The Limits of Recognition for a Cosmopolitan Openness to the Other

Abstract

Axel Honneth introduced the need to understand several types of recognition in social relations (affective, social, economic) to revise a social theory based on communication like that of Habermas. This text seeks to show the limitations of such a Hegelian concept for social theory, for philosophy and for a politics that might allow cosmopolitan openness to the other. From a theory of subjectivity rooted in Freud and Lacan, the weaknesses of a notion of recognition are reflected upon, even in Honneth’s several reformulations. With recourse to some ideas by Wellmer, Menke and Benhabib, together with the tradition of critical theory as modulated through Derrida, a critique of the social-theoretical and political use of such a notion is formulated, proposing an ‘inclusion of the other’ as theoretically more interesting, which should also comprise translation in order to provide a suitable perspective for a cosmopolitan openness to the other.