist to “advocatorially thematize” (ibid.,
115) such hidden struggles is now limited to the conceptual tools made
available by bourgeois institutions.
57. Honneth, “The Point of Recognition.” In Redistribution or Recognition?
op cit., 250.
58. Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, 506.
59. As evidence that Honneth does continue to treat Thompson and Moore
thusly, consider: in “Redistribution and Recognition” Honneth notes
that Thompson and Moore were the first to show that the motivation for
protest was less material conditions per se than the consciousness of injustice rooted in a normative conception of the good life. But he adds that
the line of research thus inaugurated demonstrated “that motivationally
what weighed much more heavily than their material plight was that ways
of life and achievements, which in their eyes were worthy of respect, were
not recognized by the rest of society” (131, my emphasis). The note
attached to this passage points—pace Smith—to Sennett and Cobb as the
“path-breaking” example of such a demonstration (note 21, 191).
60. Smith, “Work and Recognition,” 57.
61. Smith, “Work and Recognition,” 58.
62. Axel Honneth, Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life,
trans. Joseph Ganahl (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014c), 3.
63. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 3–4.
64. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 5. Honneth provides several descriptions of
“normative reconstruction” in Freedom’s Right which do not appear to be
strictly equivalent: see ibid., 10, 56, and 128.
65. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 59.
66. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 9.
67. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 124.
68. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 127.
69. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 176.
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D. A. BORMAN
70. For a critical discussion, see Fabian Freyenhagen, “Honneth on Social
Pathologies: A Critique.” Critical Horizons, vol. 16, no. 2 (2015): 131–
152; Honneth’s response, “A Rejoinder,” 214–216.
71. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 177. My emphasis.
72. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 179. My emphasis, throughout.
73. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 183.
74. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 183–184.
75. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 190–191.
76. Honneth, “Moral Consciousness and Class Domination”, 216–217.
77. In response to criticisms of Freedom’s Right, Honneth insists that its argument “leaves no question of there being any break or sudden change in
my theoretical or political beliefs. I believe I still stand in line with my
earlier self, and that my latest book… is continuous with my previous
work” (“A Rejoinder,” 205).
78. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 198. In a response to critics, Honneth suggested another possible location of the normative “intentions” of the capitalist market: the “founding documents” of bourgeois political economy.
Conceding that the spheres of social freedom, and especially the capitalist market, may indeed be susceptible not just to misdevelopment but
also to pathologies, Honneth attributes this to “ambiguous statements
in the intellectual ‘founding documents’ of this sphere.” (“Rejoinder,”
215, also, 223–224). But as Thompson wrote in response to claims that
he had been unfair in his treatment of Adam Smith: “intention is a bad
measure of ideological interest and of historical consequences” (Customs
in Common, 269).
79. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 208.
80. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 227.
81. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 227.
82. Honneth, Freedom’s Right,, 227. Honneth proclaims normative convergence in hidden forms of everyday protest as well: ibid., 246.
83. See Gertrude Ezorsky, Freedom in the Workplace? (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2007), Chapter III.
84. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 228, my emphasis; for further examples of this
circularity, see ibid., 210.
85. See Alex Gourevitch, From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth:
Labor and Republican Liberty in the Nineteenth Century (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2015).
Selected Bibliography
Borman, David A (2011) The Idolatry of the Actual: Habermas, Socialization,
and the Possibility of Autonomy. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
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123
Deranty, Jean-Philippe Deranty (2013) “Marx, Honneth, and the Tasks of a
Contemporary Critical Theory.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, vol. 16,
745–758.
Ezorsky, Gertrude (2007) Freedom in the Workplace? Ithaca: Cornell University
Press.
Freyenhagen, Fabian (2015) “Honneth on Social Pathologies: A Critique.”
Critical Horizons, vol. 16, no. 2: 131–152.
Gonçalo, Marcelo (2013) “Recognition and Critical Theory Today: An
Interview with Axel Honneth.” Philosophy and Social Criticism, vol. 39 no. 2:
209–221.
Gourevitch, Alex (2015) From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth: Labor
and Republican Liberty in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Habermas, Jürgen (1982) “A Reply to My Critics.” In Habermas: Critical
Debates, ed. John B. Thompson and David Held. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Honneth, Axel (1995a) “Author’s Introduction.” In The Fragmented World of
the Social, ed. Charles W. Wright. Albany, NY: SUNY.
Honneth, Axel (1995b) “Work and Instrumental Action.” In The Fragmented
World of the Social, ed. Charles W. Wright. Albany, NY: SUNY.
Honneth, Axel (1995c) The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of
Social Conflicts, Translated by Joel Anderson. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Honneth, Axel (2003a) “Redistribution as Recognition: A Response to Nancy
Fraser.” In Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange,
Translated by Joel Golb and James Ingram. London: Verso.
Honneth, Axel (2003b) “The Point of Recognition.” In Redistribution or
Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange, Translated by Joel Golb and
James Ingram. London: Verso.
Honneth, Axel (2014a) “Labor and Recognition: A Redefinition.” In The I in
the We: Studies in the Theory of Recognition, Translated by Joseph Ganahl.
Malden, MA: Polity.
Honneth, Axel (2014b) with Hartmann, Martin. “Paradoxes of Capitalist
Modernization.” in The I in the We, op cit.
Honneth, Axel (2014c) Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic
Life, Translated by Joseph Ganahl. New York: Columbia University Press.
Honneth, Axel (2015) “A Rejoinder.” Translated by Owen Hulatt. Critical
Horizons, vol.16, no. 2: 204–226.
Moore, Barrington, Jr (1993) Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy.
Boston: Beacon.
Scott, James C (1990) Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden
Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Smith, Nicholas (2009) “Work and the Struggle for Recognition.” European
Journal of Political Theory, vol. 8, no.1: 46–60.
124
D. A. BORMAN
Thompson, E. P (1991) Customs in Common: Studies in Traditional Popular
Culture. New York: The New Press.
Willis, Paul (1977) Learning to Labor. New York: Columbia University Press.
Zurn, Christopher F (2015) Axel Honneth: A Critical Theory of the Social.
Malden, MA: Polity.
Zurn, Christopher F (2016) “The Ends of Economic History: Alternative
Teleologies and the Ambiguities of Normative Reconstruction.” In Die
Philosophie des Marktes, ed. Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch. Hamburg:
Felix Meiner.
CHAPTER 6
Losing Sight of Power:
The Inadequacy of Axel Honneth’s Theory
of the Market and Democracy
Gregory R. Smulewicz-Zucker
A unique characterization of modern economic life and an advocacy
of a Deweyan conception of democracy inform Axel Honneth’s political thought. While Honneth has addressed these issues in some of his
earliest work, the relation between the two are most explicitly laid out
in his major work of political theory, Freedom’s Right. Broadly speaking, Honneth has been able to dismiss structural accounts of the economy, which has, in turn, enabled him to stave off Marxian critiques of
his work, by insisting on the way in which normativity permeates the
economic order. This has allowed him to critique modern economic
relations to the extent that they violate relations founded upon the recognition of individual life plans. In turn, Honneth’s democratic theory
relies heavily on a Deweyan spirit of active creative and experimental
cooperative engagement among citizens.
This chapter argues that Honneth’s account of the ills of modern economic life is inadequate and that the shortcomings of his
G. R. Smulewicz-Zucker (*)
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA
© The Author(s) 2019
V. Schmitz (ed.), Axel Honneth and the Critical Theory
of Recognition, Political Philosophy and Public Purpose,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91980-5_6
125
126
G. R. SMULEWICZ-ZUCKER
account of economic life jeopardizes his conception of democracy. Specifically, I claim that the power relations upon which modern economic life is dependent subverts the capacities of individuals
to engage in the kind of democratic practices Honneth envisions.1
Particularly problematic, in this respect, is the way Honneth depicts
the various economic transformations of the past forty years, which
scholars often characterize under the umbrella term neoliberalism, as
a “misdevelopment” of the norms that he believes are embedded in
the ideal of market society. While I do not deny that norms inform
economic life and agree that an examination of these norms is important, I question Honneth’s decision to characterize neoliberalism as a
misdevelopment. Neoliberalism is certainly a misdevelopment when
compared to the theory of market society that Honneth extracts in
his readings of Smith, Hegel, and Durkheim. However, this is to
privilege eighteenth- and nineteenth-century moral theories over the
actual historical development of capitalism and the institutions it has
fostered.
There are good reasons to think that antidemocratic norms are a more
pronounced and deeply embedded feature of modern capitalism than the
norms that Honneth identifies in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
ideas about the moral purpose of market society. While I think that critiques of the inherently antidemocratic nature of the modern economy
can persuasively be leveled from a socialist perspective, in this chapter,
I attempt to show why Honneth’s arguments can be challenged using
thinkers coming out of the traditions of liberal and democratic theory.
In spite of Honneth’s reliance on Dewey, I claim that Dewey is a useful resource for raising these concerns. In addition, important concerns
are also expressed in the later work of the major theorists of polyarchy,
Robert Dahl and Charles Lindblom. Using these thinkers to question
Honneth’s account of the relation between the spheres of the economy
and democratic political life provide good reasons for raising concerns
about the limitations of Honneth’s theory.
Honneth and the Market
The issue of the conditions of the workplace has never been distant from
Honneth’s thought. His early work was marked by a critical stance,
which emphasized the oppositional capacities of labor.2 However, as
Honneth has developed his model of recognition, he has increasingly
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127
emphasized the place of market society as a sphere of recognition and
social freedom. This emphasis on the market divorces the modern market from capitalism, but Honneth is able to do this because he insists
on the normative framework that informs market society. Consequently,
Honneth can claim, “There is an intrinsic connection between the conditions of competition on the market and the norms of the lifeworld,
because market competition can only be viewed as legitimate and justified on the condition that it take these norms into account.”3 Whatever
violates these norms constitutes a violation of the antecedent values that
legitimate the market. Whenever Honneth proffers a critique of capitalism it is from the standpoint of its violation of these foundational norms.
In this section, I discuss how Honneth separates the norms of the market from the actual functioning of the modern neoliberal economy. This
leads to the problematic view that the misdevelopments wrought by neoliberalism are anomalies in the historical the development of the market.4
The issue, I suggest, is that, by characterizing misdevelopments as anomalies, Honneth is underestimating the extent to which these misdevelopments (assuming Honneth is correct that these are misdevelopments as
opposed to historical outcomes of the development of capitalism) might
misdevelop individuals in ways that render them unable to resist.
Honneth’s theory of recognition plays a prominent role in his account
of the norms undergirding market society. Honneth’s conception of
recognition as he first developed it in his The Struggle for Recognition
stresses the intersubjective relations that provide the conditions for
individual flourishing. There are three parts to this claim. The process
of self-realization and confidence in the self stems, initially, through the
loving bonds of mother and child. Subsequent affective and erotic ties
derive from this childhood experience of symbiosis: “The inner state of
symbiotic oneness so radically shapes the experiential scheme of complete satisfaction that it keeps alive, behind the back of the subject and
throughout the subject’s life, the desire to be merged with another person.”5 Yet, it is the creation of boundaries in the form of individuation
that makes it possible for the subject to respect the individuality of the
other as well as the ability to be confident in oneself as a separate being.
Legal relations, according to Honneth, bestow recognition of the
subject as a bearer of rights and that her rights are recognized by others, thus giving self-respect. As Honneth explains, “What gives rights
the power to enable the development of self-respect is the public
character that rights possess in virtue of their empowering the bearer
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to engage in action that can be perceived by interaction partners.”6
Finally, the subject requires social esteem. This manifests itself through
solidarity in which there arises “an interrelationship relationship in
which subjects mutually sympathize with their various different ways
of life because, among themselves, they esteem each other symmetrically.”7 This social recognition makes it possible for the subject to gain
self-esteem for their unique sets of traits and abilities that distinguish
their different ways of life.
It is the third form of recognition that is most relevant to Honneth’s
understanding of the workplace. Honneth seeks to show that labor in
market society is bound up with norms of recognition based on the way
individuals contribute to society through systems of market exchange.8
Moreover, it is on the basis of these norms that individuals can exert
demands on capitalist society if it fails to live up to the norms of recognition that market society presupposes. Hence, market society is premised on norms of recognition that form the underlying expectations of
individuals. Honneth suggests, therefore, that we follow an interpretation of the market’s functions that considers its normative dimensions.
Drawing from Hegel and Durkheim, Honneth suggests, “the capitalist
labour market must not merely be a means for increasing economic efficiency, but also a medium of social integration. Only under this premise, which is in no way self-evident, does it become apparent that the
functioning of the market depends on the fulfillment of moral promises
that are described with terms such as ‘self-respect’, ‘a fair day’s pay for a
fair day’s work’ and ‘meaningful work’.”9 Such moral premises inform
the concrete demands of labor for conditions that enable recognition.
Further, the outcome of these relations is, therefore, the self-esteem and
recognition of one’s life plans that Honneth claims are constitutive of a
free life in Freedom’s Right.
What emerges in Honneth’s account is that the moral norms that
legitimate market society, which have the effect of actualizing recognition, become the standpoint for any critique of market society. The ethical norms underlying the market take precedence over any critique of
capital per se, since Honneth’s attempt to make recognition useful to
discussions of labor relations, in my view, problematically allows him to
dispense with any structural critique of capitalism. As Honneth puts it,
“Western capitalist society should be understood as a highly dynamic
social order whose capacity for self-transformation arises not only out of
the imperatives of the constant realization of capital, but also from the
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institutionalized normative surplus that stems from its new, emerging
spheres of recognition.”10 Of course, all this depends on privileging the
normative surplus over capitalism’s imperatives. Still, it is on this basis
that Honneth believes demands can be exerted by reference to norms.
Ultimately, the norms that Honneth defends are most concretely associated with the social democratic welfare state. The rise of social democracy, Honneth argues, delivered four general norms: (1) the increase
in incomes and expansion of free time as well as “the rapid spread of
romantic life-ideals… allowed a growing part of the population to interpret their lives no longer as fixed and linear processes of sequentially
assuming professional and familial roles, but as opportunities for the
experimental realization of their own personalities”11; (2) the prohibition
of legal discrimination and the creation of new rights created new forms
of legal autonomy; (3) the measure of achievement extended, Honneth
purports, beyond the standards of masculinized ideals and the expansion of access to education expanded the scope of individuals who could
achieve; and (4) intimate relationships were no longer constrained by the
model of the nuclear family driven by the necessity of “lifelong security
or progeny.”12
With the rise of neoliberalism, Honneth sees a reversal of social
democracy’s achievements.13 Honneth explains, “Our thesis is that this
‘new’, ‘disorganized’, shareholder value-oriented capitalism affects in
one way or another the normatively structured spheres of action distinguished above, bringing about developments that lead to the reversal of
these institutionalized normative achievements.”14 What Honneth calls
“network capitalism” is, therefore, critiqued from the standpoint that it
distorts the basis for social solidarity, which, as is clear from his account
of recognition, requires the capacity to be recognized for one’s unique
traits and abilities. The normative achievements that Honneth identifies
with the social democratic welfare state made possible the type of individual self-development that allowed for the cultivation of one’s unique
traits and abilities. As Honneth puts it, “Within the framework of the
new organizational form of capitalism, what could previously be analysed
as an unambiguous rise in the sphere of individual autonomy assumes
the shape of unreasonable demands, discipline or insecurity, which, taken
together, have the effect of social desoliderization.”15
More recently, Honneth has called into question the very concept of
neoliberalism, seeing a cluster of historical phenomena that he does not
think can adequately be captured by the concept.16 Whether one chooses
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to embrace the term neoliberalism or not, Honneth sees the deregulation of markets and the associated phenomena that date back to the late
1970s, which many scholars characterize as neoliberal reforms, as based
upon “normative misdevelopments.”17 In order to recover the norms
undergirding the market, ones that can bolster social freedom, Honneth
engages in a reconstruction to uncover the “underlying principles of
solidarity.”18 Here, he turns to the normative principles underlying the
spheres of consumption and the labor market. He writes, “The institution of the capitalist labour market is regarded as unjustified or illegitimate as soon as it no longer guarantees participants a living wage, does
not adequately honour work in terms of wage levels and social reputation, or no longer offers a sense of being cooperatively involved in the
social division of labour.”19 Again, the fact that these norms no longer
underlie the institution—as already indicated by his earlier discussions of
neoliberalism—indicates a misdevelopment of the labor market.
Whether he is discussing the sphere of consumption or the labor
market, what distinguishes a misdevelopment is the way these institutions diverge from the underlying norms. Fulfilling the promise of these
norms would, according to Honneth, realize the ideal of social freedom,
which is the main concern of Freedom’s Right. A misdevelopment is
depicted as a kind of betrayal of the function the market should ideally
serve, i.e., its power as a mechanism of social integration that can realize social freedom. What marks Honneth’s claim is that he envisions a
kind of reconciliation occurring through the mechanism of the market.
Even if misdevelopments have occurred, the normative underpinnings of
the market are supposed to point to its emancipatory potential. On this
account, Honneth is able to dismiss any critique of the capitalist market
as inherently pathological (hence his preference for the term misdevelopment) because the market still retains a capacity for the realization of
social freedom.
Already here, there is something deeply dissatisfying about Honneth’s
critique of the market. On the basis of his ideal of social freedom,
Honneth seeks out those features of the normative underpinnings of
market society that serve to further his project. But what is questionable about Honneth’s move is that he has to assume that individuals already have the capacity to struggle for these norms. Yet, there is
no reason to assume that they do. On the contrary, there is nothing in
Honneth’s more recent work that—hearkening back to the concerns of
first generation critical theorists—considers the issue that subjects might
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be socialized by the very misdeveloped norms of which Honneth is
so critical and that this might stifle their critical capacities. As Michael
Thompson has argued, “Through processes of socialization that are
increasingly steered by economic interests, role expectations are more
and more determined by the imperatives of elite interests to the extent
that critical subjectivity is thwarted.”20 In his early work on recognition,
Honneth retained an important place for the category of struggle, but
this has since receded from his theory.21 Absent struggle in his argument
about the market in Freedom’s Right, we are left with little indication
about how or why individuals might resist misdevelopments if they have
been socialized by the norms fostered by those same misdevelopments.
In his work on reviving the concept of socialism, Honneth argues
that the only way a just order in market relations can be established is
by introducing a notion of experimentation (herein lies the Deweyan
dimension of Honneth’s thought). With respect to market reform,
Honneth argues that, speaking of earlier welfare state reforms,
If we draw an imaginary line from such institutional breakthroughs toward
the future, it will become clear which further measures will be required
in the near future in order to come closer to the goal of realizing social
freedom in the economic sphere. However, we cannot assume that we
can simply design the next steps from scratch, just as little as we could
determine the final goal in advance. Instead, our aims and our means
will constantly correct each other depending on the outcome of concrete
experiments.22
Still, this, once again, begs the question of where individuals might derive
the resources for such experimentation. Presumably, the resources lie, at
least in part, in reclaiming the historic norms undergirding market society. As Honneth explains, “A normative reconstruction can pick up on this
‘moral grammar’ employed by the members of modern societies in order
to uncover the spheres of action that guarantee freedom (FR, 127).”23
Honneth argues that the market is crucial to our socialization and the
development of our moral grammar. At the same time, he notes that the
market can misdevelop. It is, therefore, reasonable to assume that a misdeveloped market can socialize us in “misdeveloped” ways. But Honneth
turns a blind eye to this concern. Whatever historical changes institutions
undergo, he assumes we retain the historic achievements of the core normative values of market society. For this reason, he can claim,
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The institution of the capitalist labour market is regarded as unjustified or
illegitimate as soon as it no longer guarantees participants a living wage,
does not adequately honour work in terms of wage levels and social reputation, or no longer offers a sense of being cooperatively involved in the
social division of labour. Measured against the institutional achievements
of organized capitalism in terms of the expansion of social freedom during the ‘social-democratic era’ (Ralf Dahrendorf), the current state of the
labour market must be regarded as a misdevelopment.24
Certainly, the norms undergirding the welfare state are preferable to
those undergirding neoliberalism and I do not deny the importance of
the insight that norms undergird economic policy regimes. However,
Honneth seems to think that the norms undergirding the ideal of market society are somehow more resilient than those that undergird its purported misdevelopment. Nevertheless, the misdevelopd norms appear to
be the reigning norms of the current manifestation of our late capitalist
economy. We have every reason to be concerned that these norms might
have negative effects on our capacity for democratic activity. But before
going into this issue, it is necessary to first discuss Honneth’s conception
of democracy.
Honneth and Democracy
Honneth’s theory of democracy is intimately intertwined with his conception of the role of market society. As Honneth tells us, “Free market
participants, self-aware democratic citizens and emancipated family
members – all of whom correspond to the ideals institutionalized in our
society – mutually influence each other, because the properties of the one
cannot be realized without those of the other two.”25 Similarly, Honneth
states, “theories of a deliberative democracy must presuppose ‘just’ economic and family relations… The idea of ‘democratic ethical life’ takes
account of this fact by seeing democracy only where the principles of
freedom institutionalized in the various spheres of action have been realized in corresponding practices and habits.”26 Hence, Honneth’s theory
of democracy is reliant on his conception of the free market as it presupposes “‘just’ economic relations.” Yet, if Honneth’s theory of democracy is so reliant on his theory of the market, we must ask whether the
features of the market can, in fact, sustain those attributes of democracy
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Honneth favors. In this respect, a review of Honneth’s indebtedness to
Dewey’s democratic theory is relevant.
In an early paper on Dewey, Honneth already gave some indication of
what he would later extract from Dewey when he started developing his
theory of democracy proper in Freedom’s Right. According to Honneth,
Dewey’s democratic theory succeeds where republican and proceduralist
theories of democracy fail because he “synthesizes reflexive procedures
and a political community.”27 Democracy, for Dewey, is “a reflexive
form of community cooperation.”28 That is, Dewey is able to reconcile
social cooperation with reflexive self-determination. Ultimately, the key
to this move, Honneth argues, rests in the way Dewey brings forward
the pragmatist ideal of the research community to bear on democratic
life. Indeed, Honneth’s affinity for Dewey manifests in his claim that—as
Honneth would later develop in Freedom’s Right—there is an intimate
relation between economic life and democratic life. As Honneth points
out, “Dewey locates the prerequisite for a revitalization of democratic
publics in the pre-political sphere of the social division of labor, which
has to be regulated in a fair and just manner such that all members of
society can understand themselves as active participants in a cooperative
enterprise.”29
At the core of Honneth’s early interpretation of Dewey is the notion
of democracy as a cooperative problem-solving enterprise. Dewey,
Honneth argues, “could ultimately claim in The Public and Its Problems
that democracy represents the political form of organization in which
human intelligence achieves complete development; for it is only where
methods of publicly debating individual beliefs have assumed institutional form that the communicative character of rational problem-­solving
can be enabled and employed in social life in the same manner as is done
in the natural sciences with experimental laboratory research.”30 As
Honneth moved toward forging his own original democratic theory, he
would follow Dewey in stressing that this sort of joint problem-solving
democratic ethos should permeate every aspect of life.
In Freedom’s Right, Honneth carries forward his Deweyan conception of democracy with his advocacy of the democratic public sphere.
Echoing his earlier analysis of Dewey and Dewey’s synthesis of the
reflective and community-based attributes of modern democratic life,
Honneth writes,
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The right of the citizenry to come to an agreement through public
deliberation on the principles to be implemented by the government, a
right rudimentarily anchored in the constitution of these countries, was
intended as an instrument not only for improving the capacity for political
problem solving, but also and especially for establishing the communicative
conditions under which citizens can clarify and realize their own political
intentions in an unforced manner and by reciprocally taking up the role of
speaker and listener.31
As noted earlier, Honneth, following Dewey, sees an intimate relation
between the economic and political spheres. It is in the economic sphere
that the individual develops the resources crucial to their capacity for
democratic participation.
Given the interpenetration of the spheres of the family, the market,
and the public sphere, and the way democracy in the public sphere is
contingent on “just relations” in the others,32 we must ask whether or
not it is possible for pathologies in the family and market to subvert
democracy. For my purposes, it is most relevant to emphasize the question of whether or not the market can subvert democracy. Certainly, on
Honneth’s reading any non-democratic conception of the market represents a misdevelopment. But, once again, this is to be too dismissive of
the actual development of the economy. Honneth, at one and the same
time, ties normative and institutional development and then divorces it.
In his discussion of democracy, Honneth does not address the ways in
which misdevelopments in the sphere of the economy can infect democracy. Yet, for over a century, this has been a going concern for any
defender of the welfare state. While Honneth has been critical of market
misdevelopments and a staunch defender of the welfare state, what distinguishes him from other defenders of the welfare state is that he does
not consider the market, and economic life more broadly, as a sphere of
power relations.
Critics of the Market’s Relation to Democracy
Despite Honneth’s emphasis on Dewey, he largely neglects those elements of Dewey’s thought that were weary of the effects of the modern economy on both the individual and society. What Dewey refers
to as “the crisis of liberalism” in his Liberalism and Social Action deals
with the inability of classical liberalism to confront the power relations
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embedded in economic life. Indeed, Dewey notes “The demand for a
form of social organization that should include economic activities but
yet should convert them into servants of the development of the higher
capacities of individuals, is one that earlier liberalism did not meet.”33
Dewey has no systematic critique of the market’s capacity to distort
freedom, but he does call into question the notion that the economic
sphere can be deemed one of freedom. Dewey’s critique of early liberalism noted that “Above all, in identifying the extension of liberty in all of
its modes with extension of their [the liberal’s] particular brand of economic liberty, they completely failed to anticipate the bearing of private
control of the means of production and distribution upon the effective
liberty of the masses in industry as well as in cultural goods.”34 From
this standpoint, Dewey’s call for a “renascent liberalism” challenged the
extent to which the economic sphere could be deemed one of freedom.
Certainly, economic exchange is a precondition for human flourishing,
but, for Dewey, it is still subservient to a greater aim. For this reason,
Dewey could write,
The ultimate place of economic organization in human life is to assure the
secure basis for an ordered expression of individual capacity and for the
satisfaction of the needs of man in noneconomic directions. The effort of
mankind in connection with material production belongs, as I said earlier,
among interests and activities that are, relatively speaking, routine in character, ‘routine’ being defined as that which, without absorbing attention
and energy, provides a constant basis for liberation of the values of intellectual, esthetic and companionship life.35
It seems to me that what is of central importance is the notion that the
economic sphere is one of the satisfaction of needs and that this provides a basis for the pursuit of higher ends. The human capacity to pursue higher ends can become stifled when human activity in the sphere
becomes an end in itself. Thus, Dewey adds, “When these wants are
compelled by force of conditions to be directed for the most part,
among the mass of mankind, into obtaining the means of subsistence,
what should be a means becomes perforce an end in itself.”36
On one reading, Honneth can be said to be addressing Dewey’s concerns through his argument on behalf of a welfare state that enshrines
the normative underpinnings of the market. On another, however,
Dewey can be said to be pointing to far deeper problem, namely the
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capacity of market society to distort human potentialities. In this interpretation, democracy is less cultivated by economic life than serves
as an antidote to it. The routinization that Dewey identifies with economic life can subvert the very type of flourishing of intelligence for
which Honneth believes the market is a vehicle. In this vein, Dewey, in
Democracy and Education, warned of the negative consequences of the
drudgery of the workplace on human creative capacities:
Where something approaching drudgery or the need of fulfilling externally imposed tasks exists, the demand for play persists, but tends to be
perverted. The ordinary course of action fails to give adequate stimulus to
emotion and imagination. So in leisure time, there is an imperious demand
for their stimulation by any kind of means; gambling, drink, etc. may be
resorted to. Or, in less extreme cases, there is recourse to idle amusement;
to anything which passes time with immediate agreeableness.37
Of course, Honneth is no defender of drudgery. Rather, my point is that,
by privileging an account of the market as a sphere of social freedom as
opposed to one of power relations, Honneth gives little consideration
to the ways in which the power relations built into economic life—what
he depicts as “misdevelopments”—can pervert the creative energies central to both his and Dewey’s democratic theory.
While Dewey raises the issue of the power relations embedded in
the economy, he falls short of a fully worked out theory of the relation between economic power and democracy. For this, we can turn to
another set of theorists, Dahl and Lindblom. Both of these theorists of
polyarchy recognized the decidedly antidemocratic nature of the modern economy. In Dahl’s case, the critique focused on the antidemocratic
nature of the modern workplace. In the case of Lindblom, the argument
centers on the role of businesspeople and corporations in the political
process.
One of the things that makes Dahl and Lindblom’s later work so
interesting is that both thinkers recognized the need to recast their
earlier democratic theory in light of the increasing neoliberalization of
the economy. The deregulation of industry, financialization of risk and
debt, privatization of public goods and services, and weakening of the
labor movement that has occurred with ever greater velocity all speak to
a situation in which the political power of capital has increased. These
changes have normative roots in ideas about the nature of economic
life and political freedom that have become deeply embedded in our
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institutions.38 Rather than seeing these as normative misdevelopments in
the history of market society, the advent of neoliberalism has enabled the
most anti-democratic tendencies of capitalism to assert themselves.
Dahl is, ostensibly, the more potentially sympathetic to Honneth’s
views on the market in his argument for democracy within firms in his
A Preface to Economic Democracy. Dahl might seem to be in agreement
with Honneth when he argues, “If democracy is justified in governing
the state, then it must also be justified in governing enterprises; and to
say that it is not justified in governing economic enterprises is to imply
that it is not justified in governing the state.”39 For Dahl, however, the
notion that the firm ought to be democratized is coupled by an analysis that insists on the notion that the economy is a sphere of power
relations. As Dahl argues, “Like a state, then, a firm can also be viewed
as a political system in which relations of power exist between governments and the governed. If so, is it not appropriate to insist that the
relationship between governors and governed should satisfy the criteria
of the democratic process – as we properly insist in the domain of the
state?”40 For Dahl, democracy is a solution to the problem of power
relations embedded in the workplace.41 In contrast, for Honneth, the
workplace, in accordance with the normative ideal of market society,
is a sphere of cooperative self-development. Even if Honneth worries
about the way power can infect the workplace, there is little space in
his analysis for an account of the workplace as structured by power
relations.
The ways in which Honneth too readily draws a line between the
sphere of markets and the sphere of political power can be, further,
strongly challenged by Lindblom’s work. Far from depicting the market
system as a sphere of recognition, Lindblom contends that the market is
a “control system.”42 As Lindblom notes, “In developed market systems,
most gainfully employed people in fact spend their working hours in an
authority system – typically an organized business enterprise. The consequent threat to freedom is all the more obvious in large corporations:
an organization in which a few men command thousands of others in
the standardized patterns of bureaucracy does not nourish freedom.”43
While Lindblom, like Honneth, acknowledges the Smithian ideal of free
market, he is aware that the modern corporation needs to be understood
as competitor for power within society. Linblom recognizes that, in a
polyarchal system, businesses vie for power in society and, more often
than not, have privileged access to it.
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Hence, for Lindblom, at issue in the discussion is not merely the
struggle for power within the workplace, but, rather, the way businesses
compete for political power within society more broadly. They do so,
according to Lindblom, by providing funding to politicians, the fact
that businesses are already well-organized and able to mobilize towards
the achievement of their goals, and through their privileged access to
politicians.44 Moreover, businesses are not only in a privileged position with respect to influencing policy, their privilege places them in a
unique position to influence the citizenry. “Businessmen,” Lindblom
writes, “participate in polyarchal politics disproportionately… to bend
polyarchal decision making so that it coordinates with privileged business controls. It is that disproportion… that is the chief evidence of
indoctrination.”45 This can, Lindblom argues, take the form of efforts
to legitimize their authority as consistent with democracy, “they try to
associate private enterprise with political democracy and identify attacks
on the former as attacks on the latter.”46 They also, Lindblom notes,
work to silence certain political issues from arising. All these forms of
political influence point to the ways in which economic elites are able
to remold our political institutions so that they radically transform their
normative moorings. The disproportionate amount of power they are
able to wield in our neoliberalized societies can, in turn, redefine the
normative fabric of the broader culture via the economic and political
institutions upon which we rely. So, while these forms of power are
exercised outside of the workplace, the disproportionate power of economic elites becomes normalized as part of modern democratic life,
rather than antithetical to it.
Certainly, Honneth may respond to the arguments of Dahl and
Lindblom by reminding us that he is engaging in a normative reconstruction of the proper function of the market. Nevertheless, this view
ties itself to a particular historical manifestation of the market, one better
associated with the ideal of commercial society of the eighteenth century.
Such a form of market society is not the reality of the present. There is
a conflict between Honneth’s own reliance on a normative ideal of how
the market ought to function as a sphere of recognition and how the
market has actually come to operate. The modern market system relies
on systems of authority. Anti-democratic and anti-recognitive forms of
social interaction permeate economic life. To suggest that the market
is a sphere of social freedom misses the point drawn out by Dahl and
Lindblom that firms and markets are spheres of power relations.
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What differentiates Dahl and Lindblom from Honneth is that
Honneth seeks ethical resources within the market. Ultimately, Dahl and
Lindblom might seek out similar political correctives to those Honneth
advocates, but this misses the significance of Honneth’s claims about the
ethical nature of the modern market. Honneth might contend, in this
respect, that Dahl and Lindblom are inadequate insofar as they privilege
the political dimensions of modern market society. He might claim that
they are ignorant of its important function in ethical development. Yet,
it is precisely on these grounds that we should call Honneth’s claims
into question. What Dahl and Lindblom offer us is an account of market society that is flushed with anti-democratic modes of existence. They
see these as inherent to the way the modern market system works. In
this respect, it is hardly a misdevelopment. Indeed, one need not necessarily focus specifically on the advent of neoliberalism as an antidemocratic force to identify a misdevelopment. We might just as easily
take seriously Joel Whitebook’s observation that “An essential feature
of the emergence of modern society was precisely the ‘disembedding’
of the economy from the larger institutional framework, which is to say,
the emancipation of the capitalist market. This, in turn, had the effect of
unleashing human acquisitiveness and aggression in the way premodern
societies had feared.”47 In the emancipation of the capitalist market we
might find the seeds of our current predicament, making the problems
Dewey, Dahl, and Lindblom recognize in our economic system look far
less like misdevelopments and much more like consequences.
Capitalism’s Norms, Democracy’s Values,
and the Ongoing Relevance of Classical
Critical Theory
Honneth’s argument that there are norms that ground our economic
system and that they are related to the sphere of politics provides a
deeply persuasive and novel revival of concerns first developed by
Hegel over two centuries ago. Both his recognition theory and his theory of social freedom represent two of the most significant and innovative contributions to moral and political philosophy of recent decades.
Nevertheless, the central issues of which this chapter has been critical
are whether Honneth overestimates the resilience of the norms he identifies and underestimates the power of pathological norms. In the first
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instance, I find the notion that the norms Honneth identifies with market society are the preeminent norms of the modern economy highly
questionable. In the second, I worry that, while Honneth emphasizes
the importance of norms, he nonetheless neglects the extent to which
the negative norms, which he sees as misdevelopments, can infect our
political order. From a Deweyan standpoint, there is reason to worry
that the routinization of life within the modern economy can thwart
the development of the kind of critical subjectivity that is so essential
to Honneth’s thought. From the standpoint of Dahl and Lindblom,
the central institutions of the modern economy are shown to operate in
manners deeply antithetical to democratic principles. Ultimately, what
is at issue is the question of not only the antidemocratic nature of the
modern economy, but the possibility that it can socialize people to accept
these antidemocratic social orders.
At present, we are witnessing a global retreat of democratic values
and the ever-deepening embeddedness of neoliberal economic values. Whether or not the two are related raises important questions.
Certainly, within the general methodological framework of Honneth’s
argument, we would have reason to think that they are and to be critical of this development. At the same time, however, by downplaying
the significance of almost half a century of economic change as a misdevelopment, Honneth is ill-equipping us for responding to the current crisis. Honneth ends up privileging the theoretical original intent
of theorists of market society over the actual historical development
of capitalism. Since Marx, a host of thinkers, including Dewey, Dahl,
and Lindblom, have recognized the deleterious effects of capitalism as
an inherent part of capitalism’s functioning. Indeed, the idea that the
norms fostered by capitalism can infect both the subjectivity of agents
and the operation of our institutions lies at the heart of critical theory
as it was originally conceived by the first generation of critical theorists
(such as Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and
others) of whom Honneth has been so critical. If anything, the issue
of how the norms cultivated in the sphere of the economy can affect
democracy ought to point us to reconsider the original motivations
behind the project of a critical theory of society as developed by critical
theory’s forefathers.
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Notes
1. Honneth’s neglect of economic power is discussed by Michael J.
Thompson, “The Insufficiency of Recognition: A Critique of Axel
Honneth’s Concept of Critical Theory.” In his The Domestication of
Critical Theory (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). A further inspiration for my line of argument and its emphasis on Honneth’s treatment of power relations comes from Lois McNay’s Against Recognition
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008), 145. There, McNay notes an “undeveloped account of power relations” in Honneth’s work. However, her book
appeared before the publication of Freedom’s Right and, therefore, does
not engage its argument.
2. For a discussion see Mariana Teixera, “The Sociological Roots and
Deficits of Axel Honneth’s Theory of Recognition.” In Michael J.
Thompson (ed.) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Theory (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
3. Axel Honneth, Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic
Life, trans. Joseph Ganahl (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014),
191.
4. Honneth makes a special point of characterizing misdevelopments as
“anomalies” and not “pathologies” in ibid., 129.
5. Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social
Conflicts, trans. Joel Anderson (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), 105.
6. Honneth, Struggle, 120.
7. Honneth, Struggle, 128.
8. For Honneth’s discussion, see Axel Honneth, “Labour and Recognition:
A Redefinition.” In Axel Honneth, The I in We: Studies in the Theory of
Recognition, trans. Joseph Ganahl (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012), 67.
9. Honneth, “Labour,” 71.
10. Axel Honneth and Martin Hartmann, “Paradoxes of Capitalist
Modernization: A Research Programme.” In Honneth, The I in We, 171.
11. Honneth and Hartmann, “Paradoxes,” 172.
12. Honneth and Hartmann, “Paradoxes,” 173.
13. It is important to note that, when I discuss Honneth’s analysis of neoliberalism, I do so from the standpoint of his “Paradoxes of Capitalist
Modernization” essay. More recently, however, Honneth has called
into question the very usefulness of the concept of neoliberalism. See,
for example, his “Neoliberalismus?: Eine skeptische Wortdmeldung
anlässlich einer Studie von David M. Kotz.” WestEnd: Neue Zeitschrift für
Sozialforschung, vol. 13, no. 1 (2016): 167–179. Also, see his discussion
in Freedom’s Right, 245.
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G. R. SMULEWICZ-ZUCKER
14. Honneth, “Paradoxes,” 175.
15. Honneth, “Paradoxes,” 179.
16. See, Honneth, “Neoliberalismus?” and Freedom’s Right, 245.
17. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 198.
18. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 198.
19. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 246.
20. Thompson, “The Insufficiency of Recognition,” 73.
21. Teixera, “Sociological Roots,” 605–606.
22. Axel Honneth, The Idea of Socialism: Towards a Renewal, trans. Joseph
Ganahl (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017), 74. My italics.
23. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 127.
24. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 246.
25. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 330–331.
26. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 330.
27. Axel Honneth, “Democracy as Reflexive Cooperation: John Dewey
and the Theory of Democracy Today.” In Axel Honneth, Disrespect:
The Normative Foundations of Critical Theory, trans. John Farrell
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007), 220.
28. Honneth, “Democracy,” 220.
29. Honneth, “Democracy,” 232.
30. Honneth, “Democracy,” 228.
31. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 269.
32. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 330.
33. John Dewey, Liberalism and Social Action (Amherst, NY: Prometheus
Books, 2000), 40.
34. Dewey, Liberalism, 43–44.
35. Dewey, Liberalism, 88–89.
36. Dewey, Liberalism, 89.
37. John Dewey, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy
of Education (New York: The Free Press, 1944), 205.
38. Some of the excellent studies on the impact of neoliberal ideas on institutions include, Mark Blyth, Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and
Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002); Philip Mirowski and Dieter Plehwe (eds.)
The Road from Mount Pelerin: The Making of the Neoliberal Thought
Collective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015); Daniel
Stedman-Jones, Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of
Neoliberal Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014).
39. Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1985), 111.
40. Dahl, Preface, 115.
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LOSING SIGHT OF POWER: THE INADEQUACY OF AXEL HONNETH’S …
143
41. Recently, an argument similar to Dahl’s has been advanced by Elizabeth
Anderson in Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and
Why We Don’t Talk About It) (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2017).
