From Recognition To Freedom

In order to criticize the development disorder of contemporary capitalist society,then building standards for the ideal social life,Axel Honneth began the normative reconstruction of the social critical theory by means of the recognition theory.There are three main explanation about the work of this normative reconstruction among domestic scholars,that are ‘one core view' which means a center theory of recognition supplemented by other theories,and ‘two stages view' which means a development from the recognition theory to a plural concept of justice,and ‘three components view'which means a structure constituted by three parts of recognition theory,plural concept of justice and political ethical theory.This research seeks to provide a new explanation for Honneth's theoretical development.That is to say the issue about justice is the main line throughout the development of Honneth's theory.To answer this justice question Honneth began his work from the study of mutual recognition relations between individuals,which helped him to discover the significance of three recognition relationships of emotions,rights,value for the individual self-realization,then he accomplished a recognition-theoretical conception of justice based on the principles of establishing mutual interpersonal recognition relationships.In the debate with Fraser and other scholars about justice theory he found it unable to judge the standard of justice only base on the principles of establishing recognition relationships especially when the demands of recognition were conflictive.Through study of Hagel's Philosophy of Right he constructed the concept of social freedom whose accomplishment is under the conditions of establishing mutual recognition relationships between individuals.In this way,recognition concept had been finally changed from the justice principle into the methodological approach of realizing social freedom.Meanwhile,the theoretical logic of ‘Recognition-Freedom-Justice' emerged,which meant completion of transition of the justice principle from recognition to freedom.In addition to this,it strengthened the fundamental position of recognition in the justice theory.Therefore the theoretical logic from recognition to freedom is the key to explain the development of Honneth's theoretical system,it reflects his dialectical ideology regarding the concept of recognition.To make his own unique conception of justice compared with contemporary main theories of justice,Honneth implemented two significant projects of theoretical development.One is to construct the concept of social freedom which is different from individualistic liberalism and egalitarian liberalism then treating it as the principle of justice.The other is to use the recognition paradigm which means achieving justice through mutual recognition,to replace the distribution paradigm which means achieving justice through equitable distribution.Also,Honneth developed the principles of justice by means of an analysis of society.He set out the steps by analyzing whether mutual recognition mechanisms existed between individuals in the various real life of the contemporary democratic constitutional society,so as to conclude conditions of realizing the social freedom,then to elucidate the principles of justice.But he did not strictly analyze every area of social life by all three kinds of recognition relationships mentioned above.Therefore according to his analysis logic,this study made supplementary analyses in all areas of social life by means of three recognition relationships,which are analyses about rights and value recognition relationships in social field,emotions and rights recognition relationships in economic field and emotions recognition relationship in political field.Then by gathering Honneth's points of view,it would be able to establish a social analysis framework to evaluate principles of justice in the modern democratic constitutional societies.Honneth showed his views of historical materialism in the analysis of the market economy,the democratic constitutional state and so on.He profoundly criticized the social pathology in reality by disclosing the disrespect of recognition in capitalism,then made the realization of social freedom as an ideality of social life,that shows a logic from construction of the recognition theory to critique of capitalist society,then to the announcement of the social ideality.This logic proves that Honneth has developed Marxism by critique of capitalist modernity.Nevertheless,Honneth could not be able to find the way to overcome the social pathology in the capitalist society,and wish to achieve the society ideality through international cooperation,development of public cultural conception and other contingency factors.This provides the inspiration to solve the recognition problems and achieve the reality of social freedom under the socialist system.