Disrespect E-Book

Axel Honneth

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 572

Beschreibung

Over the last decade, Axel Honneth has established himself as one of the leading social and political philosophers in the world today. Rooted in the tradition of critical theory, his writings have been central to the revitalization of critical theory and have become increasingly influential. His theory of recognition has gained worldwide attention and is seen by some as the principal counterpart to Habermass theory of discourse ethics. In this important new volume, Honneth pursues his path-breaking work on recognition by exploring the moral experiences of disrespect that underpin the conduct of social and political critique. What we might conceive of as a striving for social recognition initially appears in a negative form as the experience of humiliation or disrespect. Honneth argues that disrespect constitutes the systematic key to a comprehensive theory of recognition that seeks to clarify the sense in which institutionalized patterns of social recognition generate justified demands on the way subjects treat each other. This new book by one of the leading social and political philosophers of our time will be of particular interest to students and scholars in social and political theory and philosophy.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title page

Copyright page

Notes on Sources

Part I: The Tasks of Social Philosophy

Part II: Morality and Recognition

Part III: Problems of Political Philosophy

Acknowledgments

Preface

Part I: The Tasks of Social Philosophy

1: Pathologies of the Social: The Past and Present of Social Philosophy

I    From Rousseau to Nietzsche: the emergence of social-philosophical inquiry

II    Between anthropology and the philosophy of history: social philosophy after the development of sociology

III    Forms of grounding a diagnosis of social pathologies: on the present situation of social philosophy

Notes

2: The Possibility of a Disclosing Critique of Society: The

Dialectic of Enlightenment

in Light of Current Debates in Social Criticism

I

II

III

Notes

3: The Social Dynamics of Disrespect: On the Location of Critical Theory Today

I    Critique and pre-theoretical praxis

II    Alternative ways of renewing Critical Theory

III    Pre-theoretical praxis and moral experiences

IV    Pathologies of capitalist society

V    Labor and recognition

VI    Conclusion

Notes

4: Moral Consciousness and Class Domination: Some Problems in the Analysis of Hidden Morality

I

II

III

Notes

Part II: Morality and Recognition

5: The Other of Justice: Habermas and the Ethical Challenge of Postmodernism

I

II

III

IV

Notes

6: Between Aristotle and Kant: Recognition and Moral Obligation

I    Hegel and recognition

II    Moral injuries and the self-relation

III    Forms of recognition

IV    The morality of recognition

Note

References

7: Between Justice and Affection: The Family as a Field of Moral Disputes

I

II

III

IV

Notes

8: Love and Morality: On the Moral Content of Emotional Ties

I

II

Notes

9: Decentered Autonomy: The Subject After the Fall

I

II

III

Notes

Part III: Problems of Political Philosophy

10: Is Universalism a Moral Trap? The Presuppositions and Limits of a Politics of Human Rights

I

II

III

Notes

11: Democracy as Reflexive Cooperation: John Dewey and the Theory of Democracy Today

I

II

III

Notes

12: Negative Freedom and Cultural Belonging: An Unhealthy Tension in the Political Philosophy of Isaiah Berlin

I

II

III

Notes

References

13: Post-traditional Communities: A Conceptual Proposal

I

II

III

Notes

Index

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Start Reading

Preface

CHAPTER 1

Index

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First published in German as Das Andere der Gerechtigkeit and copyright © Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 2000

This English translation © Polity Press, 2007

The right of Axel Honneth to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2007 by Polity Press

Polity Press

65 Bridge Street

Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press

350 Main Street

Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-07456-29056

ISBN-13: 978-07456-29063 (pb)

ISBN-13: 978-07456-94498 (epub)

ISBN-13: 978-07456-93569 (mobi)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: www.polity.co.uk

Notes on Sources

Part I: The Tasks of Social Philosophy

Chapter 1

Pathologies of the Social: The Past and Present of Social Philosophy (Pathologien des Sozialen: Tradition und Aktualität der Sozialphilosophie), trans. by Joseph Ganahl.

Chapter 2

The Possibility of a Disclosing Critique of Society: The Dialectic of Enlightenment in Light of Current Debates in Social Criticism (Über die Möglichkeit einer erschließenden Kritik: Die “Dialektik der Aufklärung” im Horizont gegenwärtiger Debatten über Sozialkritik), trans. by John Farrell and Siobhan Kattago, in Constellations 7/1 (2000): 116–27.

Chapter 3

The Social Dynamics of Disrespect: On the Location of Critical Theory Today (Die soziale Dynamik von Mißachtung), trans. by John Farrell, in Constellations 1/2 (1994): 255–69. Reprinted in Peter Dews (ed.), Habermas: A Critical Reader, Blackwell Publishing 1999, pp. 320–37.