42. Charles E. Lindblom, Politics and Markets: The World’s Political-Economic
Systems (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 32.
43. Lindblom, Politics and Markets, 47.
44. Lindblom, Politics and Markets, 194–198.
45. Lindblom, Politics and Markets, 203.
46. Lindblom, Politics and Markets, 203.
47. Joel Whitebook, “Mutual Recognition and the Work of the Negative.” In
Wilhelm Rehg and James Bohman (eds.) Pluralism and the Pragmatic
Turn: The Transformation of Critical Theory, Essays in Honor of Thomas
McCarthy (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001), 260.
Selected Bibliography
Anderson, Elizabeth (2017) Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives
(and Why We Don’t Talk about It). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Blyth, Mark (2002) Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional
Change in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dahl, Robert A (1985) A Preface to Economic Democracy. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Dewey, John (1944) Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy
of Education. New York: The Free Press.
Dewey, John (2000) Liberalism and Social Action. Amherst, NY: Prometheus
Books.
Honneth, Axel (1995) The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of
Social Conflicts. Translated by Joel Anderson. Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press.
Honneth, Axel (2007) Disrespect: The Normative Foundations of Critical Theory.
Translated by John Farrell. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Honneth, Axel (2012) The I in We: Studies in the Theory of Recognition.
Translated by Joseph Ganahl. Cambridge: Policy Press.
Honneth, Axel (2014) Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic
Life. Translated by Joseph Ganahl. New York: Columbia University Press.
Honneth, Axel (2016) “Neoliberalismus?: Eine skeptische Wortdmeldung
anlässlich einer Studie von David M. Kotz.” WestEnd: Neue Zeitschrift für
Sozialforschung, vol. 13, no. 1: 167–179.
Honneth, Axel (2017) The Idea of Socialism: Towards a Renewal. Translated by
Joseph Ganahl. Cambridge: Polity Press.
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G. R. SMULEWICZ-ZUCKER
Lindblom, Charles E (1977) Politics and Markets: The World’s Political-Economic
Systems. New York: Basic Books.
McNay, Lois (2008) Against Recognition. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Mirowski, Philip and Dieter Plehwe, eds. (2015) The Road from Mount Pelerin:
The Making of the Neoliberal Thought Collective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Stedman-Jones, Daniel (2014) Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the
Birth of Neoliberal Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Teixera, Mariana (2017) “The Sociological Roots and Deficits of Axel Honneth’s
Theory of Recognition.” In The Handbook of Critical Theory, edited by
Michael J. Thompson, 587–609. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Thompson, Michael J (2016) The Domestication of Critical Theory. London:
Rowman & Littlefield International.
Whitebook, Joel (2001) “Mutual Recognition and the Work of the Negative.”
In Pluralism and the Pragmatic Turn: The Transformation of Critical Theory,
Essays in Honor of Thomas McCarthy, edited by Wilhelm Rehg and James
Bohman, 257–291. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
CHAPTER 7
Axel Honneth and the Tradition
of Radical Reformism
Volker Schmitz
In the course of gradually succeeding Jürgen Habermas as the Frankfurt
School’s most prominent contemporary thinker, Axel Honneth has also
come to represent its politics and, to his critics, the de-radicalization that
has characterized this particular variant of critical theory since its second generation came into its own in the 1960s and 1970s. This chapter explores common charges against Honneth’s critical theory by way of
analyzing its relationship to what is arguably the most politically radical
component of the younger Habermas’s work: the possibility of gradually
transforming the liberal-capitalist states of post-war Europe toward democratic socialism. I posit that Honneth’s work can be seen as a continuation of the theme of radical reformism, but that it cannot sketch a path
forward because of the trust he continues to put into the institutionalized achievements of modern market societies. In order to support my
thesis, I first present a brief overview of the concept of radical reformism
in Habermas and Honneth (I). I then contrast their ideas with the program outlined by André Gorz around the same time as Habermas’s original program (II) before drawing on John Dewey and T. H. Marshall’s
V. Schmitz (*)
Department of Political Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
© The Author(s) 2019
V. Schmitz (ed.), Axel Honneth and the Critical Theory
of Recognition, Political Philosophy and Public Purpose,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91980-5_7
145
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V. SCHMITZ
writings on the systemic limits capitalism imposes on progressive political change (III). In my conclusions (IV), I argue that radical reformism
can become a viable perspective only when it is clearly organized toward
a concrete outcome that fully accounts for the pathologies of capitalist
society today—requiring a commitment that cannot easily be reconciled
with the demanding procedural requirements of contemporary Frankfurt
School theory.
I Radical Reformism in Habermas and Honneth
In the 1960s, Habermas sought to overcome what he saw as the anachronistic binary of reform and revolution through the introduction of radical reformism, a program of gradual change that could ultimately affect
the very foundations of modern society. In recent years, his idea has
received a moderate amount of renewed attention. This rediscovery of an
old idea at the current time is perhaps not surprising, given a political climate that is marked both by a high level of crisis (including but not limited to legitimation crisis) and by the absence of a “revolutionary” force
in the classical (i.e., class) understanding. The idea of radical reformism
has regained ground in recent discussions of social change because, in a
nutshell, it promises fundamental change without the requirement—or
indeed, the violence, suffering, and nondemocratic character—of fullblown revolution and its consequences, both intended and unintended.
It promises reform, that is, piecemeal improvement, but it suggests that
a series of reforms can alter the fundamental structures of the status quo
over time. In this section, I hope to show that Honneth’s recent proposals cannot show radical change by means of reform to be both necessary
and possible, suggesting that radical reformism in its most recent iterations provides no solution to today’s crisis.
In The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (STPS),
Habermas uses the idea of radical reformism to sketch the outlines of
a path to the thorough democratization of the public sphere, and thus
ultimately democratic socialism. Throughout the decade, Habermas
would return to the concept that defines both his short-lived support of
the (student) radicals on the left and his subsequent rejection of their
goals and methods. After several decades during which the second
­generation of the Frankfurt School directed their attention elsewhere,
“radical reformism” has been rediscovered in recent years. Habermas
himself updates the concept beginning with his programmatic essay,
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AXEL HONNETH AND THE TRADITION OF RADICAL REFORMISM
147
What does socialism mean today?, at the occasion of the end of the Cold
War, and it has since resurfaced in the work of a small number of thirdgeneration theorists, most recently with Axel Honneth’s proposal of a
new socialism.1
Ia Habermas and the German Left
In STPS, Habermas paints an ambiguous picture of post-war welfare
state capitalism. On the one hand, he understands the active role of the
state in material distribution not as a negation but rather as the necessary development of the ideals of the liberal state and its emphasis on
civic and political rights.2 Under conditions of advanced capitalism and
a highly developed division of labor, the private sphere has shrunk to the
point where the introduction of social rights—understood as “positive”
rights to participation or equality of opportunity—does nothing but
ensure that the liberal idea of “negative” freedom remains more than an
empty phrase. The old model of a public composed of private people is
reconfigured into a:
public of organized private people. Only such a public could […] participate effectively in a process of public communication via the channels of
the public spheres internal to parties and special-interest associations and
on the basis of an affirmation of publicity as regards the negotiations of
organizations with the state and with one another.3
On the other hand, Habermas diagnoses a narrowing of those positive
rights through the rise of powerful actors: unaccountable bureaucrats of
welfare state institutions, on one side, and collective, undemocratic interest groups, on the other; more so than in other European countries, the
German post-war Sozialpartnerschaft represented a class compromise
that was particularly a-political. While Habermas approves the material
distribution achieved through both the welfare state and collective bargaining agreements, he is worried by the latent “re-feudalization” in the
merging of state and societal powers.4 Institutions, parties, and interest
groups distort public opinion into “a display of staged or manipulated
publicity.”5 In other words, the same development that makes a modern
public sphere necessary—vis-à-vis the obsolete liberal model—puts up
barriers to the achievement of a radically democratic public sphere.
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V. SCHMITZ
In order to stop the threat of an authoritarian-institutional colonization of the public sphere, Habermas specifies two conditions to be
met: bureaucratic decisions have to be reduced to a minimum and the
“structural conflict of interests” needs to be resolved in order to overcome the antagonism of a class society.6 Ultimately, Habermas appears
to privilege the second: bureaucratic, that is, nondemocratic decisions
are so prevalent, he argues, because the antagonism between social
groups competing for finite resources makes consensus impossible,
resulting instead—and at best—at an unstable equilibrium between
opposing forces. In this way, differences between classes and social
groups—Habermas does not specify exactly where he sees those structural antagonisms—are the ultimate obstacle on the way to a functioning, radically democratic public sphere.
The goal, then, is the end of scarcity, a state of affairs that Habermas
sees as no longer utopian but rather within reach given the technological advances made over the twentieth century.7 Insofar as scarcity is seen,
at least within the Marxian tradition, as an indispensable condition of
capitalism—that is, the economic system of capitalism can function only
as long as scarcity persists—Habermas’s proposals are indeed radical.
The question, then, is how to arrive at such a radically different state of
affairs. In his engagement with the radical student movement, Habermas
describes radical reformism as “the only way toward conscious, structural
changes” of the latently authoritarian welfare state and likens it to “what
Marx called critical-revolutionary action.” More concretely, that means:
“We need to pursue reforms toward clear and publicly debated objectives, even and especially if the secondary consequences of those objectives cannot be reconciled with the mode of production of the existing
system.”8 Crucially, the competition between economic and political
systems can be fruitfully evaluated only when the criteria are changed
from economic growth, technological progress, and private wealth to
the degree in which all social spheres are open to radically democratic
processes of decision making.9 In other words, Habermas proposes to
replace a debate centered around the competing ideas of socialism and
capitalism as totalities with a debate on pragmatic steps toward democratization; this radical alternative is to take place in all social spheres, but
not across them.
Habermas presciently warns of two consequences of an overly (and
irrationally) revolutionary attitude that understands democratization
as a radical break with the totality of German society, and thus, of its
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149
constitutional order: on the one hand, he fears that the “neo-anarchist”
mindset of the minority of student activists may result in political violence that invites counter-violence and repression; on the other, he worries about a concomitant de-politicization of the majority of protesting
students that may ultimately channel justified and legitimate concerns
over anti-democratic tendencies in West Germany into privatistic debates
of lifestyle and individual, anti-social fulfilment.10 Although leading in
seemingly opposite directions, both tendencies are marked by a rejection
of a rational analysis of society and of a commitment to free discourse
and democracy; as a result, both are ineffective at best.11
In the public debate about the status of the university in the 1960s,
Habermas occupies a complicated middle position equally opposed to
the repressive measures of both university administrations and the state
in response to student protests and to the totalizing radical position that
seeks to connect student protests with ongoing class struggles in the
West and the anti-imperialist and anti-colonial struggles in the developmental world. Following Adorno rather than Marcuse, Habermas’s latter point relies on two fundamental convictions. The first is a belief in
the relatively advanced achievement of the West German constitution as
a cornerstone of anti-totalitarianism. To reject it as inherently or latently
fascist would be to deny the historic progress it represents.12 Although
he quickly comes to regret and retracts the term, Habermas goes as far
as labeling the anti-constitutional factions of the student protests around
Rudi Dutschke as “left fascism” and draws parallel to the voluntarist theory of revolution by Georges Sorel.13
Habermas’s second reason for opposing revolutionary student politics is the absence of a revolutionary situation.14 Looking back on the
tentative alliance between students and workers in the May 1968 protests, Habermas identifies even in this most successful event a fundamental incommensurability between the respective motivations of the two
groups.15 Similarly, he understands the solidarity expressed by the students with the Việt Cộng, African Americans, Cuban revolutionaries, or
Brazilian guerilla fighters, to be purely emotional and “without political significance. The situations here and there are as incomparable as the
problems they pose and the means necessary to overcome them.”16 As
a consequence, extra-constitutional (and often violent) means of bringing about radical change in the absence of a revolutionary situation are
illegitimate, ineffective, and potentially threaten the progress already
achieved.
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Habermas’s position on the German student protests illustrates
the complicated and frequently unclear nature of his concept of radical reformism. On the one hand, he appears to at least tacitly endorse
radical structural change if the capitalist mode of production prevents
widespread democratization of all social spheres. On the other hand,
his insistence on the independence of those spheres precludes the development of any totalizing alternative theory of society and the identification of any one primary structural cause of repression and alienation.
As a consequence, Habermas’s initial sketch of radical reformism cannot
provide a clear connection between the radical reformism within separate
spheres and the abolishment of antagonistic conflicts at the core of capitalist society.
Ib Axel Honneth: A New Version of Radical Reformism?
Habermas returns to his vision of a noncommunist European socialism in his programmatic essay in the New Left Review after the fall of
the Berlin wall. The task of the noncommunist left now is “that of
transforming socialist ideas into the radically reformist self-­
criticism
of a capitalist society […].”17 “[R]adical reformism is no longer
­characterized by the particular key demands it might make, but rather
because it aims to focus on social processes and demand a redistribution of power: the socially integrating force of solidarity should be in
a position to stake its claim against the other social forces, money and
administrative power, through a wide range of democratic forums and
institutions.”18
In time, Habermas himself came to identify a problem in his earlier approach: a tacit and somewhat accidental reliance on the assumption of a vaguely Marxist-Hegelian totality—a position he had long
left behind.19 Habermas’s change of heart is crucial for any discussion
of radical reformism today because it returns to the table the fundamental assumption underlying different versions of the idea as a whole.
Where open-ended theories of revolution (with the prime example being
Marcuse’s “indeterminate negation” in the 1960s) can remain agnostic
about the status of an alternative social system, the “reformist” part of
radical reformism introduces important complications: unlike the “great
refusal,” the individual steps of radical reformism consist of relatively
small-scale changes, and each has to be geared toward something. By the
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end of the Cold War, Habermas concludes that it is, in fact, impossible
to seek radical change without first positing a radical (and totalizing)
alternative external to the world we live in, and hence, without violating
the anti-idealist ethos of the Frankfurt School.
In his own way, Honneth has attempted to overcome this problem by
relying on a different concept developed by Habermas: normative reconstruction. Normative reconstruction allows the theorist to go beneath
the surface of institutions and rediscover their true purpose. This is an
essentially Hegelian project, separating the actual form of institutions as
they function today from their rational kernel. This project enables us
to find what Honneth has called the “normative surplus,” the large and
untapped potential for further social progress already weaved into the
social fabric.
Through his emphasis on the role of human agency in the development of institutions, Honneth’s refusal to accept system imperatives as
fixed boundaries of democratic politics represents an important break
with Habermasian skepticism. Honneth’s social theory of recognition
has consistently emphasized the lifeworld itself and posits that all institutions ultimately rely on ethical consensus. Structurally, at least, this
would suggest that radical change is always possible: the lifeworld can
resist “colonization” because any possibly colonizing force (be it the
logic of markets or state institutions) rely for their continued existence
on ethical consensus.
On the other hand, Honneth’s theory limits the possibility of radical change through the idea of evolutionary social change. Honneth’s
original account on recognition was informed by Marshall’s narrative of
expanding rights in European societies since the eighteenth century (see
below). For Honneth, the achievement of those rights would not have
been possible without radical struggles, but, in Hegelian fashion, those
are ultimately merely instrumental and necessary in order to carry on the
project of a rational social order. From this point of view, modern history
is a history of normative progress: Honneth does not deny that even our
current social order is marked by pathologies of exclusion and oppression, but those are understood as signs of remaining vestiges of irrationalism rather than fundamental flaws.
In Freedom’s Right (FR), Honneth specifies this idea by elaborating
his own interpretation of normative reconstruction and immanent critique Immanent critique can rely only on developments that are already
taking place somewhere in society (rather than on an utopian vision
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V. SCHMITZ
severed from current social norms and conditions). To Honneth, the
ethical and increasingly democratic consensus at the heart of institutions—
the “we” at the core of personal relationship patterns, the market economy, and the public sphere—suggests that critique is valid only when
it relies on the institutions themselves: normative reconstruction thus
comes to mean identifying the core values at the heart of institutions and
critiquing their workings in the real world. In Hegelian terms, Honneth
is critiquing the actual with the rational, because the latter is the former’s
reason of existence. Recent developments in capitalism, for instance, are
scrutinized against the backdrop of the ideal market—ideal in terms of
the values and expectations attached to it. It would be absurd, from this
standpoint, to defend the actually existing market on abstract grounds
such as “economic growth;” it can be defended only to the extent that
it would not have become a principle of modern society had it not been
supported by ethical consensus, and it could not have gained that consensus without connotations of fairness and benefits to all participants.20
Crucially, however, Honneth’s endorsement of the market economy also
relies on a contention he mentions only in passing: “the fact that there
do not seem to be any practical alternatives.”21
Most recently, Honneth has clarified his political ideas in The Idea of
Socialism (IS). Although he does not use the term, it offers a succinct
image of what a Honnethian version of radical reformism would look
like. Again, the fundamental assertion Honneth makes is that (radical)
change always remains possible because there is no necessary division
between citizens’ wants and choices and the institutions that shape their
life. On the other hand, this same reliance on ethical consensus, in combination with an evolutionary image of society, severely limits the horizon of legitimate change because the overthrow of institutions directly
violates the quasi-democratic consensus upon which they rely. Where
Habermas defended existing institutions on purely instrumental reason—
as they serve as a bulwark against totalitarianism—Honneth provides
them with increasingly independent normative value.
Furthermore, Honneth turns a question that thinkers such as
Habermas, Claus Offe, and Nancy Fraser have posed since the 1970s
into a simple assertion. The question was originally posed as follows: why
are the “New Social Movements” not carried by those most affected by
what the movements oppose? Honneth’s answer amounts to a normative
undergirding of this observation: even if questions of labor may remain
at the center of what socialism could mean today, he strongly rejects the
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153
idea that it should be primarily addressed by the workers themselves.22
Not only that, but subjectivity itself is strongly rejected, an approach that
follows Habermas but is more difficult to accommodate Honneth’s own
focus on the lifeworld: “contemporary socialism should not search for
representatives of the new in the old […] at the concrete level of individual or collective subjectivities. This would put far too much emphasis
on the ephemeral and the contingent in the increasingly rapid process
of social transformation.”23 Instead, Honneth imagines an agonistic
public sphere in which radical political positions are theorized to coexist with constitutional boundaries or, in Honneth’s terms, “normative
constraints.”24
For those attracted to the Frankfurt School because of its radical
origins and potential, Honneth’s theory of social change can be promising and frustrating in equal measures. The theoretical foundations of
his political proposals remove the boundary of democratic politics by his
rejection of the systems/lifeworld division. At the same time, this emancipatory potential is immediately paralyzed by the self-imposed limitation
of legitimacy to already-existing institutions and to political ideologies
that forego collective subjectivity. Honneth has addressed the latter
charge in his preface to IS, explaining that the appearance of conservatism stemmed solely from his self-imposed “methodological restrictions”
followed in FR.25 Freed from those restrictions, the project he describes
as socialism in IS is indeed far more open to the idea of radical transformation, even if ideas in that vein are presented as a perhaps dubious but
necessary by-product of free discourse: “In the course of [the examination of the market], nothing can be excluded as being obviously wrong,
not even objections to the right of succession or the possibility of common ownership among producers.”26
At the same time, Honneth reiterates the fundamental points made
in FR, that is, the conviction that we can read into modern history a
progressive sequence of consensual achievements forged into institutions. In this way, Honneth can fill the gap left open by the ejection
of specific historical actors and their subjectivities: “publicly accepted
breakthroughs, i.e., historical events that Kant once interpreted as
‘Geschichtszeichen’, are much more reliable indicators of the chances
of socialism than even the most frequent appearances of social movements.”27 The question, of course, is whether this solution indeed overcomes the problem. Among the universe of institutions and conventions
established over the last 250 years, what is or is not a Geschichtszeichen is
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V. SCHMITZ
by no means obvious. Honneth’s pertinent example is the German welfare state, but he still requires some kind of procedure that could distinguish the establishment of the welfare state as a Geschichtszeichen from
what he considers the misdevelopment of the welfare state’s demise in
recent decades. The result is a variant of Habermas’s ideas with a conservative bend.
The former strain is evident in Honneth’s elaboration of who or what
should serve as the “directing” force of social progress: “the appropriate institution is that of a ‘public sphere’ in which all participants take
part as freely as possible. […] The sphere of democratic action stands
out among the other functionally complementary spheres of freedom; it
is prima inter pares, because it is the only place in which problems from
every corner of social life can be articulated for all ears and be presented
as a task to be solved in cooperation.”28 If this were all, then it would
be difficult to see not only in which ways Honneth hopes to advance
past Habermas, but even how his proposal meaningfully differs. If the
preface to IS suggested that the embrace of institutions, and particularly
the market, in FR was merely an unintended by-product of Honneth’s
investigation into the historical development of “social freedom,” such
expectations are not borne out in the main part of the text. The public
sphere is superior to other institutions not because it is essentially geared
toward mutual understanding but because it alone can bring together
antagonisms from other social spheres. As long as Marxian socialism
was focused on economic relations, conflicts could be expected to be
resolved, one way or another, within the economic sphere. This changes
once a totality grounded on capitalism is replaced with system of differentiated subsystems: “After all, there is no longer merely an opposition
between ‘workers’ and ‘capitalists’, but also equally relevant and conflictual antagonisms between family members and citizens of the polity.”29
By asserting that those “antagonisms” are “equally relevant and conflictual,” Honneth could suggest, either, that family members and fellow
citizens are locked into structurally conditioned zero-sum conflicts—an
unlikely possibility—or, that capitalists and workers are struggling for
mutual recognition and inclusion, on the basis that the structural environment in which they find themselves is essentially geared toward harmony without, however, making good that promise just yet. The main
difference to Habermas, then, appears to be that the possible results of
public sphere discourse are constrained by the normative value attributed
to institutions that already govern social life.
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AXEL HONNETH AND THE TRADITION OF RADICAL REFORMISM
155
Like Habermas, Honneth chooses a pragmatic approach to political
change. Both reject the idea of holistic alternative system and advocate
for experimental reforms toward greater equality and freedom. On the
radical side, neither shies away from at least considering the possibility
that the structural constraints of capitalism may need to be overcome
in order for radical democracy to flourish. On the reformist side, both
explicitly reject political action beyond the possibilities afforded by existing institutions. Radical reformism in this tradition can thus be understood as a commitment to reformism in which radical change appears as
a by-product of unflinchingly endorsing institutionalized social progress
as reconstructed by critical theory. This approach also necessarily alters
the position of capitalism in any social analysis: if “external” alternative
models of society are not a legitimate source of criticism, any rejection
of capitalism needs to demote it from the crucial determinant of modern
society to a contingent feature of modernity.
It is only because of its demoted status that economic relations can
be discussed in the public sphere at all. Critical intervention in this area,
then, is in no meaningful way different from other advocacy groups
established within the existing political and economic system. Rather
than (radical) parties or social movements, then, socialism now comes to
be “predicated on the existence of a global organizational center on the
model of Amnesty International or Greenpeace […] [I]f socialism is to
live up to the new international order, it will have to follow the model
of globally successful non-governmental organizations and become an
international representative organ for the moral aim of realizing social
freedom.”30 (ibid.: 102)
II Radical Reformism from Below—André
Gorz’s Strategy for Labor
In contrast, the political strategy outlined by André Gorz takes the capitalist mode of production as its starting point and contrasts it with a
model of decentralized radical democracy. If it is reformist, that is due
only to a combination of strategic concerns—like Habermas, Gorz recognized the absence of a revolutionary situation—and the nature of his
alternative system that focuses on the de-alienating force of direct action
taken by those immediately affected.
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Gorz is remembered today, despite the many turns in his political
conviction, as a “disillusioned leftist” who came to forcefully reject communism and the glorification of the proletariat in orthodox Marxism.
In recent years, however, his Strategy for Labor from the mid-1960s has
received renewed attention.31 In the 1960s, Gorz was a fellow traveler of the specifically French tradition of existential Marxism, informed
by Alexandre Kojève’s reading of Hegel and spearheaded by Jean-Paul
Sartre and, for a while, Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It is during this time
that Gorz proposes an alternative to what he, too, saw as the false
dichotomy of reform and revolution. Aside from theoretical problems,
the all-or-nothing attitude of Marxist parties effectively deflated any
hopes of political success in the West: because the proletarian revolution
was not on the horizon, the maximalist mindset precluded any other avenues of furthering the cause of socialism in Europe and the U.S. Reforms
within the existing political structures could alleviate some of the material
hardship of the working class, but they would—and did—simultaneously
further entrench the class structure of society and demobilize and
de-radicalize workers: short-term, concrete gains were to be paid for by
long-term impotence and submission.
In the autonomous labor movement in Italy, Gorz saw an inspiration
for a different, radical, or revolutionary kind of reform. In his introduction, Gorz draws a distinction between such reforms and reformism:
A reformist reform is one which subordinates its objective to the criteria
of rationality and practicability of a given system and policy. Reformism
rejects those objectives and demands – however deep the need for them –
which are incompatible with the preservation of the system.
On the other hand, a not necessarily reformist reform is one which is
conceived not in terms of what is possible within the framework of a given
system and administration, but in view of what should be made possible in
terms of human needs and demands.
In other words, a struggle for non-reformist reform – for anti-capitalist
reform – is one which does not base its validity and its right to exist on
capitalist criteria, needs, and rationales.32
In an interesting parallel to Honneth’s embrace of Deweyan democracy (and its objects as “ends in view”), Gorz insists that the possibility of socialism—defined in classical terms as “no less than the
hegemony of the working class, the public ownership of the means of
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production”—can serve as a motivating force of political action and
mobilization only when it is “within reach.”33 This line of thinking also
provides an interesting contrast to Honneth’s contention that “there
do not seem to be any practical alternatives.” In turn, this immediately
leads to the question of what kinds of reforms may bring socialism within
reach. Like Habermas, Gorz explicitly rejects the plane of material redistribution as a suitable venue. Economic inequality may have sufficed as
a motivating force in the nineteenth century, when membership in the
working class meant extreme poverty, physical suffering, and most likely
early death, but with the improvements in material distribution accomplished over the twentieth century, it could no longer serve to justify
the risks and dangers of radical politics. Rather than assuaged economic
hardship, then, Gorz identifies alienation at the origin of contemporary
radical politics. The parallels to Honneth’s own project of recognition as
the moral grammar of social struggles are obvious here: where material
redistribution had improved—Gorz is writing in the 1960s, after all, the
economic heyday of the Western working class—alienation had in fact
become worse. Alienation in consumer capitalism affects the worker as
a ‘whole’, as producer, citizen and human being whose everyday existence allows her to reject capitalism “not only as a system of exploitation,
but also as an authoritarian society with deeply-rooted anti-democratic
social relations, as a civilization with inverted priorities, as a system of
waste and destruction.”34 The crucial difference between Gorz’s solution
and Honneth’s lies in the understanding of this alienation: in Gorz (as,
to some extent, in Habermas), it is a symptom of welfare capitalism; in
Honneth, it has its own independent existence.
This “total” image of the worker should not be read to imply that
Gorz gives up on the Marxist focus on “work” as the fundamental
human activity. Rather, the work situation itself, the purpose of work,
and the reproduction of labor power, all serve to connect work-related
issues to those of social organization as a whole: at the workplace, the
worker has no autonomy, individually or collectively over his work; the
purpose of his work is not the product, but the accumulation of capital; and the reproduction of labor power which, in its capitalist form,
neglects collective needs (such as housing) vis-à-vis economic expansion and the constructed demand for superfluous goods. None of these
larger issues can be improved with higher wages or added vacation
time: demands in that direction would be exactly what Gorz considers
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reformist reforms. Neither is a return to pre-industrial production
desirable—even if it were possible.
Instead, Gorz uses the example of recent victories accomplished by
the autonomous labor movement in Italy when he outlines nonreformist
reforms. Gorz dedicates one chapter to each of the three politically relevant aspects of work outlined above; for the purpose at hand, it will suffice to sum them up briefly. As far as the “work situation” is concerned,
Gorz argues for a strategy that encompasses many different levels of politics: from the shop to the company to the industrial sector, and further
to the city, the regional, and the national level of industrial politics. On
all these levels, Gorz demands autonomous democratic decisions that
return the control over the organization and planning of work to the
workers and local population, respectively.35
Beyond industrial policy, the “purpose of work” aspect relies on establishing local autonomous control over public investment, in order to
make “collective needs” the object of work done in the region. Those
needs include all aspects of urban planning broadly defined: adequate
public housing and public transportation, child care, education, and cultural institutions.36 The third aspect, the “reproduction of labor power,”
remains the most general in Gorz’s explanation. Roughly along the lines
of Antonio Gramsci’s prison writings, Gorz suggests the maintenance
of a theoretical alternative to capitalism as a kind of counter-hegemony.
Gorz identifies as the reason for the pacification of the class struggle the
increasing role of technocracy, the growing influence of a mediating class
of ostensibly apolitical bureaucrats and expert. This group saves capitalism from itself insofar as it prevents short-term interests and excessive exploitation that would ruin the continued existence of the status
quo. Technocratic control can retain its claim to legitimacy only when,
(a) no alternative rationality is proposed, (b) alternative models of social
organization remain underdeveloped, and (c) organized labor serves
as a counterweight to capitalists in the power it exerts on the state and
its technocratic class.37 By offering a coherent model of an alternative
society, the “Left” can wage an ideological struggle against the defenders of capitalism. All of these proposals illustrate the difference between
reformist and nonreformist reforms. The reforms favored by Gorz are
particularly interesting because they operate on the cultural and on the
economic and political level simultaneously: on the one hand, the gradual appropriation of economic and political power can only be achieved
if they are directed by an alternative vision of society. On the other
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hand, alternative models remain utopian and “out of reach” without the
demonstration effect of political action: without the prior attainment of
power and successful collective self-management, socialism cannot reach
the credibility as a rational social order enjoyed by the already-existing
(and at least somewhat rational) order. The technocratic class, corresponding roughly to Habermas’s bureaucrats, is both an ideological
opponent—as administrators, technocrats are supposed to be “inherently” conservative—and an object of contention.
Like Habermas, Honneth, and Dewey (below), then, Gorz also
emphasizes the role of discourse and persuasive argumentation. At the
same time, he does not present this discourse in the intersubjective
terms that have become the trademark of the contemporary Frankfurt
School. In his elaboration on the public sphere as the central venue of
changes on the path to socialism, Honneth maintains that “Neither a
certain social class – be it the industrial proletariat or addled white-collar
workers – nor some other social movement can be considered the
primary addressee of socialism. Socialists today should attempt […] to
influence all those who, within the sphere of democratic interaction, have
an open ear for complaints over grievances, discrimination and the use
of power, all of which point to symptomatic restrictions within the various spheres of society.”38 This is important not primarily because of the
skepticism regarding the notion of class, but because the only possible (if
also rejected) role of working people here is that of addressee rather than
political subject. The separation between socialists and workers, once
seen as a problem of Western Marxism and its offshoot, is thereby completed and even normatively justified. In contrast, Gorz retains the “old”
notion of a political subject and theorizes whom they should address.
Continuing the Gramscian intervention, Gorz’s capitalist “state” is
identified not with political office holders, the military, or the police, but
a professional class of managers and bureaucrats whose actions, by means
of channeling public investment, shape the totality of every individual’s life, from housing, education, and healthcare to cultural institutions
and the organization and purpose of work. Despite these adjustments,
Gorz nonetheless retains the basic division of society into capital and
labor, with a thin-if-influential groups of state technocrats in the middle.
Contrary to Habermas and Honneth, then, Gorz understands the struggle to overthrow capitalism as the struggle of the lower classes against
capitalists. Consequently, he does not put his hope on alleviating material
differences in order to arrive at some kind of ‘better’ speech situation
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V. SCHMITZ
between more equal participants; to the contrary, his goal is to intensify the class struggle and strengthen class consciousness, so that, ideally,
two competing and within-reach reach models of society appear—one
that serves a minority at the price of widespread alienation, and a socialist alternative. Habermas had identified capital as a systemic problem
rather than as political opposition, and the administrative state as a necessary but problematic correction to it. The latent authoritarianism of the
welfare state may not have been brought about without capitalism, but
its dangers are nonetheless independent at this stage in history. In contrast, Gorz’s model can allow for much less autonomy on the part of the
state/technocracy. This difference ultimately leads to two vastly different
strategies: where Habermas hoped to decrease class differences in order
to combat the Weberian nightmare of the bureaucratic iron cage, Gorz
sees the latter as a mere outgrowth of the former—it is capitalism that
needs to be overcome first and foremost.
Another crucial difference to Habermas—as well as to the recent
efforts to revive his agenda—is Gorz’s focus on alienation as an individual experience. This approach firmly situates him in the tradition of
both Sartrean existential Marxism and Herbert Marcuse’s work in the
1960s.39 Where Habermas sought to redress the social pathologies of his
days by expanding communicative rationality and public discourse in all
fields of public interest (presumably including many of the same institutions listed by Gorz), Gorz’s goal is the emancipation of individual workers from the multilevel oppression of capitalist power. In the 1960s, at
least, Habermas and Gorz appear to share a “total” conception of society and an interest in restoring somewhat decentralized power structures
and direct control over a variety of institutions by those affected. In that
sense, both can be seen as endorsing a democratic-socialist alternative
to the Western European welfare state of the time. Despite these similarities, however, Habermas and Gorz represent two radically different
directions of critical social theory, based on two very different narratives
of the role of capitalism and the modern state.
Gorz’s clear and Habermas’s tacit embrace of a—however vaguely
defined—social totality separates both from Honneth’s firm insistence on
the functional differentiation of modern society, a feature he understands
as a “normative fact”40 (Honneth 2017: 83).
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III Reforms and Capitalism in Dewey and Marshall
In order to better situate Honneth’s ideas, the theories of T. H. Marshall
and John Dewey are worth revisiting. I hope to show that Honneth’s
silence on crucial features of both theories provides us with a better idea
of why his theory falls short of the expectations associated with radical
reformism. The case of Dewey is particularly important here: not only
because he is Honneth’s primary reference point in IS, but because the
current, gradual decline of the welfare state is slowly moving advanced
industrial society away from the golden age of welfare state capitalism—
the setting for Habermas, Gorz, and Marshall—and toward a situation
increasingly akin to the early 1930s.
IIIa T. H. Marshall: Radical Reformism
as the Consequence of Social Rights?
T. H. Marshall’s narrative of the expansion of rights, from civil rights in
the eighteenth century to political rights in the nineteenth century and
social rights in the twentieth century, is well known and continues to
inform contemporary discussions in the social sciences, not least in different variants of modernization and democratization theory. Rather
than revisiting the basic structure of Marshall’s argument as it was made
in 1952, the point of bringing it back into the discussion is to take
seriously Marshall’s own revisions throughout the following decades.
Unlike many writers inspired by his work, Marshall himself continuously
adjusted his analysis of modern Western society in light of social and
political developments.
Among the forgotten elements of Marshall’s original thesis in
Citizenship and Social Class is his insistence that the Keynesian system
of welfare capitalism in Europe after World War II is stable despite the
many inconsistencies between its constitutive elements—a position fairly
close to Habermas’s narrative in STPS. In particular, Marshall is cognizant, from the very beginning, of both the continuities that led from
civic and political to social rights and the essential contrasts between the
two: whereas the first two can easily be integrated into a market-based
ideology of socioeconomic inequality, the latter actively undermine
this logic with their emphasis of equality.41 His later works, informed
by his increasing skepticism regarding the possibility of maintaining a
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V. SCHMITZ
compromise between those antithetical trends, should thus be seen as a
sophistication of his initial analysis, rather than as an abrupt break.
In his 1972 essay, Value Problems of Welfare Capitalism as well as his
Afterthought written at the time of its republication in 1981, Marshall
turns to the disparate elements that make up post-war European societies in more detail. He distinguishes three pillars: capitalism—synonymous
with the market as the economic principle; democracy as the basis for
majoritarian procedures that allow for the wants of citizens to be translated into a mixed economy; and the welfare state, which arises from
popular demands against market-based allocation of resources but does
not, in practice, respond to the wants of citizens but to their needs,
granting a relatively autonomous and latently authoritarian or at least
paternalistic role to administrators and bureaucrats.42 At the same time,
Marshall understands the welfare state to be essentially “altruistic,” and
this altruism relies on a particular ethical consensus that remains somewhat separated from both market and democratic forces.43 Marshall thus
appears to split the difference between Jürgen Habermas’s characterization of the welfare state as an external force acting upon the lifeworld,
and Axel Honneth’s counter-thesis of institutions as arising from within
the ethical consensus of the lifeworld. In Marshall, the welfare state is
both, a reflection of the lifeworld and a potentially “colonizing” force
that shapes a society’s values.
What makes these writings so interesting is Marshall’s critical narrative of social rights within the development of the welfare state. In 1952,
Marshall theorized social rights as intrinsically anti-market, but this
characterization was based on a “socialist” reading of what those rights
would entail, differing greatly from their “liberal” contents that have
since become hegemonic. Marshall expected social rights to gradually
dismantle the structural causes responsible for the reproduction of class
differences, with education as the most prominent factor. By 1972, the
development of the welfare state has altered the initial picture: its focus
on the alleviation of poverty leads Marshall to distinguish between the
problem of poverty—one that can and should be addressed by existing
institutions of the state—and that of inequality. As Marshall puts it, in
a democratic-welfare-capitalist society, “poverty is a disease, but inequality is an essential structural feature.”44 Both the welfare state and
to a lesser extent democracy now come to “legitimize” inequality to the
extent that they successfully combat poverty and thus stabilize capitalism. As a consequence, persistent inequality comes to delegitimize the
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democratic-welfare-capitalist consensus that in its then-current form cannot effectively oppose it.45
By 1981, Marshall elaborates on these thoughts by examining in
detail what has been lost in the evolution of social rights into the paternalistic welfare state. He returns to the writings of Evan Durbin, the
British economist and Fabian Labour MP, who described his political
stance as that of a “militant moderate.” In his quest to find a promising
strategy to achieve democratic socialism in Britain, Durbin had initially
put his trust simply in democracy itself: majority rule would ultimately
lead to the “‘transfer of economic control and the redistribution of real
income’” while retaining civil and political rights as requirements of
democracy.46 As time went on, Durbin turned his attention to the ways
in which the welfare state itself came to shape the public discourse of
social rights and social justice: the first economic demand—control, that
is, socialization of the economy—had been dropped entirely, and redistribution had been replaced by welfare and social services. In response,
Durbin recommended to adopt as “socialist strategy” a position that
would neglect material compensation in favor of structural change
that targeted the causes of inequality rather than their consequences.47
Marshall adds to Durbin’s analysis that the idea of the welfare state had
changed from a vision of a better society to a strictly delimited set of
measures and policies that did not negate the existing social order. In
his interpretation, this change was in large part due to the unreasonable expectation that an idea of “welfare” could provide the glue that
connected democracy and socialism. As an object of existing political
forces and institutions, it was difficult and perhaps impossible to expect
that it would do more than inform the strictly limited terrain of “social
policy.”48
Although he maintains that the existence of competitive markets is
necessary for a democratic society, Marshall’s concrete proposals would
limit their reach dramatically. Among the fields from which the market should be entirely excluded, he lists “health, education, the ‘personal social services’ and […] community services for the preservation
and development of the physical, social, and cultural environment.”49
Perhaps more radical, however, is his rejection of mixed measures that
combine market forces with subsidies, exemplified by affordable school
lunches. Not only do those mixed measures water down the democratic
aspects of the welfare state, but they interfere at too late a stage in the
process of production of distribution: in a somewhat abrupt and even
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shocking conclusion, Marshall states that the “anti-social elements in the
capitalist market system which still persist in the mixed economy have
to be tackled by action within the economy itself […] And there I must
stop.”50
The cryptic ending to his Afterthought seems to hint at a new-found
radicalization which remains unspecified. It is at this point that Tom
Bottomore’s interpretation links Marshall’s neglected later work with the
idea of radical reformism. Bottomore transfers the ideas of Hungarian
sociologist Zsuzsa Ferge in her description of (communist) Hungarian
society into a capitalist framework and distinguishes between “social”
and “societal” policy: whereas the former denotes the practices of the
welfare state (that is, measures dealing with the consequences of capitalism and inequality), the latter are targeted at the causes of inequality
and carry the potential to reform capitalism out of existence.51 Quoting
Ferge, Bottomore defines societal policies to include “systemic social
intervention at all points of the cycle of the reproduction of social life,
with the aim of changing the structure of society.”52
The timing of Bottomore’s rediscovery of Marshall’s work is no
coincidence. Writing in 1992, he combines the experience of much
slower growth rates since the 1970s and the ascent of what is often
termed “neoliberalism” in Britain and the U.S. with the collapse of
so-called “real existing socialism” and the anticipated expansion of the
European Union. In what turned out to be an overly optimistic prognosis, Bottomore correctly predicts the slow death of the post-war welfare
state, but he also expects that the inclusion of post-Communist states
Eastern Europe and heavily social-democratic countries like Sweden or
Austria would enable the European Union to lead the way to democratic
socialism through societal policies. With these considerations, Bottomore
comes remarkably close to Habermas’s hopes at the time.
