An Arendtian Recognitive Politics

Abstract

In his Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel describes the essence of with the following words: Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged [als ein Anerkanntesj.1 Being acknowledged or recognized by another self-conscious agent, on this view, establishes the truth of one's own self-consciousness, in such a way that the two are bound together. The certainty of my own consciousness is in this way conditioned by the existence of an other-an other whose life I cannot consume-for the human condition is such that we must be present to others and in the presence of others in order to be recognized in our individuality.2Hegel's account of does not remain at a merely subjective level of the understanding of self-consciousness of itself: for Hegel, mutual becomes the condition of possibility of self-consciousness in attaining its truth, and the latter therefore consists in the constitution of a universal subjectivity that sees itself as an undivided, universal consciousness whose will is determined by no other than itself. It is in this way that the asymmetry involved in the struggle for recognition is overcome, that is, in the historical occurrence of the sublation of the particularity of the individual, where the individual overcomes her own particularity and unites with her universality. To put the point in other terms, the individual's unity is reflected in the social and legal structures of the State, which serves as the medium of reconciliation between the individual's particular desires and her universality as a free-willing subject.Although Hegel develops this view along other lines, the notion of the universally and mutually recognizing subjects provides a framework for understanding the juridico-philosophical subject. This person is recognized by laws, and by the other citizens, so that what Hegel describes as the ethical life [Sittlichkeit] of the community can bring about the existence of a community where one can experience freedom in inter-subjectivity.3 This account of has been widely influential in social and political theory, and problematized as a normative or social phenomenon by contemporary theorists such as Charles Taylor and Axel Honneth.4 A principal concern is that by relying on Hegel's emphasis on the reconciliation between the individual's particularity and her universality as embodied in social and cultural practices, theorists of identity politics fail to see the limits of achieving such inter-subjective recognition: Identity politics is based on the understanding of the sovereignty of the modern subject, yet the of the modern subject precisely does not make an appearance in public.This is not to deny that there is great significance to this historical understanding of the universality of the human subject's possession of equal for any modern democratic theory. But the tradition of thought that begins with Hegel brings along with it the disappearance of democratic/civil actors from the public space by reducing to a psychological and social process,5 the latter of which appeals to the mere enhancement of in order to cure misrecognition, and thereby inequality.My main argument in this article is that Arendt's attentiveness to the performative and spatial aspects of in relation to her conception of a to have rights is a corrective to the Hegelian tradition of thinking about rights. Specifically, Arendt's call for the to have encourages the appearance of such actors in their equality The difference between and artificial is that while the former may be deemed necessary for political emancipation-in Marxian terms-it does not overcome the inherent inequality of the material conditions of human beings as the assumption on which abstract right operates. …