Chapter 4

Moral Consciousness and Class Domination: Some Problems in the Analysis of Hidden Morality (Moralbewußtein und soziale Klassenherrschaft International: Einige Schwierigkeiten in der Analyse normativer Handlungspotentiale), trans. by Mitchell G. Ash, in Praxis 11/1 (1982): 12–25.

Part II: Morality and Recognition

Chapter 5

The Other of Justice: Habermas and the Ethical Challenge of Postmodernism (Das Andere der Gerechtigkeit. Habermas und die Herausforderung der poststrukturalistischen Ethik), trans. by John Farrell in Stephen White (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Habermas, Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 289–319.

Chapter 6

Between Aristotle and Kant: Recognition and Moral Obligation (Zwischen Aristoteles und Kant: Skizze einer Moral der Anerkennung), trans. by John Farrell in Social Research 62/1 (Spring 1997): 16–34.

Chapter 7

Between Justice and Affection. The Family as a Field of Moral Disputes (Zwischen Gerechtigkeit und affektiver Bindung: Die Familie im Brennpunkt moralischer Kontroversen), trans. by John Farrell, in Beate Rössler (ed.), Privacies: Philosophical Evaluations, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004.

Chapter 8

Love and Morality: On the Moral Content of Emotional Ties (Liebe und Moral: Zum moralischen Gehalt affektiver Bindungen), trans. by Joseph Ganahl.

Chapter 9

Decentered Autonomy: The Subject After the Fall (Dezentrierte Autonomie: Moralphilosophische Konsequenzen aus der Subjektkritik), trans. by John Farrell, in Axel Honneth, The Fragmented World of the Social: Essays in Social and Political Philosophy, Charles W. Wright. (ed.), SUNY Press, 1995, pp. 261–71.

Part III: Problems of Political Philosophy

Chapter 10

Is Universalism a Moral Trap? The Presuppositions and Limits of a Politics of Human Rights (Universalismus als moralische Falle? Bedingungen und Grenzen einer Politik der Menschenrechte), trans. by John Farrell, in James Bohman and Mattias Lutz-Bachmann (eds), Perpetual Peace: Essay's on Kant's Cosmopolitan Ideal, MIT, 1997, pp. 154–76.

Chapter 11

Democracy as Reflexive Cooperation: John Dewey and the Theory of Democracy Today, trans. by John Farrell, in Political Theory 26 (6 December 1998): 763–83.

Chapter 12

Negative Freedom and Cultural Belonging: An Unhealthy Tension in the Political Philosophy of Isaiah Berlin (Demokratie als reflexive Kooperation: John Dewey und die Demokratietheorie der Gegenwart), in Social Research 6/4 (Winter 1998): 1063–76.

Chapter 13

Post-traditional Communities: A Conceptual Proposal (Posttraditionale Gemeinschaften: Ein konzeptueller Vorschlag), trans. by Joseph Ganahl.

Acknowledgments

The publishers wish to thank the following for permission to use the following copyright translations of Axel Honneth's writings:

Blackwell Publishing for “The Possibility of a Dislosing Critique of Society: The Dialectic of Enlightenment in Light of Current Debates in Social Criticism,” Constellations, 7:1 (2000), pp. 116–27; “The Social Dynamics of Disrespect: On Location of Critical Theory Today,” Constellations, 1:2 (1994), pp. 255–69; and The Handbook of Critical Theory, ed. David M. Rasmussen (1996), pp. 369–96;

Cambridge University Press for “The Other of Justice: Habermas and the Ethical Challenge of Postmodernism,” trs. John M. Farrell, in S. White, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Habermas (1995), pp. 289–323;

MIT Press for “Is Universalism a Moral Trap? The Presuppositions and Limits of a Politics of Human Rights” in James Bohmann and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, eds., Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant's Cosmopolitan Ideal (1997), pp. 155–78, trs. John M. Farrell;

Sage Publications for “Democracy as Reflexive Cooperation: John Dewey and the Theory of Democracy Today,” trs. John M. Farrell, Political Theory, 26:6 (1998), pp. 763–83;

Social Research for “Between Aristotle and Kant: Recognition and Moral Obligation,” Social Research 64:1 (1997), pp. 16–35. This essay was originally published under the title “Recognition and Moral Obligation.” The title has been modified for this book; and “Negative Freedom and Cultural Belonging: An Unhealthy Tension in the Political Philosophy of Isaiah Berlin,” Social Research, 66:4 (1999), pp. 1063–77;

