From Local to Universal Reasons for Recognition

Onni Hirvonen (University of Jyväskylä)

Abstract

Since the foundational work of Axel Honneth and Charles Taylor in early 1990s, contemporary recognition theory has established itself as a multi-faceted research programme in social and political philosophy. Recognition-theorists have convincingly argued that our intersubjective relations have a key role in constituting us as rational autonomous persons, and that even our self-understanding of ourselves is largely dependent on our relations to others. In short, recognition is a central concept related to human sociality – it ranges from the personal constitution of individuals, into political spheres in the forms of social and political struggles for recognition. Recognition is also often invoked in the context of identity-political struggles.

Although the centrality of recognition is well acknowledged, the theoretical literature is torn in its views of how shared or universalizable the needs and claims for recognition are. On the one hand, recognition is commonly taken to be an institutionally mediated normative response to others. It gets historically developing forms which are tied to the actual local institutions (e.g. family, markets, civil society) of a particular time. On the other hand, recognition is seen as a universal human need (Taylor) or a quasi-transcendental feature of human life form (Honneth). As recently argued by Heikki Ikäheimo (2022), recognition could be understood as something that is a universal or an essential part of human life, and thus extending beyond its mere local realizations. However, it is partly unclear how these anthropologically grounded forms of recognition would inform the cultural or identity-political struggles for recognition, or how they would fit together with the so-called fact of plurality and differing views of good life.

This contribution aims to clarify what the locality and historicity of recognition exactly mean, and what are their effects for the political side of recognition paradigm. Reasons for recognition are normative reasons, but how historical, localized, or universalizable are they? In this paper I argue that both, universalists/essentialists and historicists/localists, get something right about the nature of recognition. However, recognition theories need a clearer (social ontological) understanding of institutions of recognition and institutional mediation of recognition to make proper sense of the relations of the universal needs of recognition to the localized claims for recognition.

This paper also critically evaluates the merits of various attempts to overcome locality or historicity of recognition. Extending (local) spheres of recognition to include ever broader number of people has been seen as a moral progress (Honneth 1995). However, it is questionable whether the Hegelian concept of recognition includes in itself such conceptual elements, which would make this extension necessary. Although reciprocity and equality of recognition might be required in the case of two individuals relating to each other, it is unclear whether such a claim can be made on the level of cultural and political struggles. 

In this paper I argue that recognition theories might lose some of Hegel’s original normative insights about reciprocity when they move from a simple dyadic relationship into relationships within and between groups. Even if recognition constitutes us, it seems that we do not need full recognition from everyone but rather just enough recognition to be able to constitute and upkeep a sufficient level of self-certainty. To compensate for the loss of “necessary” reciprocity of recognition in more intimate and local contexts, universalizing claims need to rely on imagination and moral education ( see e.g. Ikäheimo 2022). This paper analyses the normative weight that the universalized claims for recognition have – and the potential loss of critical leverage that might come with shifting from local, more demanding, forms of recognition into universal recognition.