As Althusser argued and Axel Honneth recapitulated years later, a reproductive side is intrinsic to every recognition relationship, since it must occur against the background of existing values that are common to who recognizes and who is recognized. Taking this into account, the question of critical-theoretical relevance is not whether there can be recognition relations without a reproductive purpose. The problem lies, rather, in finding out if, despite its reproductive dimension, recognition can also fulfill a constitutive role that responds to the ability of the agents to generate knowledge. While it is common to address the problem from a critique of ideology, my starting point will be the question under what conditions a relationship so clearly oriented towards maintaining obedience through self-satisfaction can be positive. In the first section, I will distinguish two orders of normativity associated with recognition practices, where the first refers to the current system of values and beliefs and the second, to the rules that define the status of epistemic agents. In the second section I will analyze the role played by both orders from an inferentialist-expressive approach with which to avoid the problem of the authority of the individual conscience as a source of legitimization of the struggles for recognition. In the third section, finally, I will focus on the function of these struggles and answer the central question of the paper by showing, with Hegel, that the way to overcome the purely reproductive dimension of recognition replicates the movement that allows to overcome the little epistemic-practical relevance that immediate knowledge of the subjective certainty possesses.
Casuso, G. (2023). An Inferential-Expressivist Approach to Pathological Recognition: New Insights into an Old Problem. Revista De Sociología, 38(1), 66–83. https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-529X.2023.71233 (Original work published August 1, 2023)
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