Social and institutional dimensions of recognition in Axel Honneth's recognition theory: No. 17/2021

The aim of this book is to analyse the concept of recognition and to reconstruct Axel Honneth's different conceptualizations of this notion. In the course of consideration, I identify internal ambiguities of the theory of recognition and indicate the most important points in the evolution of Honneth's thought. As an analytical background I use the concepts of individualisation and universalisation developed by Marek Jan Siemek, which are applied to systematise Honneth's theory and resolve its initial ambiguities. In the book I distinguish four basic contexts for the use of the concept of recognition. These contexts refer to the four levels of social structure within which Honneth reflects (subjective level, level of intersubjective relations, institutional level and value level). The research conducted indicates that there is a feedback loop between these levels. In the following chapters I move from introducing the reader to the theory of recognition (formulating the main theoretical assumptions and introducing the research tools used) to systematically presenting the feedback occurring between the distinguished levels of social structure. The analyses carried out finally make it possible to present a synthetic characterisation of various levels of social structure, within which the concept of recognition is applied in the philosophy of Axeal Honneth. The hitherto scattered theses concerning the notion of recognition are confronted with each other, which allows for a more precise separation of the descriptive theses of the theory from its normative ones. Most importantly, however, the analyses contained in this book allow for a more conscious use of the notion of recognition in various contexts of social reality - they make it possible to increase the effectiveness and dynamics of initiated social transformations.