Does contemporary recognition theory rest on a mistake?

Giladi, Paul

Abstract

My aim in this paper is to argue, contra Axel Honneth, that ‘the summons’ (Aufforderung), the central pillar of Fichte’s transcendentalist account of recognition, is best made sense of not as an ‘invitation’, but rather as a second-personal demand, whose illocutionary content draws attention to the demandingness of responsibilities towards vulnerable agents. Because of this, the summons has good explanatory force in terms of disclosing the phenomenological dynamics of psychosocially and politically significant reactive attitudes. Under my reading, then, Fichte’s position, contra Honneth’s ‘negative’ treatment of it, is anything but an empty formalism that ‘fails to refer to subjects of flesh and blood’.

Citation

Giladi, P. (2025). Does contemporary recognition theory rest on a mistake?. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 51(1), 132-156. https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537231170905

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 21, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Apr 21, 2023
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2025
• Deposit Date: Sep 9, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 9, 2023
• Journal: Philosophy and Social Criticism
• Print ISSN: 0191-4537
• Electronic ISSN: 1461-734X
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 51
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 132-156
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537231170905
• Keywords: demandingness, Fichte, Honneth, recognition, vulnerability
• Publisher URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01914537231170905