IIIb Capitalism and Democracy in Dewey
As much as Marshall’s original narrative of the gradual extension of
rights informs Honneth’s own project, The Idea of Socialism takes John
Dewey’s Liberalism and Social Action (LSA) as its primary reference
point. Roosevelt’s New Deal America arguably marks the point at which
socialist ideals and liberal reforms approached each other more closely
than before or since, and what Dewey calls “liberalism” at the time
(1935) can easily be read as an early version of radical reformism. After
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describing the shortcoming of classical liberalism under condition of
advanced capitalism, Dewey sums up his program:
In short, liberalism must now become radical, meaning by ‘radical’ perception of the necessity of thoroughgoing changes in the set-up of institutions
and corresponding activity to bring the changes to pass. […] The process
of producing the changes will be, in any case, a gradual one. But ‘reforms’
that deal now with this abuse and now with that without having a social
goal based upon an inclusive plan, differ entirely from effort at re-forming,
in its literal sense, the institutional scheme of things. […] If radicalism be
defined as perception of need for radical change, then today any liberalism
which is not also radicalism is irrelevant and doomed.53
Dewey’s central theme of “intelligence” informs much of the descriptions of the public sphere in Habermas and Honneth. Beyond this general commonality, Dewey also rejects the means of (armed) revolution
and the lens of class struggle as the primary tool of historical analysis.54 Furthermore, like all authors summarized in this chapter, Dewey
understands changes in the economic sphere as a means rather than an
end: the goal, in every case, is that of (social) freedom and cooperation.
Within this shared project, however, two important points highlight the
differences between LSA and Honneth’s ideas in IS.
The first one regards institutions. Dewey rejects the thesis of class
struggle because he sees it as conflating two very different developments:
there is, on the one hand, the progress made in science and technology,
which for the first time in history allows humankind to escape the conditions of scarcity; on the other hand, there are institutions which predate
those advances and have gradually turned into anachronistic obstacles to
social progress:
The institution of private property long antedated feudal times. It is the
institution with which men have lived, with few exceptions, since the dawn
of civilization. […] Since the legal institutions and patterns of mind characteristic of ages of civilizations still endure, there exists the conflict that
brings confusion into very phase of present life. The problem of bringing
into being a new social orientation and organization is, when reduced to
its ultimates, the problem of using the new resources of production […]
for social ends […]. Institutional relationships fixed in the pre-scientific
age stands in the way of accomplishing this great transformation. Lag in
mental and moral patters provides the bulwark of the older institutions;
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in expressing the past they still express present beliefs, outlooks and
purposes.55
In contrast to Honneth, then, “market” institutions are not an expression of modernity. This difference becomes even clearer when Dewey
turns to liberalism’s task of mediating change. Like Honneth, Dewey
notes the continued importance of institutions and conventions, but his
tone is closer to Marx’s famous “nightmare on the brains of the living”
in the Eighteenth Brumaire than it is to Honneth’s history of ethical progress and normative surplus: “We are always possessed by habits and customs, and this fact signifies that we are always influenced by the inertia
and the momentum of forces temporally outgrown but nevertheless still
present with us as a part of our being.”56
Following this different perspective on contemporary institutions,
Dewey concludes that remaining true to the ideals of early liberalism
now requires moving beyond those institutions entirely:
The idea that liberalism cannot maintain its ends and at the same time
reverse its conception of the means by which they are to be attained
is folly. The ends can now be achieved only by reversal of the means to
which early liberalism was committed. Organized social planning, put into
effect for the creation of an order in which industry and finance are socially
directed in behalf of institutions that provide the material basis for the cultural liberation and growth of individuals is now the sole method of social
action by which liberalism can realize its professed aims.57
What sets Dewey apart from both Honneth and Gorz is the combination
of a generally favorable account of the origin of (market) institutions—
they did in some form reflect ideals still worth striving for—and a
critique of their actual function in contemporary society. As a result, his
liberalism turns out to be far more radical than Honneth’s socialism—
both in its firm commitment to a socialized economy and in its critical
distance to institutions and traditions. At the same time, Dewey does
not supply a concrete strategy akin to Gorz’s. In part, this is due to the
feeling of crisis that permeates LSA: liberal capitalism is bound to either
be radically reformed along socialist lines or fall victim to the pyrrhic
victor in the fight between fascism and Soviet communism. To Dewey,
the necessity of transforming the economic system is “surely evident to
one who is willing to observe and honestly report the existing scene.”58
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I return to this matter-of-fact assertion in my conclusions, but it is
important to note that by the procedural standards of the Frankfurt
School since Habermas, claims of the “surely evident” type can no
longer be taken at face value.
IV Conclusions
Liberal welfare state capitalism today is in obvious crisis. At the same
time, there is no sign of a “revolutionary situation,” if that means the
presence of a clear alternative vision carried by an organized and potentially powerful social movement or party—regardless of whether the
existence of such an actor would be welcomed or not. Under these conditions, radical reformism appears uniquely suited to improve on the status quo, and Axel Honneth’s critical theory of recognition can be seen
as one variant of second- and third-generation Frankfurt School theory’s
most radical current.
As I hope to have suggested throughout the paper, however, radical reformism remains an elusive hybrid. Depending on one’s particular
elaboration, it is either reformism with potentially far-reaching consequences, or the desire for revolutionary change by reformist means. To
Honneth (and the young Habermas), radical change can be achieved
through experimentation within an existing framework. In Honneth’s
work, the idea of the market carries connotations of fairness and benefits for all its participants, and our current form of capitalism violates
those norms. In contrast, Gorz’s strategy—as well as Marshall’s reconsideration of the staying power of capitalism and Dewey’s interpretation
of market institutions as anachronistic and pre-scientific—identifies the
market (used more or less synonymously with capitalism in their work,
as opposed to Honneth’s) as the primary cause of alienation and social
pathologies. In their work, capitalism is constitutive of the public sphere
within which second- and third-generation critical theorists located
their radical experimentation. Whether it is Gorz’s ideal of autonomous
worker councils gradually creating a viable alternative to capitalism or
Bottomore’s “societal politics,” this line of thinking presupposes a holistic image of society shaped primarily by economic relations. Habermas,
at a certain time, shares this sentiment, but it remains unconnected to
the project of radical reformism.
I have focused in this paper on the fundamental differences between
models of radical reformism. Nonetheless, they also share a number of
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similarities that should not go unnoted. First and foremost, all of these
approaches presuppose that at the least the currently dominant variant
of the capitalist mode of production cannot be reconciled with radical democracy. Second, all versions of radical reformism are bound up
with discussions of welfare state capitalism, from its radical beginnings
(in Dewey’s case) to its golden age (Habermas, Gorz, Marshall) and,
eventually, to its gradual demise (Honneth). The historic context of this
debate does not make it obsolete; to the contrary, it serves as a reminder
of the complicated and ambiguous variety of functions the welfare state
serves in modern society and as warning against reductive or nostalgic
perspectives on redistributive institutions. Whether we call it a reformed
and democratized welfare state à la Habermas, societal politics following Bottomore’s synthesis of Marshall and Ferge, socialism like Gorz,
or simply liberalism like Dewey, the legacy of radical reformism compels
us to take the constitutive power of the economic sphere seriously and
warns against conflating the hopes for freedom and emancipation with
the gilded memory of material compensation.
An important part of today’s rediscovery of radical reformism is the
question of whether Habermas was correct, in the late 1980s, to bury his
more radical hopes along with the remainders of his faith in the totalities
of the Hegelian-Marxist tradition. If the comparison of competing versions of radical reformism above is valid, I believe he was. In order for
reformism to be radical, it requires the identification of “something” that
is both constitutive of social relations throughout society (including its
contingent, varying features) and subject to change, that is, the result of
human agency. Honneth provides a path to such radical change with his
insistence that the ethical consensus in the lifeworld is all that maintains
even those parts of social life that appear “systemic.” On the other hand,
Honneth’s trust in social evolution and the quasi-democratic character of
all modern institutions prevents him from following Dewey in his interpretation of radial reformism’s task of “mediating change.”
Gorz, in contrast, offers both: the dark side of institutional arrangements and their possible inversion through strategic action, albeit of a
kind that seems very much out of reach today. The point, however, is
that even theoretically, radical reformism in capitalist society appears to
be predicated on the fundamental assertion that private control of the
means of production is the primary obstacle to social progress, and on
the identification of some political subject. Gorz’s strategy shares with
Honneth (and Dewey) a belief in the trust in the crucial role of human
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AXEL HONNETH AND THE TRADITION OF RADICAL REFORMISM
169
agency, but he combines it with the kind of “pre-scientific” commitment common in the first generation of the Frankfurt School but firmly
rejected as “metaphysical” or “speculative” in the critical theories of
Habermas and Honneth. If the history of radical reformism is any indication, the subjectivity and individual responsibility of the critical theorist
and her choices remain as inevitable today as they were in the early days
of the Frankfurt School.
Notes
1. Aside from Honneth, the most prominent, recent contribution within
the tradition is Hauke Brunkhorst’s exploration of “legal revolutions”:
Hauke Brunkhorst, Critical Theory of Legal Revolutions: Evolutionary
Perspectives (London: Bloomsbury, 2014).
2. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An
Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
1989), 224f.
3. Habermas, Structural Transformation, 232.
4. Habermas, Structural Transformation, 231.
5. Habermas, Structural Transformation, 232.
6. Habermas, Structural Transformation, 233.
7. Habermas, Structural Transformation, 235.
8. Jürgen Habermas, Protestbewegung und Hochschulreform (Frankfurt:
Surhkamp, 1969), 49. Translation mine.
9. Habermas, Protestbewegung, 50.
10. Habermas, Protestbewegung, 28ff.
11. Habermas, Protestbewegung, 171.
12. Habermas, Protestbewegung, 43ff, no. 6.
13. Habermas, Protestbewegung, 148ff.
14. Habermas, Protestbewegung, 184.
15. Habermas, Protestbewegung, 22.
16. Habermas, Protestbewegung, 197. Translation mine.
17. Jürgen Habermas, “What Does Socialism Mean Today?” New Left Review,
vol. I, no. 183 (1990): 3–21.
18. Habermas, “Socialism,” 19.
19. Cf. William E. Scheuerman, “Good-Bye to Radical Reformism?” Political
Theory, vol. 40, no. 6 (2012): 830–838.
20. Axel Honneth, Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2014): 178–198. This facet of
Honneth’s mature theory has been the focus of much critical reception.
For Fabian Freyenhagen, it means no less than that the radical potential
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V. SCHMITZ
of Honneth’s theory of recognition has been “swallowed up by Hegelian
actuality.“(Fabian Freyenhagen, “Honneth on Social Pathologies: A
Critique.” Critical Horizons, vol. 16, no. 2 (2015): 131–152.
21. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 196. The English translation makes this point
more assertive than Honneth may have intended: in the original German,
Honneth does not use the word “fact” and further adds an important
temporal qualification (“im Augenblick”—“at the moment”) to his statement. A more literal, if not particularly elegant, translation along the lines
of: “at the moment, no practicable alternatives can be made out,” suggests that Honneth is more cautious than the translation gives him credit
for, but the problem of relying on a subjective impression (“there seem
to be”) in justifying a system of institutions nonetheless remains (Cf.
Axel Honneth, Das Recht der Freiheit: Grundriß einer demokratischen
Sittlichkeit [Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2011], 356.).
22. Axel Honneth, The Idea of Socialism: Towards a Renewal (Hoboken, NJ:
Wiley, 2017), 99.
23. Honneth, Socialism, 73.
24. On the relationship between social institutions and normative constraints, see Jean-Philippe Deranty, Beyond Communication: A Critical
Study of Axel Honneth’s Social Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 347–350.
Although it predates both FR and IS, Deranty’s study incorporates
Emmanuel Renault’s critique into a perspective that has become only
more relevant with time.
25. Honneth, Socialism, viii.
26. Honneth, Socialism, 69.
27. Honneth, Socialism, 73.
28. Honneth, Socialism, 96.
29. Honneth, Socialism, 95.
30. Honneth, Socialism, 102.
31. See, for instance: Leo Panitsch, “Reflections on Strategy for Labor.”
Socialist Register, no. 37 (2001): 367–392.
32. André Gorz, Strategy for Labor: A Radical Proposal (Boston, MA: Beacon
Press, 1964), 7.
33. Gorz, Strategy, 11–12.
34. Gorz, Strategy, 31.
35. Gorz, Strategy, 60ff.
36. Gorz, Strategy, 92ff.
37. Gorz, Strategy, 123ff.
38. Honneth, Socialism, 97–98.
39. An exploration of this theme is beyond the scope of this chapter, but Gorz
frequently references Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man throughout his
book.
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AXEL HONNETH AND THE TRADITION OF RADICAL REFORMISM
171
40. Honneth, Socialism, 83.
41. T. H. Marshall, “Citizenship and Social Class.” In T. H Marshall and
Tom Bottomore (eds.) Citizenship and Social Class (London: Pluto Press,
1992), 49.
42. T. H. Marshall, “Value Problems of Welfare Capitalism.” In The Right to
Welfare and Other Essays (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Northumberland Press,
1981), 107.
43. Marshall, “Value Problems,” 109.
44. Marshall, “Value Problems,” 117.
45. Marshall, “Value Problems,” 121–122.
46. T. H. Marshall, “Afterthought on ‘Value Problems.’” In Right to Welfare,
127.
47. Marshall, “Afterthought,” 128.
48. Marshall, “Afterthought,” 129.
49. Marshall, “Afterthought,” 135.
50. Marshall, “Afterthought,” 136.
51. Tom Bottomore, “Citizenship and Social Class, Forty Years On.” In:
Marshall and Bottomore, Citizenship and Social Class, 60ff.
52. Bottomore, “Citizenship,” 62.
53. John Dewey, Liberalism and Social Action (Amherst, NY: Prometheus
Books, 2000), 66.
54. It is worth noting, however, that Dewey is concerned primarily with theories promoting the inevitability of violence: “the issue is not whether
some amount of violence will accompany the effectuation of radical
change of institutions. The question is whether force or intelligence is to
be the method upon which we consistently rely and to whose promotion
we devote our energies.” Dewey, Liberalism, 80.
55. Dewey, Liberalism, 77.
56. Dewey, Liberalism, 55.
57. Dewey, Liberalism, 59. For a different look at Honneth interpretation to
Dewey’s theory of democracy, see Smulewicz-Zucker in this volume.
58. Dewey, Liberalism, 67.
Selected Bibliography
Dewey, John (2000) Liberalism and Social Action. Amherst, NY: Prometheus
Books.
Freyenhagen, Fabian (2015) “Honneth on Social Pathologies: A Critique.”
Critical Horizons, vol. 16, no. 2: 131–152.
Gorz, André (1964) Strategy for Labor: A Radical Proposal. Boston, MA: Beacon
Press.
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V. SCHMITZ
Habermas, Jürgen (1969) Protestbewegung und Hochschulreform. Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp.
Habermas, Jürgen (1989) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An
Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Habermas, Jürgen (1990) “What Does Socialism Mean Today?” New Left
Review, vol. I, no. 183: 3–21.
Honneth, Axel (2011) Das Recht der Freiheit: Grundriß einer demokratischen
Sittlichkeit. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Honneth, Axel (2014) Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic
Life. New York: Columbia University Press.
Honneth, Axel (2017) The Idea of Socialism: Towards a Renewal. Hoboken, NJ:
Wiley.
Marshall, T. H. (1981) The Right to Welfare and Other Essays. Newcastle-uponTyne: Northumberland Press.
Marshall, T. H. and Tom Bottomore (1992) Citizenship and Social Class.
London: Pluto Press.
Scheuerman, William E (2012) “Good-Bye to Radical Reformism?” Political
Theory, vol. 40, no. 6: 830–838.
CHAPTER 8
Can Honneth’s Theory Account for a
Critique of Instrumental Reason? Capitalism
and the Pathologies of Negative Freedom
Mariana Teixeira
The critique of the pervasiveness of instrumental reason in modern capitalist societies is a hallmark of the Frankfurt School critical theory. Drawing
on Georg Lukács’ combination of Marxist and Weberian themes in History
and Class Consciousness, the first and second generations of critical theorists brought to the foreground the negative consequences of the hypertrophy of purposive rationality that accompanies the generalization of the
market’s anonymous logic to virtually every domain of social life. One
might even argue that this critique is the defining feature of twentieth-­
century critical theory in terms of time diagnosis, being integral to several
of its key categories, from reification,1 administered world,2 and one-­
dimensional man3 to the systemic colonization of the lifeworld.4
In this regard, Axel Honneth’s recognition theory seems to depart
considerably from his predecessors in the critical tradition. The critique
of instrumental reason does not play a significant role in his magnum
M. Teixeira (*)
CEBRAP (Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning),
São Paulo, Brazil
© The Author(s) 2019
V. Schmitz (ed.), Axel Honneth and the Critical Theory
of Recognition, Political Philosophy and Public Purpose,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91980-5_8
173
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M. TEIXEIRA
opus The Struggle for Recognition (1992); moreover, in The Critique of
Power (1985), Honneth ascribes the theoretical deficits of previous critical models to their insistence on the ubiquity of purposive rationality and
systemic market integration. The central theme of Honneth’s work, by
contrast, is the normative infrastructure of social conflicts—the moral
motivations that underlie even those struggles seemingly directed at the
maximization of power or the acquisition of material goods. In addition
to that, on some occasions, Honneth seems to extrapolate the questioning of critical theory’s overemphasis on systemic integration to the thesis
that there is no systemic integration as such, as he argues in his reply to
Nancy Fraser in Redistribution or Recognition? (2003). This exposes him
to the criticism of neglecting a whole set of social pathologies engendered by the internalization of market profitability imperatives in connection to the technical control of the social and natural environment.
In this sense, Andrew Feenberg argues in his review of The Critique of
Power that “Honneth’s argument fails to explain the obvious fact that
control of technology serves as a power base in advanced societies.”5
It can be argued, however, that Honneth’s focus on morally motivated
social struggles does not rule out the diagnosis of social pathologies systemically inflicted upon individuals by the impersonal, calculation-driven
logic of the capitalist market. This is clear, for example, in the author’s
early Marxist essays, written in 1980s and partly collected in The
Fragmented World of the Social (1990). But it can also be seen in the
recent shift from recognition to social freedom as the pivotal category of Honneth’s work. In Suffering from Indeterminacy (2001) and
Freedom’s Right (2011), one can identify a renewed theoretical opening
to a critique of instrumental reason in the form of a critique of negative
freedom—even if Honneth did not take this opening forward so as to
establish a connection between the hypertrophy of negative freedom and
the capitalist rationalization of work activities as the “destruction of possibilities for individual expression.”6
To make this argument, I begin by reconstructing Honneth’s critique
of the Habermasian diagnosis of systemic colonization of the lifeworld
(1), and then explore his own early alternative approach to the critique of capitalist rationalization of labor activities (2). This promising
approach, however, remains in a largely marginal position in Honneth’s
now classic theory of recognition, where there seems to be no place for
instrumental reason or systemic integration—not even as manifestations of a social pathology (3). I turn then to Honneth’s recent works
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CAN HONNETH’S THEORY ACCOUNT FOR A CRITIQUE …
175
on social freedom and argue that his critique of negative freedom can
be combined with a critique of instrumental reason. This analysis comprises two moments: in a first attempt, in Suffering from Indeterminacy,
Honneth echoes the fallacy of misplaced concreteness he criticized
Habermas for (4), whereas in Freedom’s Right, the author redresses this
difficulty (5). In the conclusion, I summarize the argument of the chapter and sketch how the theory of social freedom could draw the connection between the social pathologies of negative freedom and “the
injuries and destruction inhering in capitalist modernization of which
many contemporary social theories too often have already lost the ability
to take note.”7
The Critique of Habermas and the Colonization Thesis
The Critique of Power, published in 1985, contains a systematic account
of Honneth’s criticisms of the first and second generations of the
Frankfurt School. In the first three chapters, Honneth discusses the theoretical deficits present in the work of Horkheimer and Adorno. First,
he addresses Horkheimer’s writings of the 1930s, where he sees the
possibility of a productive action-theoretic analysis by means of the concept of “culture;” second, he criticizes the paradigm of the Dialectic of
Enlightenment, in which that possibility is ruled out by Horkheimer and
Adorno due to a historical-philosophical conception of the evolution
of the human species as the process of domination of nature through
instrumental action; and third, he argues that this monological perspective is still present and even intensified in Adorno’s postwar writings,
preventing the access to the normative motivational dimension of intersubjective practices. Habermas appears in the final three chapters of The
Critique of Power, by contrast, as the author who decisively brings the
notions of intersubjectivity and communicatively achieved value orientations to the central stage of critical theory, overturning the monopoly of
a social theory in which human action is conceived of either as strategic
action or as driven by obedience to impersonal controlling forces.
Habermas does not dismiss the diagnosis of the growing primacy of
an instrumental rationality directed toward the domination of nature
and human beings but brings to light an alternative, communicative
conception of rationality, in whose name one can criticize the dominance of technique. The positivist unilateralization of scientific theory,
for example, is criticized in view of the possibility of conceiving science
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M. TEIXEIRA
differently, not only as the field of technique, dominion over nature, and
instrumental rationality. Thus, Habermas accords to experiences of communicative action—and therefore to value orientations, that which goes
beyond the limits of mere self-interest—a motivational power or efficacy
that was absent, or present only timidly, in earlier formulations of critical
theory.
Honneth argues, however, that in Knowledge and Human Interests
(1968) Habermas hints not at one, but at two models of the historical development of the human species, and that in The Theory of
Communicative Action (1981), he eventually opts for the model closer
to systems theory, which leads him to a reified conception of the dynamics of social development. As the argument goes, the divide between
instrumental and communicative action, or between work and interaction, could still be interpreted in two different ways in Knowledge and
Human Interests. On the one hand, the conflictual dynamics of historical
development can be seen as present in, and constitutive of, the communicative sphere itself. Such communicative conflicts would, in turn, affect
the very conformation of systemic or instrumental relations. Honneth
points out that there is, here, an incipient possibility of interpreting
“social interaction also as a struggle between social groups for the organizational form of purposive-rational action.”8 This struggle does not take
place simply as a strategic competition between different social actors
for a particular good: the object of dispute are institutionalized norms,
so that the conflict encompasses the communicative dispute between
different interpretive models about the legitimacy of social norms. The
dispute between social groups is described by Honneth as an intersubjective process that begins with the destruction of the reciprocal conditions of communication, continues through the resistance of morally
wronged subjects, and comes to an end in the communicative renewal of
a situation of mutual recognition. This conception of the intersubjective
dynamics of social struggles has its origin in the Hegelian model of the
“dialectic of moral life” and implies, for Honneth, that there is no room
for normatively neutral subsystems governed solely by purposive rationality: “the apparently ‘purposive-rational’ organizations are also codetermined by moral-practical viewpoints that must be conceived as results of
communicative action.”9
This is, however, but one of the paths opened up by Habermas’s
theory—one that is left unpursued by the author. Another possibility,
which Habermas takes up and expands in his subsequent work, entails
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CAN HONNETH’S THEORY ACCOUNT FOR A CRITIQUE …
177
conceiving of the conflictual dynamics of social development as taking place not between social groups with different social standings, but
rather between two spheres of action, whereby the communicative sphere
is subjected to an excessive intervention by the system—i.e., economic
and political relations mediated not by linguistic interaction, but instead
by money and power.10 There arises, then, a more rigid way of grasping the dualism between work and interaction, between instrumental action (toward the material reproduction of society via control) and
communicative action (toward the cultural reproduction of society via
understanding).11
Habermas’s leaning toward a more rigid interpretation of the distinction between system and lifeworld appears, for example, in the formulation of the capitalist economy and the state administrative structure as
two subsystems which are not normatively regulated, but rather ruled
by purposive-rational action alone. Problematic, for Honneth, is that
this supposedly analytic distinction is applied to empirical domains of
social phenomena: the dualism between system and lifeworld is not only
methodological, between the viewpoints of the observer and the participant, as initially proposed by Habermas.12 As a consequence, the two
types of action-orientation are reified in concrete spheres of social reproduction, as if there were, in fact, social domains distinguished by their
being regulated or not according to communicatively achieved norms—
which amounts to a fallacy of misplaced concreteness (falschplazierter
Konkretismus).13 In Honneth’s view, two fictions are thus created: a systemic sphere neutralized of moral norms, and a communicative sphere
free from conflicts, domination, and power. These are fictions, on the
one hand, because the organizational structures of economic and state
administration can only be understood as shaped by a combination of
the logic of strategic action and practical-political normative principles,
which are the product of an ongoing process of communicative interaction. Since the rules of rational action are indeterminate and their social
application cannot do without the rules of practical-political action, these
normative principles make up the conditions under which administrative
goals are achieved by means of purposive-rational action.14 Honneth
argues, on the other hand, that the social lifeworld does not reproduce
itself independently of the influence of strategic and calculation-oriented
practices, manifest in the various forms of the exercise of power: physical, psychological, and cognitive.15 Without taking this into account, says
Honneth, one loses sight of the everyday and pre-political processes of
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establishment and reproduction of social domination. Furthermore, with
the emphasis on the colonization of the lifeworld by the system as the
central social pathology of modernity, problematic phenomena such as
class domination and asymmetrical power relations tend to fade into the
background, given that conflicts are seen as taking place between different spheres of action rather than between social groups and classes.
Honneth’s Early Alternative Approach:
Rationalization in Dispute
Throughout the 1980s, Honneth sought to develop an alternative
approach to critical theory’s leitmotiv—the critique of instrumental reason in capitalist societies—within a Marxist framework.16 According to
him, however, Marxism could do justice to its critical potential only if
it were able to move away from its functionalist interpretations, reject
the primacy of the requirements of economic reproduction, and critically reconstruct the category of work.17 To this end, Honneth turns
to Marx’s early writings in order to find an account of labor processes
where these are not seen as normatively neutral, and production is not
reduced to instrumental rationality.18 Correspondingly, social and economic conflicts are not seen as set in motion by sheer utility-maximizing
actors: “Marx does not conceive of the class struggle merely as a strategic
conflict over the acquisition of goods or powers of command; rather, it
represents a kind of moral conflict in which an oppressed class is fighting
to achieve the social conditions for its self-respect.”19 Following Marx,
Honneth argues that there is an emancipatory surplus in labor activities, conceived of as learning processes that are not only cognitive but
also moral: work has an inherent normative dimension that cannot be
reduced to its instrumental aspect, and without this normative implication, one could hardly distinguish free from alienated work activities.
Thus, the concept of work is central to Marx not only as a descriptive
category but also as a practical-normative one, involving technical developments as well as a form of moral learning, a “formative moral-practical
potential which exercises a normatively enlightening power reaching
beyond the unjust relations of capitalism.”20 This practical-moral process
of learning is what grounds the revolutionary potential of the concept of
work.
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CAN HONNETH’S THEORY ACCOUNT FOR A CRITIQUE …
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By contrast, in Honneth’s view, in his late works Marx implemented
a subtle but decisive change in the learning character of work activities:
“in place of an argumentative model that seeks to explain the possibility of social emancipation directly on the basis of the formative potential [Bildungspotential] of work, there has emerged the less ambitious
model of the working class becoming technically qualified and disciplined through industrial factory work.”21 Much more emphasis is now
given to the technical and disciplinary learning processes in factory work
activities than to the moral experience of indignation borne out of capitalist working and life conditions. The late Marxian theory of revolution, Honneth argues with Barrington Moore, Maurice Merleau-Ponty,
and Cornelius Castoriadis,22 among others, allowed for utilitarian and
technologically deterministic interpretations: whereas Marx’s early writings largely rely on a theory of action, his late works focus instead on
a systemic analysis of the crises faced by capitalist societies.23 The connection between autonomous labor and emancipation—which previously
underpinned the critique of alienated, heteronomous work in the capitalist industry—is abandoned in favor of a more deterministic view of the
revolutionary potential inhering in the technological development of the
forces of production. As a result, “the dimensions of the Marxist problematic drop completely from sight, since the conditions for the possibility of processes of political emancipation are no longer thought to take
place on the level of the social experiences of acting subjects, but rather
have been projected onto the level of autonomous system processes.”24
Honneth also traces the downplaying of social struggles in Habermas’s
work back to this tension: just like, for Marx, the dialectic between productive forces and relations of production replaces class struggle as the
“motor force” of history, for Habermas, the opposition between system
and lifeworld replaces the struggles between social groups over the normative orientation of purposive-rational action complexes.
Ruling out the normative function of the category of work as a methodological notion that allows for the mutual translatability between a
systematic analysis of capital and a practice-oriented theory of revolution
leads to a crisis of the Marxist theory of revolution.25 But the conceptual decline of the emancipatory potential of work within Marxism corresponds, for Honneth, to its rationalization and fragmentation on the
historical level, so that “the underlying conceptual tension within which
the young Marx attempted to interpret social labor as a practical and
moral learning process has, with the universalization of mechanized work,
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lost all of its original vigor.”26 The concept of labor, once considered the
categorial connection between the critique of political economy and a
materialist theory of revolution, is thereby normatively neutralized. The
categorial tension present in Marx’s work between alienated and nonalienated labor is gradually reduced in favor of an ontological interpretation of rationalized work that only reflects its present pathological state:
The categories of ‘alienated’ or ‘abstract’ work, with which Marx criticizes the capitalist organization of work activity, have practically disappeared from the theoretical language of Marxist-oriented social philosophy
because there seems to be no criterion of appropriately human, that
is, unalienated work which is independent of the norms of a particular
culture.27
On a historical rather than ontological level, however, Honneth also
diagnoses and criticizes the normative neutralization of work activities
brought about by the Taylorization of the production process, which
leads to a systematic separation between theoretical knowledge about
work and its actual execution28 and, consequently, to a chasm between a
few highly skilled employees in positions of management and control, on
the one hand, and a large contingent of unskilled workers in subordinate
and precarious positions, on the other.29
But this diagnosis does not imply, for Honneth, a denial of the latent
normative dimension of labor. A critical conception of work, on the contrary, could allow for the distinction between different types of instrumental action, according to the degree of autonomy that the social actors
have in exercising it:
A critical concept of work must grasp categorically the difference between
an instrumental act in which the working subject structures and regulates
his own activity on his own initiative, according to his own knowledge,
in a self-contained process, and an instrumental act in which neither the
accompanying controls nor the object-related structuring of the activity is
left to the initiative of the working subject.30
Honneth’s critical notion of work is designed to avoid the confinement of labor activities to the field of norm-free purposive-rational action
present in Habermas’s distinction between a normative communicative
sphere and a sphere of strategic instrumental action. Had Habermas
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CAN HONNETH’S THEORY ACCOUNT FOR A CRITIQUE …
181
introduced normative differentiations in the category of instrumental
action, as he did with the spectrum of communicative actions, he would
have been able to recognize the existence of a kind of practical-moral
knowledge that stems not from the consciousness of the systematic distortion of communicative relations, but rather from the experience of
expropriation of productive work activities. The internal normative logic
of work corresponds thus “neither to the logic of acts of communication
aimed at the coordination of intentional actions via mutual understanding, nor to the logic of instrumental actions aimed at the technical domination of natural processes.”31
The moral knowledge materialized in labor activities is unveiled even
in spaces of widely rationalized and heteronomously organized work
relations, through struggles that involve distinct forms of resistance and
reappropriation, by the social actors, of the control of productive processes. Besides Moore and Braverman, Honneth resorts, for this purpose,
to Philippe Bernoux’s empirical investigation on the cooperative strategies employed by workers to resist the expropriation of their practical
knowledge and capacity for initiative.32 These and other studies show
how workers often respond, in the face of the systematic expropriation of
their work activity, with a set of norm infractions and violations intended
to informally reclaim their control over production operations. Hence,
capitalist production policies and “the meaningless industrial work
achieved through rationalization according to Taylor’s principles”33 are
seen as always accompanied by an opposing force whereby workers cooperatively mobilize a deep knowledge of their specific labor activities as an
informal means of practical resistance in the workplace.34 All alienated or
expropriated work contains, therefore, a “moment of practical recollection” (praktischer Erinnerung) that could bring to the surface the perception that an unjustified domination is in play.35
This implies that, in their efforts to bring heteronomous labor processes back to the horizon of autonomously planned and controlled
activities, workers express demands that are immanent to their own
activity. Everyday forms of moral judgment and the ethical convictions
underlying labor practices36 are evidence that emancipation, in the realm
of work, does not depend on the reference to moral norms external to
it, and that class conflicts do not occur solely due to the unequal distribution of material goods: underpinning these conflicts, one can see
the claim for a redefinition of human dignity and, therefore, for another
form of social recognition.37
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As we can see, even though Honneth does diagnose, at this point, an
erosion of the normativity of work as resulting from the capitalist system’s ever-increasing demand for control and calculation, leading to a
dangerous prevalence of impersonal, purposive rationality over autonomous and intersubjective action, his emphasis here lies not on the ensuing social pathologies, but rather on the prospect of social resistance.
Recognition Theory: No Place for the Critique
of Instrumental Reason?
By the time he publishes The Struggle for Recognition,38 Honneth had
expanded his focus from the normative infrastructure of the workers’
struggle against the mechanization of labor activities to encompass the
moral grammar of social struggles in general. He considers that while the
moral expectations of individuals and social groups change continuously
throughout history, their very willingness to engage in social conflicts
over the conditions for the fulfillment of these expectations—and over
the social recognition of these expectations as normatively justified—can
be considered an almost anthropological constant.
Hence, Honneth opposes the paradigm in political philosophy that
takes human subjects to be moved uniquely by their own interest in individual self-preservation. For both Machiavelli and Hobbes, for example,
discussed in the book’s first chapter, the supreme goal of political action
is the stabilization of the permanent conflict arising from the “natural”
tendency of individuals to pursue their self-interest by means of instrumental or strategic relationships. But while the notion of a self-­interested
egotistic individual was challenged by Honneth in his early work by
resort to Marxist-oriented sociological and historiographical studies
focused on the normative dimension of class struggle, he now turns to
Hegel’s early writings of Jena—which he then actualizes with recourse to
the approach of G. H. Mead—to find a theoretical-philosophical foundation to oppose the tendency of reducing political action to the (purposive-) rational imposition of power. The Hegelian perspective is especially
suitable for this role since for Hegel every form of human conviviality,
every Miteinandersein presupposes a primary mutual affirmation and
a degree of individual self-limitation. If the paradigm of struggles for
self-preservation is thus abandoned in favor of struggles for recognition,
the motivation for conflict ceases to be, as in Hobbes, the fear of future
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CAN HONNETH’S THEORY ACCOUNT FOR A CRITIQUE …
183
threats to one’s physical existence. Social struggles are seen, rather, as
ignited by the violation of expectations of recognition inscribed in the
structure of human interactions. Such acts of misrecognition appear as
violation of the body (in the sphere of primary affective relations), denial
of equal standing (in the sphere of legal relations), and degradation (in
the community of values).39
Honneth’s emphasis on intersubjective recognition as a pre-condition
for self-realization is not a new feature in his work. In the chapter
devoted to the different forms of misrecognition, however, the absence
of consideration for the hindrances imposed on social actors in the realm
of work under capitalism contrasts with Honneth’s earlier diagnosis of
the pathological heteronomy produced by rationalized labor activities. The logic of purposive rationality is absent from The Struggle for
Recognition both as a legitimate dimension of human action (as can be
found in Habermas’s dualist theory) and as the manifestation of a social
pathology (as was the case not only of Habermas’s colonization thesis,
but of Honneth’s early writings as well).
In the wake of Nancy Fraser’s criticism of the lack, in Honneth’s
recognition theory, of any substantive consideration of the systemic
mechanisms of social integration and its pathological effects in capitalist societies,40 Honneth claims not to ignore the existence of economic
imperatives and their importance for the reproduction of capital; in
reconstructing the recognition order of modern capitalist societies,
however, his intention was limited to revealing the moral coercions
that underlie social interaction at various levels in capitalist societies.41
Honneth’s point is that social integration always takes place under the
normative pressure of the mechanisms of mutual recognition, through
which the individual learns to affirm herself intersubjectively with
respect to fundamental aspects of her personality. In his analysis, hence,
Honneth grants a broad primacy to social (i.e., normative) integration
over systemic integration: even economic processes cannot be considered, in his view, independently from the normative expectations of those
concerned, for they rely at least on the subjects’ tacit consent, achieved
by means of symbolically mediated negotiations over the interpretation
of normative principles.42 According to the anti-functionalist theoretical
framework defended by Honneth, therefore, the legitimacy of capitalist
institutions—such as wage-labor and market relations—depends on the
compliance with egalitarian legal norms (as sources of self-respect) as
well as on the principle of rewarding particular achievements (as sources
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of self-esteem), which are, in both cases, historically reached by means of
social struggles.43 Thus, for example, labor market deregulation is experienced by the social actors as a loss of rights (Entrechtung), indicating
that there are, indeed, moral norms at work in the market. The principle of profit maximization cannot, therefore, be understood as a functional requirement that gives rise, per se, to the economic realm as an
autonomous sphere of social action: “It only becomes such a ­‘subsystem’
of social action after it has found sufficient normative agreement to
­constitute – with the help of legal norms – an institution in which a
­complex network of individual actions is coordinated seemingly automatically by the interplay of merely utilitarian considerations.”44
There is, however, an ambiguity in Honneth’s position that cannot be
ignored: What does it mean to say that the coordination of individual
actions by utilitarian considerations is “seemingly” automatic? After all, is
there room for systemic integration in recognition theory? If we consider
that the former depends on value-free, anonymous mechanisms, then the
answer must be negative. Honneth even admits, by the end of his contribution to Redistribution or Recognition?, that in his view, the very opposition between systemic and social integration is problematic, because the
reproduction of modern capitalist societies always depends on a minimal moral consensus capable of satisfying, at least in part, the normative
demands rooted in social interaction, and even socially generalized media
such as money and political power—which are said to coordinate interactions, in some contexts, in a “relatively automatic” fashion—depend,
in order to function properly, on the social actors’ trust in their legitimacy, and this trust might at any moment decline or even collapse.45
Hence, even when the perspective of profit maximization seems to have
gained primacy over all other interests and purposes, Honneth still sees
economic processes as permeated by a minimum of normative considerations. Fraser seems to be right, thus, when she portrays Honneth as
extrapolating from the idea that the capitalist economy is not a purely
technical system to the proposition—far more demanding—that “it has
no economic dynamics worth analyzing in their own right.”46
As a consequence, Honneth consolidates here the tendency present
in The Struggle for Recognition to disregard—rather than complement—
the role of strategic, instrumental market relations in contemporary
advanced societies and their social pathologies.
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Negative Freedom and Indeterminacy: Restaging the
Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness
The social pathologies addressed in Suffering from Indeterminacy are no
longer connected to the violation of the different dimensions of recognition expectations, but instead to the unilateral exercise of incomplete
conceptions of freedom.47 Following the structure of Hegel’s Philosophy
of Right, Honneth identifies three different models of the “general free
will,” with increasing complexity: negative, optional, and communicative forms of freedom, which correspond, respectively, to abstract right,
moral autonomy, and ethical life (Sittlichkeit).48 The first two are necessary, if deficient, forms of freedom: both abstract right and morality have
an ethical value, a “right of existence,” i.e., both models have an adequate place in social reality.49 The situation becomes pathological when
these incomplete models are taken, either each by itself or both combined, as sufficient determinations of the free will and are generalized,
so that their constitutive indeterminacy exceeds their limits as partial
forms and becomes the sole grounding of all social actions and relations
between individuals. This indeterminacy then becomes a source of suffering, which is expressed in feelings such as solitude, emptiness, and
depression.50
(1.) The ethical value of abstract right lies in enabling individuals
to distance themselves from all concrete social relations and reciprocal
roles, and such indeterminacy provides subjects with a consciousness of
legitimate individualization. Abstract right is indeed, from the outset,
an intersubjective institution: the establishment of contracts entails the
reciprocal recognition of the subjects’ aim at a desired goal, whatever
it may be. Legal relations represent, however, only the negative side of
the individual will: the removal of every limitation to action. In this type
of interaction, subjects need not mobilize more than just a minimum of
their particular identity. The freedom of the other appears, in this context, only as a means for the satisfaction of one’s self-interest. Hence,
if all their needs and intentions are articulated in the strategic, limited
categories of formal law or abstract right, individuals become unable to
fully participate in social life as partners in an ethical intersubjective relationship, which leads to a first form of social pathology as suffering from
indeterminacy.
