Recognition
Discussion
Richard Gunn & Adrian Wilding
"The process whereby the term recognition acquired academic respectability is, we suggest, one of domestification. In the same movement as it established itself in political theory, the term’s revolutionary overtones dimmed. The present section comments on recent discussions of recognition with a view to indicating their limitations.
Before embarking on our comments to this effect, two prefatory notes are needed. The first is that limitations of recent theorising become fully apparent only when the history of ‘recognition’ as a concept – and, more especially, its place in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit – is seen. The Phenomenology’s treatment of recognition is explored in section 2 of our article.
The second concerns the claims which the present section makes. Our target is less-than-revolutionary accounts of recognition which prevail in recent discussion. This is not to say, however, that we regard recent treatments as uniformly conformist. Nor is it to invoke a conception of revolution that is fixed in a monological or a priori way. Two points in particular may be noted. One is that we do not intend to close the door on a politics of what Angela Davis terms ‘radical’ (as distinct from ‘conventional’ or ‘superficial’) multiculturalism.[1] The other is that we share Axel Honneth’s view that critical theory turns on the notion of recognition – whilst disagreeing with Honneth about how recognition is to be seen.
The process of recognition’s incorporation into mainstream political theory falls (we propose) into two not-wholly-distinct phases. In the first, recognition is viewed as a term allowing liberal thought to encompass multicultural issues. The second regards recognition as a touchstone in post-Habermasian critical theory. We comment on each of these phases in turn." (http://www.heathwoodpress.com/revolutionary-less-than-revolutionary-recognition/)
Source: Revolutionary or Less Than Revolutionary Recognition? By Richard Gunn & Adrian Wilding
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