Self And Other:Study On Honneth’s Theory Of Recognition

When discussing "recognition",Axel Honneth began to think about epistemology,that is,he thought that the self saw the self from the eyes of the other,so a theory of "self-consciousness" appeared.Honneth realized the ancient Hegelian origin of the subject and combined George Herbert Mead’s thought of embodied mind with Donald.W.Winnicott’s theory of object relationship to establish the basic form of mutual recognition.Since the problem of mind(or self)exists in the given world where the problem of natural science is located,Honneth attempts to reconstruct the basis of action,and then bring the epistemological problem to individual experience.From this,we can infer the critical ethics of the communication and participation between the self,the other and the world,which expands and enriches the core of the inter subject paradigm in the communicative behavior theory conceived by Jürgen Habermas in linguistics.In other words,this consciousness is not only the field of thinking,but also the field of the nature of all direct experience,because this self contains all objective,valuable,aesthetic,moral,economic and logical.This goes beyond methodological individualism and promotes the concept of the other to the path of practice,rather than conscious(or psychological)ontology.As Honneth pointed out,the root of practice lies in the existence of common ethics.In this way,practice can be understood as ethical practice in the sense of ontology.In the "struggle for recognition",Honneth developed the insight of self recognizing itself in the other,and then produced a"moral grammar" to understand social conflicts.Therefore,the concept of "society"here has the characteristics of norms and conflicts.In other words,"the struggle for recognition" is a life and death struggle,which exists in the anthropological tension of Honneth’s works from the beginning,which inspires Honneth to rebuild the German philosophical anthropology of inter subject paradigm.In addition,this reconstruction of the inter subject paradigm also needs to consider the concept of"power" between subjects.Honneth draws lessons from Michel Foucault’s concept of "power" to consider the conflict aspects of the broader concept of communicative behavior,and to provide a more comprehensive reflective criticism of the social ruling structure.In this way,Honneth tried to break through and revise the traditional critical theory of the Frankfurt School,firmly believing that the critical theory must be based on the concept of social suffering,so as to explain his interest in emancipatory rationality and elaborate the concept of change and evolution.This means that the field of recognition is historical development,that is,Honneth regards the struggle for recognition as the driving force of historical change.At the same time,as discussed in the current social pathological diagnosis or psychoanalytic psychology,by examining more contemporary social pathological phenomena related to conflict,dissent and destruction,Honneth also pays more and more attention to the concept of "contempt" or "disrespect".Based on this,Honneth’s recognition theory also includes ethical attention to the problem of the other and insight into contemporary political issues,especially the liberation of a more just and free society.In short,Honneth’s concept of intersubjectivity recognition,as a special series of identity theory,not only tries to provide a normative sociological basis as the pathological diagnosis of modern society,but also tries to construct a comprehensive theory in the fields of anthropology,social philosophy and politics.