(2.) Whereas in the case of abstract right the goal of the free will is
irrelevant to the concept of individual freedom, from the viewpoint of
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moral autonomy, only the actions resulting from a process of rational
self-determination can count as free actions. While this mode of freedom
is more encompassing than the negative freedom of abstract right, it is
still insufficient to secure the conditions of individual self-realization.51
(3.) By contrast, the idea of ethical life, where communicative freedom takes place, is seen as having a therapeutic meaning to the extent
that it allows for the reciprocal self-realization of individuals in the different relational spheres. In the family, civil society, and the state, they
can recover the familiarity with the rational content of their life praxis.52
Following Hegel, freedom in its broad—communicative or social—
sense is understood by Honneth as “being with oneself in another.”53
(3.a.) The family represents “ethical life in it natural form.”54 It is the
first mode of inclusion of the individual in ethical life because “without
the intersubjective recognition which the instincts attain in the interior
of the family, the development of a ‘second nature,’ of a socially shared
fund of habits and attitudes, would be quite impossible.”55 The family
thus allows for the primary socialization of human needs. (3.b.) Civil
society, in turn, as the sphere of market-mediated interaction between
economic subjects, entails a rupture with the immediate ethical nature of
the family: it disrupts the intersubjective bond between subjects as family members and leads to an “extreme isolation.”56 At the same time, it
provides the means for the realization of individual interests, through the
exchange of services and goods. In contrast to the family, in civil society,
the “‘system of needs’ does not refer to a sphere of communication oriented towards need, but to the anonymous systemic control that enables
the market to satisfy a multitude of interests.”57 Vis-à-vis the family, civil
society’s complexity is higher due to the fact that the subject presents
herself, here, as an individuated bearer of rights able to pursue her egocentric interests, thus having a certain degree of reflexivity with regard to
the communicative realm of the family. (3.c.) In his analysis of the state,
finally, Honneth runs counter to the interpretation of Hegel as unconcerned with the individual freedom of subjects qua citizens. He hones in
on those passages of the Philosophy of Right that indicate subjects achieve
an even greater degree of individualization in the state, for they become
capable of “a universal activity” insofar as they actively take part in the
reproduction of the collectivity, making their particular skills useful for a
common purpose.58 In this manner, the individual “attains a public existence as a citizen endowed with reason” and becomes “a member of society here, in the sphere of the state, neither through his natural need nor
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through his individual interest, but through his rationally formed talents
and skills.”59
The transition to each higher level of individualization, starting with
the family (the sphere of natural needs), then civil society (the sphere
of individual interests), and lastly the state (the sphere of the collective
reproduction through particular skills), is characterized by Honneth as a
process of formation (Bildung): “the subject reaches the highest level of
individuality by learning, through participation in the different spheres,
to master, step by step, the cognitive schemata and reasons that are situated, each in its turn, within the horizon of ‘feeling’ [Empfindung],
instrumental rationality [Zweckrationalität], and reason [Vernunft].”60
It is noteworthy, for our purposes in this chapter, that Honneth’s text
features a strong affinity between the realm of civil society (3.b.) and the
negative freedom characteristic of abstract right (1.), since civil society
is taken as a domain where “uncommitted single subjects meet to conclude contracts about transactions which, if adhered to, provide them
with individual means of mutually realizing interests where the interests
of each one are of no further relevance to the other beyond the context of the transaction itself.”61 Civil society is the sphere of satisfaction,
through market-mediated exchange of achievements (Leistungen) and
commodities, of the private interests and desires of individual subjects
shaped without consideration for the needs of their interaction partners.62
The reciprocity demanded by relations of exchange in civil society only
concerns, hence, an awareness regarding the compulsory character of
contracts and their specific provisions.
Hegel was well aware, as Honneth notes, of the danger of social disintegration brought about by this feature of the capitalist market. This
intuition led Hegel to include within the scope of civil society a type of
ethical subsystem that could provide a greater degree of social generalization and common good: the corporations, where “the sense of the
communal is produced not indirectly by exchanges, but directly by intersubjectively shared objectives.”63 Honneth suggests, however, it would
make more sense to assign only the market to the sphere of civil society and to deal with corporations in the sphere of the state. It is quite
telling that Honneth reproaches Hegel, here, for the “embarrassment
of having to accommodate in the same sphere two completely different
forms of recognition, the first linked to transactions mediated by the
market and the second to value-oriented interactions.”64 Thus, contrary
to his own early insistence on the normative embeddedness of market
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relations, Honneth now takes capitalist exchange as being ruled by the
anonymous, strategic logic of self-interested actions, while corporations
are taken as a differentiated form of public freedom, “as an indication of
the necessity of a publicly mediated, even democratic, division of labor,
which gave the subjects a sense of the universality of their individual
activities.”65
Honneth’s conception of ethical life thus becomes internally differentiated: it encompasses not only communicative freedom, but negative
freedom as a moment in its development process as well. This opening
of the ethical life to strategic action aimed at the pursuit of one’s individual goals allows not only for the conception of a legitimate exercise of
instrumental rationality, but for the critique of its hypertrophy as well—
as it takes place when abstract right and its negative form of freedom dictate every social interaction among subjects. Honneth nonetheless does
not go all the way to establish a connection between the suffering from
indeterminacy brought about by the universalization of negative freedom
and the pathologies of capitalist market economy. In fact, social pathologies are limited to Honneth’s chapters on abstract right and morality,
whereas the spheres of ethical life are characterized only in their positive, therapeutic aspect. Phenomena such as misrecognition, suffering,
and social pathologies are thus excluded from ethical life. Moreover, by
restricting the legitimate place of instrumental rationality to the market
sphere, i.e., civil society, Honneth echoes here the fallacy of misplaced
concreteness he objected in Habermas’s dualism between system and
lifeworld (Table 8.1).
Critique of Instrumental Reason as Critique
of Negative Freedom
Freedom’s Right, published ten years later, exhibits a very similar architectonic to Suffering from Indeterminacy66: legal and moral freedoms are
characterized as necessary, but insufficient—and potentially pathological—
modes of freedom, whilst ethical life holds an emancipatory significance
to the extent that it embodies, in its different institutional complexes,
the exercise of complementary roles that allows individuals to “be with
oneself in the other” (i.e., social freedom). But whereas in Suffering from
Indeterminacy Honneth does not address problematic phenomena specific to ethical life, he does so in Freedom’s Right by means of the notion
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Table 8.1 Suffering from Indeterminacy (SfI) and Freedom’s Right (FR)
SfI (2001) 1. Abstract
right
(negative
freedom)
2. Morality
(optional
freedom)
3. Ethical life (communicative freedom)
FR (2011) 1. Legal
freedom
(negative
freedom)
2. Moral
freedom
(reflexive
freedom)
3. Ethical life (social freedom)
3.a. Family
Feeling
3.a.
Personal
sphere
Friendship
Intimate
relationships
Families
3.b. Civil
society
Instrumental
rationality
3.b.
Economic
sphere
Consumption
Production
(labor market)
3.c. State
Reason
3.c. Political
sphere
Public sphere
Constitutional
state
Political
culture
of social anomalies or misdevelopments (soziale Fehlentwicklungen). The
three spheres of ethical life—personal relations (friendship, intimate relationships, and families), market-based economic action (consumption and
labor market), and democratic will-formation (public sphere, the constitutional state, and political culture)—are affected by misdevelopments that,
even though not presented in a systematic way by Honneth, can to a large
degree be traced back to the autonomization of the market’s profitability
imperatives. For this reason, I shall begin with the characterization of the
economic sphere (3.b.), and then turn to its negative effects on the personal (3.a.) and the political spheres (3.c.).
(3.b.) With respect to the economic sphere, Honneth stresses two
classic targets of the Kapitalismuskritik: social exclusion and the weakening of social ties between individuals. The critique of social exclusion
concerns the market’s promise to provide all subjects with means of subsistence according to their specific participation in economic activities
as well as their particular needs—i.e., the promise to allocate not only
efficiently, but also in a just and solidary manner, the scarce resources
in a given social order. While insisting on the moral embeddedness of
the market, Honneth nonetheless admits that the capitalist system has
resoundingly failed in fulfilling the expectations that underlie its normative legitimacy, so that its development can be portrayed as almost
entirely anomalous. The phenomenon of social pauperization is evident
in the incessant growth of the contingent of the poor and needy, in
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employment instability, wage devaluation, and the periodic shortage of
basic goods caused by the market’s orientation toward capital accumulation as a priority. The conspicuous consumption of superfluous goods
marking the distinction of status of the elites reinforces that it is the
logic of profitability—rather than mutual recognition between subjects
in terms of their needs and contributions—that prevails in the capitalist
allocation of resources.
The critique of disintegration of social ties, in turn, concerns the failure of capitalism to meet the promise that, in the market, individuals
would be able to recognize that they depend on one another in order to
satisfy their mutual material needs and to understand their own activities
as contributing to social reproduction. In failing to meet this promise,
the market economy dissolves the recognition of complementary roles
that could enable one to see the freedom of the others as a condition,
rather than a limitation, to one’s own freedom. This anomaly manifests
itself in various ways. The increasing efficiency expectations lead, on
the one hand, to the rising mechanization and fragmentation of work
processes, which have the effect of depreciating the workers’ skills and
decreasing the social value ascribed to productive activities. The demand
for increasing productivity fosters, on the other hand, workplaces rooted
on intense competition rather than on cooperation among workers. In
such environments, the individual accountability for the success or failure of each project entails the feeling of being solely responsible for
one’s own survival in the labor market, which contributes, in turn, to
the workers’ submission to degrading activities and job instability without collective resistance. Moreover, the increasing demand for flexibility compels them to prioritize market demands to the detriment of the
maintenance of authentic and long-lasting social bonds. This process
is reinforced by the internalization of individualistic behavior patterns
based on the capitalist culture of consumer sovereignty, as well as by
the continued development of the cultural industry as a means of conditioning habits and preferences—and thus of securing the demand for
mass-produced goods which is necessary to avoid the threat of overproduction. Private consumption, furthermore, which atomizes and depoliticizes subjects, shows no sign of receding since the 1950s, and this
makes it progressively difficult for social actors to find common grounds
for articulating joint actions.67 Even in the context of the welfare state,
workers are treated as self-centered, atomized juridical subjects and their
autonomously regulated communities tend to lose strength. The isolated
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individual thus becomes less apt to see himself as a member of a selfconscious class and to exert any influence on the productive sphere. As a
result, the workers’ demands for a higher degree of codetermination in
the market are subdued with ever greater efficiency and the power imbalance between the latter and the economic elite, the employers and owners of the means of production, constantly achieves new extremes.68 Two
types of crisis thus emerge: legitimacy and efficiency crises. Without normative legitimacy and economic efficiency, the market faces the danger of
anomy, which may lead to the collapse of the capitalist economic order.
As the bonds of solidarity in the market are eroded, its disintegrating
consequences go beyond the market’s borders: the gradual autonomization of the imperatives of the financial and capital market “not only has
consequences for the labor market, but also for the neighboring social
spheres.”69
(3.a.) Hence, personal relationships are deteriorated as a result of the
pressure to subject the exercise of one’s different complementary social
roles to the profitability imperative of the market. In relations of friendship, for example, the need to constantly increase productivity and the
individualization of achievements and failures in the labor market lead
to a significant decrease in the domain of action free from strategic calculation that is essential for the flourishing of disinterested relations
between individuals. Among friends, thus, there is less and less space for
the mutual interest in each other and for an empathic, confidential, and
playful sharing of each other’s life destiny.
Romantic couples are also increasingly unwilling, says Honneth, to
cultivate the feelings of obligation, compliance, and self-limitation that
underlie the exercise of long-term complementary roles in the domain of
love—a phenomenon attributed to a great extent to the priority given by
social actors to the goals of professional self-actualization in their individual careers. As a consequence, loving personal relationships end up losing ground to—or even being fraught with—calculations typical of the
labor market, whose boundaries to leisure activities, free time, and personal relationships in general become increasingly blurred. In short, with
the intensification of flexibility demands at work and other requirements
that go along with what Honneth calls (with Pierre Dardot and Christian
Laval) the “capitalist formation of subjectivity,”70 new challenges and
obstacles impose themselves upon the ability of individuals involved in
a loving relationship to authentically and freely articulate their identity
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through the emotional and physical experimentation of reciprocal normative roles.
Market imperatives have anomalous consequences within the family context as well. Here, however, it is not so much the unrestrained
spread of the capitalist formation of subjectivity but rather the deteriorating socioeconomic, objective conditions vital to the uncoerced and
undistorted exercise of normative patterns of action characteristic of family life. Under favorable conditions, Honneth argues, individuals should
be granted sufficient time and means to engage in parenting, as well as
stable perspectives on the family’s material subsistence. The absence of
social policies that ensure such requirements sets up a social anomaly
that prevents the development of normative practices within the family
realm.71 Honneth points out that, if one of the family’s main functions
is the socialization of children, the failure to fulfill this role—for lack of
appropriate time, financial security, or recognition of care activities—
results in the decreasing ability of individuals to actively participate in the
broader social, economic, and political world.
(3.c.) In the political sphere, the fragmentation of the public arena is
one important misdevelopment highlighted by Honneth: the absence
of a common cultural horizon has disruptive consequences in contemporary societies, hindering or at least making it more difficult to establish a democratic public whose participants share a common history and
interconnected future expectations. A prominent source of this anomaly
is the political exclusion caused by socioeconomic inequalities. Honneth
sees the modern constitutional state as marked, from its origins, by a
class selectivity that favors the economic interests of the highest social
strata—in spite of the political system’s alleged purpose being to represent the general will of society as a whole. The very normative principles
underlying the foundation of the political system are therefore withheld
in the selective (and often violent) exercise of state control. Large portions of the population are excluded from the political decision-making
with regard to matters that affect them, which makes the state apparatus broadly impervious to their demands and needs. As a result, their
relationship with the sphere of institutional politics entails feelings of
disenchantment and distrust. This perception does not always take, however, the form of a collective expression of dissatisfaction, by means of,
for example, protests and strikes of political nature. The disenchantment
with politics has frequently led instead to apathy and indifference, resulting in a further deterioration of democratic participation mechanisms,
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thus creating a vicious circle between exclusion and abstentionism. The
longevity of the neoliberal consensus makes it increasingly clear that,
despite its democratic mechanisms, the political system continues to privilege the interests of the economic elite and to obstruct the exercise of
legislative autonomy by large sections of society. Without an egalitarian and supranational framework of civil, political, and social rights, the
imperatives of capital accumulation continue to take precedence over a
genuinely democratic public sphere.
This overview of ethical life’s misdevelopments shows that Honneth
grants the market and its profitability imperatives a central role in
Freedom’s Right. The phenomenon of capitalist formation of subjectivity
appears as a de-socializing pressure that affects social relations by transforming the way subjects interact with one another, favoring the satisfaction of the ever-increasing demands of the market. Within intimate
relationships, subjects are less and less able to commit themselves to
reciprocal practices that, while essential for the maintenance of personal
affective ties, might in any way harm the employability achieved through
the many competencies valued in the labor market, such as flexibility of
work hours, permanent availability for new assignments, and the ability
to establish purely strategic relationships with one’s interaction partners.72 In the sphere of market-mediated production and consumption,
in turn, solely the legally accepted conditions of contractual freedom are
guaranteed, to the detriment of the market’s promise to provide individuals with economic security, social recognition, and co-determination.
Also the political sphere is affected by important anomalies when the
imperatives of capitalist profitability overpower the normative expectations specific to this sphere and undermine the possibility of a shared
normative horizon or effective discursive mechanisms for collective
deliberation. Disinterested and affectionate relationships between loving
partners, friends, and family members are thus undermined, along with
the exercise of complementary roles between economic subjects and the
ability of citizens to formulate collective political responses to the social
problems affecting them as a whole.
As we can see, an ongoing transformation of the correlation
(Zusammenspiel) between the different spheres of social freedom is
in play. Ideally, for Honneth, “[t]hese respective spheres are joined to
each other in a relation of reciprocity [kontributive Wechselseitigkeit], the
same relation that exists within the individual spheres between the rolespecific activities of the individuals unified in a shared ‘We.’”73 His time
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diagnosis, however, points precisely to the threat of an internal erosion
of the structure of democratic ethical life and social freedom in the wake
of the marketization of the personal and political spheres. The harmful
role played by the autonomization of profitability imperatives within the
three spheres of ethical life makes it vital to take measures in favor of the
ethical re-embedding of the market: “Hence we will have to determine
the normative limitations of the economic sphere of social freedom, viz.
economic action on the market, in a reconstructive manner that prevents
the danger of a colonization of neighboring spheres of social freedom
from arising in the first place.”74
The need to establish normative limitations does not imply, however,
that the market is constitutively devoid of value orientations. Honneth
maintains here—in contrast to his portrayal of civil society in Suffering
from Indeterminacy—that the capitalist economy, when viewed uniquely
as an impersonal medium for the coordination of economic action, “possesses no tools for normatively influencing the behavior of market actors,
which is why we regard the many restrictions and regulations added to
the market once it has been socially institutionalized as embodiments of
the pre-contractual basis of its legitimacy.”75 The moral limitations to be
enforced in the economic sphere so as to avoid social misdevelopments
are not, thus, introduced from outside the market itself—they must
rather be distilled from its own (historically belied) moral grounding by
means of what Honneth calls normative reconstruction, a methodological
tool the author presents in the introduction to Freedom’s Right. Hence,
the misdevelopments of the spheres of personal relationships and democratic will-formation can only be described as a colonization by market relations if the economic sphere itself is affected by an anomalous
autonomization of profitability imperatives. When Honneth speaks of
the negative consequences of the market-mediated economy in personal
relationships and the public sphere, he is thus referring to those imperatives that became autonomous from the moral framework within which
they would be embedded in a non-anomalous social reality. Exchange processes occurring regardless of normative constraints, which is for many
the very definition of market economy, are taken by Honneth as a critical
characterization of the current state of capitalism—as contradictory, or
paradoxical, with respect to its own underlying premises. Therefore, the
penetration of the other spheres by the market can only be considered a
misdevelopment if the market itself is seen as having developed anomalously. Otherwise, the influence market relations could exert on personal
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relations and the political sphere would not be necessarily negative, but
might rather contribute to the realization of freedom in these spheres.
Honneth’s recent book therefore redresses the fallacy of misplaced
concreteness present in his previous work, since the economic sphere is
not characterized as normatively neutral, as was the case of civil society.76
Differently from Suffering from Indeterminacy, moreover, in Freedom’s
Right Honneth portrays ethical life not only in its therapeutic character,
but in its problematic features as well.77
Concluding Remarks
A comprehensive picture can now be drawn of Honneth’s different
stances on the leitmotif of critical theory. The author sets up his theory
of recognition as an alternative approach to critical theory’s—and especially Habermas’s—overemphasis on the pervasiveness of instrumental
reason in advanced capitalist societies, pointing out that the image of
the economic system as a normatively neutralized social sphere—either
as a social-ontological assumption or a diagnostic claim—amounts to a
fictional and misleading representation. By the same token, in a number
of essays written in the 1980s, the author argues that empirical analyses of the rationalization and fragmentation of work activities show an
ever-present disposition of the workers to reclaim the normative potential of their praxis. In his formulation of the theory of the struggle
for recognition, as well as in his defense of such theory against Nancy
Fraser’s criticisms, Honneth insists on the moral embeddedness of the
market. Too much on the defensive, however, he ends up precluding a
recognitional-theoretical analysis of the social pathologies of what we
could call “real existing capitalism.”
In Suffering from Indeterminacy, by contrast, the logic of the market appears as not normatively regulated: it embodies, instead, the
pursuit of one’s private, self-centered interests, and entails a learning
process linked to the exercise of purposive, i.e., instrumental rationality. The normativity of economic interactions is thus limited to the
mutual recognition of the exchange partners as capable of taking the
binding nature of contractual law into account, which led us to question whether Honneth restages here the fallacy of misplaced concreteness he criticized Habermas for: like Habermas’s system, Honneth’s civil
society seems to be free from norms and values in any substantial sense.
Moreover, the spheres of ethical life appear here as undisturbed by the
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social pathologies of individual freedom and the resultant suffering from
indeterminacy. Thus, although Honneth can now conceptualize both a
legitimate scope of strategic action and the pernicious consequences of
its hypertrophy, his account fails to locate such consequences within ethical life itself.
These difficulties are partially redressed in Freedom’s Right, where
Honneth still grants purposive rationality a warranted purview—not
as typical of one specific institutional domain, but rather as a mode of
social praxis that permeates ethical life. Differently from civil society, the
market is not conceived of as the realm of instrumental action per se.
Furthermore, Honneth is now in a position—as long as the conceptual
distinction between social pathologies and social anomalies or misdevelopments is dispensed with—to draw a fruitful connection between the
upsurge of the instrumental logic of negative freedom and the corrosion
of social freedom that affects all three spheres of ethical life in advanced
capitalist societies.
On a final note, it should be remarked that even though he now offers
an account of the erosion of normativity that accompanies the increasingly instrumental logic of social relations under neoliberal capitalism,
Honneth’s recent approach to social freedom tends to downplay the
participant’s perspective with respect to the diagnosis of, and resistance
to, social pathologies. As an example, a remarkable difference regarding
Honneth’s accounts of social pathologies in Suffering from Indeterminacy
and Freedom’s Right lies in the consequences they are said to imply in
the experience social actors: although in both cases social pathologies are
conceived of as emerging from the hypertrophy of legal and moral conceptions of freedom, in the former, they cause negative feelings and
states—emptiness, solitude, discontentment, unfulfillment, depression—
whereas in the latter, the social pathologies’ negative consequences from
the viewpoint of the participants drop almost completely out of sight.78
Precisely this bottom-up perspective allowed, however, for Honneth’s
focus, in his early alternative stance toward the normative erosion of
social praxis, on class struggle rather than on technologically determined
systemic crises. The challenge faced by Honneth’s theory now lies, consequently, in articulating both approaches. The critique of instrumental
reason as a critique of negative freedom can benefit a great deal from the
sensitivity recognition theory has for the moral grammar of social conflicts,
i.e., the experiences of injustice that function as the motivational force
behind social resistance to all-embracing commodification and reification.
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CAN HONNETH’S THEORY ACCOUNT FOR A CRITIQUE …
197
Notes
1. Georg Lukács, History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist
Dialectics, trans. Rodney Livingstone (London: Merlin Press, 1967
[1923]).
2. Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics, trans. E. B. Ashton (London and
New York: Routledge, 2004 [1966]).
3. Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of
Advanced Industrial Society (London and New York: Routledge, 2007
[1964]).
4. Jürgen Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action, trans. Thomas
McCarthy (Cambridge: Polity, 1991 [1981]).
5. Andrew Feenberg, “The Technocracy Thesis Revisited: On The Critique of
Power.” Inquiry, vol. 37 (1994): 98.
6. Axel Honneth, “A Fragmented World. On the Implicit Relevance of
Lukács’ Early Work.” In The Fragmented World of the Social. Essays in
Social and Political Philosophy, trans. Charles Wright (Albany, NY: SUNY
Press, 1995 [1986]), 54.
7. Axel Honneth, “A Fragmented World,” 59.
8. Axel Honneth, The Critique of Power: Reflective Stages in a Critical Social
Theory, trans. Kenneth Baynes (Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT
Press, 1993 [1985]), 269 (italics A.H.).
9. Honneth, The Critique of Power, 274.
10. According to Albrecht Wellmer, as Honneth points out, these different approaches are due to a tension within Habermas’s work between a
Freudian model (focused on social struggle) and a Piagetian one (connected to the dualism between system and lifeworld). For Honneth and
Wellmer, the notion of historical evolution present in Knowledge and
Human Interests allows for a model of society that is able, by emphasizing moral conflicts, to avoid a rigid dualism: “within this conceptual
framework, which Wellmer has called the ‘Freudian model,’ the forms
of the institutional organization of production and political administration are also still conceived as the result of a ‘moral’ struggle between
social groups and classes, so that in principle the possibility of historically
independent systems of purely strategically rational action cannot arise”
(Honneth, The Critique of Power, XXXI).
11. In The Theory of Communicative Action, the process of rationalization is
seen as the decentering of the lifeworld, whereby communicative action
is gradually liberated from the constraints imposed by traditional value
orientations, such as religious worldviews. But in this process, action
orientations for the attainment of ends, i.e., strategic action focused on
calculation, also progressively achieve autonomy. The system, the realm
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M. TEIXEIRA
of instrumental action, becomes the domain where social integration is
systemic and takes place through nonlinguistic means. In this sense, the
lifeworld, the domain of communicative action, is no longer regarded as
necessary for action coordination in the subsystems ruled by purposive
rationality.
12. Honneth, The Critique of Power, 294.
13. Honneth, The Critique of Power, 255. For a classic account of this fallacy,
see A. N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: Free
Press, 1997 [1925]).
14. Honneth, The Critique of Power, 298–299.
15. Honneth, The Critique of Power, 300.
16. See the following excerpt: “A paradigm of recognition thus elaborated
could, in my view, be a worthy successor, on a more abstract level to
be sure, of Marx’s paradigm of labor. In it the theory of emancipation
and the analysis of society can be connected once more in a theory of
action; for the practical contents of such a process of struggle for recognition are constituted by moral norms, norms by means of which capitalism can be criticized as a social relation of damaged recognition.” Axel
Honneth, “Domination and Moral Struggle.” In The Fragmented World
of the Social: Essays in Social and Political Philosophy, trans. Mitchell G.
Ash (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1995 [1989]), 14.
17. Axel Honneth, “Work and Instrumental Action: On the Normative Basis
of Critical Theory.” In The Fragmented World of the Social: Essays in Social
and Political Philosophy, trans. Mitchell G. Ash (Albany, NY: SUNY Press,
1995 [1980]), 17. “Labor” and “work” are employed here interchangeably, both translating the German term Arbeit.
18. e.g., Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. In
K. Marx and F. Engels (eds.) Collected Works, vol. 3, trans. M. Milligan
and D. J. Struik (New York: International Publishers, 1976 [1844]); Karl
Marx, Theses on Feuberbach. In K. Marx and F. Engels (eds.) Collected
Works, vol. 5, trans. C. Dutt, W. Lough and C. P. Magill (New York:
International Publishers, 1976 [1845]); Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,
The German Ideology. In Collected Works, vol. 5.
19. Honneth, “Domination and Moral Struggle,” 13.
20. Honneth, “Work and Instrumental Action,” 25.
21. Honneth, “Work and Instrumental Action,” 25 (translation amended).
22. Barrington Moore, Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt
(London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1978); Maurice MerleauPonty, Adventures of the Dialectic, trans. Joseph Bien (Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press, 1993 [1955]); Cornelius Castoriadis, The
Imaginary Institution of Society, trans. Kathleen Blavney (Cambridge,
MA: The MIT Press, 1987 [1975]).
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CAN HONNETH’S THEORY ACCOUNT FOR A CRITIQUE …
199
23. Honneth, “Domination and Moral Struggle,” 10.
24. Honneth, “Work and Instrumental Action,” 26.
25. Honneth, “Work and Instrumental Action,” 15.
26. Honneth, “Work and Instrumental Action,” 28.
27. Honneth, “Work and Instrumental Action,” 39–40.
28. Honneth, “Work and Instrumental Action,” 32.
29. In this regard, Honneth agrees with Harry Braverman, Labor and
Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century
(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1998 [1974]): “It is in the age of
the scientific-technical revolution that management sets itself the problem
of grasping the process as a whole and controlling every element of it,
without exception” (Braverman apud Honneth, “Work and Instrumental
Action,” 27). This process empirically also contradicts, therefore, the less
ambitious hope that technical learning could contribute to the organization of the workers’ revolt against capitalism, since there is no direct
correlation between the intensification of labor productivity and an
increase in the level of qualification of workers (Honneth, “Work and
Instrumental Action,” 28).
30. Honneth, “Work and Instrumental Action,” 46.
31. Honneth, “Work and Instrumental Action,” 47.
32. Pierre Bernoux, “La résistance ouvrière à la rationalisation: la réappropriation du travail.” Sociologie du travail, vol. 21, no 1 (1979).
33. Honneth, “Work and Instrumental Action,” 48.
34. Axel Honneth, “Moral Consciousness and Class Domination: Some
Problems in the Analysis of Hidden Morality.” In The Fragmented World
of the Social: Essays in Social and Political Philosophy, trans. Mitchell G.
Ash (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1995 [1981]), 219.
35. Honneth, “Work and Instrumental Action,” 48.
36. Honneth acknowledges that a universalized system of values positively oriented by moral norms seems unlikely in the reality of socially oppressed
classes, “because the social class situation neither forces nor supports
their reflective elaboration and logical generalization” (Honneth,
“Moral Consciousness and Class Domination,” 211). But their normative demands are preserved in the form of a consciousness of injustice expressed in the daily struggles for social recognition in the sphere
of labor, where evidence of a moral condemnation of the existing social
order remains latent.
37. Honneth, “Moral Consciousness and Class Domination,” 219. With his
critically reconstructed notion of work, Honneth sought to take distance
both from functionalist strands of Marxism (which derive class culture
directly from the position of its members in the production process, without taking into account their ability to re-elaborate in a specific way—and
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thus to enrich—the cultural contents acquired in the class division) as
well as from the time diagnosis according to which the emancipatory
potential inscribed in the working classes would have been absorbed by
the state, so that only other social groups—e.g., the student movement—
would now display this critical potential. By either over- or underestimating the current significance of class struggle, both approaches have the
effect of disregarding the latent morality of the lower classes—reinforcing
the strategies of domination that prevent their demands from attaining
visibility in the public arena.
38. Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social
Conflicts, trans. Joel Anderson (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1995
[1992]).
39. Since The Struggle for Recognition is a fairly known book, its structure will
not be presented in detail here.
40. Nancy Fraser, “Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics:
Redistribution, Recognition, and Participation.” In N. Fraser and
A. Honneth (eds.) Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical
Exchange (London and New York: Verso, 2003).
41. Axel Honneth, “The Point of Recognition: A Rejoinder to the
Rejoinder.” In N. Fraser and A. Honneth (eds.) Redistribution or
Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange, trans. James Ingram and
Christiane Wilke (London and New York: Verso, 2003), 249.
42. Honneth, “The Point of Recognition,” 250–251.
43. By the same token, Honneth criticizes Fraser’s functionalist view of law
insofar as she considers it merely as a neutral, non-normative instrument
to secure improvements reached in other social spheres. Subjective rights,
Honneth argues, already express the normative idea that subjects consider each other reciprocally as autonomous members of a democratic
legal community, and as a consequence, the concession or denial of such
rights plays a decisive role in the subjective perception of the status of
each individual in society (Honneth, “The Point of Recognition,” 252).
Thus, contrary to the notion of homo economicus, Honneth argues that
even if one accepted that the imperatives of capitalist valorization are not
symbolically and normatively mediated, it would be necessary to admit at
least the normative limitations imposed by the legal guarantees reached
through political struggle and resistance movements.
44. Honneth, “The Point of Recognition,” 255–256.
45. Honneth, “The Point of Recognition,” 255.
46. Nancy Fraser, “Distorted Beyond All Recognition: A Rejoinder to
Axel Honneth.” In N. Fraser and A. Honneth (eds.) Redistribution or
Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange (London and New York:
Verso, 2003), 216.
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201
47. This book is the fruit of the Spinoza Lectures held by Honneth in 1999 at
the University of Amsterdam. The lectures were published first in English
as Suffering from Indeterminacy: An Attempt at the Reactualization of
Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. In the German version, which appeared the
following year as Leiden an Unbestimmtheit: Eine Reaktualisierung der
Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie, two chapters absent in the lectures were
added. The extended version was published in English as The Pathologies
of Individual Freedom: Hegel’s Social Theory (quotes are drawn from this
extended edition, although I shall refer to the book by its original title—
i.e., Suffering from Indeterminacy).
48. See Table 8.1.
49. Axel Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom: Hegel’s Social
Theory, trans. Ladislaus Löb (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010
[2001]), 38.
50. Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom, 23.
51. The ethical value of moral autonomy consists, therefore, in allowing for a
reflexive evaluation of rational arguments for consenting to given social
practices. Its limits lie in the fact that the rational examination of action
norms cannot be indifferent to the context where such norms are put
into practice. In line with the Hegelian critique of the abstract character
of Kant’s practical philosophy, Honneth considers it necessary to rely, at
least to some extent, on already institutionalized social practices. If one
does not consider the norms and values underlying social reality, such
as found in established cultures and traditions, as endowed with some
degree of rationality, the only way to preserve the exercise of freedom
understood as moral self-legislation is to keep one’s distance from existing normative principles, and bracket them when considering the reasons
to act in any given direction. By insisting, from the viewpoint of moral
autonomy, on the merely introspective, context-transcending examination
of norms, moral reflection remains empty, and the suffering from indeterminacy that ensues as the social pathology linked to optional freedom
manifests itself in the elimination of all practical precepts and the consequent loss of capacity for action, which leads to a “torment of vacuity and
negativity” (Hegel apud Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom,
42).
52. Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom, 44.
53. Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom, 26.
54. Hegel apud Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom, 58.
55. Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom, 58.
56. Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom, 59.
57. Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom, 59.
58. Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom, 60.
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59. Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom, 61.
60. Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom, 62. Honneth claims that
the subject’s chances of individualization increase pari passu with her ability to universalize her own goals and orientations. It is not clear, however, how the transition from the family to civil society can be seen as part
of this “gradual process of decentration” (Honneth, The Pathologies of
Individual Freedom, 62), civil society being the realm of the self-centered
pursuit of private interests par excellence.
61. Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom, 73.
62. Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom, 73.
63. Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom, 75. In Hegel’s words:
“We saw earlier that, in providing for himself, the individual in civil society is also acting for others. But this unconscious necessity is not enough;
only in the corporation does it become a knowing and thinking ethical life” (Hegel [Addition to § 255] apud Honneth, The Pathologies of
Individual Freedom, 75).
64. Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom, 77 (italics M.T.).
65. Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom, 77.
66. See Table 8.1. One can see that Honneth’s terminology is slightly different. Morality is now the realm of reflexive (instead of “optional”) freedom, and ethical life corresponds to social (instead of “communicative”)
freedom—which allows Honneth to locate Habermas’s communicative
theory within the philosophical tradition of Kantian origin and centered
on moral autonomy rather than on social freedom. Within the spheres
of ethical life, on the other hand, Honneth takes some distance from
Hegel’s vocabulary and speaks of personal relationships, market-based
economic action, and democratic will formation instead of family, civil
society, and state.
67. In addition, collective associations—such as trade unions and consumer
cooperatives—show a declining ability to foster the socialization processes
required to build that common ground, remaining instead restricted to
the role of organizing immediate and often merely monetary interests.
68. This does not mean that there is no kind of resistance in the face of these
social misdevelopments: there are nonverbal, individualized, and private
forms of resistance, such as the occasional subversion of market demands
considered excessive or unreasonable. In contrast to his earlier writings,
however, Honneth stresses here the inadequacy of these attempts to give
feelings of injustice and disrespect a properly political expression: without
appropriate forums and discursive mechanisms to reflexively thematize
and jointly negotiate solutions to problems that affect them, individuals
are deprived of the opportunity to collectively articulate resistance.
69. Axel Honneth, Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic
Life, trans. Joseph Ganahl (Cambridge: Polity, 2014 [2011]), 245.
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CAN HONNETH’S THEORY ACCOUNT FOR A CRITIQUE …
203
70. Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval, “Néolibéralisme et subjectivation capitaliste.” Cités, vol. 4 (2010).
71. For Honneth, even the social security systems of developed Western countries are flawed, in that the benefits they grant—such as assistance in cases
of illness, retirement, and unemployment—remain linked to the exercise
of paid work (be it current, past, or potential). In this scenario, activities related to the care for the most vulnerable members of the family
community (such as children, the elderly, and people with special needs),
although vital for the realization of social freedom in the family realm,
hardly hold any social recognition or get any social compensation, be it
monetary or in terms of social welfare policies.
72. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 203–204.
73. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 330.
74. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 154.
75. Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 203 (italics M.T.).
76. The normative embeddedness of the market in Freedom’s Right is clear
not least in Honneth’s inclusion of the corporations in this sphere—
which he considered an “embarrassment” for Hegel in Suffering from
Indeterminacy.
77. Even though he does deal, in Freedom’s Right, with the dysfunctional phenomena that take place within ethical life, Honneth neglects here, too,
the striking parallelism between the hypertrophy of negative freedom and
the corrosive force of the capitalist formation of subjectivity. Instead of
elaborating this connection further, Honneth posits a distinction between
the social pathologies that arise from the negative and reflexive ideals of
freedom and misdevelopments or anomalies that affect social freedom. On
the one hand, social pathologies continue to be understood as the unilateral absolutization of legal and moral models of freedom. Social misdevelopments, on the other hand, are said to affect the three spheres of ethical
life as deviations from patterns of action regarded as ideal-typical for each
sphere. As Honneth formulates it, misdevelopments have their source
outside social freedom, while pathologies ensue from the indeterminate
character of each insufficient idea of freedom: legal or moral. This conceptual distinction reproduces the disconnect already present in Suffering
from Indeterminacy: once again, the social pathologies addressed in the
sections on legal and moral forms of freedom seem to vanish when ethical
life comes into play.
78. Even the terms suffering and indeterminacy lose every trace of their previous centrality. I discuss this difference and its implications for critical
theory in Mariana Teixeira, “The Sociological Roots and Deficits of Axel
Honneth’s Theory of Recognition.” In Michael Thompson (ed.) The
Palgrave Handbook of Critical Theory (London: Palgrave Macmillan,
2017).
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M. TEIXEIRA
Selected Bibliography
Adorno, Theodor (2004 [1966]) Negative Dialectics. Translated by E. B.
Ashton. London and New York: Routledge.
Bernoux, Pierre (1979) “La résistance ouvrière à la rationalisation: la réappropriation du travail.” Sociologie du travail, vol. 21, no 1: 76–90.
Braverman, Harry (1998 [1974]) Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation
of Work in the Twentieth Century. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Castoriadis, Cornelius (1987 [1975]) The Imaginary Institution of Society.
Translated by Kathleen Blavney. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Dardot, Pierre and Christian Laval (2010) “Néolibéralisme et subjectivation capitaliste.” Cités, vol. 4: 35–50.
Feenberg, Andrew (1994) “The Technocracy Thesis Revisited: On The Critique
of Power.” Inquiry, vol. 37: 85–102.
Fraser, Nancy (2003a) “Distorted Beyond All Recognition: A Rejoinder to Axel
Honneth.” In N. Fraser and A. Honneth (eds.) Redistribution or Recognition?
A Political-Philosophical Exchange. London and New York: Verso, 198–236.
Fraser, Nancy (2003b) “Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics:
Redistribution, Recognition, and Participation.” In N. Fraser and A. Honneth
(eds.) Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange.
London; New York: Verso, 7–109.
Habermas, Jürgen (1987 [1968]) Knowledge and Human Interests. Translated
by Jeremy J. Shapiro. Cambridge: Polity.
Habermas, Jürgen (1991 [1981]) Theory of Communicative Action. Translated
by Thomas McCarthy. Cambridge: Polity.
Honneth, Axel (1993 [1985]) The Critique of Power: Reflective Stages in a
Critical Social Theory. Translated by Kenneth Baynes. Cambridge, MA and
London: The MIT Press.
Honneth, Axel (1995 [1980]) “Work and Instrumental Action: On the
Normative Basis of Critical Theory.” In The Fragmented World of the Social:
Essays in Social and Political Philosophy. Translated by Mitchell G. Ash.
Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 15–49.
Honneth, Axel (1995 [1981]) “Moral Consciousness and Class Domination:
Some Problems in the Analysis of Hidden Morality.” In The Fragmented
World of the Social: Essays in Social and Political Philosophy. Translated by
Mitchell G. Ash. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 205–219.
Honneth, Axel (1995 [1986]) “A Fragmented World. On the Implicit Relevance
of Lukács’ Early Work.” In The Fragmented World of the Social: Essays in Social
and Political Philosophy. Translated by Charles Wright. Albany, NY: SUNY
Press, 50–60.
