Intersubjectivity and social ontology in Honneth's revision of the theory of recognition

Abstract

The article synthesizes the revisions Axel Honneth imposed to his work after the critical reception of The Struggle for Recognition (1992) and proposes to unterstand them as intermediate steps towards the new critical model stabilized in Freedom's Right (2011), which Honneth calls normative reconstruction. The purpose is not to examine the methodical determinations of normative reconstruction, but to go through the intellectual path taken by Honneth between his two main books, making explicit the revisions and the new presuppositions of his “mature” work. These revisions, focused in an unterstanding of intersubjectivity and social ontology considered by Honneth as more adequate, sustain and justify the decisions of method of that latter book. Since the beginning of his theoretical work, Honneth had to deal with the objection of systematically commiting a kind of naturalistic fallacy as he sought the basis for a critical theory of society in the concrete experience of suffering. Even The Struggle for Recognition was still justifiably subjected to that same criticism, as Honneth himself admitted. I argue that the aim of the revisions carried out in the decade of 2000 was to solve that gap finding, on the one hand, an index of rationality internal to the very act of recognition and, on the other hand, an index of rationality present in the social norms and practices historically sedimented through relations of recognition

O artigo sintetiza as revisões que Axel Honneth impôs a sua obra após a recepção crítica de Luta por reconhecimento (1992), propondo compreendê-las como passos intermediários em direção ao novo modelo crítico estabilizado em O direito da liberdade (2011), chamado por Honneth de "reconstrução normativa". Essas revisões, concentradas ao redor de uma compreensão considerada adequada da intersubjetividade e da ontologia social, escoram e justificam as decisões de método do último livro. Desde o início de sua elaboração teórica, Honneth teve de lidar com a objeção de cometer sistematicamente uma forma de falácia naturalista ao buscar o fulcro de uma teoria crítica da sociedade na experiência concreta do sofrimento. Mesmo Luta por reconhecimento ainda esteve justificadamente sujeito à mesma crítica, como Honneth viria a admitir. O objetivo das revisões levadas a cabo na década de 2000 foi sanar essa lacuna, encontrando um índice de racionalidade interno ao próprio ato de reconhecimento, bem como às normas e práticas sociais sedimentadas historicamente por relações de reconhecimento.