Recognition, identity and subjectivity

Heikki Ikäheimo

pp. 567-585

in: The Palgrave handbook of critical theory, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Abstract

The term "recognition" has in the last two or three decades become the centre point of an extraordinary amount of theoretical activity among critical theorists and social and political philosophers. It is also at the centre of a great deal of conceptual ambivalence and often theoretical confusion as not all authors mean the same thing with the term and as there is often inadequate attention to the different concepts at stake. In this chapter, the author maps central parts of the conceptual and theoretical landscape around the term "recognition", which is relevant for critical theory, and discuss some of the main contemporary authors on the theme: Axel Honneth, Charles Taylor, Nancy Fraser and Judith Butler.

Cited authors

Honneth Axel

Taylor Charles

Butler Judith

Fraser Nancy