Honneth, Axel (1995 [1989]) “Domination and Moral Struggle.” In The
Fragmented World of the Social: Essays in Social and Political Philosophy.
Translated by Mitchell G. Ash. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 3–14.
8
CAN HONNETH’S THEORY ACCOUNT FOR A CRITIQUE …
205
Honneth, Axel (1995 [1992]) The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar
of Social Conflicts. Translated by Joel Anderson. Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press.
Honneth, Axel (2000) Suffering from Indeterminacy: An Attempt at a
Reactualization of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Spinoza Lectures. Translated by
Jack Ben-Levi. Assen: van Gorcum.
Honneth, Axel (2001) Leiden an Unbestimmtheit: Eine Reaktualisierung der
Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam.
Honneth, Axel (2003) “The Point of Recognition: A Rejoinder to the
Rejoinder.” In N. Fraser and A. Honneth (eds.) Redistribution or
Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange. Translated by James Ingram
and Christiane Wilke. London and New York: Verso, 237–267.
Honneth, Axel (2010 [2001]) The Pathologies of Individual Freedom: Hegel’s
Social Theory. Translated by Ladislaus Löb. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Honneth, Axel (2014 [2011]) Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of
Democratic Life. Translated by Joseph Ganahl. Cambridge: Polity.
Lukács, Georg (1967 [1923]) History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist
Dialectics. Translated by Rodney Livingstone. London: Merlin Press.
Marcuse, Herbert (2007 [1964]) One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology
of Advanced Industrial Society. London and New York: Routledge.
Marx, Karl (1976 [1844]) Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. In
K. Marx and F. Engels (eds.) Collected Works, vol. 3. Translated by Martin
Milligan and Dirk J. Struik. New York: International Publishers.
Marx, Karl (1976 [1845]) Theses on Feuberbach. In K. Marx and F. Engels
(eds.) Collected Works, vol. 5. Translated by Clemens Dutt, W. Lough and
C. P. Magill. New York: International Publishers.
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels (1976 [1846]) The German Ideology. In
K. Marx and F. Engels (eds.) Collected Works, vol. 5. Translated by Clemens
Dutt, W. Lough and C. P. Magill. New York: International Publishers.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1993 [1955]) Adventures of the Dialectic. Translated
by Joseph Bien. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Moore, Barrington (1978) Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt.
London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Press.
Teixeira, Mariana (2017) “The Sociological Roots and Deficits of Axel
Honneth’s Theory of Recognition.” In Michael Thompson (ed.) The
Palgrave Handbook of Critical Theory. London: Palgrave Macmillan,
587–609.
Whitehead, Alfred North (1997 [1925]) Science and the Modern World.
New York: Free Press.
CHAPTER 9
Critical Theory Derailed: Paradigm
Fetishism and Critical Liberalism in
Honneth (and Habermas)
Harry F. Dahms
Introduction
Nomenclature does matter. Critical theory never was—nor was it ever
meant to be—a monolithic tradition of social thought and research that
is clearly identifiable in positive terms; yet, it does have a core that must
be identified and appreciated explicitly. In recent decades, the nature
of this core has all but been lost. This loss is especially noticeable when
critical theory is understood in terms of the “Frankfurt School.” As one
prominent biographer of Adorno and Habermas, Stefan Müller-Doohm,
recently put,
There are many studies which talk of a Frankfurt School in the context
of intellectual history. Despite all their differences, these approaches all
arrive, implicitly or explicitly, at a remarkable and, one might say, paradoxical conclusion. They describe the object of their investigation in general
terms as the ‘Frankfurt School’ and refer to an intellectual construction
H. F. Dahms (*)
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA
© The Author(s) 2019
V. Schmitz (ed.), Axel Honneth and the Critical Theory
of Recognition, Political Philosophy and Public Purpose,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91980-5_9
207
208
H. F. DAHMS
that is said to be determined by a consistent cognitive, social and historical
identity. Its cognitive identity is linked, on the one hand, to an orientation
to the humanistic tradition of the European Enlightenment, and, on the
other, to Marx’s critique of capitalism and Freud’s critical analysis of the
human subject. Its social identity is documented with the Jewish origins
of the leading figures of the Frankfurt School and their experience as outsiders. Its historical identity is most often defined by the publication of the
Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, edited by Max Horkheimer since 1931, for
the Institut für Sozialforschung, and the fact that the Institute itself was the
beneficiary of a private foundation which provided the institutional conditions for intellectual freedom.1
As the reader might guess, Müller-Doohm arrives at the conclusion that
there never was a “Frankfurt School” in any strict sense (and, effectively,
that Habermas was not a critical theorist). Even though the title of this
essay might appear to imply that critical theory, at least, denotes a coordinated approach to tackling challenges related to modern society—
how else would it make sense to suggest that derailment is a discernible
threat?—suggesting such coordination is neither a precept, nor the vanishing point of this essay. Rather, the purpose here is to stress that critical
theory is characterized by an understanding that it does represent—or, at
least, should do so—a commitment to a specific kind of critical reflexivity which, absent such a commitment, is impossible to engender and
to sustain. Moreover, suggesting that critical theory was a unified program would be inappropriate also in light of the seeming fact that there
have been several “generations” of critical theorists, from Horkheimer,
Marcuse, and Adorno, to Habermas, to Honneth, and most recently to
Hartmut Rosa, along with several others who belonged to each of these
generations. The members of what later was referred to as the “Frankfurt
School” already in its first generation was far from an actual “school”;
the proponents of “critical theory” since 1937 did not conceive of themselves as belonging to a school—the term was coined decades later, in
part to identify g group of scholars retroactively, and the prominent representatives of this tradition did not strive to adhere to a common set of
precepts and working assumptions.2
On the other hand, it is also undeniable that from its outset, critical
theory was distinguished by features and an overall commitment to a
specific kind of knowledge and enlightenment that separated it from all
other intellectual and research orientations, though it was more or less
closely related to many other traditions, and even though clearly identifying these features and the corresponding commitment has been a major
9
CRITICAL THEORY DERAILED: PARADIGM FETISHISM …
209
challenge for decades. Indeed, the kind of knowledge and enlightenment
to which the critical theorists were committed is not immediately apparent and frequently has been misunderstood, as it can be conceived of and
framed in an array of ways, takes many forms, serves many possible purposes, and facilitates different applications. Thus, what constitutes the
“core” of critical theory has been contested repeatedly, for many reasons,
and in terms of foundational issues that have been a matter of conflict,
particularly within the force-field of theory and praxis. However, assuming that critical theory has a core, if it were to dissolve, or if the overall
commitment were to weaken, even latently—which is an imminent possibility, considering that it is difficult to delineate and, furthermore, potentially impossible to describe in terms of traditional theory—the project of
critical theory, would be in danger of “derailing.”
It is in this regard that a minimally firm grip on what constitutes critical theory must be maintained, not in more or less vague terms, but
in the sense that if its specific contribution to social theory and social
research were to be abandoned or forgotten, even unintentionally, an
eminently important perspective would be lost that is of central importance to the theory and the social science of modern society—and, by
implication, to modern society in general. In light of developments that
have taken place over the course of the last half a century, the contribution of critical theory, as conceived of by the members of the first generation, especially Horkheimer, Marcuse, and Adorno, pertains to sensitivity
and explicit reflexivity with regard to the transformation of the “social”
in advanced capitalism, as the latter relies to an increasing extent on
accelerating and intensifying economic, organizational, and technological
changes. What is important in this context, with regard to changes in the
prevailing understanding and framing of critical theory, is that the 1980s
constitute an important turning point, within the tradition of critical theory as a whole.
In 1981, Habermas—as the widely recognized most important representative of the second generation of critical theory (the latter designation having been contested by Müller-Doohm and others3)—presented
in explicit terms his communicative action paradigm, which he had been
working on in systematic fashion since the “linguistic turn” in social
theory at the beginning of the 1970s that he was partly responsible for
(along with Niklas Luhmann, whose approach was very different, however).4 It was toward the end of the 1980s, moreover, when Honneth
developed the recognition paradigm as the anchor of his version of critical theory, which he defended in his Habilitationschrift in 1990, to be
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published two years later, that he began to position himself as the most
important representative of what has been called the third generation.5
Interestingly, it is often overlooked that the publication of Habermas’s
communicative action paradigm and the formulation of Honneth’s recognition paradigm were just under a decade apart. It may have been pure
historical coincidence that the two theoretical contributions that came to
be regarded as the most notable steps in moving critical theory beyond the
“pessimistic” and “negativistic” frame of the “first generation” appeared at
the beginning and the end of the decade that saw the rise of neoliberalism.
However, it is much more likely that shifts in perspectives on public policy, the welfare state, the importance of economic growth and full employment and other developments that began to become discernible during
the 1970s, more or less directly influenced both what were perceived to be
desirable and convincing strategies for framing theoretical work, and how
relevant audiences perceived such work as constructive foundations for,
and contributions to, illuminating the dynamic, complex, and contradictory condition of modern societies in the force-field of premodernity and
postmodernity, in the latter part of the twentieth century. In this sense,
there may even be a peculiar, even an uncanny and counterintuitive affinity
between the communicative action and recognition paradigms, as far as the
normalization of certain perspectives on business–labor–government relations, the role of capital, and the function of the state, and myriad related
and adjacent dimensions of modern societies are concerned. In addition,
it is not likely that the appeal these reconfigurations of critical theory had,
on the basis and in the form of new paradigms, for audiences interested in
critical theory, reflected an acceptance of the need that even critical theories
had to accommodate notions of productive social science and research, and
the requirement that all the academic disciplines justify their contributions
in terms which are compatible with and even to a greater or lesser extent
expressive of the growing influence of market considerations. Following
the logic of this argument, furthermore, Honneth’s paradigm may reflect
this neoliberalization of social theory to a greater extent than Habermas’s
theory of communicative action.
The Core of Classical Critical Theory
As a distinctive tradition of social and philosophical thought, the critical
theory of the so-called Frankfurt School, emerged to tackle a daunting
challenge related to capturing the role of the logic of capital in and to
modern society. This counterintuitive logic is in conflict with an array of
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prevailing assumptions about modern societies that most members must
make in order for modern societies to function and be stable, including most academics, especially regarding the link between individual
and society—as this logic continuously transforms the tools individuals
employ to relate to, make sense of, and intervene into the social world
of which they are parts. The challenge of determining the importance of
the logic of capital in the modern age involves three distinct steps that
pertain directly to the distinctive contribution critical theory set out to
make to social thought and research, even though its representatives did
not necessarily employ this specific language. As often is the case, the
impetus of a theoretical project is not always immediately apparent, especially when looked upon from within the time and space—the historical
context—in which it was formulated and on which it was a reflection.
In addition, since critical theory as conceived during the 1930s was as a
sort of radical comparative-historical approach to research, if efforts are
made to delineate its program from within and with regard to one specific modern society only, it may be especially difficult to appreciate what
this theoretical project was set up to achieve.6
In the first step—after a hiatus of nearly half a century of rather futile
efforts to update Marx’s critique of political economy to later conditions—
the early critical theorists observed in the 1930s that the economic logic of
capital no longer was an adequate and sufficient target of critique, since
this logic had begun to suffuse, and become submerged in, social forms.
Efforts to theorize and critique the logic of capital above all as an economic logic—which, according to Marx, it never was to begin with7—
required in social life a clearly discernible difference between economic
and social dimensions of individual and public life. Yet, by the late 1920s,
“society” and social forms and modes of coexistence had ceased to be
conceivable independently of the logic of capital, to the point where it
no longer would have been possible to overcome “capitalism” without deconstructing and reconstructing on new foundations both individual identity and social structure, and the nature of the link between
both, even if it still would have been possible to reveal, effectively and
compellingly, the “nature and logic of capitalism” as separate from processes of individual identity formation and the constitutional logic of
modern society.8 Even if it would have been possible to make accessible
and intelligible to engaged and well-educated citizens—including workers as the original target audience of most of Marx’s writings—that the
logic of capital was no longer confined to the economic sphere, it might
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have been quite impossible for most members of society to grasp how the
link between society and capital had become too pervasive for the kinds
of efforts social groups and movements set out to pursue, and the goals
they endeavored to achieve, to be successful and, in effect, transformative;
instead, the logic of capital was likely to persist, and to deepen further.
In the second step, critical theory set out to scrutinize how the economic logic of capital had begun to become ingrained in politics, culture, and society during the second half of the nineteenth century, thus
transforming and subverting the latter into epiphenomena, functions,
and means of its further proliferation at an accelerating pace, and turning
into an increasingly mystifying and obscure social logic whose impetus is
almost impossible to discern and circumscribe, since science in general,
as well as the humanities and the social sciences, and individual identities
are permeated by this logic also, though—strictly speaking—not entirely
shaped or determined by it. In the literature on critical theory, this concern with social and cultural phenomena and processes, rather than the
underlying economic logic of capital, frequently has been framed and
described—if not dismissed—as a “cultural turn”. Yet, contrary to appearances, this turn neither was a matter of choice, nor of preference, but an
imminent necessity in light of the ongoing, structural transformations of
modern societies, and indicative of their counterintuitive constitutional
logic, as it conflicts with everyday perspectives and notions about the links
between politics, culture, society—and the increasingly bureaucratic capitalist economy. Thus, the importance of developing a rigorous critique of
the culture industry pertained to the status of the latter as an expression
and surface manifestation of the logic of capital focused on its function as
a medium and, indeed, an amplifier and fortifier of this logic, as well as
a social and political coping mechanism, inasmuch as it provides a pressure valve for social and economic conflict and frustration, and a space for
creativity that feeds back into the logic of capital, not least because it is
incapable of slowing or altering the direction or the impetus of this logic.
In the third step, explicated especially in Horkheimer’s famous programmatic essay,9 the distinguishing feature of critical theory emerged as
the commitment to discerning and delineating how the gravity that concrete socio-historical circumstances in modern (capitalist) societies exert
on efforts to illuminate the constitutional logic of those societies increases
with every generation, thus concealing to an ever greater extent the warped
dialectic of modernity, by seemingly “naturalizing” it.10 By implication,
social research turns out to be located in a field of dynamic, complex, and
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contradictory tensions that thwart efforts to assess whether and to what
extent the specific forms of particular social, political, or cultural practices,
organizations, or institutions are expressive of human sociality, as opposed
to human sociality mediated by the increasing prevalence of the economic logic
of capital. Before opportunities emerge to engage in focused and careful
empirical social research relating to social, political, or cultural forms, it is
necessary to insure that such research and the knowledge it produces will
not replicate and aggravate further dimensions of the constitutional logic
of modern societies that are detrimental to those modes of social integration that do not aggravate further alienation and anomie, and which are
inversely related to the norms and values according to which individuals
are supposed to live their lives and relate to others, but which are undermined by the “needs” of society as an actually existing socioeconomic system.11 Typically, those dimensions of the constitutional logic are related,
but neither identical with nor limited to, the economic logic of capital, and
located at the intersection of dynamic systems of economic power and persistent structures that have been fostering alienation and anomie. As configurations of power and inequality that are at the core of modern societies
are inversely related to individuals being successful at endeavoring to grasp
the forces and patterns which facilitate social stability, the unavoidably first
order of business is to conceive of what realistically would amount to social
research oriented toward “emancipation.”
Horkheimer’s program of critical theory stressed the need to assess
how economic logic in its capitalist vein and social logic in the industrial age are prone to becoming interlinked in increasingly specific and
less and less fathomable ways, in modern societies, and the early critical
theorists pursued this program from a variety of angles, but—for present purposes—in two ways, above all. On the one hand, efforts were
directed at conceptualizing and explicating the difficulties that would be
likely to accompany the development of critical theory with “practical
intent,” as Habermas would later put it. Recognizing and examining the
gravity socio-historical circumstances in the modern age exert on social
research relating to identifying the defining features and underlying logic
of social reality required possession of a viable theory of modern society, even though—paradoxically—successfully delineating such a theory
appeared to be the stated end-goal of critical theory. On the other hand,
as the early proponents of critical theory confronted the ongoing challenge of conceiving of a theory of modern society, while appreciating the
likelihood that such a theory would reflect socio-historical circumstances
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without critically reflecting on them, they discerned that modern societies
encourage or compel their members to subscribe to assumptions about
the nature of this type of society in ways that facilitate the problematic
conversion of economic and social logics so as to become compatible with
and reinforce the logic of capital. They pursued many different strategies
to illuminate and verbalize the proliferation of impediments to individuals’ efforts to maintain sanity (and to avoid aggravating further, for themselves and others, alienation and anomie, through their actions and modes
of existence) and to prospects of modern society becoming more “sane”
over time.12 De facto, even though they did not use this exact language,
the early critical theorists also were concerned that the conversion of economic and social logics into the logic of capital would be detrimental to
solidarity in the formal and in the substantive sense—for “organic solidarity” as identified by Emile Durkheim, and for sociocultural and political solidarity as a proactive and transformative transposition of norms
and values into novel practices, forms of organization, and institutions—
according to those norms and values that members of society either are
supposed to live by and relate to each other (or according to which they
would prefer to relate to each other). In the final analysis, though, and for
a variety of reasons, they succeeded only to a certain degree.
Indeed, what social theorists—especially Marx, but also Durkheim,
Weber and others—began to recognize more or less explicitly as a new
kind of economic logic that took hold during the nineteenth century, by
the early twentieth century had morphed (and needed to be grasped) as
the social logic of modern “society” (centered on bureaucratic modes of
capitalist organization) in its many forms turning into the conduit for
capital establishing itself as the unavoidable force to be reckoned with in
all human, social, cultural, and political affairs, as it started spreading at
an accelerating pace around—and thus transforming the surface of—the
planet. Yet, precisely at the same time during which this transformation
started gaining momentum, sociologists began to establish their discipline as a social science and professional field that was concerned with
the study of human social relationships and institutions: sociology as
the study of society as a manifestation of human sociality, as opposed to
the study of the “socio-logic of capital.”13 For the most part, they did so
either by implicitly abstracting from, or by explicitly disregarding, how
especially in modern societies, all social forms were turning into parts
and parcels of the social logic of capital, at varying levels of intensity, and
thus could neither be explained nor understood on their own terms, but
instead as products of the tension between the underlying forces (capital
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accumulation, division of labor, rationalization, etc.) that shape modern
society, and how these forces are observable (only) at the level of surface
manifestations—the level sociologists as opposed to social theorists, and
especially critical theorists, are concerned with. Put differently, contrary
to the early social theorists, sociology for the most part, and especially
as a professional discipline, focuses on the surface level of modern society, implicitly working with the supposition that it is the task of sociologists to regard and study social customs and practices and forms of social
aggregation on their own (i.e., sociological) terms, and to “explain” one
social phenomenon (i.e., surface manifestation in the singular) as the
result or, as in the case of social movements, the intended product of
interaction between other social phenomena (i.e., surface manifestations
in the plural). Yet, what is being ignored actively or neglected passively
is that what appear as “social” phenomena must be scrutinized within
modern society as located within the field of tensions and at the intersection of different, more or less closely related underlying forces, on
the one hand, and efforts of human actors at the level of surface manifestations (e.g., in the context of social movements, in politics, in large
organizations, etc.) to influence the form, importance, and gravity of
other surface manifestations. More interestingly, though, and unknowingly (but still, in effect), human actors set out to “control” at least some
of the underlying forces (or, rather, the impact they have on social phenomena, or social life in general), and thus—by definition—to alter the
combined dynamics that co-determine the thrust, impetus, and relative
power of those forces, respectively, even though, as a matter of principle,
such efforts are less and less likely to be successful as time goes by, even if
such efforts would be explicit, intentional, and cognizant of the dynamics, complexity, and contradictions that define the modern world.14
Critical Theory Since the 1980s
On the occasion of Habermas’ eightieth birthday in 2009, DIE ZEIT,
a prominent German weekly in which some of his important interventions into the public sphere had appeared, dedicated much of its cover
page to “Super Power Habermas” (Weltmacht Habermas).15 Underneath
the bold headline that ran the width of the page, the honored scholar
was depicted in front of a wall of books vaulting upward, in cathedral-like
fashion, toward a source of light hovering above the image (and out of
sight), reverently illuminating the master’s illustrious head. The apparent
allusion to religious iconography included the claim that “if anyone today
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can explain reality, it must be Habermas,” and that “Germany’s
most influential intellectual is on demand on all continents,” and the
­impression was unavoidable that this manner of paying homage was also
somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Moreover, compared to the promise of the
cover page, the article included several pages into the issue, while informative, accurate, and suitably respectful, was rather brief and disappointing
in its cursory nature, especially when compared to the scope and depth of
Habermas’ articles that had appeared in the weekly in the past.16
In many regards, the work of Axel Honneth shares formal qualities
with the writings and outlook of Habermas. On the one hand, similarities in part may have been the consequence of Honneth having had in
Habermas—who Honneth worked with closely and productively for ten
years17—not just a kindred spirit, but also the model for a successful professional and publishing career. Habermas’s strategy to ensure that his
writings, and especially his version of critical theory, would attract a large
amount of persistent attention, to withstand and repel criticisms from
many corners, to clarify his own position and to advocate his agenda,
and to exert influence on the practice of philosophy, social theory, and
social science in diverse disciplines, evidently was not lost on Honneth,
whose writing skills and output approach those of Habermas. On the
other hand, there also are many similarities that pertain to aspects of
their works being tied to the specific socio-historical context from which
their scholarly inspiration, political commitments, and theoretical contributions originated, in ways that limited, delimited, and diminished
the theoretical and the practical relevance of their efforts when applied
to socio-historical contexts which differed from those they had in mind,
and when measured in the context of the tradition of critical theory as a
whole.18 Compared to the global “super power” Habermas, whose paradigm of communicative action potentially has a bearing in any context
and society where language is being employed (that is, virtually everywhere), Honneth ranks as a “regional power” of sorts, in the sense that
it would be desirable for his recognition paradigm to be relevant everywhere, with tangible practical implications. Arguably, though, the recognition paradigm appears to be a viable framework for diagnosis, analysis,
and implementation above all in societies where the rule of law has been
firmly established and where values related to social justice, democracy,
public welfare and solidarity are affirmed and supported by a discernible, reliable, and unwavering majority of the population. As has become
increasingly undeniable, such determined affirmation and support are
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becoming less solid even and especially in those societies that have been
in the vanguard of increasing social justice, reinforcing democratic processes and institutions, and protecting the social, cultural, and political
preconditions for solidarity. In societies where “progressive” achievements have been preliminary at best, the above values increasingly appear
to be viewed as more or less suspect, disconcerting, unsettling, or unrealistic, by large segments of the population.19
My goal in this short essay is to treat Honneth as a theoretical and
historical phenomenon in his own right, despite conspicuous parallels
with Habermas, which need to be acknowledged first. Both in breadth
and depth, Honneth’s output is almost as staggering and multilayered
as that of Habermas. The intellectually demanding and normatively
compelling perspective and academically successful theoretical framework Honneth developed in terms of the recognition paradigm, which
he recently reworked and expanded into the concept of social freedom,20
are comparable to the appeal and impact of Habermas’s communicative action paradigm, and for many scholars and social scientists seemed
to be the “organic” successor, as it were, of Habermas’s work, in light
of (only slightly) altered historical and societal circumstances. Both
Honneth’s and Habermas’s contributions to social theory and social philosophy originated in and are intrinsically entwined with particulars in
social and public life characteristic of West Germany, separated by two
decades exactly. These features—their emphasis on paradigms (whose
compatibility with the program critical theory is suspect indeed: not just
Habermas’s and Honneth’s specific paradigms, but of paradigms generally, as an outgrowth of “traditional theory,” as I will address in greater
detail below)—and their attachment to the specifics of West German
society, politics, culture, and political economy account for a tension at
the heart of their oeuvres, respectively, which raises important issues with
regard to their oft-repeated claim that their projects must be situated in
the tradition of critical theory to be properly understood and appreciated. Yet, whether their successive versions of critical theory constitute
contributions that truly succeeded at continuing to work from the major
achievements facilitated by—and to overcome purportedly major deficits
built into—the initial program laid out by Max Horkheimer in 1937,
and developed further and much more broadly in the comprehensive critique of modernity formulated by Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno
in Dialectic of Enlightenment,21 has been a matter of strong disagreement at least since the 1980s. These disagreements have an additional,
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telling wrinkle: whereas in Germany, Habermas and Honneth have been
regarded and widely accepted, especially in academia, as the legitimate
heirs of critical theory, in the United States, and above all among social
scientists (sociologists and political scientists, especially, as opposed to
philosophers and literary theorists), the shift from the 1930s members
of Institute for Social Research to Habermas and Honneth (as well as
Rosa) involved not only the loss of a particularly important mode of radical social critique, but also of a commitment to facing unpleasant facts
about social, political, cultural, and economic life—facts whose unpleasantness has been aggravating further in the twenty-first century, and at
what appears to be an accelerating pace.
In order to address two facets of Honneth’s (and also Habermas’s)
theoretical work that frequently either have been taken for granted
or roundly ignored (similar to the fact that critical theory was conceived in New York, rather than in Frankfurt)—the emphasis on paradigms and the way in which their versions of critical theory reflect West
German history and social and cultural circumstances—I will apply
what I have referred to elsewhere as a comparative approach to theory.22 This approach is intended to delineate and illustrate how scholarly work inevitably remains linked to the socio-historical context from
which it emerged and whose concerns, contradictions, or challenges it
was intended to address and overcome or meet, in rigorous or systematic fashion. In the interest of shedding light on how efforts directed at
achieving a measure of general or even universal validity with regard to
features of (or observations about) modern social life, or the desirability of normative positions, reflect specific conditions and circumstances,
this approach stresses that especially when scholars fail to acknowledge
explicitly how exactly most agendas are grounded in and shaped by concrete contexts, they perform a key function in reinforcing the patterns
characteristics of these contexts, particularly where they are most problematic, e.g., in terms of engrained systems of power and structures of
inequality. Traditional scholarship, in particular, is prone to reflecting
passively (in the sense or mirroring; as opposed to critically reflecting
on) specific socio-historical circumstances in ways that diminish both the
value and potential impact of particular contributions to our understanding of the vicissitudes of the modern condition.23 By implication, appreciation and explication of diverse dimensions of the social universe we
inhabit are being diminished, as is as our ability to grasp how this universe is at the same time dynamic, complex, and contradictory.
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To be sure, referring to Habermas as a “super power” with global
impact was an exaggeration (and presumably, intentionally so): critical theory in general, as well as Habermas’s communicative version of
the latter, has strongholds only in a small number of countries (including especially Germany and the U.S.), and possibly less so today than
it did a decade or two ago. In other countries, Habermas’s stature and
importance is likely to be more indicative of a desire among scholars to
imagine the practical implications of his theory being recognized and followed by political actors and other decision-makers to a greater extent
than has been the case in the past, than of conditions that are sufficiently
pliable to be open to the kind of qualitative social, education, political, or
institutional change that which motivated his efforts. It may be no accident that Habermas’s growing importance on the academic world-stage
coincided with the rise of celebrity culture, regardless of what exactly this
or that celebrity represents.
Honneth’s perspective as a social philosophy is intrinsically entwined
with unique circumstances that prevailed during the history of West
Germany. To some extent, this applies to Habermas also, though in a
different way, and less so. Put differently, while Habermas’s perspective, especially with regard to communicative action, doubtlessly in key
regards was a function of and response to the transition from National
Socialism—via German capitulation in 1945—to postwar occupation, the
division of Germany, and the adoption of the West German “Basic Law”
(Grundgesetz—the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany),
and probably would not have attracted a comparable degree of interest and attention and not have been similarly conducive to a successful
career anywhere else, its impetus reached well beyond the sensitivities and
sensibilities of West German society, politics, and culture. This impetus
was related to the fact that Habermas was willing, at the same time, to
acknowledge the contradictions of modernity in a manner that needed to
be reflected on and translated into the logic of the social sciences, while
also working with “traditional” approaches and scholars and researchers
whose interests and objectives were not closely tied to critical theory,
both in terms of the program Horkheimer had spelled out in 1937, and
within the context of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research.
The purpose of this preliminary sketch (which warrants much closer,
detailed, and careful examination than is possible presently) is to draw
attention to a set of closely related issues regarding Honneth’s version
of critical theory that to date have only been touched upon, but not
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addressed explicitly. The goal is not to pass judgment on the value or
the relevance of Honneth’s theoretical project on its own terms, which
would require an even more detailed examination and discussion, but
to identify two specific aspects of his work that make his claim to have
been inspired by and to have continued the tradition of critical theory—
indeed, to have raised it to a “higher level” and to have made it more
relevant in a variety of ways—highly problematic. Evidently, Honneth’s
work has been criticized from many angles before, and on this account,
to the effect that his place in the lineage of critical theory only applies to
a limited extent and in very specific ways. In fact, the ambivalent nature
of the claim that his work is situated in the tradition of critical theory
is so apparent that the F.A.Z.—the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung—
recently referred to Moishe Postone (in a related obituary) as “The Last
Frankfurter,” i.e., the last representative of the Frankfurt School, rather
than Axel Honneth.24 Considering that the latter has distanced himself
on many occasions from the legacy of the first generation of Frankfurt
School critical theorists, in particular, it is highly doubtful that this designation of Postone as the last representative of the tradition that began in
the 1930s was unsettling to Honneth; he may even agree with it.25
Honneth’s “Critical Theory”
In the present context, it will only be possible to identify—but not to
fully develop—the above-mentioned two limitations of Honneth’s work
as far as it has been understood to be a contribution to critical theory
pertain, first, to what might be referred to—in allusion to the longstanding debate about “American exceptionalism” in the U.S.—as the neglect
of “West German exceptionalism,” which as I will endeavor to show, secondly, is especially pertinent in one specific regard, as far as theorizing
modernity is concerned, the role of education in the development of critical reflexivity.26
Both of these limitations encourage the observation that rather
than emphasizing and reinforcing the need for critical theory as a tradition of critically analyzing the link between society and social science in
the twenty-first century, with regard to the challenge of acknowledging
and delineating the constitutional logic of modern societies, Honneth’s
efforts are in danger of fulfilling an ideological function in modern Western
societies that is incompatible with the program of critical theory Max
Horkheimer formulated more than eight decades ago in New York.27
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Moreover, it stands in direct opposition to the latter, so much so that it
may well undercut the critique of traditional theory and the function it fulfills in the context of existing systems of power and structures of inequality,
and which Horkheimer’s program was intended to make visible, along with
the distinctive contribution critical theory set out to make to illuminating
the above-mentioned contradictory vicissitudes of modern societies.28
Honneth, Recognition, and the Logic of Paradigms
The first limitation relates to the reliance and emphasis on paradigms
in critical theory since Habermas, an emphasis that has been especially
pronounced in Honneth’s work, and which has continued in the framework of one of the few sociologists still actively working in this tradition
in Germany, Hartmut Rosa’s “acceleration paradigm.”29 The issue is that
theoretical progress through paradigms is not consistent with the program
of critical theory as the critique of traditional approaches as Horkheimer
conceived of it, and as the “classics” of critical theory pursued it in a variety of ways. Paradigms exemplify traditional theory, as they constitute
constructive efforts to achieve particular purposes under existing circumstances, without reflecting on how the latter propel some and undercut
other strategies for attaining research success. They are “positive” efforts
in modern society as is, not critical theories that confront the underside
of this type society, as doing so would be detrimental to attaining success
within existing systems of power and structures of inequality. This applies
to such an extent that for critical theory to embrace the concept of paradigm and to pursue the kind of research strategies it implies, it first would
have to determine how, in critical theory to date, Kuhn’s perspective on
“scientific revolutions” has influenced subsequent designs and contributions to critical theory and efforts to promote its agenda more successfully, in line with prevailing norms and values in modern societies.30 Such
scrutiny doubtlessly would make evident the vast gulf and undeniable
tension, between Kuhn’s analysis and critical theory as conceived in the
1930s. It also would be conducive to a rigorous assessment of the more
recent history of critical theory and potentially facilitate a “reloading”
of sorts of critical theory that would fit, at least to a greater extent, the
increasingly confusing, contradictory, and bewildering conditions of the
twenty-first century, which evidence suggests are well beyond the kind of
circumstances that once were conducive to slugging away at the riddle of
modern society and hoping that “things will work out in the end,” as they
most certainly are not looking likely to do.31
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Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, paradigms also lend
themselves to the kind of reductions of complexity that critical theory
rejected, set out to avoid, and criticized. While critical theorists frequently have been accused of applying overly simplistic categories and
concepts to the ever more complex social world we inhabit, such as
“totality,” “administered world,” and “instrumental reason,” they largely
only appear to be simplistic, and in fact require precisely the kind of
dialectical engagement with the constitutional logic of modern societies and the phenomena they produce that are required to navigate the
divide between the “bright” and the “dark” sides of modern societies.
Thus, how simplistic (or even simple) critical theory in fact is tends to
be a matter of interpretation—not in the sense that depending on one’s
interpretation, it is simple or simplistic, but in the sense of whether sufficient interpretive acumen is employed in the process of grasping and
applying the concept and priorities introduced and used and pursued by
critical theorists. Frequently, however, such criticisms levelled at critical theory correspond with the desire to unduly reduce the complexity
of modern societies in theoretical representations—a kind of complexity which tends to be wound up with their dynamic and contradictory
nature, in any case—and provide pretexts for avoiding research agendas that would compel social scientists and social theorists to scrutinize
the purported complexity of the social world. After all, it is an empirical
question whether modern societies at specific points in time, or in general, are following a path that corresponds with the levels of complexity
inferred by the critics of classical critical theory, or whether modern societies in fact are much less complex than these critics or their successors
assumed (or assume). If the above argument about the role of the logic
of capital to the history and future of modern society is justified at all,
related research would have to design agendas reflecting the possibility,
or the actuality, of social, political, and cultural change being permeated
by such a logic. If it should turn out to be the case that the logic of capital has a bearing on changes in the different values spheres of modern
societies—to employ Weber’s concept—and on the overall evolutionary
trajectory of these societies, as the evidence appears to suggest, then the
corresponding kind and extent of reflexivity would have to be identified
with as much precision as possible.
As the case of Honneth’s recognition paradigm illustrates, the latter
considerations would appear to be systematically excluded. The resistance built into the recognition paradigm against engaging, for instance,
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with the perspectives and writings of the above-mentioned “new Marx
readers,” including especially Postone, and the issues they raised regarding the transmutations of capitalism, would suggest that this limitation
goes either on Honneth’s account, or is inherent to the recognition paradigm. It may well be both, as they suggest the imperative to endeavor
to frame the rise and transformations of modern societies in ways that
are consonant with the interpretations of individuals in those societies, and how they process related experienced in them of shared norms
and values which, however, typically are not conducive to illuminating
the workings of these societies. Argumentative cohesion is a hallmark
of paradigmatic thought, or of thinking in terms of paradigms. “Does
not compute” may be the only available response to efforts to consider
aspects of social life that are neither consistent with, nor prone to reaffirming, the acuity of a paradigm to confront the kind of contingencies
in modern social life that impose on individuals a multiplicity of experiences of cognitive dissonance. For instance, the notion that modern
societies may maintain order and stability, and function, by employing
and relying on the predictability and the protection against contingencies, to whatever extent, provided by systems of power and structures of
inequality, is so incongruous with the working assumptions of the recognition paradigms that it must not be entertained in all earnestness, as
doing so would throw in doubt this paradigm. What would be the point
of advocating social justice, acknowledgment and appreciation by others,
if the constitutional logic of modern society, as it were, prohibits social
justice, recognition, and love as features of intersubjectivity, since their
encouragement would necessitate not just a different mode of economizing, but also a different kind of politics, a different constellation between
business, labor, and government, an entirely different mode of socializing and educating young members of society into its framework? Yet,
as in the case discussed here, in the interest of advocating the recognition paradigm as a decisive step in the direction of making critical theory
practically and constructively relevant, it is imperative to prove the value
of the paradigm in the history of social and political thought. The results
are reconfigurations of the established canon in a fashion that does not
prove their obsolescence on their own terms, but which turns them into
functions of the paradigm deemed to be current. There are examples
aplenty of this pattern with regard to the recognition paradigm introduced, applied, and defended by Honneth.32
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Honneth and/in the Federal Republic of Germany
Honneth’s theoretical endeavors as they have been linked to and are a
function of the recognition paradigm as he conceived it in the late 1980s
in key regards are tied directly to, and reflect changing working assumptions and circumstances in education, politics, culture, and society in
the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) during the decades
following its inception in 1949. In his work, these changing conditions
appear to have come to bear in more or less conspicuous and idiosyncratic ways. Honneth was born in 1949, the same year in which the de
facto constitution of the Federal Republic was adopted, the Basic Law
(Grundgesetz). If we mark the closure of his Lehrjahre ­(apprenticeship
years)—which in German academia last longer than in most other
countries—with the successful defense of his Habilitation in 1990
(under Habermas), then his personal period of inculcation into academia
coincided exactly with the history of West Germany and the division of
Germany into three western “sectors” controlled by the “Western Allies”
(the United States, Great Britain, and France), and the eastern “sector”
controlled by the Soviet Union (with the pattern of division repeated
in Berlin). His Lehrjahre reached their end almost exactly at the same
time as West Germany, with the so-called reunification of the divided
parts of Germany (on October 3, 1990). Honneth’s career as a professor began in 1991, almost exactly one year into the history of (re)unified Germany. These coincidences of time should not be overrated, to
be sure, nor do they have any inherent meaning; still, they highlight an
aspect of Honneth’s thought and career that—as a matter of principle—
may be reflected in the trajectory of his perspective and the impetus of
his contribution.
As it turns out, there is one regard in which the history of West
Germany presented a most unusual context for laying the foundations
of a social theory whose appeal among academics (and to a lesser extent,
the educated public) was immediately apparent. After having been
defeated in 1945, and after accepting and even embracing—more or less
grudgingly—military and political defeat, Germans entered the wellknown period of re-education and denazification, as steps toward preparing the construction of strong democratic institutions and of a firm
infrastructure for democratic processes. More or less willingly, even if
with a somewhat defeatist attitude, most Germans accepted democracy
as the price to be paid for unleashing World War II and for the atrocities
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committed between 1933 and 1945, both in what was to become, after
1949, the “actually existing socialist” German Democratic Republic
(East Germany) and the “civil-bourgeois” (zivilbürgerliche) Federal
Republic of (West) Germany.33 Despite denazification, once left to their
own devices, both republics immediately re-established the familiar pattern of socializing and educating their young to become obedient members of society who did not question the established order—Communist
ideology in the East (as the westernmost outpost of the Soviet sphere of
influence at the time), capitalist ideology in the West (bolstered by the
“economic miracle” of the 1950s and 1960s)—and who were supposed
to willingly submit to authority and to do their country’s bidding, especially in the global context of the conflict between East and West.
Yet, twenty years later, after the adoption of the West German constitution and formalization of the division of Germany, and following several years of increasing dissatisfaction and even unrest in response to the
Grand-Coalition government between the Christian Democratic/Social
Union (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) from 1966
to 1969—unrests and protests that culminated in the student movement—the newly elected Brandt administration, resting upon a coalition
between the Social Democrats and the Free Democratic Party (FDP),
came to power in fall of 1969, among other things pulling the proverbial rug from underneath the student movement, and providing the pretext for the radicalization of resistance against the capitalist-democratic
state that led to the rise of violent terrorism in West Germany. Under
Brandt’s leadership—during World War II, he had fought against German
Nazis in Norway, while part of the resistance against National Socialism—
and for the first time in the history of West Germany, a wave of political, educational, cultural, and policy reforms was unleashed that included
new curricula, especially in secondary education, at the Gymnasium level
(comparable to, but not identical with American high school), which mandated dedication of substantial lecture time in the curriculum, especially
in History, to addressing and discussing German history prior to and during National Socialism (1933–1945). This curricular change was accompanied and reinforced by a heightened emphasis in public television and
radio programming—at a time when all television and radio programming
was “öffentlich-rechtlich” (literally, public-legal, i.e., subject to oversight by
formally established boards comprised of representatives of political parties, the Catholic and Protestant Churches, labor unions, etc.). Thus, the
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“social-liberal” Brandt government purposefully encouraged large segments of the German public to critically face the Nazi era, the willingness
of many Germans to support Hitler, their involvement in or tacit support
of the Holocaust, and the related culpability and co-responsibility of “regular people,” including in and for World War II. Evidently, not all school
students exposed to this disturbing information embraced its implications
in constructive fashion, and many Germans reacted mostly defensively to
the evidence provided to, not to say, thrust upon them. However, over
time, these reformist steps, which were comparably radical, transformed
public discourse and awareness regarding National Socialism, and authorities in institutions and organizations generally, and engendered a kind
of critical reflexivity with regard to “society” that was not only tolerated,
but encouraged. As always is the case, reality started to interfere with this
program, especially when the terrorists of the R.A.F. (Red Army Faction)
began to challenge state authority in such ways that forced the latter to
“show its true face of violence.” Nevertheless, the shift in attitudes regarding National Socialism and democracy continued to shape public debates.
