Recognition,reification and (dis)respect

Abstract

Axel Honneth Honneth, A. 1982. Moral consciousness and class domination: Some problems in the analysis of hidden morality. Praxis International, 2(1): 12–24.  [Google Scholar] was already recognized as the leading figure in the ‘third generation’ of critical theory, long before he took up, in 1996, Habermas's chair in philosophy at Frankfurt and the directorship of the Institut für Sozialforschung. He has for a long time been reconceptualizing Frankfurt critical theory in terms of an originally Hegelian conception of recognition, and associated notions of respect and disrespect – a model which brings out a concern with human suffering which was a strong feature of the first generation of critical theorists. This volume of translated essays, together with a recent volume in German and his 2005 Tanner Lectures on reification, provides a good opportunity to triangulate Honneth's developing work.