{"id":229,"date":"2013-05-01T05:30:46","date_gmt":"2013-05-01T05:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/?p=229"},"modified":"2016-03-30T21:01:10","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T21:01:10","slug":"good-evil-and-successful-recognition-a-processualist-view-on-recognitive-attitudes-relations-and-norms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/08-2\/c58-conference-paper\/good-evil-and-successful-recognition-a-processualist-view-on-recognitive-attitudes-relations-and-norms\/","title":{"rendered":"Good, Evil and Successful Recognition. A Processualist View on Recognitive Attitudes, Relations and Norms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\t<div class=\"dkpdf-button-container\" style=\" text-align:right \">\n\n\t\t<a class=\"dkpdf-button\" href=\"\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229?pdf=229\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"dkpdf-button-icon\"><i class=\"fa fa-file-pdf-o\"><\/i><\/span> <\/a>\n\n\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u201cThe <\/span><i style=\"font-family: Arial;\">identity<\/i><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\"> of the idea with itself\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">is one with the <i>process<\/i>\u201d<\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">(Hegel, <\/span><i style=\"font-family: Arial;\">The Science of Logic<\/i><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">) <\/span><a title=\"\" href=\"#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">[1]<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">I<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">In discussions about recognition today, one stumbles almost instantly on a widespread consensus about a distinction between two kinds of theory of recognition. Constructed as tracing back from Butler to Althusser, the first or the so-called \u201cpessimistic\u201d one, understands recognition as intrinsically problematic, whereas the other, referred to as the Taylorian or Honnethian, \u201coptimistic\u201d one is constructed as regarding (proper) recognition as good. Now, in such an ambivalent situation, a desirable outcome might be a theory of recognition that places the problems of recognition at its very core, while giving even more reason for optimism than the optimistic one. The prospects for such an account seem not very promising. But the reasons for trying are good. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">As a matter of fact, I believe there to be two stories of recognition intending precisely this. The first of these stories is told by Hegel in the section on &#8220;Conscience, the Beautiful Soul, Evil and Its Forgiveness&#8221; in his <i>Phenomenology of Spirit<\/i>. Whereas Hegel is widely acknowledged as the founding father of theories of recognition, the author of my second story, John Dewey, has not been considered as a recognition theorist nearly at all. Yet, whenever he is attempting to elaborate his social philosophical perspective systematically, Dewey is relying on, what I argue to be, a recognition-theoretical conception of a \u201cgeneral pattern of social conflicts,\u201d which is, I believe, of great relevance for the systematic recognition-theoretical efforts of today (cf. Dewey 1939 and 1973; Dewey &amp; Tufts 1932, Part III).\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Here I will not be able to give enough textual evidence of the hermeneutic work that my reflections are based on. Hence I will confine myself to highlighting some of the conceptual consequences that I believe to result from a close reading of these two stories. My hunch is that by drawing attention to the conception of recognition in play in the section of \u201cEvil and Its Forgiveness\u201d and interpreting Dewey as essentially trying to further develop what Hegel is saying there, marks a shift in ontological implications and commitments of talking about problems of recognition. This is shift is a transition from basically action-theoretic, relational or institutional conceptions of recognition to a <i>processual<\/i> conception. The \u201cprocessual view\u201d I am proposing claims further to be able to <i>include<\/i>, or to speak Hegelian, to determinately negate, the earlier ones. The claim is, thus, to present the ambivalence of recognition not merely as a moment but also as a <i>phase<\/i>.<i> <\/i>But before I tell Hegel\u2019s and Dewey\u2019s stories, some pre-considerations are needed. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Firstly, it is important to note that the selection of precisely these two texts for considering problems of recognition is all but arbitrary from a systematic point of view. \u201cEvil and Its Forgiveness\u201d is the closing section of the chapter on \u201cSpirit\u201d in Hegel\u2019s <i>Phenomenology<\/i>; and as such, it marks a significant achievement for the experiencing consciousness. On the phenomenological \u201cpath of despair,\u201d this specific struggle for recognition presents, namely, the first <i>successful<\/i> \u201cexperience of consciousness.