This brief excursus into pre- and post-World War II Germany history is
intended to serve one purpose: to stress a feature of West German exceptionalism that cannot be found anywhere else in similar fashion—the laying
of the foundations of an educational, cultural, and mass-media infrastructure designed to encourage citizens as members of a society to develop a
critical attitude toward their own society insofar as the latter a few decades
earlier had taken a political turn whose medium- and long-term consequences, at the national and global level, still have not been firmly identified, assessed and established. This reform was radical insofar as it deviated
from the long-established pattern of socializing and educating school children and school students into members of society who refrain from reflecting critically on the claims authorities make about the character of society.
While in other national and historical contexts, citizens were encouraged to
criticize or reject conditions that had prevailed prior to a regime change,
what is especially remarkable about West German exceptionalism is that it
was formal in nature, intended to amplify political awareness and the value
of democratic institutions and processes, without compelling those who
were encouraged to develop critical awareness to abide by any particular political orientation or to support particular parties, with two caveats.
Political parties and movements whose declared goal it was to destroy or
overcome the political system established on the grounds of the Basic Law
were declared “unconstitutional” organizations against which West German
democracy had to be willing to defend itself (a notion that Habermas has
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referred to as Verfassungspatriotismus—“constitutional patriotism”). West
German exceptionalism was indeed limited to the Federal Republic in
Germany, which—as the purported successor of National Socialism—was
the declared enemy of the German Democratic Republic, in whose context
traditional patterns of socialization, education, and conditioning continued to be strictly enforced, according to communist doctrines represented
by the SED—the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. After reunification in
1990, it became apparent that indoctrination into “actually existing socialism” (as the officials of the GDR referred to the latter) so much treated
National Socialism and Western (and West German) democracy as made of
the same cloth that the kind of critical awareness regarding German history
that the Brandt and subsequent Schmidt administrations (1969–1974 and
1974–1982, respectively), based on coalitions between the SPD and the
FDP, had been fostering, and which continued to evolve after the return to
power of the Christian Democrats in 1982, after a majority of FDP members switched sides, had been largely absent in East Germany.
In sum, in important respects and during his student years, Honneth
appears to have internalized the experience of more or less successful radical reformism directed at confronting social problems and at acknowledging and illuminating the dark side of modern society as the latter
had manifested itself in German history between 1933 and 1945 as an
“objective possibility” of other societies of this type, though evidently
in other ways, while overlooking that what was possible in the highly
unusual context of West Germany with regard to engendering a mode
of reflexive socialization and education that brought about a new kind
of social change, and the uniqueness of the conditions that engendered
highly unusual results as far as reflexivity with regard to one’s own society was concerned, cannot necessarily be transferred without further
examination to other modern societies.
Traditional vs. Critical Theory Today
In the early decades of the twenty-first century, we are facing a resurgence of the Right, which in Germany appears to be more pronounced
in the formerly eastern Communist part, but by no means limited to the
latter. Support for democracy is turning out to be less strong and solid
than many liberals and progressives had assumed, in Germany and elsewhere. The “dark (or darker) side” of modernity, as Jeffrey Alexander,
Walter Mignolo and others have called it, evidently is becoming more
pronounced than anticipated.34 With regard to the motivation behind
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Honneth’s theory, the fact of this dark side featured prominently, especially as it manifested itself during the 1930s and 1940s, but in the theory itself, it is acknowledged less directly as far as current circumstances
appear to aggravate this dimension. Rather than focusing on this darker
side, Honneth clearly was inspired by the prospect of developing an
“optimistic” project, especially when compared to the purported “pessimism” and “negativism” of the first generation of critical theorists. This
begs the question, however: How compatible is such an optimistic, constructive project with the impetus behind critical theory?
Even though critical theory emerged in a context in which the differences between modern societies, and the potential for segments of
the population of these societies to turn against modernity, factored
into the program as Horkheimer formulated it, this aspect frequently
is overlooked.35 With Horkheimer having envisioned critical theory
as a rigorous and focused engagement with the gravity concrete sociohistorical conditions exert on the process of social research and on the
development of a theory of modern society, including critical theory, in
the interest of assessing how exactly concrete conditions facilitate and
impede social research and theory and impair their pursuit, in the absence
of such determined engagement, a process of normalizing that which is
specific, unusual, and especially problematic in particular modern societies ensues. This normalization process perpetuates and solidifies the
defining features of concrete societal circumstances in time and space,
including especially those problematic features—objectively, for the stability of society, or normatively, for the validity and force of norms and
values that must be shared among members of society for the latter to
remain stable, and which members in fact often do share. How precisely
societies that are the subject of social-theoretical, critical-theoretical, and
sociological investigations are modern and capitalist must be scrutinized,
in order to reduce as much as possible the danger that research questions
and agendas reflect, are expressions of, and reinforce both general and
specific existing societal conditions, especially when these conditions do
not bode well for the future, such as the increasing neo-liberalization of
all aspects of social life. If modern capitalism is fraught with competition
and the Protestant work ethic, for instance, as undoubtedly is the case, it
is inevitable that research and theory also are in imminent danger of replicating, perpetuating, and amplifying both competition and work-ethic,
paradoxically, in the attempt to illuminate how competition and workethic are integral to modern society, and how when they go too far, they
may well threaten the continued existence of the latter.
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Critical theory thus emerged as the endeavor to follow and identify
the permutations of social life that resulted from the ongoing dynamics of capitalist market economies, especially as they were (and continue
to be) experienced in everyday life as individual rather than collective
“pathologies”—really, products of worsening material contradictions.
Nevertheless, since the mid-twentieth century, the everyday world
(including the lifeworld, in Habermas’s terms) was and remains saturated by the particular energy radiating off from increasing international,
multinational, and transnational corporate capitalism—without individuals being fully cognizant of this fact, and certainly not of its manifold
social, political, and cultural reverberations and concrete implications, in
the absence of the categories and tools that would be required to illuminate this condition, consequently interpreting the latter as a by-andlarge “natural” and purportedly inevitable characteristics of life in mass
societies.
Thus, the logic of the social sciences in modern society qua capitalism
is bound to be entwined with, and to some extent an expression of, the
workings of capitalism: theories of capitalism tend to be epiphenomena
of capitalism, theories in, rather than of, capitalism—reflections of, rather
than critical reflections on, capitalism, unless they make determined
efforts to illuminate this pattern. The traditional, mainstream theories of
capitalism from Adam Smith to twentieth-century neo-classical economics did not amount to critiques (or even critical analyses) of capitalism, as
its shapes the way we think in such ways and to such a degree that if we
try to understand its workings, we cannot help but reproduce the defining features and core patterns of its forms of organization and logic of
processes, especially and paradoxically even in our theories of social life in
the modern age.
As arguably the most sophisticated version of Weberian Marxism,36
critical theory initiated the project of analyzing the logic of capitalist
production and development that leads from liberal capitalism to various
forms of postliberal capitalism, including especially the age of empire and
the shift from manifest to latent colonialism37: bureaucratic capitalism,
managerial capitalism, finance capitalism, and beyond—an increasingly
“administered world.” In the process, the contingencies of an ever more
complex—and contradictory—socio-historical reality are being reduced
to means–ends relations. The agenda of classical critical theory took as its
object of study challenges of interpretation and experience in a socially
constructed world—really, a world increasingly mediated by and through
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capital—that is being experienced and interpreted as expressive of human
sociality, as if it were possible to grasp the reality of modern society
directly, without recognizing its constructed nature. Thus, critical theory
must be appreciated as a radical form of epistemology: patterns of social
life “evolve” as expressions of the transmutations of the logic of capital, via the transposition of capital forms to the level of social, political,
and cultural forms. Mainstream approaches, therefore, must be understood negatively, in terms of an absence, rather than positively, in terms
of a clearly discernible feature that would warrant critical scrutiny, as they
neglect to recognize explicitly how precisely they are situated in time and
space, and how they reflect concrete socio-historical configurations, on
the assumption that it is possible to step outside of the realm of modern society. In terms of Horkheimer’s concept of critical theory, however,
doing so would be impossible.38
Postone’s Time, Labor, and Social Domination39 arguably is the
most comprehensive and refined effort in the English language to date
to reinterpret Marx’s social theory as the inception point of the tradition of critical theory, well before the concept was coined. It also is one
of the notable contributions to bringing Marx constructively into the
late twentieth and early twenty-first century that shares motifs with the
so-called “new Marx reading” as it began to unfold during the 1960s
in Germany, and has continued to evolve especially since the 1980s.40
While Postone’s version of critical theory, as it was explicitly inspired by
Marx, was an independent project from the proponents of the new Marx
reading, they shared working assumptions and a commitment to the
importance of ongoing interpretation and reinterpretation.
Postone was, like scholars such as Backhaus and Reichelt, critical of the
strain of theorizing that Postone referred to as “traditional Marxism”—a
paradoxical hybrid of traditional theory and Marx’s thought, or Marx’s
thought rendered in traditional theory; they favor a more rigorously
critical version of Marxist theory (or, perhaps more accurately, Marxian
theory, as it tends to be more analytically and diagnostically, rather than
politically oriented). These theorists also are critical of traditional conceptions of social science, as the latter conceal—and legitimate approaches
to studying—the social world in ways that abstain from systematic critique,41 including critical theory to the extent that it neglects to focus on
the constitutional logic of modern societies as this logic is incompatible
with prevailing views on how modern societies supposedly function and
are supposed to function. And finally, in various ways, the “new” Marx
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readers share a sense that modern society is an inversion (Verkehrung42)
which is not imaginary and related to ideas, but to the norms and values
according to which individuals are supposed to organize their lives and
relate to each other, in a social context that persistently subverts efforts
to construct meaningful life-histories in terms of the purportedly shared
norms and values that modern societies are built upon.
If there is one common, sociologically relevant theme in the recent,
“new” interpretations of Marx, it is to point out that mainstream sociologists study as expressions of human sociality, in its modern form, the
products of compounded mediations that have been accompanying the
history of modern society (and which have been captured by critics of
modern society in terms of alienation, commodity fetishism, reification,
instrumental reason, identity thinking, and more recent concepts), as they
illuminate an evolutionary trajectory that appears in the public mind, in
political discourse, as well as in everyday life, to be pointing toward more
or less inevitable progress, but which turns out to be highly regressive as
soon as we replace human actors with the logic of capital as the determining factor regarding social and historical change. What appears as the
social world thus turns out to be, in point of fact, the logic of economic
processes in their capitalist register, which reappear as perceptions of the
“social”: inversion as “a change in the position, order, or relationship of
things so that they are the opposite of what they had been”.43
Critical Theory or Critical Liberalism?
Critical theory denotes a program that appears to be highly pliable,
depending on a particular theorist’s research interest and objectives,
political leaning, moral commitments, and priorities along an array
of indicators. Yet, critical theory also does have a core, as it pertains to
scrutinizing the gravity concrete socio-historical circumstances exert on
the process of illuminating modern society. Critical theory is not a paradigm. As far as the evidence that has been accruing over the course of
the last eighty years is concerned, these circumstances are subject to the
logic of capital, which in turn is an exceedingly adaptable force capable of utilizing whatever resources may be available, including human
beings and animals, existing structures of inequality and systems of
non-economic power, patterns of exclusion and discrimination, as well
as political, cultural and social forms and practices—along with the natural environment, assuming that what is left of the latter still deserves
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such a designation.44 Individuals and social groups still have the capacity
to practice forms of resistance, to join and form social movements, to
engage in artistic creativity, to care for others, and to show kindness and
compassion. Yet, these expressions and manifestations of humanity also
are necessary for the logic of capital to forge ahead and to continue to
assimilate, in ways both forceful and subtle, forms of social, political, and
cultural life and solidarity to its needs and purpose.
In a comparison of Lukács and Habermas as representatives of
Weberian Marxism, examining the role and status of theory in their
works, I concluded in 1997 that between the two, Lukács’s theory of reification evidently was fraught with politics to a much greater extent, and
that by comparison, Habermas’s theory of communicative action evolved
to a much greater extent according to the notion that social change is
subject to the “inner logic of social value spheres.”45 In retrospect, and
for present purposes, the conclusions I reached at the time must be
amended in one important regard. In Lukács’s case, from the time when
he decided to “become a communist” during the German Revolution
of 1918, politics evidently was not only one driver among many, but a
key driver. The result was that depending on political circumstances—
in Hungary and the Soviet Union, above all—he adjusted his theory so
as to make it consistent with the dominant doctrine of the Communist
Party, leading to a development of his thinking, as expressed in his writings, that would be inexplicable in exclusively theoretical terms. When he
veered from this pattern—which was more complicated than I can do justice to here—he was in danger of falling out of favor, of endangering his
life, or of being disgraced. Compared to the politically charged circumstances of Lukács’s life, Habermas’s biography and theoretical development were less erratic, and fraught with the need to adapt to changing
circumstances, crises and dangers. However, as far as his training and
career were concerned, tensions and conflicts did lurk in various quarters
and educational contexts. If I should have occasion to revise my position
on Lukács’s and Habermas’s theoretical projects as they related to and
were influenced by political circumstances and trends, I especially would
place a different emphasis in the conclusion. True, Habermas’s theoretical development was much less burdened by political crises and dangers
than Lukács, but his theory is infused with a kind of progressive politics
that was typical of and consistent with the liberal Left in West Germany.
His jettisoning of the mode of critique represented by classical critical
theory, and his inclination to take on a more productive project, was not
far removed from the positions adopted by Horkheimer and Adorno,
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especially after their return to what was West Germany in the 1950s,
and in many ways Habermas was more determined and provocative than
especially Horkheimer. Yet, in retrospect, it also is quite apparent that
even during the 1960s, Habermas’s theorizing was motivated and channeled by the perfectly understandable desire to contribute to the Federal
Republic of Germany becoming as democratic and conducive to freedom
as possible. The Theory of Communicative Action46 is a work of construction (rather than critical deconstruction) in ways that are inspired by the
potential of post-World War II Western societies—really, West Germany—
to improve more or less continuously, so much so that critical theory’s
interest in the constitutional logic of modern societies disappeared, as far
as this logic is tied to the logic of capital in Western societies, so that classical critical theory would have been an undesired distraction, and detrimental to building and advocating communicative action as a paradigm.
By implication, what makes The Theory of Communicative Action to a far
greater extent an example of traditional theory, rather than critical theory,
is that it suggests the realistic possibility of and promotes successful communicative action, without examining whether the necessary precondi­
tions of such successful action indeed could and can be assumed as given
in postwar societies, even in what was, at the time, West Germany. Put
differently, The Theory of Communicative Action lacks a critical theory of communication, and the concluding chapter of the two-volume
work, relating to “The Tasks of a Critical Theory of Society,” hardly is
sufficient.47 By implication, Habermas’s communicative action paradigm
resulted from a profound shift from critical theory to critical liberalism,
and ought to be understood as a kind of manifesto the latter.
To return once more to Honneth, whose work Habermas claimed on
numerous occasions constituted a return to sorts to classical critical theory (compared to his own theory, that is), the recognition paradigm is
not concerned with the constitutional logic of modern societies either,
but de facto appears to suggest that postwar societies are sufficiently transparent, and that their evolutionary trajectory is sufficiently clear, for concern with their constitutional logic to be unnecessary and pointless. As a
theory of social justice, moreover, the recognition paradigm regards the
social, political, and cultural achievements of postwar societies as sufficiently concrete and reliable that configuring “critical theory” as a means
to radicalize the pursuit of social justice, equal treatment, and acceptance
by others are the most important challenges these societies are confronting. By implication, however, when Honneth conceived of the recognition
paradigm, he appears to have been so disinterested in the constitutional
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logic of modern societies and its proximity to the logic of capital, in the
context of emerging neoliberalism, that his normative orientation have
blinded him to the fact that modern societies compel individuals to internalize norms and values that are at least as necessary for the function and
stability of those societies, as they are developing in directions that make a
“good life” for all not more possible, but less so, as they are for the ability of individuals to construct meaningful life-histories in a context fraught
with contradictions and cognitive dissonance, as well as socially condoned
and politically fostered form of deception, mendacity, and simulacra. The
good-faith attitude toward the ability of modern societies to undergo
continuous qualitative transformations is understandable, but—a quartercentury after The Struggle for Recognition—difficult to accept in light of
the challenges that are looming in the not-too-distant future.48 Not only
does the recognition paradigm not resemble a convincing version of a critical theory that promises to be capable of meeting the looming challenges
of the twenty-first century, as they look like they will make at least a partial
return to fascist politics more attractive to growing segments of the population in many countries. Real progress is possible only, as it always was,
when a sufficiently large number of individuals force society to look into
the mirror, with neither individuals, nor society “freaking out,” but instead
committing to facing the actual circumstances of their existence and, if
still applicable, their nature. In this context, it is necessary to recognize
that committing to “critical theory” comes with a set of rather unpleasant
responsibilities that include facing undesired facts which must be embraced
with equanimity. Critical theory must go further and deeper than the communicative action paradigm or the recognition paradigm, or—for that
matter, Rosa’s above-mentioned acceleration paradigm—allow for: further,
indeed, than any single paradigm will ever take us. Critical theory must
not be synchronized with paradigms, but paradigms—if we must rely on
them—must be synchronized with critical theory. By contrast, critical liberalism, as it appears to be the inevitable companion of paradigmatic theories, is a framework that is perfectly legitimate on its own terms. It ought
not burden itself with the need to defend itself as something that it is not,
and to endeavor (or claim) to aspire to live up to standards that do not
apply. Critical theory can comprise critical liberalism, but critical liberalism
is incapable of comprising critical theory. It is unfortunate indeed, moreover, that in the early twenty-first century, critical liberalism increasingly
sounds like an echo from a past that began to disappear with the rise of
postliberalism, and whose remnants may disappear entirely in the era of
deepening neoliberalism. Nomenclature does matter!
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Notes
1. Stefan Müller-Doohm, “Member of a School or Exponent of a Paradigm?
Jürgen Habermas and Critical Theory.” European Journal of Social
Theory. vol. 20, no. 2 (2015): 252–253.
2. Albrecht Wellmer, “The Significance of the Frankfurt School Today: Five
Theses (1986).” In Endgames: The Irreconcilable Nature of Modernity:
Essays and Lectures (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998), 251–262.
3. Stefan Müller-Doohm, “Member of a School or Exponent of a Paradigm?
Jürgen Habermas and Critical Theory.” European Journal of Social
Theory, vol. 20, no. 2 (2015): 252–253; Hans Joas and Wolfgang Knöbl,
Social Theory: Twenty Lectures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2004/2009), 222–248.
4. See Juergen Gerhards, “Kritik des „linguistic turn“ in der soziologischen Theoriebildung.” In Anne Honer, Michael Meuser, and Michaela
Pfadenhauer (eds.), Fragile Sozialität Inszenierungen, Sinnwelten,
Existenzbastlern (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag fuer Sozialwissenschaften, 2010),
pp. 409–432.
5. Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social
Conflicts (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992/1996).
6. Harry F. Dahms, “Critical Theory as Radical Comparative-Historical
Research.” In M. Thompson (ed.) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical
Theory (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2017), 165–184.
7. See Moishe Postone, Time, Labor and Social Domination: A
Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993).
8. Robert L. Heilbroner, The Nature and Logic of Capitalism (New York: W.
W. Norton, 1986).
9. Max Horkheimer, “Traditional and Critical Theory.” In Critical Theory:
Selected Writings, trans. M. J. O’Connell (New York: The Seabury Press,
1937/1972), 188–243.
10. Helmut Dahmer, Pseudonatur und Kritik: Freud, Marx und die
Gegenwart (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1994).
11. Harry F. Dahms, “Does Alienation Have a Future? Recapturing the
Core of Critical Theory.” In Lauren Langman and Devorah K. Fishman
(eds.) The Evolution of Alienation: Trauma, Promise, and the Millennium
(Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), 23–46 (see also Ch. 5 in
Dahms, 2011); Asafa Jalata and Harry F. Dahms, “Theorizing Modern
Society as an Inverted Reality: How Critical Theory and Indigenous
Critiques of Globalization Must Learn from Each Other.” In Harry F.
Dahms. (ed.) Globalization, Critique, and Social Theory: Diagnoses and
236
H. F. DAHMS
Challenges (Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 33) (Bingley: Emerald,
2015), 75–133.
12. To allude to the title of one of the books of the erstwhile member of the
Institute for Social Research, Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (New York:
Rinehart, 1955). See also Deborah Cook, Adorno, Habermas and the
Search for a Rational Society (London: Routledge, 2012).
13. Harry F. Dahms, “Critical Theory in the Twenty-First Century: The
Logic of Capital Between Classical Social Theory, the Early Frankfurt
School Critique of Political Economy, and the Prospect of Artifice.” In
Dan Krier and Mark Worrell (eds.) The Social Ontology of Capitalism
(New York: Palgrave, 2017), 47–74.
14. See Harry F. Dahms, “Globalization or Hyper-Alienation? Critiques
of Traditional Marxism as Arguments for Basic Income.” In Jennifer
M. Lehmann (ed.), Social Theory as Politics in Knowledge (Current
Perspectives in Social Theory, 23) (Bingley, UK: Emerald, 2005), 205–276
(see also Chapter 4 in Dahms (2011)). It would be interesting to examine whether and how the more or less overwhelming desire of individuals
to make sense of their social world and the basis of shared norms and
values—in light of the futility of doing so effectively, considering how the
constitutional logic of modern society is not a function of human desire,
wishes, and intentions, but the latter a function of the former—during
the 1920s and early 1930s set the stage for the rise of fascism as the political ideology that promised to shape social forces on human terms, even
though those forces, according to their very nature, cannot be shaped by
humans, as they exert truly overwhelming force on humans. For social
forces to become the subject of human will, the identity structure of
human beings first would have to undergo a radical transformation—in
the necessary direction, no less.
15. DIE ZEIT, June 5, 2009. Regarding Habermas’s prominent publications
in DIE ZEIT, which unleashed the Historikerstreit, see Jürgen Habermas,
“Eine Art Schadenabwicklung: Die apologetischen Tendenzen in der
deutschen Zeitgeschichtsschreibung.” DIE ZEIT, July 18, 1986.
16. Thomas Assheuer, “Der Vorwaertsverteidiger.” DIE ZEIT, June 6, 2009,
50–51.
17. Jürgen Habermas, “Arbeit, Liebe, Anerkennung: Der Philosophy wird
60. Eine Gedankenreise von Marx zu Hegel nach Frankfurt und wieder
zurück.” DIE ZEIT 30, July 16, 2009. Retrieved on April 8, 2018,
http://www.zeit.de/2009/30/Philosoph-Honneth.
18. Asafa Jalata and Harry F. Dahms, “Theorizing Modern Society as an
Inverted Reality: How Critical Theory and Indigenous Critiques of
Globalization Must Learn from Each Other.” In Harry F. Dahms (ed.)
Globalization, Critique, and Social Theory: Diagnoses and Challenges
9
CRITICAL THEORY DERAILED: PARADIGM FETISHISM …
237
(Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 33) (Bingley: Emerald, 2015),
75–133.
19. See Hauke Brunkhorst, Solidarity: From Civic Friendship to a Global Legal
Community (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005). For an analysis of how the
United States by and large has fallen into two separate societies, see
Mugambi Jouet, Exceptional America: What Divides Americans from
the World and from Each Other (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2017).
20. Axel Honneth, Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic
Life, trans. Joseph Ganahl (New York: Columbia University Press,
2011/2014).
21. Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment:
Philosophical Fragments, ed. G. Schmid Noerr and trans. E. Jephcott
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1944/2002).
22. Harry F. Dahms, “Beyond the Carousel of Reification: Critical Social
Theory After Lukács, Adorno and Habermas.” Current Perspectives in
Social Theory, vol. 18 (1998): 3–62.
23. Harry F. Dahms, “How Social Science Is Impossible Without Critical
Theory: The Immersion of Mainstream Approaches in Time and Space.”
In Harry F. Dahms (ed.) No Social Science Without Critical Theory
(Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 26) (Bingley: Emerald, 2008),
3–61 (See also Ch. 6 in Dahms, 2011).
24. Till von Rahden, “Der letzte Frankfurter.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
March 27, 2018. Retrieved on April 6, 2018, http://plus.faz.net/
faz-plus/feuilleton/2018-03-27/5018cfa1a42da5bf9984­da686b38fd42/.
25. When Honneth took over the leadership of the Institute for Social
Research in Frankfurt, he is reported to have requested that Adorno’s
furniture (along with other reminders) be removed from the director’s
office.
26. See Matthew Specter, Habermas: An Intellectual Biography (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010) for a study that in certain regards
similarly highlighted the link between social theorist and social context.
27. Max Horkheimer, “Traditional and Critical Theory.” In Critical Theory:
Selected Writings, trans. M. J. O’Connell (New York: The Seabury Press,
1937/1972), 188–243.
28. A set of interviews Honneth gave especially on the “divided society,”
are most instructive with regard to the motivation behind his thinking
and work: Mauro Basaure, Jan Philipp Reemtsma and Rasmus Willig
(eds.), Erneuerung der Kritik: Axel Honneth im Gespräch (Frankfurt/M.:
Campus Verlag, 2009).
29. Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity, trans. J.
Trejo-Mathys (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005/2015).
238
H. F. DAHMS
30. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 4th ed. (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1962/2012).
31. See Harry F. Dahms, “Critical Theory, Brexit, and the Vicissitudes of
Political Economy in the Twenty-First Century,” in William Outhwaite
(ed.), Brexit: Sociological Perspectives (London: Anthem Press, 2017),
183–192.
32. The most obvious and for purposes of illustration, perhaps most interesting example is Axel Honneth, Reification: A Look at an Old Idea,
with Judith Butler, Raymond Geuss, and Jonathan Lear, ed. Martin Jay
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
33. See Hacke’s interesting study of the “liberal-conservative” founding of
the Federal Republic of Germany in which Habermas’s evolving circumstances and role are detailed; Jens Hacke, Philosophie der Bürgerlichkeit:
Die liberalkonservative Begründung der Bundesrepublik (Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006).
34. Jeffrey Alexander, The Dark Side of Modernity (Malden, MA: Polity,
2013); Walter Mignolo, The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy,
Territoriality, and Colonization, 2nd ed. (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 2003).
35. Harry F. Dahms, “Critical Theory as Radical Comparative-Historical
Research.” In M. Thompson (ed.) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical
Theory (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2017), 165–184.
36. Harry F. Dahms, The Vitality of Critical Theory (Bingley: Emerald, 2011),
45–91.
37. Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, 1875–1914 (New York: Vintage
Books, 1989).
38. Harry F. Dahms, “How Social Science Is Impossible Without Critical
Theory: The Immersion of Mainstream Approaches in Time and Space.”
In Harry F. Dahms (ed.) No Social Science Without Critical Theory
(Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 26) (Bingley: Emerald, 2008),
3–61 (see also Ch. 6 in Dahms, 2011).
39. See Moishe Postone, Time, Labor and Social Domination: A
Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993).
40. See, e.g., Hans-Georg Backhaus, Dialektik der Wertform: Untersuchungen
zur marxschen Ökonomiekritik, 2nd ed. (Freiburg: Ça ira, 2011), esp.
9–40; Werner Bonefeld, Critical Theory and the Critique of Political
Economy. On Subversion and Negative Reason (New York: Bloomsbury
Academic, 2014); Ingo Elbe, Marx im Westen: Die Neue Marx-Lektüre in
der Bundesrepublik seit 1965 (Berlin: Oldenbourg Akademieverlag, 2010);
Neil Larsen, N. M. Nilges, J. Robinson and N. Brown (eds.), Marxism
and the Critique of Value (Chicago: MCM Publishing, 2014).
9
CRITICAL THEORY DERAILED: PARADIGM FETISHISM …
239
41. Esp. Helmut Reichelt, Neue Marx-Lektüre. Zur Kritik sozialwissenschaftlicher Logik, 2nd ed. (Freiburg: Ça Ira, 2013).
42. Esp. Christine Kirchhoff et al., Gesellschaft als Verkehrung: Perspektiven
einer neuen Marx-Lektüre (Freiburg: Ça Ira, 2004).
43. Merriam-Webster 2015.
44. On this issue, see Harry F. Dahms, Modern Society as Artifice: Critical
Theory and the Logic of Capital (London: Routledge, in preparation).
45. Georg Lukács, History and Class Consciousness. Studies in Marxist
Dialectics, trans. R. Livingstone (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1923/1971);
Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action (Vols. I: Reason
and the Rationalization of Society), trans. T. McCarthy (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1981/1984); Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative
Action (Vol. II: Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist
Reason), trans. Th. McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1981/1987);
Harry F. Dahms, “Theory in Weberian Marxism: Patterns of Critical
Social Theory in Lukács and Habermas.” Sociological Theory, vol. 15 no.
3 (1997): 181–214 (see also Ch. 3 in Dahms 2011).
46. Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, 2 vols. (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1981/1984/1987).
47. Jürgen Habermas, “The Tasks of a Critical Theory of Society.” In
The Theory of Communicative Action, vol. 2 (Boston: Beacon Press,
1981/1987), 374–400.
48. Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social
Conflicts (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992/1996).
Selected Bibliography
Alexander, Jeffrey (2013) The Dark Side of Modernity. Malden, MA: Polity.
Assheuer, Thomas, “Der Vorwaertsverteidiger.” DIE ZEIT, June 6, 2009,
50–51.
Backhaus, Hans-Georg (2011) Dialektik der Wertform: Untersuchungen zur
marxschen Ökonomiekritik. 2nd ed. Freiburg: Ça ira.
Basaure, Mauro, Jan Philipp Reemtsma and Rasmus Willig (2009) (eds.)
Erneuerung der Kritik: Axel Honneth im Gespräch. Frankfurt/M.: Campus
Verlag.
Bonefeld, Werner (2014) Critical Theory and the Critique of Political Economy:
On Subversion and Negative Reason. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Brunkhorst, Hauke (2005) Solidarity: From Civic Friendship to a Global Legal
Community. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Cook, Deborah (2012) Adorno, Habermas and the Search for a Rational Society.
London: Routledge.
240
H. F. DAHMS
Dahmer, Helmut (1994) Pseudonatur und Kritik: Freud, Marx und die
Gegenwart. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp.
Dahms, Harry F. (1997) “Theory in Weberian Marxism: Patterns of Critical
Social Theory in Lukács and Habermas.” Sociological Theory, vol. 15, no. 3:
181–214 (see also Ch. 3 in Dahms 2011).
Dahms, Harry F. (1998) “Beyond the Carousel of Reification: Critical Social
Theory After Lukács, Adorno and Habermas.” Current Perspectives in Social
Theory, vol. 18: 3–62.
Dahms, Harry F. (2005) “Globalization or Hyper-Alienation? Critiques of
Traditional Marxism as Arguments for Basic Income.” In Jennifer M.
Lehmann (ed.) Social Theory as Politics in Knowledge (Current Perspectives in
Social Theory, 23). Bingley, UK: Emerald, 205–276 (see also Ch. 4 in Dahms,
2011).
Dahms, Harry F. (2006) “Does Alienation Have a Future? Recapturing the Core
of Critical Theory.” In Lauren Langman and Devorah K. Fishman (eds.) The
Evolution of Alienation: Trauma, Promise, and the Millennium. Lanham, MD:
Rowman and Littlefield, 23–46 (see also Ch. 5 in Dahms, 2011).
Dahms, Harry F. (2011) The Vitality of Critical Theory. Bingley: Emerald.
Dahms, Harry F. (2017a) “Critical Theory in the Twenty-First Century: The
Logic of Capital Between Classical Social Theory, the Early Frankfurt School
Critique of Political Economy, and the Prospect of Artifice.” In Dan Krier and
Mark Worrell (eds.) The Social Ontology of Capitalism. New York: Palgrave,
47–74.
Dahms, Harry F. (2017b) “Critical Theory as Radical Comparative-Historical
Research.” In M. Thompson (ed.) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Theory.
Houndmills: Palgrave, 165–184.
Dahms, Harry F. (2017c) “Critical Theory, Brexit, and the Vicissitudes of
Political Economy in the Twenty-First Century.” In William Outhwaite (ed.)
Brexit: Sociological Perspectives. London: Anthem Press, 183–192.
Dahms, Harry F. (2019) Modern Society as Artifice: Critical Theory and the Logic
of Capital. London: Routledge, in preparation.
Elbe, Ingo (2010) Marx im Westen: Die Neue Marx-Lektüre in der
Bundesrepublik seit 1965. Berlin: Oldenbourg Akademieverlag.
Fromm, Erich (1955) The Sane Society. New York: Rinehart.
Gerhards, Juergen (2010) “Kritik des „linguistic turn“ in der soziologischen Theoriebildung.” In Anne Honer, Michael Meuser, and Michaela
Pfadenhauer (eds.) Fragile Sozialität Inszenierungen, Sinnwelten,
Existenzbastlern. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag fuer Sozialwissenschaften, 409–432.
Habermas, Jürgen (1981/1984) The Theory of Communicative Action (Vol.
I: Reason and the Rationalization of Society). Translated by T. McCarthy.
Boston: Beacon Press.
9
CRITICAL THEORY DERAILED: PARADIGM FETISHISM …
241
Habermas, Jürgen (1981/1987) The Theory of Communicative Action (Vol. II:
Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason). Translated by T.
McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press.
Habermas, Jürgen (1986) “Eine Art Schadenabwicklung: Die apologetischen
Tendenzen in der deutschen Zeitgeschichtsschreibung.” DIE ZEIT, July 18.
Habermas, Jürgen. “Arbeit, Liebe, Anerkennung: Der Philosophy wird 60.
Eine Gedankenreise von Marx zu Hegel nach Frankfurt und wieder zurück.”
DIE ZEIT 30, July 16, 2009. Retrieved on April 8, 2018. http://www.zeit.
de/2009/30/Philosoph-Honneth.
Hacke, Jürgen (2006) Philosophie der Bürgerlichkeit: Die liberalkonservative
Begründung der Bundesrepublik. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Heilbroner, Robert L. (1986) The Nature and Logic of Capitalism. New York:
W. W. Norton.
Hobsbawm, Eric (1989) The Age of Empire, 1875–1914. New York: Vintage
Books.
Honneth, Axel (1992/1996) The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar
of Social Conflicts. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Honneth, Axel (2009) Reification: A Look at an Old Idea, with Judith Butler,
Raymond Geuss, and Jonathan Lear, ed. Martin Jay. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Honneth, Axel (2011/2014) Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of
Democratic Life. Translated by Joseph Ganahl. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Horkheimer, Max (1937/1972) “Traditional and Critical Theory.” In Critical
Theory: Selected Writings. Translated by M. J. O’Connell. New York: The
Seabury Press, 188–243.
Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno (1944/2002) Dialectic of
Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Translated by E. Jephcotted, ed.
Gunzelin Schmid Noer. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Jalata, Asafa and Harry F. Dahms (2015) “Theorizing Modern Society as
an Inverted Reality: How Critical Theory and Indigenous Critiques of
Globalization Must Learn from Each Other.” In Harry F. Dahms (ed.)
Globalization, Critique, and Social Theory: Diagnoses and Challenges (Current
Perspectives in Social Theory, 33). Bingley: Emerald, 75–133.
Joas, Hans and Wolfgang Knöbl (2004/2009) Social Theory: Twenty Lectures.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jouet, Mugambi (2017) Exceptional America: What Divides Americans from the
World and from Each Other. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kirchhoff, Christine, et al. (2004) Gesellschaft als Verkehrung: Perspektiven einer
neuen Marx-Lektüre. Freiburg: Ça Ira.
Kuhn, Thomas S. (1962/2012) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 4th ed.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
242
H. F. DAHMS
Larsen, Neil, N. M. Nilges, J. Robinson, and N. Brown (eds.) (2014) Marxism
and the Critique of Value. Chicago: MCM Publishing.
Lukács, Georg (1923/1971) History and Class Consciousness. Studies in Marxist
Dialectics. Translated by R. Livingstone. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Mignolo, Walter (2003) The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy,
Territoriality, and Colonization, 2nd ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press.
Müller-Doohm, S. (2015) “Member of a School or Exponent of a Paradigm?
Jürgen Habermas and Critical Theory” (trans. William Outhwaite). European
Journal of Social Theory, vol. 20, no. 2: 252–274.
Postone, Moishe (1993) Time, Labor and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation
of Marx’s Critical Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rahden, Till von. “Der letzte Frankfurter.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
March 27, 2018. Retrieved on April 6, 2018. http://plus.faz.net/faz-plus/
feuilleton/2018-03-27/5018cfa1a42da5bf9984da686b38fd42/.
Reichelt, Helmut (2013) Neue Marx-Lektüre. Zur Kritik sozialwissenschaftlicher
Logik, 2nd ed. Freiburg: Ça Ira.
Rosa, Hartmut (2005/2015) Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity.
Translated by J. Trejo-Mathys. New York: Columbia University Press.
Specter, Matthew (2010) Habermas: An Intellectual Biography. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Wellmer, Albrecht (1998) “The Significance of the Frankfurt School Today: Five
Theses (1986).” In Endgames: The Irreconcilable Nature of Modernity: Essays
and Lectures. Cambridge: MIT Press, 251–262.
CHAPTER 10
The Failure of the Recognition Paradigm
in Critical Theory
Michael J. Thompson
Prologue
Critical theory has been decidedly transformed over the past thirty years
by the influence of ideas that, in many basic ways, run counter to the
initial propositions that defined and shaped the first generation of critical theorists. Now, critical theorists deal with questions of human rights,
dignity, justification, and theories of democracy. They have broken with
a more robust, more insightful, and more radical project of understanding the mechanisms of social domination, the deformation of character and the perversions of cognitive and epistemic powers that explain
the increasing acceptance of the prevailing social order and the integration and legitimacy of pathological forms of social life.1 This break
was effected with a move toward pragmatist themes, on the one hand,
and toward a concern with neo-Idealist ideas rooted in Kant and Hegel,
on the other. This reworking of critical theory has been centered on
the elimination of ideas rooted in Marxism and into a kind of system
M. J. Thompson (*)
William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ, USA
© The Author(s) 2019
V. Schmitz (ed.), Axel Honneth and the Critical Theory
of Recognition, Political Philosophy and Public Purpose,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91980-5_10
243
244
M. J. THOMPSON
building that champions the supposed self-transforming powers of
intersubjective social action.2 Indeed, whereas Habermas has been highly
successful at promoting a Kantian-pragmatist paradigm based in discourse, Axel Honneth’s work has been premised on a neo-Idealist return
to Hegelian themes fused to pragmatist ideas about social action and
self- and social transformation. I believe that this move has been lethal
for the actual political relevance of critical theory, that it has drained it
of its potency even as it has allowed for more professionalized success
within mainstream intellectual and academic circles. The price paid for
winning this acceptance, however, has been dear and it has compromised the very methodological and philosophical commitments of critical
theory.
What I want to focus on in this essay are the Hegelian-pragmatist
ideas proposed by Honneth and seek to defend the thesis they fail the
task of fulfilling a critical theory of society. As I see it, the central flaw
of recognition theory is that it abstracts its theory of social relations
from actual, realist structures of power and domination; that it seeks to
forge a theory of moral development and social change that is unwarranted given the actual, real nature of modern social life and, as a result,
evaporates into a rarefied philosophical system devoid of concrete critical power and potency. Indeed, I will go so far to argue that the turn
toward the recognition paradigm in contemporary critical theory constitutes the failure of its aspirations for human emancipation and the confrontation with the nature of modern forms of power and domination.
In addition, I maintain that it continues trends in contemporary social
theory—trends that began with Habermas’ move toward a postmetaphysical turn—to achieve a more nuanced, more sophisticated critique
of modern society. Much of this can, I think, be blamed on the embrace
of the postmetaphysical turn and on the move away from a more sophisticated reading of Marx and his essential place in any critical theory of
society, something I will discuss in more detail below. But perhaps most
importantly, it should be seen that the failure of the recognition paradigm is more than an intellectual or academic concern: it also entails a
diminution of the vibrancy and vitality of the tradition of critical theory
more generally.
