Axel Honneth on Recognition and Identity

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between recognition and identity in the work of Axel Honneth. In his seminal work, The Struggle for Recognition, Honneth sought to reconstruct social, cultural and political experience on the foundation of the forms of self-recognition that he considered formative of personal identity, working up to the self-realization of its existence. In order to achieve this, Honneth reintegrated various forms of social conflicts and patterns of moral experiences into the so-called standard model of mutual recognition. However, the process of identity formation depends on the tacit interactions between the individual and others, and the forms or models of social, cultural and symbolic interaction involved, particularly love, right and solidarity, where the individual acquires his or her own awareness and identity, and how it is achieved through the recognition of others. This is why it is always supposed to be the other's experience. Hence, from Honneth's point of view, our selves and identity can only be achieved by overcoming the various forms of denial of recognition, contempt, humiliation and social invisibleness that threaten our identity.