Axel Honneth

Agora

Axel Honneth

b. 1949

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

People need to be recognised by others to become themselves, and social struggles arise where that recognition is denied.

Placement

Socialism, Anarchism, Marxism & Critical Theory · Western Europe · Society & History, Ethics, Politics & Law

The struggle for recognition: social conflicts arise from denied recognition.

Key ideas

Recognition
Reification
Social freedom

Teachers: Jürgen Habermas

Students: Rainer Forst, Hartmut Rosa, Rahel Jaeggi

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Influence

Influenced by 6

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

influenced by ✓
Honneth reconstructed Hegel’s Jena model of a struggle for recognition (Kampf um Anerkennung, 1992), later reading the Philosophy of Right as a theory of social freedom (2011). A. Honneth, Kampf um Anerkennung (1992); Leiden an Unbestimmtheit (2001); Das Recht der Freiheit (2011); SEP “Recognition”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel › 1770–1831
George Herbert Mead

influenced by ✓
Honneth read Mead’s social psychology as a naturalistic transformation of the young Hegel’s theory of recognition, grounding self-relation in the perspective of others (Kampf um Anerkennung, 1992). A. Honneth, Kampf um Anerkennung (1992); G. H. Mead, Mind, Self, and Society (1934); SEP “Recognition”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
George Herbert Mead › 1863–1931
Max Horkheimer

influenced by ✓
Honneth reconstructed Horkheimer’s early programme of an interdisciplinary social theory in Kritik der Macht (1985) and later directed the Institute for Social Research Horkheimer had led. A. Honneth, Kritik der Macht (1985); “Eine soziale Pathologie der Vernunft”, in Pathologien der Vernunft (2007)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Max Horkheimer › 1895–1973
Theodor W. Adorno

influenced by ✓
In Kritik der Macht (1985) Honneth reconstructed Adorno’s critique of the domination of nature, finding a ‘sociological deficit’ that a theory of social action should remedy. A. Honneth, Kritik der Macht. Reflexionsstufen einer kritischen Gesellschaftstheorie (1985); SEP “Critical Theory”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Theodor W. Adorno › 1903–1969
Jürgen Habermas studied with

studied with ✓
After a doctorate at the Free University of Berlin (1983), Honneth was Habermas’s assistant at the Department of Philosophy in Frankfurt from 1983 to 1989 and took his Habilitation there in 1990 with Kampf um Anerkennung (expanded edition 1992). Columbia University, Department of Philosophy, profile of A. Honneth; A. Honneth, Kampf um Anerkennung (1992)
Evidence: AI draft
Jürgen Habermas › 1929–2026
Charles Taylor

influenced by ✓
Honneth shared with Taylor’s ‘The Politics of Recognition’ (1992) the thesis that identity depends on recognition, but did not confine recognition to cultural identity (Redistribution or Recognition?, 2003). C. Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition” (1992); N. Fraser and A. Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange (2003); SEP “Recognition”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Charles Taylor › b. 1931

Influenced 3

Rainer Forst taught

taught
Forst was Honneth’s assistant in Frankfurt when he took his Habilitation there in 2003 with Toleranz im Konflikt; his doctorate had been with Habermas. Normative Orders (Goethe University Frankfurt), notice on the Festschrift for R. Forst, 15 Aug. 2024
Evidence: AI draft
Rainer Forst › b. 1964
Hartmut Rosa taught

taught
Rosa’s doctorate at the Humboldt University in Berlin (1997), a study of Charles Taylor’s political philosophy (Identität und kulturelle Praxis, 1998), was supervised by Herfried Münkler and Axel Honneth. H. Rosa, CV (Max-Weber-Kolleg, Universität Erfurt)
Evidence: AI draft
Hartmut Rosa › b. 1965
Rahel Jaeggi taught

taught
Jaeggi worked at Honneth’s chair of social philosophy in Frankfurt as research associate (1996–2001) and assistant (2003–09); she took her doctorate there in 2002 with the study of alienation that appeared in 2005 in a series edited by Honneth, and her Habilitation in 2009. R. Jaeggi, CV (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin); R. Jaeggi, Entfremdung (2005)
Evidence: AI draft
Rahel Jaeggi › b. 1966

Criticism

Criticizes 2

Michel Foucault

criticised
Honneth argued that Foucault’s theory of power, built on strategic struggle alone, cannot explain how social orders become stable and drifts into systems theory (Kritik der Macht, 1985). A. Honneth, Kritik der Macht. Reflexionsstufen einer kritischen Gesellschaftstheorie (1985)
Evidence: AI draft
Michel Foucault › 1926–1984
Nancy Fraser

criticised
Against Fraser’s dualism of redistribution and recognition, Honneth argued that distributive conflicts are themselves struggles for recognition, so a single normative concept suffices (Redistribution or Recognition?, 2003). N. Fraser & A. Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange (2003; German: Umverteilung oder Anerkennung?, 2003)
Evidence: AI draft
Nancy Fraser › b. 1947

Works

1992The Struggle for Recognition
Love, rights, solidarity – the moral grammar of social conflicts.

Position

Honneth placed the concept of recognition at the heart of social philosophy, drawing on the young Hegel and George Herbert Mead. Individuals can form an intact identity only if they are recognised by others in three forms: love in close relationships, legal respect as equal persons, and social esteem for their contributions. Experiences of disrespect – abuse, exclusion, humiliation – are therefore the moral driving force of social struggles. Later, in The Right of Freedom, he reconstructed modern institutions as realisations of “social freedom”, and he reinterpreted reification as a forgetting of recognition. His work connects Critical Theory with debates on justice and identity politics.

Life & context

Born in 1949 in Essen, Honneth studied in Bonn, Bochum and Berlin and became Habermas’s assistant in Frankfurt. From 2001 to 2018 he directed the Institute for Social Research, the historic home of the Frankfurt School, and he has also taught at Columbia University in New York. He is regarded as the leading figure of the third generation of Critical Theory.