In this essay, I present two theses that show how the theory of recognition put forth and developed in the work of Axel Honneth fails as
a paradigm for critical theory. My main argument is that the theory of
10 THE FAILURE OF THE RECOGNITION PARADIGM IN CRITICAL THEORY
245
recognition cannot achieve the status of a critical theory of society for
two reasons. First, it is unable to deal with the dynamics and effects of
social power in any meaningful way. Specifically, it is unable to deal with
what I see to be the core of critical theory as a tradition of thought,
what I have called constitutive power. Second, it rests on a flawed theory of the social as intersubjective practices and not as structural and
normative-based systems of functional integration. This derives from
an insistence on the pragmatist ideas that essentially shred society of its
structural-functional features and reduce it to its intersubjective practices.
The problem with the pragmatist thesis, however, is that it is insensitive
to issues of power and domination and also can inculcate conformity to
the prevailing reality. By shutting Marx out of his revisionism of critical
theory, Honneth therefore ends up defanging it as a system of ideas. The
result of these two theses is that the theory of recognition fails as a satisfying account of modern social reality and its pathological impulses and
trends.
Recognition and Critical Theory
Before I begin to construct my argument against the plausibility of recognition as a viable model for a critical theory of society, I want to point
to what I see are its essential, buttressing arguments. Honneth has been
consistent in seeking to defend the idea of recognition as a critical theory
of society because it possesses what he sees to be the defining hallmark
of critical theory as an enterprise: the capacity to summon an awareness
and transformation on behalf of social agents of the pathological dimensions of their social world via intramundane mechanisms of sociation
and self-development. A moral awareness of disrespect and misrecognition are supposed to be rooted in an intrinsic sense of self that is shaped
by the intersubjective-recognitive relations to others in various stages of
socialization. The core idea of this approach is that the resources for critical reflection and attitudes are inherent in the very socialization practices
that constitute modernity. If we are to take Honneth seriously, then a
gradual emancipation of society is happening due to the moral awareness
of subjects.
Honneth offers a core argument about the nature of self-formation.
The thesis is that recognition carries with it a symbolic-interactionist
dimension that provides the subjects with the second order capacity to
see himself as a subject through interaction with an other: “a subject can
246
M. J. THOMPSON
only acquire a consciousness of itself to the extent to which it learns to
perceive its own action from the symbolically represented second-person
perspective”3 (Honneth 1995: 75). Recognition now can be seen as a
process of identity-formation and self-formation, one that Honneth sees
as developing a practical identity for the subject over time. It is this core
process of identity-formation that holds much of the descriptive and normative weight for the theory, since it is Honneth’s claim that recognition
is both a formative and evaluative mechanism. On the one hand, it is
the means by which we form our sense of self through others and our
self-conception of ourselves, our identities, as well. This then leads us to
have a kind of base line for how we are respected by others. We seek to
have our identities recognized not only by discrete others, but through
the legal and political system itself. The “struggle for recognition” is
therefore the means by which modern subjects seek to change and assert
their desire for respect and for their identities to be accepted by the society to which they belong.
Honneth maintains that individuals articulate an identity and a sense
of self-worth from the very processes of social relations that constitute
them. But these relations are seen as being recognitive relations in that
we receive approval and recognition for our actions and for who we are
from others. This creates within us a sense of integral identity that constitutes our self-identity as an individual: “human individuation is a process in which the individual can unfold a practical identity to the extent
that he is capable of reassuring himself of recognition by a growing circle of communicative partners.”4 It is only through the intersubjective
pattern of communication that allows for the transfer of emotional ties
between subjects that a practical identity is able to emerge. This begins
in childhood, with relations to parental and specifically “maternal” relations that develop into a search for respect and dignity in the world as
adults: “Just as, in the case of love, children acquire, via the continuous experience of ‘maternal’ care, the basic self-confidence to assert
their needs in an unforced manner, adult subjects acquire, via the experience of legal recognition, the possibility of seeing their own actions as
the universally respected expression of their own autonomy.”5 To the
extent that this happens, we can speak of the existence of an integral
sense of self that is formed through recognition and which also comes
into tension with the existing social relations that frustrate or deny this
recognition in later stages of social development. Hence, the concept of
“disrespect” (Mißachtung) comes to the fore which constitutes what he
10 THE FAILURE OF THE RECOGNITION PARADIGM IN CRITICAL THEORY
247
calls a “moral injustice” which, he claims, “is at hand whenever, contrary
to their expectations, human subjects are denied the recognition they
feel they deserve. I would like to refer to such moral experiences as feelings of social disrespect.”6
The ideas of “respect” (Achtung) and “disrespect” (Mißachtung) rest
on a prior model of self-development that is produced by a struggle for
one’s identity and a need to have that identity recognized by others.
This moves through the initial stage of childhood and then into the
secondary stage of an assertion of one’s right to be recognized as who
one is. But the model then culminates with a form of society that has
been shaped from these struggles for recognition that grants social integrity and respect to individuals. A new conception of Hegelian “ethical
life” (Sittlichkeit) now opens up, one which is “now meant to include
the entirety of intersubjective conditions that can be shown to serve as
necessary preconditions for individual self-realization.”7 Since personal
identity is seen to be intersubjectively structured and constituted, the
model of recognition provides, according to Honneth, a convincing paradigm for a critical theory of society. It meets, in his view, the theoretical
conditions of post-metaphysics, of an intramundane, practical theory of
social action, as well as an intersubjective account of social action. But all
along, the model that he espouses, and which plays an almost axiomatic
role in his social philosophy as a whole, is that the process of recognition
is one that is endogenous to human sociation and which is also secure
from the infiltration of exogenous social forces.
Honneth further maintains that the process of recognition is a more
deeply rooted process of self-formation because it precedes cognition
itself. According to this claim, there exists what he calls an “ontogenetic priority of recognition over cognition.”8 Recognitive processes set
up within the structure of consciousness itself not only a sense of self,
but also inheres within the subject a second-person perspective which,
through healthy forms of social relations, produces a sense of moral selfworth and also a capacity to adopt the perspective of others. Fusing the
ideas of G. H. Mead with those of the early Hegel, Honneth argues
that the developing ego “learns step by step and through the perspective of a second person to perceive objects as entities in an objective
world that exists independently of our thoughts and feelings about it.”9
What this essentially means for critical theory is that recognitive relations shape a sense of moral awareness about self and other which fosters a moral awareness that in turn cultivates a sense of critical opposition
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to the forms of misrecognition and disrespect. What Honneth believes
this achieves is a sense of morally motivated struggle that informs a new,
modern and critical process of will-formation that creates and sustains a
new, democratic ethical life.
I think that these conclusions are unfounded. It is not simply enough
to focus on issues of respect and recognition for the simple reason that
the forms of power and the structural and functional forces of modern
social structures shaped by material resources of power disable the socialization processes that Honneth assumes in his model of sociation. To put
the matter more bluntly, recognition is rooted not in our critical-rational
faculties, but in our phenomenological-interpretive capacities. Its embeddedness in the structures of social relations that are ordered and shaped
by administrative-capitalist society and imperatives cannot serve as a fulcrum for the development of a critical rationality. There is no doubt that
recognition as a process is one rooted in the progressive aspects of modern society over pre-modern institutions and norms. But the architectonics of modern society are such that a contradiction emerges between
the expansion of the rights proffered by recognitive relations, on the
one hand, and the mutilating inequalities of the capitalist order, on the
other. This contradiction is precisely what critical theory is supposed to
call to our attention; it is a contradiction between what appears to us as
the progress of relations of respect, on the one hand, and the continued
vertiginousness of social hierarchies and inequalities of social power and
control, on the other. The real test of the theory of recognition is therefore whether or not it can resolve this contradiction and whether or not
it is capable of providing a critical vantage point from within its intramundane and postmetaphysical assumptions.
The Contours of Power and Domination
The problem of the intramundane genesis of critique is an important
weakness. Essentially, Honneth claims—after Habermas—that any critical
theory of society must be generated from the actual practices of social
agents and not derived from a transcendental or a priori set of categories
or concepts. It must be rooted inherently in our practices and capacities,
for Habermas it is the syntactic structure of language and speech acts,
and for Honneth, it is the process of recognition. But in either case, the
intramundane thesis runs up against the problem of power and, more
specifically, of domination. As the first generation of critical theorists
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saw the matter, domination was not simply a relation between agents or
between classes. It was also, and more importantly, a systemic and processual phenomenon that had the capacity to constitute the self and the
cognitive, affective and evaluative dimensions of the individual.
In contrast to this, Honneth’s theory rests on a series of deep assumptions that distort the reality conditions of social relations and self- and
cognitive development. Honneth has maintained in his writings that
the work of much of the first generation of critical theorists should be
seen as resting on an outdated and essentially untenable theory of social
action. Whereas they perceived modern society as operating within a
structural-functional model, Honneth insists upon the intersubjective
turn and its model of social relations as forms of practices embedded in
intersubjective webs of activity. Although it is true that the early critical
theorists did not pursue a theory of social action, they were nevertheless concerned with the ways that the forces of structural and functional
imperatives embedded within the historical conditions of administrative
capitalism and technical-bureaucratic society shaped and affected egoand self-formation. Indeed, the price Honneth pays for rejecting this
perspective is high—so high, I believe, that it renders his theory of recognition essentially a-critical and, perhaps unwittingly, contains the very
mechanisms of justification and anti-political passivity that the Frankfurt
School had seen as one of their central concerns to explain.
In order to defend this thesis, let me begin with the issue of social
power and domination. The main ideas that inform the tradition of critical theory with respect to the question of power and domination remain
perhaps the most salient and crucial contributions to the potency of critical theory. As I see it, the question of a modern form of rational domination—of a form of social power that renders extractive, subordinating
social relations legitimate in the minds and character structure of individuals—is a core concept for the critical theory tradition. What they
saw in their integrated analyses of modern society was that modern subjects were being shaped by the increasingly rationalized and totalizing
administrative institutions of modern society. Marx, Weber, and Freud
had all pointed toward an implicit thesis about the nature of rationalizing institutions not only to administer everyday life but also to constitute the consciousness, agency, and personality of the self as well. What
the Frankfurt School saw as an essential pathology of modern capitalist
society was a kind of deep-seated reification of consciousness that permeated all spheres of personal, social, and cultural life. The issue of power
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here is not difficult to discern. Following Marx and Lukács, they saw that
the central problem was one of the deformed self-constitution of our
agency by social processes that would not only conform our actions and
practices to the prevailing reality, but also, and more importantly, conform our will and cognitive process toward those systemic imperatives as
well.10
What was central to the thesis of reification that they all came to adopt
in one form or another was the idea that—whether due to the impact
of instrumental reason, commodification, and so on—the rational faculties of individuals were distorted and shaped to accommodate the systemic imperatives of the social order. This was accomplished through the
inculcation of consciousness and the personality structure of the individual—i.e., his cathexis and drives—toward the imperatives, goals and
interests of the existing social order. I have called this kind of power constitutive power and I believe we can define it as the capacity of superordinate groups, via their control over material resources, to shape the
institutional norms, practices, and collective-intentional rule-sets of
the community as a whole. The more that this superordinate group is
able to do this, the more constitutive domination it has over the community. Since the logics of economic and technical rationality generate
ever-growing tendencies toward surplus extraction, efficiency, stability,
and control, constitutive norms proliferate as more and more institutions
are absorbed by these logics.11
The mechanisms of this kind of power is important to examine in
more detail. The precise way it affects consciousness and attitudes is
through its ability to shape the norms and value-orientations of subjects.
The more entrenched and embedded into economic and instrumental
logics social and cultural institutions become, the more that they are able
to routinize certain kinds of norms. The more successful these institutions are, the more that these routinized norms become internalized by
subjects. The less critical reaction there is to these ambient norms, the
more they become internalized and the more they become internalized,
the more they become constitutive rules of consciousness. The more
they are shared by the community as a whole, the more they become
reified structures of consciousness and as collective-intentional aspects of
subjective consciousness as well as intersubjective practices and action.
The aspect of power is the capacity of these norms to be organized to
legitimate and to sustain hierarchical relations of power, whether of the
social goals of elites, the property structure of the society, and so on.
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The point, however, is that there our subjective and intersubjective consciousness is in fact rooted in these material forms of power and the
kinds of institutionalized norms that become successful and ambient
within society. Social power of this kind is therefore constitutive of individuals as well as the web of intersubjective relations that they act within.
The point of this thesis is that domination must be seen as more
than simply an inter-agent, structural phenomenon, it is also, and more
importantly, a functional phenomenon that constitutes the social and
the subjective world.12 Hence, anytime we operate within the confines
of a phenomenological and socially embedded approach to an emancipatory theory, we will run up against the boundaries of this problem.
Honneth argues that there is a pre-social rootedness to the basis of recognition in the mother–child relationship. But the problem here is that
this relation is not in any sense immune to the pathological impulses of
the social world. The relation between mother and child and, in very
short time, between the relations of the family are not to be construed
as in any sense autonomous from the socializing forces of the world
external to it. Quite to the contrary, the family is in many ways the incubating sphere for the values that promote the status quo as a whole.13
What Harry Dahms has called the “constitutive logic of modern society”
should be seen here as a central problem in the move toward a recognitive paradigm in critical theory since there are few places where the self
can develop outside of the constitutive powers and logics of these institutions and norms.14
Honneth might well respond to this criticism that this simply misses
the point. His main claim is that recognition begins with a relation
between mother and child and then extends, over time, outward. As
this process unfolds, we develop a sense of self- and other-respect that
we seek to have recognized in the world. But there is also a problem
here. The phenomenon of a “struggle for recognition” which animated
Honneth’s early writings of the subject, recreates the central problem
that the early critical theorists were seeking to explain: namely the ways
that the dominated in fact do not experience their world as one of disrespect and as pathological. Rather, they come to internalize its goals
and values and accept them as implicitly legitimate, reifying them in
their own consciousness and practices. What results is the same problem
that motivated Wilhelm Reich’s problematic in his The Mass Psychology of
Fascism—namely, why is it that those who have been exploited and disadvantaged by the system not rebel? The crucial issue with respect to the
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recognition paradigm is that if we take the thesis of constitutive power
seriously, we have no way of securing the assumptions about self-formation
that Honneth maintains at the core of his model. Indeed, we are left
with the more plausible outcome that individuals are so socialized by
the systemic imperatives and norms of the social order that recognition
can serve hierarchical psychic needs. Thus, in order to be “recognized”
in the eyes of a domineering parent, lover, or superordinate, one might
actually reproduce power relations that do not disturb the hierarchical
relation and instead play into roles that comfort and secure that hierarchical relation. Recognition is a process that happens within the context
of other power relations, not external to them and therefore cannot escape
the problem of constitutive power and constitutive domination. The
thesis that recognition and critical-moral self-development are unified is
therefore deeply mistaken.
What this means is that recognition is a process that is itself shaped by
power relations; that it is itself vulnerable to the distortions and pathologies that it is supposed to in fact combat. The implication of this is that
recognition can then become a process that retards the development of
critical attitudes and critical consciousness. This is because power relations shape the recognitive relations between others and the particular
attachments, and recognitive relations and roles that individuals come
to adopt are shaped via the structural and functional imperatives of the
political economic forces of the society. This is no reductionist argument;
rather, it is a more critical view of the actual processes that shape social
and psychological content. Indeed, by marginalizing these concerns,
Honneth’s recognition paradigm lapses into a neo-Idealism: an abstraction of recognitive relations from the actual structures and forces that
constitute modern society. Even if we cede that recognition is a phylogenetic feature of human development, what we cannot accept is that
its ontogenetic manifestation is not constituted by the structures and
processes of capitalist economic life and its pathologies. Looking for
respect/recognition from others within hierarchical contexts generally
leads not to an awareness of a moral wrong, but to justificatory attitudes
toward those authority-relations themselves.15
But even more, the thesis of constitutive power entails certain effects
on our subjectivity and agency that also disable the critical potentiality of
recognition. This is because the culture of capitalist society is such that
the alienating effects of everyday life are such that the ego folds back
in on itself, and becomes a refuge from the increasingly dehumanizing
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world of damaged social relations. This ego is now in less of a place to
challenge the social order and more likely to create a protected space of
identity that seeks its affirmation from others. As Marcuse insightfully
notes on this problem: “the ego that has grown without much struggle
appears as a pretty weak entity, ill equipped to become a self with and
against others, to offer effective resistance to the powers that now enforce
the reality principle, and which are so very different from father (and
mother) – but also very different from the images purveyed by the mass
media.”16 The weakened, withered ego that Marcuse describes should be
seen not only as a consequence of damaged social relations, but also as
a counter-thesis to the idea that recognitive relations, embedded in the
“intramundane” fabric of everyday life, is unable to articulate selves with
the psychological resources requisite for moral-political resistance.
The Postmetaphysical Fallacy
This leads me to a second flaw in the recognition paradigm. As I sought
to demonstrate above, the problem of constitutive power and constitutive domination roots itself in the everyday life—the institutions,
practices, norms, and so on that shape and socialize our agency. But if
this basic thesis is accepted, it entails a second thesis: namely that the
assumptions of pragmatic social action are also not antecedent to the
same processes of power and domination but are in fact constitutive of
those practices and constituted by those practices. At its core, the thesis
of the postmetaphysical turn is that we can no longer look to any ground
for our norms external to our intersubjective, justificatory practices. For
Habermas, this means that valid, binding norms can only be rooted in
the consensus of the public itself. The criterion of universality for any
given moral utterance is the consensus around that utterance; it is the
procedure of the way we achieve such consensus that counts. Hence,
we no longer need to look for the ontological grounding of any given
moral concept, but must seek to secure consensus through exchange of
reasons via language to obtain moral validity. The pragmatist thesis here
is implicit in the capacity to exchange reasons and to accept that morality
has a cognitive content to the extent that person X is capable of acknowledging the truth-potentiality of the utterance of person Y.17 The cognitive power of moral utterances is then dependent on the extent to which
rational agents transform their ideas and normative views and come to
consensus around rational, valid norms.
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For Honneth, taking off from the work of Habermas and his followers, pragmatism offers us a kind of paradigmatic turn in the theory of
social action and self-formation. The reason for this is that he sees recognitive relations as essentially constitutive of one’s identity. The basis
for this claim is rooted in G. H. Mead’s thesis that the ego develops a
second-person perspective through his interaction with others, thereby
internalizing this other-perspective and creating the basis for the self as
an intersubjective phenomenon. As Mead states the matter: “any psychological or philosophical treatment of human nature involves the
assumption that the human individual belongs to an organized social
community, and derives his human nature from his social interactions
and relations with that community as a whole and with the other individual members of it.”18 This is because the individual develops a self only
in intersubjective conjunction with others: “The self is something which
has a development; it is not initially there, at birth, but arises in the process of social experience and activity, that it, develops in the given individual as a result of his relations to that process as a whole and to other
individuals within that process.”19
For Honneth, the core of this “process” is the recognitive relation
between persons. Honneth uses Mead as well as Dewey to defend this
thesis arguing that “a subject can only acquire a consciousness of itself to
the extent to which it learns to perceive its own action from the symbolically represented second-person perspective.”20 Now the crucial move
is to connect this basic thesis about the development of a social self via
recognitive relations and a sense of moral awareness. The postmetaphysical and pragmatist thesis here is that the process itself is sufficient as a
means to generate critical awareness and resistance—no other resources
are needed or even rationally acceptable. For Honneth: “The connection
between the experience of recognition and one’s relation-to-self stems
from the intersubjective structure of personal identity. The only way in
which individuals are constituted as persons is by learning to refer to
themselves, from the perspective of an approving or encouraging other,
as beings with certain positive traits and abilities.”21 But this is a large
leap, for now, Honneth maintains, the socialization process of recognition forms essentially a moral-experiential pattern within the self that is a
kind of indicator of social injustice. We come to experience blockages to
our recognition as acts of injustice; we begin to see that the hampering
of recognitive relations in mature social life go against the grain of our
socialized experiences of love and respect that has, he believes, constituted us as intersubjective selves.
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But this runs up against the same issue of constitutive power that I
discussed above, but in a more pathological way. I want now to advance
the thesis that Honneth does not appreciate the concept nor the deep
effects of the reification of consciousness that stems from modern forms
of power and its capacity to hamper the very practices and reflective
capacities that he assumes. Honneth continually rests his entire theoretical edifice on the brittle assumption that recognitive relations are
themselves constitutive of the social. But this sidesteps the ontological
dimension of social structure and function. Mead was indeed correct
about the formation of the self through social interaction with others.
But it is an idealized model of sociation, devoid of the problems of dominance and reification. The pragmatists almost completely side-stepped
the issue of social power and domination and its effects upon selfformation and cognition.22 Honneth makes the same error in the core of
his model. If we consider that there can be no unsullied recognitive relation, one not tainted and shaped by a power relation in some form, then
it becomes difficult to accept the idea of recognition as an intramundane
source for critical reflection and critical will-formation. But this does not
strike me as a plausible hypothesis.
If we take the thesis of reification seriously, then it affects the socialization of the self and its cognitive capacities in particular ways. Through
internalizing the constitutive rule-sets of the prevailing social institutions via the routinization of their norms and practices, they come to
be reified in the cognitive and intentional structures of consciousness.
This conceals from view much of what is objectively pathological within
the society. This is why Marx points to the power of theoretical knowledge to gain access to a critical vantage point. For Honneth, critique is
immanent within and an emergent property of sociation and recognitive intersubjective relations. But against this, Marx sees that alienation
and false shapes of consciousness in fact conceal from view the actual
mechanisms that generate the pathologies that individuals experience.
The lifeworld—no matter how pathologically shaped—is not sufficient
to generate a rational critical consciousness. Indeed, the problem is
that without a rational critical vantage point, as supplied by theoretical
knowledge, there can be pathological responses to pathological conditions—as with far right-wing movements, anti-immigrant sentiments,
drug use and abuse, ressentiment, etc. Indeed, although Marx and Mead
share a common theoretical view in presuming “the fundamental social
nature of man and, indeed, they argue that it is only through their
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sociality that men can be individuals.… [M]an does not exist as man
except in terms of social interrelation and interdependence.”23
But for Mead, the limitation exists in his lack of the perception of the
constitutive power of pathological relations. Indeed, his own view was
that domination was essentially a phenomenon of the past, that modern
social relations were giving way to freer forms of sociation, something
that Honneth makes a central contention of his normative theory. But
the problem here, again, is that it simply sidesteps the entire edifice of
critical theory itself: i.e., the essential question of how false forms of consciousness continually harness the subject to de-humanizing structures
and practices of social life. The pragmatist thesis is therefore insufficient
to deal with the phenomenon of alienation and reification. Because they
radically divorce intersubjective sociation from the causal powers of social
structures and their constitutive powers over self- and cognitive development, pragmatists continue to operate in a neo-Idealist framework,
deluding themselves that they are somehow “postmetaphysical.” Critical
theory must mitigate against this trend, for there is no way to secure
the capacity of agents, through recognition, communication, reason
exchange, or whatever, to extirpate the reified structures of consciousness and the defective forms of cognition to which it gives rise. Rather, it
seems more likely that these kinds of sociative relations will simply reproduce those acritical views rather than call them into question.24 Indeed,
the problem here is that there is no, what I have been calling, vantage
point for critique. Tom Goff has rightly pointed to the problem in Mead
that “while Mead’s perspective also suggests the critical orientation,
it does not explicitly contain any comprehension of a problematic that
would constitute the rationale in terms of which critical analysis wood be
necessary and meaningful. Mead stops short of any details consideration
of a conceptual equivalent to Marx’s ideas of alienation.”25
Hence, my thesis comes full circle: the recognitive paradigm fails
because: (a) it ignores or at least deeply under-theorizes the nature of
modern forms of social power and domination and its causal powers to
shape and structure consciousness and the self; and, ex hypothesi, (b) that
the pragmatist thesis of intersubjective sociation, also lacking a robust
theory of domination, alienation or reification, unwittingly reproduces
the pathologies of consciousness that emerge from pathological-domination
relations. Honneth’s thesis about the immanent, intramundane capacity of recognition to generate critical consciousness is therefore bankrupt and a return to the ideas of the first generation of critical theorists
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is therefore in earnest. The postmetaphysical move takes us too far into
the realm of the abstract, noumenal realm of subjects and away from the
ontological questions that ought to ground our concepts about social
reality—both in descriptive and normative senses. Anti-essentialism
entails a lack of critique. The reason for this is that, unlike the pragmatist understanding of truth-claims, the nature of reality is not dependent on my or our collective concepts of it. A critical grasp of the world
is one that is able to grasp its essential features, i.e., those things that
make it what it is. And, from a truly Hegelian vantage point, this entails
seeing any thing as a metaphysical entity because it must be more than
its material or analytically composed parts of the sum thereof. From the
Hegelian point of view, valid knowledge, philosophical, critical knowledge, grasps the essentially dynamic nature of objects. Understanding
social pathologies therefore must take this strategy, as I will demonstrate
now.
Recognition and Social Pathology:
Fromm Versus Honneth
Now we come to the central and indeed essential concern: to what
extent can we see the theory of recognition as a critical theory of society? In order to explore the limitations of the recognition paradigm, I
want to compare Honneth’s approach to social pathologies with that
of Erich Fromm. What I want to show is that the move away from the
ideas about the constitutive power of social structure and the damaged
relations under capitalism mutes our understanding of social pathologies. Indeed, the Marxian and Freudian elements of the first generation
of critical theory were able to diagnose the problem of the desiccation of
the self that emerged form the pathologies of alienation and reification
that were themselves rooted in the social-structural forces of modern
capitalism. Not only the production process itself, but the elaboration of
consumerist, technicist, and conformist pressures that it requires for its
success. The problem of recognition becomes perhaps even more problematic because now we are forced to face the extent to which we actually have a critical criterion for what kinds of identities are indeed worthy
of being “recognized.” Indeed, Honneth’s claim is that the cognitive
and the normative layers of the process of recognition are intertwined
with one another.
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The concept of social pathology is once again of interest in social philosophy and the social sciences. For critical theorists, the concept had
always denoted a series of different kinds of deviations from a healthy,
rational, and self-developing form of subjectivity and social relations.
The basic thesis that they accepted was that modern social relations—
primarily those dominated by commodified, capitalist market forces and
instrumental rationality—had the effect of distorting the cognitive and
personality structure of individuals, thereby rendering them passive subjects within the context of any system imperative. Pathological social
relations, therefore, gave rise to pathological persons. The key problem
that the Frankfurt School sought to remedy, in its various projects, was
to expose the mechanisms of this kind of pathology-formation in order
to reignite the capacity for critique and social emancipation. Critical theorists therefore rejected the linked concepts of “normal” and “pathological” that Durkheim had laid out and which stated that “the generality of
phenomena must be taken as the criterion of their normality.”26 Rather,
their idea of social pathology was rooted in the Marxian thesis that saw
alienation, commodity fetishism, and reification as the product of a society increasingly organized around the imperatives of surplus production
and consumption.
Honneth has taken a decidedly conservative view of the older,
Marxian-inspired concept of social pathology that critical theory took
as the center of their diagnostic project of social critique. In Freedom’s
Right, Honneth has chosen to see the concept of social pathology not
as the product of a pathological society organized around alienating and
reifying relations rooted in capitalist social relations, but rather as a lack
on the part of persons to recognize the norms immanent within modern social institutions, norms that will lead to their pursuing recognitive
relations with others and as allowing those norms to guide their personal
and collective projects. The important point is that in Freedom’s Right,
there is a disconnect between the “actual rationality of norms in social
practices and the participants’ reflexive uptake of these norms (or of their
significance)—a disconnect that is itself (purportedly) caused by some
internal dynamics of the norms in question (in contrast to misdevelopments, where the disconnect is caused externally).”27
According to this view, social pathologies are now to be seen not in
Marxian terms, as the by-product of a contradictions within the social
order, but rather as a result of the lack of proper recognitive relations
which allow the (supposedly) democratic norms of modernity to seep
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into the practices and norms of intersubjectively related social agents.
A nonpathological society, for Honneth, would not need to change the
structure of society, but would need to allow for the proper uptake of
modern norms which, he maintains, already possess the normative content of equality, reflexivity, and self-development. But it must be seen
that Honneth’s idea of social pathology is in fact deeply flawed and is
unable to capture the fuller dimensions of the causes of failed sociality. In order to provide the groundwork for this critique, I will contrast
Honneth’s conception of social pathology with that of Erich Fromm
who I believe has a richer conception not only of the dimensions of
social pathologies and their manifestation in the self and psyche of individuals, but how these pathological states of self and psyche are rooted
in the specific historical conditions found within capitalist economic life.
In particular, I would like to point to Fromm’s alternative account of
normal-pathological relations in order to show how Honneth’s contention is in fact unworthy of the aims and goals of critical theory. Fromm
holds that capitalist modernity produces flaws in social relations and subjects; that these pathologies are not simply a matter of the recognition
of other or of norms, but rather becomes embedded in the character or
personality system of the individual. To go further, I also want to suggest
that the pathologies that Fromm points to in his study The Sane Society,
are in fact today considered normal parts of late capitalist society and
culture.
Fromm differs from this approach by arguing that failed sociality is
the result not of a blockage of recognitive relations, or a failure recognize the rationality of modern norms, but rather a result of the ways
that defective social relations are shaped and form the self. In this sense,
Fromm is working within the shadow of Rousseau’s thesis that modern
forms of liberal society—premised on atomism, egotism, and interpersonal extraction of benefits (what Rousseau called amour propre)—lead
to pathologies of the self: i.e., to a distended sense of self-interest, and
so on. This occurs because social relations give rise to what he refers to
as moeurs, or the norms and customs that exist to protect the powerful and the propertied. Rousseau also points out that it is only when we
abandon this defective form of civil society—one based on inequality and
domination—that we can glimpse the proper, good community: i.e., one
appropriate to man’s needs within society.28 This he sees as a community
that is made up of autonomous agents who are cognizant of living within
a social context of interdependence. It is not man who is himself evil or
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bad or ill by nature (a la Augustine or Kierkegaard), but man’s defects
are the result of a poorly constructed society: of institutions, norms,
practices and so on that allow and even legitimate inequality and domination. This kind of society is not yet ours; we therefore cannot take
the norms already empirically present within the community as valid, but
rather must think dialectically: we must follow the social pathology back
to normal or healthy situation of which the pathology is the negation.
And inequality and domination shape the practices and norms of individuals, shape the cognitive and evaluative capacities of subjects, and render
them, over time, inhere them to the patterns and goals of the social system as a whole. The idea that this is an outdated and overly mechanistic model of modern society is simply false: it is the growing tendency
within industrial and post-industrial society.
I think Fromm is working within this same logic of reasoning.29
Although he takes Marx and Freud as his intellectual fonts, he nevertheless shares with Rousseau’s basic thesis the notion that social pathologies
originate in the patterned forms of social life (institutions, practices, valueorientations, and so on) that are unique to capitalist society. Fromm, also
not unlike Rousseau, sees that there is a central way to understand social
pathologies or defects of the self and of society more generally by positing that only those social relations that are normal, non-pathological
are those capable of curing the pathologies of the culture and the self.
For Fromm, this state of normalcy would be one where each i­ndividual’s
autonomy is shaped and cultivated by relations that are creative and
­solidaristic. He points to four crucial continua of normalcy-pathology
that cluster these values (Fig. 10.1).
For Fromm, the content of all social pathologies are rooted in the
deformation of social relations which then lead to the shaping of the personality of the self. It also shows how the dialectic can serve as a means
of critique by showing us how the relative pathology is also the negation
of the healthy, normal state of being. The key for the critical theorist is to
[+]
[–]
Relatedness + ---------------------------------- – Narcissism
Creativeness + ----------------------------------- – Destructiveness
Brotherliness + ----------------------------------- – Incest
Individuality + ----------------------------------- – Herd Conformity
Fig. 10.1 Continua of normalcy-pathology
10 THE FAILURE OF THE RECOGNITION PARADIGM IN CRITICAL THEORY
261
seek to understand the ways that different social formations, institutional
practices, different cultural patterns of life, value-orientations, and so on,
can be seen to routinize either the positive or negative values on each of
these continua.
But the cause of these pathologies, as Fromm repeatedly points out, is
the social conditions rooted in the organization of society itself. Whereas
Honneth’s new path for critical theory advocates interpersonal recognition and respect as the fundamental ethic of socialization, one that must
be seen as the central normative value of modernity, Fromm follows
Marx in seeing that this cannot suffice to overcome pathologies of the
self. This is because the very thesis that Honneth advocates cannot properly emerge within the confines of capitalist society. Fromm’s notion of
an “analytic social psychology,” as he notes in an essay with the same
title, posits that “[t]he role of primary formative factors goes to the economic conditions. The family is the essential medium through which the
economic situation exerts formative influence on the individual’s psyche.”30 In short, the task of a critical social psychology must therefore
point to the “influence of economic conditions on libido strivings.”31
What this means is that the root of social pathologies is the structural
organization of social life which imprints itself on the family and onto
the developing ego. Honneth’s thesis of an “ethic of recognition” occurs
within the pathological conditions Fromm analyzes. As a result, the mechanism of recognition can still take place between pathological forms of
self. Although it may be able to overcome some extreme forms of narcissism or acute forms of destructiveness, it does not qualify as an antidote
to the kind of automaton conformity that Fromm points to, nor does it
do anything to prevent the emergence of more general forms of egotism,
of self-absorption that follow from atomized, reified, commodified, culturally empty forms of life that characterize modern societies.
But at an even larger level of analysis, Fromm’s point is that this kind
of recognition cannot emerge within a social system that reproduces
pathological relations. Honneth’s basic idea of social pathology is further called into question since the very antithesis that he proposes cannot
fully emerge as a social practice, let alone as an ethic, of modern social
life. We cannot separate out, as Honneth does, the social practice of recognition from the social processes that mitigate against it, nor against
the social forces that shape and constitute the self and the cognitive and
intentional features of the ego’s agency. At best, it is a figment of philosophical optimism; at worst, it manifests as a shallow, apolitical means to
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fortify an inwardly collapsing ego that has withered under the conditions
of capitalist modernity.
This calls into question the analytic distinction between first- and second-order pathologies. Fromm’s thesis seems to be that the pathologies
of society (of structure, social goals and values, relations, and so on) are
functionally related to the pathologies of the self: pathological relations
form pathological selves who, in turn, recreate pathological relations.
But the key for Fromm is that the nucleus of this dynamic is to be found
in a social order that orients and channels the inherent powers and drives
of human nature into forms of life that misdirect them and our energies
toward contradictory forms of life, thereby necessitating the emergence
of personal pathologies as a means to sublimate and even rationalize such
irrational forms of life.32
Unfortunately for Honneth, there is no phenomenological way out of
this circle. We cannot assume, as Honneth does in his earlier writings,
that the experience of the pathology will lead to an emancipatory interest
in overcoming and eliminating that pathology. Rather, Fromm seems to
be saying that it is only through a rational grasp of the objective mechanisms that create and recreate defective society and defective selves that
we can hope to overcome them. Even more, Fromm’s ideas retain a radical political content, in that they point to the necessity of social transformation as opposed to some reformist impulse toward accommodating
the norms of what we should see as a deficient form of modernity.33 As
he writes in The Crisis of Psychoanalysis: “In present-day society it is other
impulses [i.e., other than sex] that are repressed; to be fully alive, to be
free, and to love. Indeed, if people today were healthy in a human sense,
they would be less rather than more capable of fulfilling their social role;
they would, however, protest against a sick society, and demand such
socio-economic changes as would reduce the dichotomy between health
in a social and health in a human sense.”34
What Fromm is particularly against is precisely what Honneth’s
conception of social pathology embraces. Fromm is opposed to any
notion of social accommodation, to the idea that health can in any way
be equated with an adaptation to the existing reality or its norms. But
Honneth is claiming precisely this: namely, that the modern world—the
modern form of the family, a regulated market society, modern ideas
about rights, and so on contain within them norms that can promote
the recognitive relations and self-development that is modern social freedom. But this is only because Honneth chooses not to see that these
10 THE FAILURE OF THE RECOGNITION PARADIGM IN CRITICAL THEORY
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socio-cultural forces in fact act as modes of sublimation: that the increase
in economic consumption, production, exploitation, inequality, and so
on, requires new cultural modes of interacting to aid in the adaptation of
the self into the dominant values and practices of the community—and
these dominant values and practices are only permitted to flourish insofar
as they further or at least do not threaten the concrete power relations
within society. The domination of classes over one another continues,
and the vertical slope of inequality increases. In the meantime, individuals “enjoy” rights to their identities and find the concept of freedom in
these narrow confines.
The recognition of another’s identity therefore becomes a crucial
mechanism of escape from the realities of the social order itself. The
weakened ego now seeks comfort in the nonthreatening embrace of his
or her identity-community. The pathological nature of this move is two
fold. On the one hand, the weak ego is one that seeks not resistance,
but acceptance from particularistic communities. This then reinforces the
fragmentation of social life insofar as one becomes increasingly embedded in and psychically invested in such particularist communities. What
is lost from view are the ways that this search for identity and acceptance
fragment the totality and instead make room for the particular self rather
than a fully developed individuality. These pathologies are not gasped as
they are, but are internalized and normalized through different psychological and cultural codes and norms. We cannot get at their essentially
pathological nature via recognition, but only through critical reflection.
Indeed, at the same time, these newer modes of sublimation not only
cement the dominant social forces and social order, they also necessitate a passive legitimacy to this system. Whereas Fromm was concerned
to point to the dialectical relation between a pathology and its healthy
state in order to draw attention to their respective mechanisms of causation within the dynamism of the social structure, Honneth now asks us
to reject this and instead to see that there are simply some pre-modern
blockages from the “uptake of modern norms.”
But the problem of these new modes of sublimation should instead be
seen to be proliferating, in fact melding themselves into the very structure of a culture of sublimation in general. The trends of popular culture (music, film, literature, and so on) ever more evident: what we see
is a progressive series of cultural forms that normalize the pathological
forms of self to which Fromm points. We can take Erich Fromm and his
ideas about the nature of the pathological personality as a starting point
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M. J. THOMPSON
for what I am trying to say here. For Fromm, one of the central consequences of damaged social relations that emerge from capitalist society are forms of self that seek out pathological self- and other relations.
But it is equally plausible that they will seek out forms of acceptance
that protect the weakened self from the forces of social life external to it.
In either case, recognition can now be seen to function not as a critical
mechanism, but as a sublimating mechanism: as a means to escape the
damaged world rather than confront it and change it.
Resuscitating Critical Theory:
The Ontological Vantage Point
The key problem that emerges from the above discussion can be seen
as follows. If we reject the postmetaphysical and pragmatist ideas about
truth-claims and about the validity of norms, how can we rationally discern the reasons why Fromm maintains that certain social relations are
“pathological” and others “healthy” or “good”? If we turn toward a
critical social-ontological perspective, we see that the postmetaphysical
view comes up short. Since, as I have tried to show here, this thesis is
unable to resist the constitutive effects of power relations, we can only
regain a critical vantage point through an ontological perspective that
seeks to interrogate the relational structures, processes, and purposes
toward which the society I live within are oriented. Hegel and Marx, on
this view, no less than Fromm, sought to propose such a view: one that
saw the dialectical relation between the pathological social forms with
the more rational, more humane forms that were potential within a reorganization of social relations, processes, and ends. What makes this view
ontological is that it seeks to ground the critical perspective not from
within actions constituted by the already-existing order, but rather from
an ontological point that asks about the totality of relations, processes,
and purposes of the community as a whole. In place of relying on the
moral experience of everyday life, what is required is the juxtaposition
of a different way of thinking about what the social is and how it can be
conceived. Critical theory must, in my view, be concerned with precisely
this task.
In contrast to the phenomenological, action-theoretic perspective,
Fromm shows how it is the specific structure or shape of our social relations that has causal powers over self- and will formation. There exists
10 THE FAILURE OF THE RECOGNITION PARADIGM IN CRITICAL THEORY
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an ontology to our social relations, to the kinds of processes that those
relations articulate, and the kinds of subjects that are shaped by them.