\u201d It results in a standpoint that is not to be sublated as falsely one-sided in the following chapter. As the end of the movement of spirit and as the result of the successful movement of recognition, it forms the conceptual emergence of the inclusive standpoint that Hegel calls \u201cabsolute spirit.\u201d Since this success is presented in recognitive terms, it also gives us an account of what <i>successful recognition <\/i>or even <i>successful struggling for recognition <\/i>might be. Therefore, one might even argue this to be the most convenient section in Hegel\u2019s work for clarifying ambivalences of recognition. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Surprisingly, this applies in a way to Dewey\u2019s version of the struggle for recognition as well. Dewey, namely, understands his social philosophy as a systematic attempt to aid in the resolution of social conflicts (cf. Dewey 1973, pp. 45-53; Dewey and Tufts 1932, Ch. 16). Social conflicts are, according to Dewey, based on problems of public of recognition between social groups (cf. ibid. 1973, pp. 72-81). Now, for the experimentalist social philosopher, the task is to reconstruct the one-sided conceptions and \u201cideologies\u201d arising in such conflicts and pathologically blocking their resolution. Thereby the experimentalist claims to be able to work out a more inclusive social-philosophical standpoint, which is reached not in a deliberate conception of absolute spirit, but in a theory of the democratic public become \u201cin-and-for-itself.\u201d Dewey\u2019s version of the movement of recognition presents as such the \u201cgeneral guiding principles\u201d for social-philosophical reconstruction (Dewey 1973, p 64). Thus, for both Dewey and Hegel, the recognition-theoretical accounts considered here are attempts to offer an inclusive standpoint, from which to overcome one-sided perspectives that block a process of successful recognition.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Secondly, there is much to recognition that is already worked out at this point of argument forming its background. \u201cEvil and Its Forgiveness\u201d presents the last movement of recognition in the <i>Phenomenology<\/i>, and thus, according to the method of the \u201clogic of experience,\u201d it <i>preserves<\/i> what was true and <i>negates <\/i>what was false in the conceptions of recognition at play in earlier conflicts. As such it offers richer accounts of both the nature of recognitive problems as well as of the grammar of their resolution. The two most important lessons to keep in mind, I think, are those of the experiences of mastery and servitude (a) and reason (b): <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ol style=\"list-style-type: upper-roman;\">\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Firstly, the essential lesson to be learned from the recognitive failures of mastery and servitude, namely, is the <i>concept<\/i> of spirit as it emerges \u201cfor us,\u201d according to which, among many other things, recognition cannot be understood as a one-sided <i>act<\/i>, but as a <i>dialogical complex of mutual attitudes<\/i>. A mere recognitive attitude of one party towards another does not suffice to constitute a relation of recognition. On the contrary, according to a dialogical conception of proper recognition, it takes the attitudes of both parties. In other words, in order for a recognitive relation between two persons or groups of persons to succeed, one group\u2019s recognitive attitude towards the other group must be recognized by this other group as relevant.<a title=\"\" href=\"#_edn2\" name=\"_ednref2\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">[2]<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">The \u201cabstract\u201d relations and principles of recognition presented in the chapter on \u201cReason\u201d result in the concept of an <i>ethos<\/i> (Sittlichkeit), according to which such dialogical complexes of mutual attitudes must be understood to be <i>institutionally embedded<\/i> as <i>practices<\/i> or <i>habitualized<\/i> as <i>coventions<\/i> if they are to actualize freedom. Recognition-theoretically elaborated institutions are not, at best, to be understood as external \u201cnecessary conditions of the possibility\u201d of freedom. On the contrary, they present an internal moment of the concept of freedom itself.<a title=\"\" href=\"#_edn3\" name=\"_ednref3\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">[3]<\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Now, the question is, what is the lesson about recognizing in which the chapter on \u201cSpirit\u201d results? My suggestion is that \u201cEvil and Its Forgiveness\u201d gives reason to understand recognition not merely <i>dialogically<\/i> and <i>institutionally<\/i> but also <i>processually<\/i>. I read it as making explicit the processuality of recognizing implicit at all earlier stages of recognition in the <i>Phenomenology<\/i>. Such an interpretation is not only saying that it \u201cmakes a difference\u201d whether one is speaking of recognition in terms of a relation or a process.