Is Hegelian recognition second‐personal? Hegel says “no”

Robert Stern

doi:10.1111/ejop.12676

Abstract

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to consider the relations between the Hegelian conception of recognition, which is championed by Axel Honneth and others, and the conception of second‐personal authority put forward by Stephen Darwall. It is argued that despite appearances to the contrary, they are not to be as easily aligned as some might suspect or hope, and in particular that an individual can be granted recognition in an Hegelian sense, without being granted second‐personal authority. This view is defended by appeal to key texts on Hegelian recognition from Hegel's Phenomenology of Sprit: the account of confession and forgiveness, and of the master/slave dialectic.

Highlights

On the face of it, it makes a lot of sense to consider the connections between the notion of recognition associated with Hegel and some of his successors, such as Axel Honneth,1 and the idea of the second-personal, which has recently been labelled as such by Stephen Darwall, but which may be traced back to earlier writers such as Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas, among others
I want to raise this question: Is what Hegel means by recognition really second-personal: that is, does recognition of person X by person Y necessarily involve Y seeing X as standing in a second-personal relation to Y? In asking this question, throughout I will be adopting Darwall's technical conception of the second-personal, which treats this relation as some sort of authority relation, and as deontic, as in the following characterization: “When someone attempts to
I will not be questioning whether Hegelian recognition is second-personal in some broader sense, such as being interpersonal, reciprocal or dialogical. It is worth contrasting the question I want to ask from the converse question, namely, does a second-personal relation have to involve recognition? It would seem that the answer to this question is straightforwardly positive, as in giving someone a second-personal reason to act, I “address” the other, in a way that presumes they recognize my entitlement to do so, and so recognize me—otherwise they would see me as merely coercing them

Summary

Introduction

On the face of it, it makes a lot of sense to consider the connections between the notion of recognition associated with Hegel and some of his successors, such as Axel Honneth,1 and the idea of the second-personal, which has recently been labelled as such by Stephen Darwall, but which may be traced back to earlier writers such as Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas, among others.2 While neither side has made anything of this connection until recently, given that both center on our inter-personal relations and how we view each other and our mutual status, the idea of putting the two approaches into some sort of dialogue would seem an inevitable step forward.

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Conclusion