Fromm sees that the social pathologies are negations of correct or
healthy relations, but we know this not because one feels “disrespect,” or
some form of misrecognition. We cannot rely on an internalist and phenomenological reaction since it is far too susceptible to the problem of
reification and alienation. The struggle for critical reflection is more difficult than this and, in many ways, the tendencies of modern culture and
society show a growing tendency away from the kinds of moral awareness that Honneth proposes dominate modernity.35
What is necessary is not simply the act of intersubjective r­ecognition,
but rather a broader form of cognition that is able to recognize our institutions as needing to fulfill the goals of self-development.36 Not a simple, one-sided form of development, but a manifold, dynamic and
progressive conception of the self. Fromm is in line here with Marx,
with Hegel, Rousseau, and even Aristotle on a basic thesis: that human
beings are social, that they are relational beings, and that their subjective, ­individual self is a function of the ways that these relations are
shaped and s­tructured. And even more, they are of the view that as a
result of this basic social ontology, that social relations can be arranged
so as to progress the human condition, to lead to a kind of perfectionism
and self-development that is humane, creative; one that nurtures equal
­relations and has in critical view the notion that society exists for our collective and individual good. If we go back to Hegel’s Phenomenology for
a moment, we recall that it culminates in “Absolute Spirit,” in the thesis
that all human cognition is truly rational and universal once it is able to
grasp that all our institutions, values, and forms of life are created by us.37
What is needed is that these relations be seen not simply as manifesting
relations of recognition, but that we orient all social forms toward the
values of normalcy that Fromm points to and that we keep in view the
fact that this can only be achieved through rooting out the pathological
as a feature of the social institutions we are supposed to call our own.
But this is a very different operation of consciousness and thought
than that put forward by Honneth and the thesis of recognition. What
we need to see is that the recognitive relations pointed to by Hegel
and Mead still have salience. But what they entail is not an immanent
sense of moral consciousness but, rather, the possibility of an expanded
subjectivity capable of cognizing the ontological dimensions of human
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M. J. THOMPSON
social-relatedness and the kinds of processes, relations and purposes
toward which our social lives ought to be organized.38 Against the postmetaphysical move, we need to see—as did Hegel and Marx—that the
core of any radical critical theory of society requires of us that we grasp,
rationally, the essential nature of human life; this essence consists of the
ontological categories of relations, processes, and purposes. This grants
us a critical vantage point rather than an immanent-phenomenological
sense of moral awareness. What the ontological vantage point grants us
is a means to understand the essential structures of human social life and
ask about the kinds of relations, processes, structures, and purposes our
social world commits us and whether they have validity. The criterion of
validity can be seen only if those relations, institutions, norms, practices,
and purposes generate realized selves. Of course, this does not mean jettisoning the ideas of recognition no less than the ideas about discourse.
What it does mean is that these theoretical approaches cannot serve, on
their own, as a critical social theory.
In their attack on the metaphysical tradition, these approaches have
missed the idea that it can offer us a kind of rational-critical grounding for normative claims. The critical ontological perspective does not
embrace a transcendental metaphysics but, rather, an immanent metaphysics: one where we keep in view the metaphysics of the social world
and the kinds of relations and purposes it contains.39 There is no final
recipe of how any community should be ordered, no Aristotelian point
of certainty. But this does not vitiate the ontological perspective. Indeed,
when we turn to a social-ontological dimension, we are able to give form
and content to our critical capacities. We cannot deny the essential existence of social relations, of social processes, structures, and purposes.
Unlike the postmetaphysical fallacy, we cannot simply create through
reflexive action valid social norms. Indeed, what gives critical reflection
cognitive ballast is its capacity to think concretely about the social world
and how it can provide us both a critical and diagnostic point of view.
Perhaps this is why we need to rethink the direction that the recognition
paradigm has taken critical theory.
I think this is an important question, and one that needs to be
sketched here. My criticisms of Honneth’s paradigm of recognition as a
critical theory of society is meant not in purely negative terms. Rather, as
I see it, it takes us away from the foundational concepts and structure of
thought that make critical theory distinctive and compelling. Returning
to a deeper reading of what Hegel and Marx shared in their ideas about
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267
social reality, it is an ontological perspective that grants their ideas a distinctive power. The ontological paradigm is opposed to the recognition
and communicative paradigms because it seeks to privilege the objective structures and processes that constitute human sociality. It does not
negate recognitive relations, but rather sees them as a layer among a rich
assortment of different kinds of relations that we share. But even more,
it grants us access to a critical metaphysics: one that allows for us to have
an objective-critical vantage point. The pragmatist and neo-Idealism of
current critical theorists requires a response informed by the desire not
only for a more humane and dignified social world, but from a rational
point of view that can secure those claims and avoid the pitfalls of alienation, deformed cognition and relativism. Lacking this, what passes now
for critical theory will simply continue to lose its critical edge, and lapse
into the abstractions of theoretical solipsism.
Notes
1. For a recent expression of these themes in what now passes for critical theory, see Penelope Deutscher and Cristina Lafont (eds.) Critical Theory
in Critical Times: Transforming the Global Political and Economic Order
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2017).
2. I have developed this thesis more extensively in The Domestication of
Critical Theory (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016).
3. Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Grammar of Social
Conflicts (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), 75.
4. Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition, 249.
5. Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition, 118.
6. Axel Honneth, Disrespect: The Normative Foundations of Critical Theory
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007), 71.
7. Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition, 173.
8. Axel Honneth, Reification: A New Look at an Old Idea (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2008).
9. Honneth, Reification, 43.
10. For a more technical discussion of this approach to the theory of domination and reification, see my paper “Collective Intentionality, Social
Domination and Reification.” Journal of Social Ontology, vol. 3, no. 2
(2017b): 207–229.
11. For a fuller discussion of this thesis, see my The Domestication of Critical
Theory, 91ff.
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M. J. THOMPSON
12. For a more developed, technical discussion of this mechanism of domination, see my paper “A Functionalist Theory of Social Domination.” The
Journal of Political Power, vol. 6, no. 2 (2013): 179–199.
13. See the important discussion by Herbert Marcuse, “The Obsolescence
of the Freudian Conception of Man.” In Five Lectures (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1970), 44–61.
14. See Harry Dahms, Modern Society as Artifice: Critical Theory and the Logic
of Capital (London: Routledge, 2018).
15. See Frederick Solt, “The Social Origins of Authoritarianism.” Political
Research Quarterly, vol. 65, no. 4 (2012): 703–713. But this can also
be seen in the earlier studies by Robert Lane, “The Fear of Equality.”
American Political Science Review, vol. 53, no. 1 (1959): 35–51; as well
as Jonathan Cobb and Richard Sennett, The Hidden Injuries of Class
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1972).
16. Marcuse, “The Obsolescence of the Freudian Conception of Man,” 50.
17. As Habermas argues: “The speaker’s illocutionary goal is that the hearer
not only acknowledge her belief, but that he come to the same opinion, that is, to share that belief. But this is possible only on the basis of
the intersubjective recognition of the truth claim raised on behalf of p.
The speaker can realize her illocutionary goal only if the cognitive function of the speech act is also realized, that is, if the interlocutor accepts
her utterance as valid.” Truth and Justification (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 2003), 4. Also cf. Jürgen Habermas, Postmetaphysical Thinking:
Philosophical Essays (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), 115ff.
18. George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self and Society (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1934), 229.
19. Mead, Mind, Self and Society, 135.
20. Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition, 75. Interestingly enough, Mead
seems to have anticipated what Honneth elaborates in his recognition
theory when he writes about the individual in modern society: “If he
could not bring that peculiarity of himself into the common community,
if it could not be recognized, if others could not take his attitude in some
sense, he could not have appreciation in emotional terms, he could not
be the very self he is trying to be.” Mead, Mind, Self and Society, 324.
21. Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition, 173.
22. See the important discussion by Lonnie Athens, Domination and
Subjugation in Everyday Life (London: Routledge, 2015).
23. Tom W. Goff, Marx and Mead: Contributions to a Sociology of Knowledge
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980), 87.
24. Empirically, this seems to be the case. See Henrik Friberg-Frenros and
Johan Karlsson Shaffer, “The Consensus Paradox: Does Deliberative
Agreement Impede Rational Discourse?” Political Studies, vol. 62,
10 THE FAILURE OF THE RECOGNITION PARADIGM IN CRITICAL THEORY
269
no. 1 (2014): 99–116 as well as Edward T. Walker, “Legitimating the
Corporation Through Public Participation.” In Caroline W. Lee,
Michael McQuarrie and Edward T. Walker (eds.) Democratizing
Inequalities: Dilemmas of the New Public Participation (New York:
New York University Press, 2015), 66–81; as well as Dan M. Kahan,
“The Cognitively Illiberal State.” Stanford Law Review, vol. 60 (2007):
101–140. Also see the still relevant discussion by Milton Rokeach,
The Open and Closed Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1960); as well as
Cass Sunstein, “The Law of Group Polarization.” Journal of Political
Philosophy, vol. 10, no. 2 (2002): 17–195; R. Robinson, D. Keltner,
A. Ward and L. Ross “Actual Versus Assumed Differences in Construal:
‘Naïve Realism’ in Intergroup Perception and Conflict.” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 68, no. 3 (1995): 404–417;
J. Berdahl and P. Martorana, “Effects of Power on Emotion and
Expression During a Controversial Group Discussion.” European
Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 36 (2006): 497–509; Cass Sunstein,
“Deliberative Trouble? Why Groups Go to Extremes.” Yale Law Journal,
vol. 110 (2000): 71–119.
25. Goff, Marx and Mead, 93.
26. Emile Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method (New York: Free Press,
1938), 75.
27. Fabian Freyenhagen, “Honneth on Social Pathologies: A Critique.”
Critical Horizons, vol. 16, no. 2 (2015): 131–152, 144.
28. I think Honneth’s conception of social pathology is marred by his misunderstanding of Rousseau’s more complete social theory. See his
“Pathologies of the Social: The Past and Present of Social Philosophy.”
In Disrespect: The Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 2007), 3–48.
29. Also cf. the important discussion by Ernst Tugendhat, Vorlesungen über
Ethik (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1993), 263ff.
30. Erich Fromm, The Crisis of Psychoanalysis (New York: Henry Holt, 1970),
149.
31. Fromm, The Crisis of Psychoanalysis, 149.
32. Fromm notes on this that: “For most of them, the culture provides patterns which enable them to live with a defect without becoming ill. It is as
if each culture provided the remedy against the outbreak of manifest neurotic symptoms which would result from the defect produced by it.” The
Sane Society (New York: Henry Holt, 1955), 16.
33. Elsewhere I have advanced the thesis of “deficient modernity” as a way
to show a Hegelian distinction between a mal-formed, irrational form
of contemporary life and a genuine, rational manifestation of modernity.
See my paper, “Capitalism as Deficient Modernity: Hegel Against the
270
M. J. THOMPSON
Modern Economy.” In Andrew Buchwalter (ed.) Hegel and Capitalism
(Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2015), 117–132. Unlike Honneth, therefore,
we should not see modern economic institutions as fostering a modern
form of ethical life, but instead more in a Marxian sense that shows the
pathological consequences of atomized market relations and the effects of
unequal wealth on the common purposes, relations and ends of the community as a whole.
34. Fromm, The Crisis of Psychoanalysis, 37.
35. See the important discussion by Pankaj Mishra, Age of Anger: A History of
the Present (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2017).
36. In contrasting Marx and Mead, Tom Goff rightly argues that: “It is precisely Marx’s intention to develop a mode of analysis that would enable one to pinpoint and transcend the specific, contingent limitation
expressed in the concept of alienation, so that the ‘natural problematics,’
on the level of praxis, could be handled on a rational, less trial-and-error
basis, free of the paradoxical limitations of man’s own products.” Marx
and Mead, 93.
37. As Philip Kain has commented on this section of the Phenomenology: “The
very alienation that leads to estrangement is also the alienation that overcomes the estrangement. When we come to see that it was our own alienation that produced the object as our estranged self in the first place, the
consciousness of this fact means we have overcome the estrangement of
the object. We no longer see it as other. We see it as our self, our own
product, our own essence. We are at home with it.” Hegel and the Other:
A Study of the Phenomenology of Spirit (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2005),
222. Cf. Jean Hyppolite, “The knowledge of being was shown to be a
knowledge of self, and, inversely, self-knowledge has led back to the
knowledge of being; finally, reason, the synthesis of consciousness and
self-consciousness, did indeed grasp being as thought and thought as
being, but it did so in an immediate fashion.” Genesis and Structure of
Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University
Press, 1974), 576.
38. For some preliminary discussions of this, see Joachim Israel, The Language
of Dialectics and the Dialectics of Language (London: Harvester Press,
1979); David Weissman, A Social Ontology (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2000); and Michael J. Thompson, “Social Ontology and Social
Critique: Toward a New Paradigm for Critical Theory.” In Dan Krier
and Mark Worrell (eds.) The Social Ontology of Capitalism (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2017a), 15–45.
39. I argue for an immanent metaphysics in my paper “The Metaphysical
Infrastructure of Hegel’s Practical Philosophy.” In M. Thompson (ed.)
Hegel’s Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Politics (New York: Routledge,
2018), 101–141.
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Selected Bibliography
Athens, Lonnie (2015) Domination and Subjugation in Everyday Life. London:
Routledge.
Berdahl, J. and P. Martorana (2006) “Effects of Power on Emotion and
Expression During a Controversial Group Discussion.” European Journal of
Social Psychology, vol. 36: 497–509.
Cobb, Jonathan and Richard Sennett (1972) The Hidden Injuries of Class. New
York: W. W. Norton.
Dahms, Harry (2018) Modern Society as Artifice: Critical Theory and the Logic of
Capital. London: Routledge.
Deutscher, Penelope and Cristina Lafont, eds. (2017) Critical Theory in Critical
Times: Transforming the Global Political and Economic Order. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Durkheim, Emile (1938) The Rules of Sociological Method. New York: Free Press.
Freyenhagen, Fabian (2015) “Honneth on Social Pathologies: A Critique.”
Critical Horizons, vol. 16, no. 2: 131–152.
Friberg-Frenros, Henrik and Johan Karlsson Shaffer (2014) “The Consensus
Paradox: Does Deliberative Agreement Impede Rational Discourse?” Political
Studies, vol. 62, no. 1: 99–116.
Fromm, Erich (1955) The Sane Society. New York: Henry Holt.
Fromm, Erich (1970) The Crisis of Psychoanalysis. New York: Henry Holt.
Goff, Tom W. (1980) Marx and Mead: Contributions to a Sociology of Knowledge.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Habermas, Jürgen (1993) Postmetaphysical Thinking: Philosophical Essays.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Habermas, Jürgen (2003) Truth and Justification. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Honneth, Axel (1995) The Struggle for Recognition: The Grammar of Social
Conflicts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Honneth, Axel (2007) Disrespect: The Normative Foundations of Critical Theory.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Honneth, Axel (2008) Reification: A New Look at an Old Idea. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Hyppolite, Jean (1974) Genesis and Structure of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.
Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Israel, Joachim (1979) The Language of Dialectics and the Dialectics of Language.
London: Harvester Press.
Kahan, Dan M. (2007) “The Cognitively Illiberal State.” Stanford Law Review,
vol. 60: 101–140.
Kain, Philip (2005) Hegel and the Other: A Study of the Phenomenology of Spirit.
Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
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Lane, Robert (1959) “The Fear of Equality.” American Political Science Review,
vol. 53, no. 1: 35–51.
Marcuse, Herbert (1970) Five Lectures. Boston: Beacon Press.
Mead, George Herbert (1934) Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Mishra, Pankaj (2017) Age of Anger: A History of the Present. New York: Farrar,
Strauss and Giroux.
Robinson, R., D. Keltner, A. Ward and L. Ross (1995) “Actual Versus Assumed
Differences in Construal: ‘Naïve Realism’ in Intergroup Perception and
Conflict.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 68, no. 3:
404–417.
Rokeach, Milton (1960) The Open and Closed Mind. New York: Basic Books.
Solt, Frederick (2012) “The Social Origins of Authoritarianism.” Political
Research Quarterly, vol. 65, no. 4: 703–713.
Sunstein, Cass (2000) “Deliberative Trouble? Why Groups Go to Extremes.”
Yale Law Journal, vol. 110: 71–119.
Sunstein, Cass (2002) “The Law of Group Polarization.” Journal of Political
Philosophy, vol. 10, no. 2: 175–195.
Thompson, Michael J. (2013) “A Functionalist Theory of Social Domination.”
The Journal of Political Power, vol. 6, no. 2 (2013): 179–199.
Thompson, Michael J. (2015) “Capitalism as Deficient Modernity: Hegel against
the Modern Economy.” In Andrew Buchwalter (ed.) Hegel and Capitalism.
Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 117–132.
Thompson, Michael J. (2016) The Domestication of Critical Theory. London:
Rowman and Littlefield.
Thompson, Michael J. (2017a) “Social Ontology and Social Critique: Toward
a New Paradigm for Critical Theory.” In Dan Krier and Mark Worrell (eds.)
The Social Ontology of Capitalism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 15–45.
Thompson, Michael J. (2017b) “Collective Intentionality, Social Domination
and Reification.” Journal of Social Ontology, vol. 3, no. 2: 207–229.
Thompson, Michael J. (2018) “The Metaphysical Infrastructure of Hegel’s
Practical Philosophy.” In M. Thompson (ed.) Hegel’s Metaphysics and the
Philosophy of Politics. New York: Routledge, 101–141.
Tugendhat, Ernst (1993) Vorlesungen über Ethik. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Walker, Edward T. (2015) “Legitimating the Corporation through Public
Participation.” In Caroline W. Lee, Michael McQuarrie and Edward T.
Walker (eds.) Democratizing Inequalities: Dilemmas of the New Public
Participation. New York: New York University Press, 66–81.
Weissman, David (2000) A Social Ontology. New Haven: Yale University Press.
CHAPTER 11
The Mirror of Transformation: Recognition
and Its Dimensions After Honneth
James E. Block
There has been a great deal of attention lately among oppositional social
theorists paid to the concept of recognition. As a critical and transformative concept, really the shorthand for a meta-psychological dynamic,
it stands at the center of the effort to conceptualize and elaborate on
a concept of post-liberal selfhood. At the same time, the ways it is
being employed by contemporary theory, including prominently Axel
Honneth, are puzzling and counterproductive. In order to serve in this
larger theoretical project, we must be able to identify both its critical and
its transformative components, neither of which is even gestured to in
the current discussion. What use it now serves for theory, then, is a subject that we can return to after we identify the uses to which it might be
put.
Recognition as a concept can be compared to the concept of history. In its origins, it is naively attuned to the surface of things, to what
appears and what follows what in the sequence of the visible and the
evident. Yet, with the rise of modern interiority, both are capable of
unfolding dimensions of vast depth and unlocking potentialities which
J. E. Block (*)
DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA
© The Author(s) 2019
V. Schmitz (ed.), Axel Honneth and the Critical Theory
of Recognition, Political Philosophy and Public Purpose,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91980-5_11
273
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J. E. BLOCK
have been sequestered away by social repression and neglect. History
in its conventional role is a conservative notion, a chronicle tracing the
great weight the past exerts on the present in the dynamic of causation
by extrapolation. That is, the future can be most uncritically understood
as a mere continuation of what has gone before. Its political function as
a narrative of imperial power was to delimit the range of what is possible in the future given the existing power arrangements. It was Hegel
and Marx, following Rousseau in the Second Discourse and Emile, who
brought to light its interior dimensions of vast underground human
drives in continuing contestation with the narratives and institutions of
ostensible order. This new understanding of history permanently altered
our understanding of the present, which now emerged as a contingent
and unstable process. With unrelenting forces contesting mainstream
narratives, forces of change, both radical and reactionary, demanding to
be born and empowered, history can no longer maintain its fealty, or any
trust whatever, in what appears on the surface to be the case.
Recognition also contains these twin elements: in its naïve form, it
embodies a judgment regarding the effectiveness of the presentation
extended to others, and at a deeper level, the prioritization of identity
through self-presentation over one’s internal experience. This was a
primary feature of early modern liberalism. The very goal of the liberal
social contract was to establish interpersonal commitments. Individuals
affirmed and confirmed their commitment to the social construction of
identity through embracing socially acceptable goals and ordered social
surfaces. This externalization was an indispensable feature of recognition
in liberalism in its effort to domesticate the early modern rise of interiority. Hobbes posited the goal of creating an interpersonal sector that
would demand the ‘readability’ of surfaces as the answer to the unknowable, and thus always dangerous, realm of private motivation (explored
so tellingly by Shakespeare). This commitment indicated that one was
following the consensual rules in a way all could discern and verify.
The other, more complex dimension of recognition involved the
potential access one might gain through it to dimensions of the individual beneath the socially legible presentation, dimensions that were
at once more personal and genuine as well as potentially divergent,
unscripted, dangerous, challenging of the presentational dynamic. This
interior realm was not easily accessible, but, if discovered, provided a
doorway to the capacity to discern those things not intentionally ­visible
or explicit, the deeper levels of self-experience and self-creation. This
11 THE MIRROR OF TRANSFORMATION …
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form of recognition I will call the internal mirror, for in the spirit of
Hegel and Marx and Rousseau, it opens up the possibility of forging a
path to full self-recognition, for enabling the subject to encounter the
self in a less mediated way. Given that we are, both collectively and individually, the shapers behind the screen, behind the reified forces, constructs, theories, divinities, whales, saving nostrums that we interpose
to relieve ourselves of the burden of acknowledging that our history
and experience are always the history that is our construction, recognition becomes a guide in the hands of a deeply mirroring other to
self-integration.
Why is recognition dangerous? Why do we both fear and crave this
internal mirror and the self-reflection it offers? Because it can and will, by
penetrating and revealing what lies behind the surfaces we construct, tell
us things that we do not—or perhaps do and would rather not—know.
That it, once it reveals us posing, conforming, projecting, and internalizing, compensating for lacks we turn into achievements, it can reveal
underlying strata of our incomplete self-realization. This revelation offers
us the opportunity to frame our condition as half empty or half full,
exposing either self-ideals we merely pay lip service to or self-ideals we
are seeking to integrate and embody. It will alert us that behind the pose,
in other words, lie things that we are not, or not yet, but are parts of ourselves waiting to be encountered and absorbed.
In part, half empty, these may be things we have no intention of
becoming, the mirror in Passsage to India, the Marabor Caves, the great
mirror scene in Richard II (which mirror Richard breaks rather than suffer recognition), the devastating mirror in The Fall. Yet, it can also reveal
things, half full, that we have not yet become, but yearn to if we can
engage with the work to be done. This dynamic is evident in Coetzee’s
Age of Iron, in Atwood’s Surfacing, and in the ultimate example, Song of
Myself, as a mirror to the post-liberal dream of selfhood, of the “rough
deific sketches” by which we are to fill ourselves out as we discover the
path away from the pseudo-history and pseudo-recognition of scripted
presentation.1 That is, the mirroring act of genuine recognition has a
critical and transformative function, because it has the power to reveal to
us all the ways that we, like the social dynamic in history, yearn to fill out
and achieve our inner moral and psychosocial resolution with ourselves
and our world.
Recognition that merely normalizes and validates what we present or
are expected to present is a denial of the subject as a work-in-progress.
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It insists that we respond to and allow ourselves to be shaped by external
cues. Some, like Dewey and Honneth, may argue that a good society can
in this way normalize good behavior. But what is a good society in which
there are no subjects, in which for Honneth, contemporary “increased
demands for self-realization” are transformed into a “productive force in
the capitalist economy.” With “ideals” and the “experimental process of
Identity-seeking” now reified and returned as “constraints” shaped by
the “functional requirements of the capitalist economy,” the individual
is presumed now to “search for one’s self in those places where television
or cinema presumes its idols to be.” And rather than challenge this
other-direction, the pressures to succumb force the conclusion that selfhood in this analysis never amounts to more than what is simply socially
constituted. Through “the processes of instrumentalization, standardization and fictionalization,” the modern world has “turned the individualism of self-realization” over the past half-century into an “emotionally
barren systems of demands” allowing only “feigning authenticity or
fleeing into depression.”2 Issues of liberation and self-realization, authenticity and self-recognition, are significant only as aspirations misconceived
and arrested.
Given a process absent a potentially self-recognizing subject, leaving
individuals abandoned to the interpersonal web of readability, means
that recognition by others must serve as the substitute for identity. This
is in effect a replay of Oedipal appropriation by the parent and surrender to its/his reading of how you are “like us,” like “me.” One from a
lack of alternatives thus becomes willing to assume the place to which
he or she has been assigned by super-ego forces. What was once God is
now the parent and behind the parent Society, which assumes the role
of the meta-author who tells us who we are and how we are to conduct
ourselves. By the Foucaultian process of irreversible appropriation by
engulfment and disempowerment, all individual ends are deferred and
cast aside by the reassuring and incorporating liberal myth that the designated societal means of the liberal project and its ends were somehow
established through popular participation. Without the possibility of a
self or personal authority, the individual not only relinquishes the formation of ends to the illusion of liberal co-creation, but is encouraged to be
relieved of the burden that selfhood entails.
Genuine critical and transformative recognition (Rousseau, Hegel,
Whitman) never retreats from the understanding that we are the first
cause, the creators, the authors, and makers of our lives and history, even
11 THE MIRROR OF TRANSFORMATION …
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when we do not realize that fact, even when we still struggle to integrate
this power to discover and imagine alternative realities and ends. What
then is this more capacious recognition? I would like to suggest both the
critical and the transformative dimensions as aspects of the individual and
collective journey to the authentic individual and the just society.
To explore the critical dimensions of recognition, I would like to
focus on one of Coetzee’s masterpieces, the novel Waiting for the
Barbarians. The lead character is the Magistrate, a long time provincial governor on the frontier of the Empire. From an old family, he has
administered life in the sleepy district, casually handling judicial matters,
regulating the life of the natives (called “barbarians” by the empire), pursuing his archeology, reading, and cultural meanderings, sleeping with
the hookers and towns-women willing to succumb to power for the benefits he offers. As the novel starts, the empire has entered an expansive
phase, sending military forces to institute its extreme mechanisms of
overt domination and torture as it asserts a more active control over the
regions at the edge of its conquests.
The Magistrate has lived easily in the aura of (Riesman’s) other recognition, claiming his due as a provincial Father, a keeper of order, a cultivated man, an unreflective bearer of privilege. When the new leadership
thrusts him from his pedestal, he becomes disoriented, stripped of his
easy sense of authority and control. He tries during the course of the
novel to regain that recognition, from the towns-women, from a “barbarian” concubine, from his troops, from his defense of civilized empire
against the real barbarians who are the new wave of imperial torturers,
and ultimately from opposing his empire’s genocide. But, at each point
in the project of recovering his morality and humanity, his grounded
sense of self, he fails, and fails utterly. Ever indulging in incessant selfrumination, he never gains the slightest bit of clarity.
His problem is one Coetzee forces us as well to ponder about ourselves. Thus he will never tell us either what is at stake or how it is to be
pursued, because we are the Magistrate, and can extricate ourselves from
his fate only by discovering a self-recognition that no one but ourselves
can recover. The problem of the Magistrate, our counter-model, is that
he can never train the mirror on himself, never gain the slightest level of
self-recognition. What he knows full well that he does not know about
himself is the very thing he does not want to learn. In fact, he runs from
its slightest surfacing. Why? Because to break through, he would have
to acknowledge that he too is complicit, that he too has blood on his
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hands, that he has been the “seductive” rather than the “harsh” mask of
repression and control for thirty years, the velvet glove of empire, that
he too is a barbarian, an agent in the machinery of domination. He cannot face himself because he cannot admit how deeply the assumptions of
privilege and elevated status have shaped every aspect of his identity.
This reliance has left him entirely dependent on a pedestal that has
now been taken away, and he becomes, like Richard II, faceless. What he
will avoid at all costs is confrontation with the void within himself, the
void that James Baldwin addresses in the first section of The Fire Next
Time. Counseling his nephew not to accept the boxes, labels, and names
given to him by white culture, Baldwin explains that these are the product of white dominance, the power they have exerted to hide from their
own emptiness, fears, insecurities, and lack of self-recognition. They have
chosen, like the Magistrate, to define themselves as “unlike the barbarians, I am…,” and in this way, they are cultured, free, whole, empowered,
and self-realized. But strip away the pedestal, and they are utterly lost,
and so the Magistrate will go to his grave incapable of self-recognition.
Is this a cautionary tale? Only if we venture far enough beyond the
logic of empire to hear it. And, as Coetzee suggests in a subsequent
novel Age of Iron, we can not hear it unless we are willing to undergo
the journey of self-recognition, a journey that will strip from us all the
deep-seated forms of identity privileging and entitlement that depend on
our dehumanization of others and render us incapable of the transformation that we, as the Magistrate, seek. This transformative process, and it
is a process, is complex. Recognition bears within its illumination of who
we are no necessary impetus to self-actualization and moral growth. The
dynamic dwells only within the subject who chooses to no longer live
in the same way, just as future possibilities for social transformation and
social change are not self-initiating but lie within the power of the subjects who make history rather than within history itself.
This dynamic of self-encounter with one’s more expansive selfpossibilities is deeply explored and identified by the psychoanalytic theorist Heniz Kohut. Kohut’s work is concerned with the way in which
the individual can utilize self-recognition to apprehend and evolve his
or her underlying self-ideal. Subjects in our repressive and unnurturing
culture have lost the libidinal connection, or cathexis, with the imaginative experience of their fullest potential in its many dimensions, and
thus do not know who they want to and can be. For Kohut, the goal of
self-development is to recover the core narcissistic wish to cathect not
11 THE MIRROR OF TRANSFORMATION …
279
just the instrumental ego, but the self we are always if we allow it on the
developmental path to become. By recovering this wish for self-cathexis
and nurturing the experience of self-connection and self-idealization, we
can utilize growing insight and self-commitment to produce—with the
aid of a nurturing ego—an enduring and self-investing identity.
This is accomplished through a process of libidinal and narcissistic
self-development. In place of the substitute selves that we present to the
world for recognition to stand in for—and occlude—our genuine emerging self, this process begins by what he calls the “mobilization of the
grandiose self” in its “normal phase,” when we were validated as young
children and took “narcissistic-exhibitionistic enjoyment” and uncompromised “pleasure” and “self-esteem” from the proud revelation and
expression of ourselves.3
Through an idealizing transference or projective idealization of an
“idealized self-object” other, often a therapist, an other on whom we project that latent ideal deep within ourselves, we reactivate that early ideal
construction. The idealized other in turn, reflects, returns, “by confirmatory echoing” and restoration the subject’s high valuation of the SelfOther (unlike parents, who think it is theirs) back as approval and high
valuation of these properties and powers of the subject’s own emerging
being.4 In this way, the child both creates an ego-ideal utilizing others
and works to internalize it not as a mere introjection but as its own recognized self. Kohut further suggests that one function of the ego ideal is
to organize and direct the early idealizations toward real-world possibilities and expressions, building and synthesizing this more personal ego
ideal out of the multiple tranferential identifications as the ultimate self.
In this way, the evolving ego ideal structure makes possible a level of selfhood unattainable under the self-recognition generated by the Freudian
superego. Unlike the authoritarian introject of traditional values and
expectations representing the idealized Oedipal figures and demanding
subordination of the ego and id (and self) to their authoritative valuation, Kohut’s developmental model provides for the mirroring of the
child’s optimal self.
It is within the power of recognition by others, in other words, to
serve as a midwife, helping the subject to recognize its self-actualizing
potential and shape, thus filling the glass, to overcome its own incomplete commitment to the fullness of its Becoming. This enhanced mirroring requires an other finely attuned to the divergent and rich forms
of inchoate human potential in each of us that need to be accessed and
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J. E. BLOCK
elaborated upon in the process of, as the process of, self-actualization.
Just as history as a radical act, which by stripping the protective veil off
of the self-justifying narratives of dominant Power (the “winner’s story”)
reveals those repressed expressions of alternative pathways, so recognition as a radical process can strip away the protective conventions and
coverings by which we misconstrue the deeper aspirations and wishes
embedded within us.
For transformative social theory, then, both radical recognition and
radical historicizing can reveal and mirror—by uncovering and giving voice and propulsion (a past and future) to—the deeper needs and
desires of historical subjects, the underlying potentialities, embedded
within their dreams of post-industrial life. This is the work not of the
theorist confined to a third-generation Critical Theory approach, but the
transformative theorist who identifies and reads in people’s hearts and
minds the higher reaches of human interiority and purpose. This project
has the power to access those repositories that have been roped off from
a surface gaze that only stereotypes, socially confirms, blinks, and appropriates what it sees in order to provide reassurance for societies which
have lost touch with their common humanity.
This is, of course, as Paulo Freire recognized, work that can only be
accomplished in conjunction with the subjects themselves. For it is they
who must undertake the process of social and human transformation,
which begins as soon as the genuine and unshackled experiences of recognition and self-recognition commence. The process is not content-specific, because the goal is the gradual realization of oneself as the Author
of one’s own narrative of priorities and meanings, rather than those
defined by others, one’s own Song of Myself. To become a subject in
one’s fullness, emancipated and collaborative, then, involves the growth
of self-recognition over time, in histories and stories, both collective and
personal. Unfolding the full dimensions of one’s dream of potentiality
arising from the depths and crevices into the full light of identity—that is
the journey of recognition.
Notes
1. Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself.” In Leaves of Grass (New York: Signet
Classics, 2013), 65.
2. Axel Honneth, “Organized Self-realization: Paradoxes of Individualization.”
In The I in We: Studies in the Theory of Recognition (Cambridge: Polity Press,
2012), 162–166.
11 THE MIRROR OF TRANSFORMATION …
281
3. Heinz Kohut, The Analysis of the Self (New York: International Universities
Press, 1971), 115–116.
4. Heinz Kohut, The Analysis of the Self (New York: International Universities
Press, 1971), 43, 124.
Selected Bibliography
Atwood, Margaret (1998) Surfacing. New York: Anchor Books.
Baldwin, James (1993) The Fire Next Time. New York: Vintage Books.
Camus, Albert (1956) The Fall. New York: Vintage Books.
Coetzee, J. M. (1980) Waiting for the Barbarians. New York: Penguin Books.
Coetzee, J. M. (1990) Age of Iron. London: Secker & Warburg.
Forster, E. M. (1952) A Passage to India. New York: Harvest/HBJ Book.
Friere, Paulo (1993) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Hobbes, Thomas (1962) Leviathan. New York: Collier Books.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1964) Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of
Inequality. In The First and Second Discourses. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1979) Emile or on Education. New York: Basic Books.
Shakespeare, William (1963) Richard II. New York: Signet Book.
Index
A
Adorno, Theodor W., 7, 43–47, 51,
59, 60, 71, 72, 90, 91, 95, 99,
140, 149, 175, 197, 207–209,
217, 232, 237
Aesthetics, 8, 60, 64, 65, 90
Alienation, 44, 63, 70–72, 74, 85, 90,
150, 157, 160, 167, 213, 214,
231, 235, 255–258, 265, 267,
270
Anthropology, 14, 19, 33, 35, 36, 42,
56, 64
C
Class/Class Consciousness, 7, 42–46,
55, 59, 64, 69, 71–75, 78–80,
82, 83, 87, 89, 97–99, 101–103,
112, 115, 119, 122, 146–149,
156–162, 165, 171, 173, 178,
179, 181, 182, 191, 192, 196,
197, 199, 200, 239, 268
D
Democracy, 4, 9, 76, 89, 92, 93, 119,
121, 125, 126, 129, 132–134,
136–140, 142, 149, 155, 156,
162–164, 168, 171, 216, 224,
226, 227, 243
Dewey, John, 4, 7, 9, 17, 126, 133–
136, 139, 140, 142, 145, 159,
161, 164–168, 171, 254, 276
Durkheim, Emile, 74, 126, 128, 214,
258, 269
F
Fraser, Nancy, 3, 8, 9, 73, 74, 89, 92,
94, 108, 120, 152, 174, 183,
184, 195, 200
Freud, Sigmund, 71, 81, 208, 249,
260
Fromm, Erich, 71, 82, 85, 88, 90,
236, 257, 259–265, 269
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
V. Schmitz (ed.), Axel Honneth and the Critical Theory
of Recognition, Political Philosophy and Public Purpose,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91980-5
283
284
Index
H
Habermas, Jürgen, 1–4, 6–8, 41, 43,
45–47, 55, 60, 72, 80, 82, 86,
88, 90, 95, 98, 106–108, 113,
120, 145–155, 157, 159–162,
165, 167–169, 175–177, 179,
180, 195, 197, 207–209, 213,
216–219, 221, 226, 232, 233,
235, 236, 239, 248, 253, 268
Hegel, G.F.W., 1, 3–6, 13–15,
21–30, 32–34, 36, 37, 46, 60,
61, 64, 71, 75, 77, 78, 104, 107,
112, 139, 156, 182, 185–187,
201–203, 247, 265, 269, 270,
276
Historical materialism, 45
Horkheimer, Max, 7, 44, 59, 71, 82,
90, 99, 175, 208, 209, 212, 213,
217, 219–221, 228, 230, 232,
235, 237
I
Idealism, 14, 43, 44, 46, 47, 54, 65
Ideology, 9, 55, 70, 78, 79, 82, 86,
88, 89, 97, 101, 108, 115, 118,
161, 197, 198, 225, 236
Institutions, 2, 5, 49, 55, 72, 75, 76,
101, 105, 108, 111–113, 121,
126, 130, 131, 137, 138, 140,
142, 147, 150–155, 158–160,
162, 163, 165–168, 170, 171,
183, 213, 214, 217, 224, 226,
248–251, 253, 255, 258, 260,
265, 266, 270, 274
K
Kant, Immanuel, 1, 22, 23, 29, 30,
37, 78, 153, 201, 243
L
Labor/Work, 2–9, 13–15, 17, 18, 21,
33, 34, 37, 41–43, 45, 46, 49,
52, 54, 57, 60, 69, 70, 72, 73,
77, 79, 81, 84–89, 91, 93, 94,
97, 98, 100, 101, 103–111, 115–
122, 125, 126, 128, 130–133,
136–138, 141, 143, 145, 147,
152, 155–161, 164, 167, 170,
174–184, 188–191, 193, 195,
197–199, 203, 210, 215–218,
220, 221, 223–225, 230, 233,
235, 237, 238, 244, 249, 254,
275, 278, 280
Lukács, György, 14–16, 34, 41–57,
173, 232, 250
M
Marcuse, Herbert, 1, 6–8, 71, 85, 91,
149, 150, 160, 197, 208, 209,
253, 268
Markets/Capitalism, 3–5, 7, 47, 52,
55, 69–75, 79, 85, 89, 90, 93–
95, 98–101, 107, 108, 113–117,
122, 126–132, 134–140, 143,
145–148, 151–155, 157–168,
171, 173, 174, 178, 183, 184,
186–196, 198, 199, 202, 203,
208–211, 223, 228, 229, 235,
236, 249, 257, 258, 262, 269,
270
Marx, Karl, 1, 6, 46, 48–50, 53, 69–
71, 73, 74, 78, 97, 99, 100, 103,
105, 118, 140, 148, 178–180,
211, 214, 230, 244, 245, 249,
250, 255, 260, 261, 264–266,
274, 275
Mead, G.H., 4, 80, 182, 247, 254,
255, 268
Index
Moore, Barrington, 98–102, 105,
107, 111, 119, 179, 181, 198
N
Normative reconstruction, 5, 98,
112–114, 119, 121, 131, 138,
151, 152, 194
P
Psychoanalysis, 7, 84, 262, 269, 270
Public sphere, 5, 133, 134, 146–148,
152–155, 159, 165, 167, 169,
189, 193, 194, 215
R
Rationality/Reason, communicative,
2, 4, 5, 160
Rationality/Reason, instrumental, 7,
47, 55, 71, 90, 152, 173–176,
178, 182, 187, 188, 195, 196,
222, 231, 250, 258
Recognition, 2–4, 6–9, 13–15, 17–22,
25–37, 41, 51–54, 56–58, 69,
72–92, 94, 101, 104, 108, 109,
113–115, 117–121, 125–129,
131, 137, 138, 141–143, 151,
154, 157, 167, 170, 173, 174,
285
176, 181–187, 190, 192, 193,
195, 196, 198–200, 203, 209,
210, 216, 217, 221–224, 233–
235, 239, 244–249, 251–257,
259, 261, 263–268, 273–280
Reification, 7, 9, 14–19, 21, 22, 24,
27, 28, 30–38, 41–45, 47, 49–65,
71, 72, 90, 91, 173, 231, 232,
237, 238, 249, 250, 255–258,
265, 267
Republicanism, 95, 117
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 259, 260,
265, 274–276
S
Social freedom, 5, 58, 65, 107, 113,
114, 117, 122, 127, 130–132,
136, 138, 154, 155, 174, 175,
188, 193, 194, 196, 202, 203,
217, 262
Socialism, 5–7, 10, 45, 117, 131, 142,
145–148, 150, 152–157, 159,
163, 164, 166, 168–171, 219,
225–227
T
Thompson, E.P., 4, 98, 100, 119