<a title=\"\" href=\"#_edn4\" name=\"_ednref4\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">[4]<\/span><\/a> Rather, I think Hegel is putting forward the more robust claim that one ought to understand recognitive relations and institutions as functional distinction <i>within <\/i>a processual totality. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">II<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Both Dewey and Hegel reconstruct the process of a struggle for recognition, firstly, from the perspective of the parties involved, their self-conceptions and their conceptions of the other. Secondly, they present it from the external perspective of the social philosopher observing the development of the one-sided conceptions and working out a more inclusive one. Contrary to earlier shapes in the <i>Phenomenology<\/i>, in the case of \u201cEvil and Its Forgiveness\u201d these two methodological tracks of \u201cfor consciousness\u201d and \u201cfor us\u201d coincide at the end. Furthermore, Hegel and Dewey both distinguish three phases of such a process. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">The first phase Hegel (1977, \u00a7\u00a7 632-654) calls \u201cconscience\u201d and Dewey (1973, p. 77) \u201cthe period of tacit acceptance of the status quo\u201d: Here consciousness regards \u201cduty\u201d as a recognitive norm claiming universal validity. \u201cPure duty\u201d is a universal form that can be applied to any relation of recognition as its content. Consciousness has immediate awareness of manifold concrete duties; that is to say, it has habitualized generally acknowledged reciprocal treatments and corresponding attitudes. Confronted with this multitude of recognitive norms, consciousness might find them conflicting or else ambivalent. How can consciousness choose between conflicting duties let alone formulate new ones? As an immediate certainty of duty, the only ground consciousness can fall back on is its own <i>conviction<\/i> of the good, that is, in Hegel\u2019s terminology, it becomes \u201cconscience.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">The second phase is characterized in Hegel (1977, \u00a7\u00a7 655-666) by the attitudes of \u201cevil,\u201d \u201cthe beautiful soul\u201d and \u201cthe hard heart\u201d; Dewey (1973, pp. 77-8) calls it the phase of \u201cchallenge.\u201d Acting on such conscientious decisions can, obviously, either succeed or fail: If all goes well, the act as a public expression of a conviction of the good is acknowledged as in accordance with the publicly effective conception of the good. This might, however, as well, not be the case: The success of such conscientious decisions is arbitrary. Thus, in case of failure, there occurs a diremption into two consciences. The first of is a conscience <i>acting<\/i> according to recognitive norms justified by its own conviction of the good, the second a conscience <i>judging<\/i> in accordance with effective recognitive norms and the publicly acknowledged conception of the good. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">As learnt from the lesson of mastery and servitude, recognitive conflicts are characterized by \u201c<i>Doppelsinnigkeit,<\/i>\u201d<a title=\"\" href=\"#_edn5\" name=\"_ednref5\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">[5]<\/span><\/a> meaning, firstly, that whatever happens on the one side of the recognitive relation has immediate consequences on the other and, secondly, that the relata will both identify with and negate each other as well as themselves (Hegel 1977, \u00a7 183). <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Now, the acting party first negates what it sees as the false consciousness of the public judging it. It thereby also negates itself as the <i>acting<\/i> party by withdrawing from public expression in the \u201cdread of besmirching the splendour of its inner being by action\u201d (ibid., \u00a7 658). The attitude of such pathological withdrawal from any attempt at resolving concrete recognitive problems at hand, Hegel calls \u201cthe beautiful soul\u201d (ibid.). <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">The publicly judging party, on the other hand, responds by judging the beautiful soul as \u201cevil.\u201d Since, in placing its <i>own<\/i> inner law of conscience above the acknowledged universal, acting conscience is, in fact, evil, as the concept has widely been conceived since Kant. Hegel and Dewey, however, give the concept of evil a recognition-theoretical push by conceiving it as the intentional \u201csingularizing\u201d (Hegel 2007, p. 206) or \u201cisolation\u201d (Dewey 1929, p. 245) of oneself in a recognitive process. