The dialectic of recognition: a post-Hegelian approach
Résumé
This article aims to make two points. First, seeking and granting recognition is an
ambivalent process that may lead to results completely the opposite from what was
intended. Certain social pathologies, including reification, develop because of the way the
desire for recognition is expressed and satisfied. Nevertheless, the concept of recognition
remains central to critical theory. A normative concept of recognition is needed in
order to identify these pathologies. Second, a critical theory of society that understands
itself as praxis must justify the possibility of its ‘reception’ by members of society. The
theory’s addressees must ‘recognize themselves’ in the theory. They must recognize in it
the conceptual expression of their own experience of society. Therefore, social theory
must account for the emergence of a critical standpoint on society. These two main
points are addressed by means of a ‘dialectical’ approach. The tensions and interactions
between global society, states, and value-communities – the dialectic within and between
these spheres – account for the diverse and conflicting meanings of the concept of
recognition. At the same time, such a dialectic makes it possible to understand the
emergence of a critical viewpoint on society.