that can be organized in terms of the three paradigms introduced
above. Instead of evolution or enrichment of the concept, religious
sources speak of recognition in terms of unfolding: thefirst paradigm
contains everything (mutuality, identity constitution, etc.) as the
seed or root of later views. Its rudimentary idea of conversion is
later elaborated as heteronomous self-preservation and existential
attachment.
This being said, Ricoeur’sThe Course of Recognitionis a pioneer
study in some historical respects and its theoretical ideas deserve
careful discussion. The phenomenon of‘recognizing oneself’is com-
plex and fascinating; we return to it in section 4.4. Whether recogni-
tion can be treated in terms of gift exchange will be discussed in
section 4.3. I will return to the hypothesis concerning active and
passive voice below. The issue of mutuality is crucial and Ricoeur
can rely on Honneth and others in claiming that this issue reaches a
new qualitative level with Hegel. The present study attempts to be as
precise as possible at this point. While it claims that mutuality
permeates religious recognition from the beginning, it focuses on
the explicit use ofagnosco, recognosco, etc., considering that the
‘upward’ move of recognition is rendered in these words, while
other verbs (commendo, etc.) are used of its‘downward’counterpart.
4.2.3. Recognizer vs RecognizeeRecognition not only concerns its object but changes and transforms
the person who recognizes. The present study underlines the import-
ance of this point for the entire phenomenon of religious recognition.
Especially in the Latin tradition, the identity-constituting power of
recognition primarily concerns the recognizer, that is, his or her
conversion, self-preservation, and salvation. The modern paradigm
of existential attachment shifts the emphasis towards the recognizee.
When Spalding says that the act of recognition gives proper access to
the religious object, or when Schleiermacher calls God’s justifying act
‘recognition’, it is the object of this act rather than its subject that
becomes transformed, receiving a new status.
The semantics of such acts is obviously complex and should not be
simplified too much. In all three paradigms, both the subject and the
object undergo a cognitive transformation in which a fairly strong
mutuality needs to be assumed. The older emphasis on the recognizer
Recognition in Religion 205