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Now, it is precisely on the basis of this judgment that the acting party can <i>identify<\/i> itself with the party of the judging public. In denouncing the acting party as evil, the party of the acknowledged universal is, in fact, itself appealing to its own particular law, which, since the other party\u2019s withdrawal of its acknowledgement, is no longer an <i>acknowledged <\/i>universal. It thereby presents itself as exactly as evil, negates itself and legitimizes the self-isolation of the acting party by placing itself alongside the latter. By experiencing the evil of the judging party, the acting party identifies itself with the former. In an attempt at a one-sided recognition, it admits to its being evil and expects mutuality. The judging party, however, rejects this attempt at public reconciliation and, thus, <i>it<\/i>, in turn, becomes a \u201cbeautiful soul\u201d and makes the experience of evil corresponding to the one made earlier by the acting party. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">The third phase, entitled \u201cforgiveness\u201d by Hegel and \u201cfruition\u201d by Dewey, marks a transition that for us observing philosophers seems like a necessity, but for experiencing consciousness requires a moral self-transcendence: Having made the corresponding experience and seen the evil consequences of its particular conception of the good, the judging party is able to identify itself with the acting party. In a mutual attempt at coming to terms with the recognitive problem, the judging party surrenders its one-sidedly <i>particular<\/i> conception of the good like the acting party puts aside its one-sidedly <i>singular<\/i> conception. Together they are able to cooperatively resolve the recognitive problem at hand by formulating a new conception of the good, which is not anymore \u201cabstractly universal,\u201d but a <i>concrete universal <\/i>as including the <i>singularity<\/i> of conscientious deliberation (as represented by the acting party), the <i>particularity<\/i> of concrete historical situatedness (as represented by the judging party) and the <i>universality<\/i> of the law formulated in mutual public recognition. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">I am inclined to infer that this kind of cooperative public constitution of concrete universality might be labeled \u201csuccessful recognition.\u201d Such public recognition comes with an insight into the fallibility of one\u2019s singular and particular judgment. Such a recognitive attitude Hegel calls \u201cforgiveness.\u201d Dewey (1973, p. 80) calls it an \u201cattitude of inquiry,\u201d with a clear reference to the recognitive struggle\u2019s being a process of social problem resolution. It involves an openness and willingness to cope with recognitive problems cooperatively and, correspondingly, as Dewey (ibid., p. 76) puts it,\u00a0 \u201cto be recognized as an operating component of the larger society.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">To Dewey, this sequential unity of the three phases of a struggle for public recognition forms a general pattern of social conflicts, repeatable on ever-higher levels. Concrete universality as its result is not to be understood as merely an <i>achievement <\/i>or a <i>state<\/i>, but as an ongoing <i>process<\/i> of social reconstruction (Dewey 1929, p. 151). Cooperative democracy is this pattern made reflexive by institutionalizing and habituating the recognitive attitude of inquiry. Therefore Dewey does in no way regard evil as a necessary stage of all social conflicts. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">III<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">I would like to conclude by briefly indicating how such a processualist approach to struggles for recognition might include some of the central recognition-theoretical concepts such as recognitive relations and attitudes (a), norms (b) and values (c). The challenge is to present them as functional distinctions <i>within<\/i> this process.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">(a) Such an account distinguishes, obviously, between unproblematic and problematic relations of recognition. Furthermore, both problematic and unproblematic recognitive relations seem to come in two kinds. Firstly, recognitive relations can be unproblematic in the sense of being <i>indeterminate<\/i>; that is to say, constituted by immediate, habituated everyday attitudes and not being claimed by anyone as problematic. Secondly, recognitive relations can be seen as unproblematic in the sense of being <i>determinate<\/i>; that is to say,<i> <\/i>achieved through struggle and constituted by attitudes creatively habituated as a kind of mediated immediacy. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">There seems to be two types of problematic relations of recognition as well. Firstly a recognitive relation and habitual attitude can become thematized as problematic, because it is experienced as involving domination or wronging or else as bad. These are the kind of claims that mediate between the first and the second phase. Secondly, recognitive attitudes can be seen as problematic in the sense of Hegel\u2019s concepts of \u201cthe beautiful soul\u201d and \u201cthe hard heart.\u201d Both authors consider such highly problematic attitudes as evil. They might occur in the second phase as the intentional withdrawal from any attempt at cooperative problem resolution. