The liberation of recognition

Abstract

Contemporary Critical Theory presents a curious movement. While on the one hand it requests Marx’s categories to account for the recent phenomenon of the crisis of neoliberal capitalism, at the same time it recognizes that this theory cannot say everything, calling for an approach of its perspective towards different objects and problems, perhaps hindered by the limits within which its thought would have moved. One of the most powerful sources of inspiration for this movement of enlargement, the result of which is nothing but a true philosophical heteroglossia, is found in the theory of the spirit of German idealism, more precisely in its Hegelian modulations. The return to Hegel would be motivated by the need to investigate, as can be seen in Axel Honneth’s work, the dilemmas of human bonds in a social world marked by the phenomenon of fragmentation. In this paper we will analyze some elements of a recent debate within contemporary Critical Theory about the problem of the articulation between recognition and freedom, reconstructing the different reading strategies of Hegel that are put in motion here.