work. Ricoeur proceeds from the French termreconnaissance, assum-
ing that this term emerges in the time of Descartes and becomes
important only in the time of Immanuel Kant. As we have seen, the
French term was already significant in Jean Calvin; more importantly,
this term continues the long Latin intellectual history ofagnosco
andrecognosco.
The present study has investigated Latin, English, and German
terminologies, leaving the French ones in the background. In fact,
Ricoeur also often focuses on German terminology, especially that of
Kant and Hegel. While Ricoeur is not very consistent with regard to
historical succession, he gives the impression that three views evolve
during the nineteenth century. The Kantian view of‘identification’is
thefirst and least developed and the Hegelian view of‘mutual recog-
nition’is the third and most elaborated. Between them he places the
second view of‘recognizing oneself’with the help of memory. This
view stretches chronologically from Greek antiquity to Bergson, but
systematically it is located between Kant and Hegel.^9 As we saw in
section 1.2, the Hegelian view of mutual recognition can, according to
Ricoeur, finally be developed towards a peaceful model of gift
exchange. For Ricoeur, this order entails the hypothesis that the
older instances of recognition employ an active voice (I recognize
you), whereas the more recent ones prefer a passive voice that also
expresses mutuality (I want to be recognized by you in terms of
mutuality and equality).^10
The present study is indebted to Ricoeur’s ways of classifying the
different alternatives to some extent. However, our view of the his-
torical development is very different from his. Mutual recognition
and even the sophisticated notion of identity constitution through a
recognitive relationship are found in the earliest Latin discussions on
religious recognition (section 2.1). The distinctive feature of modern-
ity is not found in mutuality but rather in the‘existential attachment’
that serves as a condition of possibility. While Hegel (section 3.3) is
clearly very original and innovative, he is also continuing the older
paradigm of the‘promise of self-preservation’, a complex view that
builds on a mutually recognitive relationship.
For these reasons, there is no historical evolution from one-sided
identification towards mutual approval, but a complex set of ideas
(^9) Ricoeur 2005, 21, 110. (^10) Ricoeur 2005, 19–20.
204 Recognition and Religion