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">(b) Such a processualist approach regards social norms as means of an enduring direction of recognitive relations. The kind of processual account, I have been reconstructing, presents struggles for recognition as <i>responsive<\/i> to pre-existing norms in the sense of reacting to <i>failed<\/i> norms or practices. The struggle for public recognition originates in a disintegrated situation of a community where recognitive norms are experienced as ambivalent and are unmasked as containing relations of domination or wronging. But precisely this negative response to pre-existing norms in the second phase seems to indicate a generation of new recognitive norms. As such, the struggle for public recognition is also <i>generative<\/i> of norms in the sense of being creative of new ones as intended to resolve the problems of the old ones and bypass the relations of domination or wronging in them. Thus, this approach understands successful recognition processually as <i>mediating<\/i> between norms-become-problematic and emancipating norms-in-view. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">It might be worth noting, at this point, that the processualist approach could claim to be able to integrate multidimensional theories of recognition, such as those presented by Charles Taylor (cf. 1992) and Axel Honneth (cf. 2011), as accounts of unproblematic recognition. There seems to me to be good reasons for the processualist to distinguish between diverse dimensions of unproblematic recognition, such as, for instance, being correctly treated according to the best available conceptions of ones particularity, singularity and universality or as being esteemed, loved and respected. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">(c) As mediating between problematic and unproblematic recognitive attitudes, relations and norms, the struggle for public recognition, furthermore, presents a process of collective valuation, since it marks the formation of new values and projection of them on future recognitive relations. The struggle for public recognition begins in an indeterminate situation characterized by the need of a novel direction of certain relations of recognition. As a consequence the acting party attributes a negative value to the kind of direction of recognitive relations effective, whereas the judging party values it positively. New values emerge, according to Dewey, always as simultaneously negations of existing conditions and affirmation of an intended future situation. As such, values constitute conceptions of good or better direction of recognitive relations. Thus, they seem to give participants <i>reasons<\/i> how to treat each other. Such reasons constitute norms of recognition, and if followed, they can become social institutions. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Therefore the processualist recognition-theorist seems to be a representative of the branch of value-based recognition theories (cf. Laitinen 2002). According to this branch, values give persons reasons for ways of mutual treatment and such ways can be understood as social norms. This does, however, not commit the processualist to any kind of strong value realism, since he regards values as essentially <i>transitional<\/i> entities: A novel direction of recognitive relations has \u201cvalue\u201d according to its resolving a problematic relation of recognition. Or better: Recognitive norms have \u201cvalue\u201d in so far as they <i>emancipate<\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"border-style: none none solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-bottom-color: windowtext; padding: 0cm 0cm 1pt;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify; border: none; padding: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify; border: none; padding: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">A recognitive problem counts, namely, as resolved, if the relata of the recognitive relation and the participants of the recognitive process can act freely. Thus, freedom counts as a kind of ultimate value in the processual account. What freedom in any single case means in concrete, is left relatively open and \u201cproblem specific.\u201d But anyhow, every resolution of a problem gives a sense of being at home in the world. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify; border: none; padding: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">References<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Brandom, Robert (2002), <i>Tales of the Mighty Dead: Historical Essays in the Metaphysics of Intentionality<\/i>, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Dewey, John (1929), <i>The Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action<\/i>, in: John Dewey, <i>The Later Works<\/i>, Vol. 4, Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Dewey, John (1939), <i>Freedom and Culture<\/i>, in: John Dewey, <i>The Later Works<\/i>, Vol. 13, Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Dewey, John (1973), <i>Lectures in China, 1919-1920<\/i>, Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Dewey, John and James H. Tufts (1932), <i>Ethics<\/i>, in: John Dewey, <i>The Later Works<\/i>, Vol. 7, Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1977), <i>Phenomenology of Spirit<\/i>, translated by A.V. Miller, Oxford: Oxford University Press. