inconsistency by considering that the conditions in which the attempt
to be recognized can fail have only come about with the modern age.^7
Honneth likewise starts with Hegel and considers that the modern
idea of recognition replaces the premodern ideas of honour and status.
At the same time, however, he employs the object relations of child
psychology as the basis of his theory of recognition.^8 Given that these
relations refer to the universal mechanisms of human development, one
would expect that they are also in some ways manifest in premodern
sources. The present study interprets these inconsistencies such that
Taylor’s and Honneth’s ideas do not rule out the pre-Hegelian roots of
recognition. Rather, their claim of universality invokes such roots.
The present study does not agree with the claim that the ideas of
honour and status exclude recognition or that the failures of recog-
nition are typically modern phenomena. It pays particular attention
to the historical views presented in earlier studies, in particular the
work of Paul Ricoeur.^9 I will start with an outline of modern philo-
sophical theories of recognition (1.2). Issues of recognition in current
theology are surveyed next (1.3). The study then proceeds to the
definition of the concept and conceptions of recognition in religious
and theological sources (1.4). The first historical chapter (2) is
devoted to the Latin traditions and the second (3) to the vernacular
discussions of the modern era. The last chapter (4) presents a sys-
tematic outline of religious recognition.
While I aim to present the intellectual history of religious recogni-
tion in an accessible fashion, some technical detail is necessary to draw
systematic conclusions and to interact with previous scholarship.
Most of the necessary terminology is given in 1.4. Sections 1.5 and
4.3 contain a number of philosophical and linguistic details that can be
bypassed when the main interest of the reader is history and theology.
1.2. Philosophical Theories of Recognition
The theory of recognition can nowadays be regarded as an established
field of social philosophy. Variants of this theory often promise
(^7) Taylor 1995, 231–2.
(^8) Honneth 1992, 18–21, 148–74; Fraser & Honneth 2003, 139–40.
(^9) Ricoeur 2005. McBride 2013 offers some historical observations.
Introduction 5