SUNY Press for “Moral Consciousness and Class Domination: Some Problems in the Analysis of Hidden Morality” and “Decentered Autonomy: The Subject after the Fall” from The Fragmented World of the Social: Essays in Social and Political Philosophy (1995), pp. 205–19, 261–71.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

Preface

I'm pleased that this volume of essays can finally appear in English after years of preparations that were not always easy. Although most of the essays are more than ten years old, nevertheless they give a clear sense of the direction in which I have sought to develop further the concept I had outlined in Struggle for Recognition. Though I initially conceived of the concept of recognition as a normative groundwork for a critical theory of society, it soon proved solid enough to be applied in the contexts of social philosophy in general, as well as moral philosophy and political philosophy.

It was not merely for reasons of language that we decided not to publish the English edition under the original German title. Though it is certainly true that the Hegelian formulation “Other of Justice” presents difficulties for English-speaking readers, we also had systematic reasons for opting for the current title. After all, what we might conceive of as a striving for social recognition initially appears in a negative form, namely as the experience of humiliation or disrespect. Only after undertaking a closer analysis and laying bare the normative points of reference that remain mostly unarticulated in everyday reality does it become apparent that these negative experiences are based implicitly on a demand for a previously withheld type of recognition. If we express these experiences of disrespect in positive terms and distinguish among them with regard to their moral content, then it becomes generally apparent that they are linked to the typical principles of recognition institutionalized in that respective society. Subjects only experience disrespect in what they can grasp as violations of the normative claims they have come to know in their socialization as justified implications of established principles of recognition. In my view, therefore, “disrespect” constitutes the systematic key to a comprehensive theory of recognition that attempts to clarify the sense in which institutionalized patterns of social recognition generate justified demands on the way subjects treat each other.

The essays collected here represent but a sort of preparation for the solution to these difficult and complex issues. By delving into the three complementary disciplines of practical philosophy, social philosophy, and political philosophy, these essays tentatively explore the possibility of adjusting these disciplines' central normative categories to the concept of recognition. This question does not stand in the foreground of every essay; in some essays I have merely reconstructed the current situation prevailing in the respective discipline in order to make systematic preparations for the corresponding adjustment. Occasionally other authors stand in the center of the discussion; here the aim is to test out the extent to which their lines of argumentation can be reformulated in terms of recognition. But without a doubt the common bond shared by all these essays is the attempt to embark on a recognitional grounding of practical philosophy.

I'd like to express my gratitude to Polity for enabling the publication of this volume in English, and I'd especially like to thank John Thompson for his competent advice and understanding in the choice of a title. Most of all I'm indebted to the translator, Joseph Ganahl, who in a short time succeeded in taking a conglomeration of starkly diverging and partly abridged translations and turning them into a unified whole.

Axel Honneth

Part IThe Tasks of Social Philosophy

1Pathologies of the Social: The Past and Present of Social Philosophy

Like all areas of theoretical investigation over the past two hundred years, philosophy has undergone a process of differentiation that has led to the development of a number of subdisciplines and specializations. Although the classic threefold division into theoretical, practical, and aesthetic philosophy continues to determine philosophical curricula and introductory texts even today, new specializations barely fitting the old pattern have long since emerged in philosophical academia. Especially in the field of practical philosophy – originally a discipline comprising only ethics, political philosophy and the philosophy of law – this new development has given rise to a multiplicity of disciplines, and the lines dividing the individual subspecialties are beginning to become increasingly blurred. Indeed, there are few who could say with any great certainty just where the lines are drawn between moral philosophy, political philosophy, the history of philosophy, and cultural philosophy.

In this complex terrain, social philosophy in the German-speaking world has become an increasingly residual discipline. Indeterminate in its relation to neighboring fields of study, it functions by default as an overarching organization for all practically oriented subdisciplines, a normative supplement of empirically oriented sociology, and an interpretive diagnosis of present socio-economic circumstances.1 Going back to the early days of utilitarianism in the Anglo-Saxon world, on the other hand, an understanding of social philosophy has been developed that is greatly similar to what is considered “political philosophy” in Germany: the study of the normative questions that arise wherever the reproduction of civil society depends on state intervention (the preservation of private property, the punishment of criminals, healthcare, etc.). Although this undertaking has the advantage of clearly defining the task of social philosophy, it inevitably causes the latter a certain loss of identity, for social philosophy no longer consists in an independent object domain or a distinct set of questions, but is reduced instead to a marginal strain of political philosophy.