In 1968, Jürgen Habermas published an edited volume of Antworten auf Herbert Marcuse . It comprised the reactions from a multitude of young scholars on Marcuse ’s theoretical and political positions at the time, unified by a theme of vehement rejection. Habermas’s casual and often witty introduction is particularly interesting in light of the past fifty years of Frankfurt School research. Beyond its more substantive themes, his rationale for presenting Marcuse at his 70th birthday with a collection of unruly criticisms still rings true today and informs the spirit of this, a much more modest volume: “Metacritique alone can do honor to a philosopher of critique.” 1
Looking back, that slim volume on Marcuse can be seen as the expression of a decisive turning point in the history of the Frankfurt School. In the wake of political setbacks and historical tragedies, it marked a collective decision to replace the “prescientific” and perhaps tacitly metaphysical commitments of the first generation of Frankfurt scholars with an empirically grounded program of social research, drawing at least as much on the formerly maligned American tradition of positivism and pragmatism as on the critical variants of continental philosophy from Kant to Hegel and Marx .
Despite its overwhelming scholarly success, this change—best exemplified by Habermas’s “communicative turn” shortly after—has also attracted a number of critics worried about the increasing separation between the Frankfurt School of critical theory and concrete political struggles. The new focus on communicative rationality and proceduralism facilitated the tradition’s entry intro wider discourses of political philosophy, but some scholars have consistently expressed concern that its success came at the price of giving up its transcendental and perhaps utopian dimension. 2 In recent years, Axel Honneth has emerged as the leading figure of Frankfurt’s “third generation,” characterized by its ambivalent stance on the changes instituted by their predecessors. His work has been characterized by the explicit ambition to modernize the Frankfurt School, in an attempt to reconcile the changes inaugurated by Habermas with the original self-understanding of the tradition.
On the one hand, Honneth embraces Habermas’s methodological sophistication and commitment to exacting scientific standards. On the other, his work has been motivated by a concern over the narrowing horizon that came with it, its silence on crucial dimensions of social life ( work , above all), and its inability to pay heed to the subjectively experienced injuries and non-communicative forms of oppression in contemporary society. In the late 1970s, Honneth began to develop his critique into two projects: a theory of recognition and a (new) framework for critical theory in the Frankfurt tradition. Where the different parts of Honneth’s work stand in relation to one another is not a question that can be answered with certainty. As the essays collected in this volume suggest, there may be as many answers as there are readers, and the conscious decision for any one of them tends to shape the general thrust of interpretations. Similarly, the question whether it is useful to talk about a “third” generation of the Frankfurt School unified by a distinct paradigm remains itself a matter of debate: although we can speak, with Jacques Rancière, of an “ethical turn” that finds its strongest manifestation in Frankfurt School theory in Honneth’s work revolving around “ethical consensus” (Sittlichkeit) and social institutions , it is far from clear how far this “ethical” turn strays from the more general “normative” orientation that has characterized the work of Habermas and theorists working within his paradigm. 3
Axel Honneth’s Theory of Recognition
The first project eventually jumpstarted Honneth’s international reputation with the publication of The Struggle for Recognition in 1995. 4 Based upon a novel interpretation of Hegel ’s early works, Honneth developed an updated typology of modes of recognition . Combining what he called “anthropological form” with historically contingent content, Honneth posited that both an individual’s identity formation and the maintenance of a non-pathological modern society required the recognition of every member in three areas: love, respect, and esteem. Respectively, these modes ensure any subject’s recognition as (a) an individual human being loved for her (private) particularity, (b) an equal citizen treated with respect qua citizenship and the non-discriminatory rule of law, and (c) a unique contributor to society esteemed for her particular (public and socially effective) merit.
The Struggle for Recognition met with great success and was welcomed most enthusiastically by scholars from two very different traditions. On the one hand, Honneth added to the congruity between critical theory and more solidly established schools: arriving at a time when debates between “liberals” and “communitarians” had reached its zenith, Honneth’s work came to be seen as a vital contribution to the debate—despite his oft-stated lack of interest in that particular discourse. On the other hand, long-grumbling critics of the changes to the Frankfurt School during Habermas’s most productive period welcomed Honneth’s attempt to re-open avenues to a more ambitious and potentially also more political and even radical analysis of modern society and its shortcomings. In due course, the book and Honneth’s subsequent writings in the 1990s and early 2000s spawned a renewed interest in critical theory and a rich collection of engaging and intellectually sophisticated secondary literature. 5
Perhaps the two most interesting debates following the publication of Struggle for Recognition and Honneth’s debate with Nancy Fraser in Redistribution or Recognition 6 were concerned with issues on which Honneth had chosen to remain relatively silent in order to lay out the basic structure of his theory of recognition more clearly: “power” and “capitalism .” Where the issues did not intersect, “power”-related responses to Honneth’s work focused primarily on the issue of “normalization” and charges of neglect for marginalized voices glossed over in assumptions of consensus. Concerns in this vein come from a wide range of political and intellectual positions but tend to highlight “hidden” coercion within a kind of recognition that affirms the individual through affirmation of her inferior status. 7
Even more divisive proved the role of capitalism . In Habermas’s work , capitalism was theorized to “colonize” our everyday life, but it remained somewhat outside the main focus of his analysis because it did not, by its very nature, follow the imperatives of communicative rationality . Because it functioned by a different medium, capitalism was both a threat and elusive. In contrast, Honneth’s theory posited that nothing in modern society was beyond the reach of intersubjective agency and “communication” in a wider sense. Where Habermas was methodologically barred from fully incorporating the role of capitalism into his theory, Honneth, it seemed, would ultimately be compelled to do so head-on—an expectation strengthened not only by his ambition to re-connect with the first generation of the Frankfurt School but also by his frequent and explicit references to socialist thinkers such as E. P. Thompson .
In the meantime, Honneth prolifically extended his framework of recognition and used it as a backdrop to a sketch of neo-Deweyan theory of democracy in the late 1990s, formalizing, to some extent, his vision of “teleological liberalism” that he separated strictly to competing theories of liberalism he considered to be abstract and a-historical. Drawing on Hegel , John Dewey , and G. H. Mead , Honneth developed a narrative of “directed” progress that could not be understood without recourse to concrete history and change brought about through the struggles of marginalized groups and social movements. 8
A New Frankfurt School?
Apart from the merit of individual contributions, the literature—both critical and appreciative—on Honneth’s theory of recognition had a lasting impact on his second major project: the reformulation of critical theory in the Frankfurt School. Although he had written numerous essays an...