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (2007), <i>Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Volume III<\/i>, Oxford: Oxford University Press.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Honneth, Axel (2011), <i>Das Recht der Freiheit. Grundri\u00df einer demokratischen Sittlichkeit<\/i>, Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Ik\u00e4heimo, Heikki and Arto Laitinen (2007), \u201cAnalyzing Recognition: Identification, Acknowledgement, and Recognitive Attitudes towards Persons,\u201d in: van den Brink and Owen (eds), <i>Recognition and Power: Axel Honneth and the Tradition of Critical Social Theory<\/i>, Cambridge: Cambridge Univerity Press.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Laitinen, Arto (2002), \u201cInterpersonal Recognition: A Response to Value or a Precondition of Personhood?\u201d, in: <i>Inquiry<\/i>, vol. 45, no. 4.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Taylor, Charles (1992), \u201cThe Politics of Recognition,\u201d in: Amy Gutman (ed.), <i>Multiculturalism and \u201cThe Politics of Recognition\u201d<\/i>, Princeton: Princeton University Press.<\/span><\/p>\n<div><br clear=\"all\" \/><\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" size=\"1\" width=\"33%\" \/>\n<div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a title=\"\" href=\"#_ednref1\" name=\"_edn1\"><\/a><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Notes<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">[1]<\/span><\/span> <span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;\">I am grateful to Federica Gregoratto and Arto Laitinen for critical comments and helpful remarks most of which I wish I had been able to elaborate further in this paper. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a title=\"\" href=\"#_ednref2\" name=\"_edn2\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">[2]<\/span><\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;\"> I read Heikki Ik\u00e4heimo and Arto Laitinen (2007) as putting forward such a dialogical conception of recognition in the contemporary debate. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a title=\"\" href=\"#_ednref3\" name=\"_edn3\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">[3]<\/span><\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;\"> I read Axel Honneth (2011, Part A, Ch. III) as proposing an institutional conception of recognition somewhat in accordance with this move in the <i>Phenomenology<\/i>, although he is implementing a very different strategy than the phenomenological one to overcome the conventionalist difficulties of a <i>Sittlichkeitslehre<\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a title=\"\" href=\"#_ednref4\" name=\"_edn4\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">[4]<\/span><\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;\"> I read Robert Brandom (2002, Ch. 7) as suggesting this \u201dless robust\u201d thesis about processuality. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a title=\"\" href=\"#_ednref5\" name=\"_edn5\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">[5]<\/span><\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;\"> A.V. Miller (Hegel 1977, \u00a7 112) translates \u201d<i>Doppelsinnigkeit<\/i>\u201d as \u201ddouble significance.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">In this paper I am proposing a \u201cprocessual\u201d account of struggles for recognition. I read Hegel in the section of \u201cEvil and Its Forgiveness,\u201d in his <\/span><i style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Phenomenology of Spirit<\/i><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">, as arguing for a transition from basically action-theoretic, relational or institutional conceptions of recognition to a processual conception. Furthermore, I will be claiming that John Dewey\u2019s experimentalist social philosophy can be understood as an attempt at working out the implications of this move in Hegel\u2019s thought. Finally, I will try to indicate how to integrate central concepts of the recognition-theoretical vocabulary into such a processual account.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":310,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[145,680,681,485],"coauthors":[1111],"class_list":["post-229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c58-conference-paper","tag-idealism","tag-pragmatism","tag-process","tag-recognition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/310"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1259,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions\/1259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}