Honneth’s claim of heteronomy reduces the subject and the person to
a mere cluster of interactions.
On the one hand, Honneth is not very close to postmodern think-
ing, distancing himself from Foucaultian views of the subject, for
instance.^25 On the other hand, his interest in childhood psychology,
especially in the bookReification, leads him to claim that the event of
recognition is primary and exists prior to all cognitive-propositional
object relationships. Like Martin Heidegger, Honneth considers
that individuals do not start to relate to the world as spectators, as
their individuality is already constituted by the primary recognitive
events. Thus,‘recognition must precede cognition’.^26 Later cognitive
reification is in some sense alienation from this fundamental. Com-
mentators have called this an‘existential turn’in Honneth.^27 For the
purposes our study, it is important to be aware that a person’s
heteronomy can be extended in this manner.
At the same time, Honneth does not aim to practise psychology. As
political theory, the three modes of recognition evoke the issue of
whether the identity of groups is constituted in the same recognitive
manner as the identity of individuals. Honneth’s main interest con-
cerns the ways in which an individual becomes a member of the
broader society in relationships of private love, public rights, and
social esteem. In his recent bookThe I in We, Honneth discusses
group formation and the relationships between states. When he uses
terms like‘collective self-respect’and‘group pathology’,^28 his point of
departure remains the individual life career that now becomes
adapted to groups. Although he grants psychological terminology a
role in political processes,^29 his conceptual model remains that of
individual identity formation. In this sense, he differs from Taylor,
who proceeds from concrete political situations. Honneth’s theory
continues to be discussed and developed.^30
One of the most influential critics of both Taylor and Honneth is
Nancy Fraser. She warns of‘psychologization’and considers that the
basic injustices of society do not consist in psychological attitudes but
are a property of status orders and economic systems. Given the
strongly psychological elements of Honneth’s theory, such criticism
(^25) Bankovsky & Le Goff 2012, 28.
(^26) Honneth 2008, 46. (^27) Bedorf 2010, 67.
(^28) Honneth 2012, 146, 213. (^29) Honneth 2012, 146.
(^30) See e.g. van den Brink & Owen 2007; Petherbridge 2013.
10 Recognition and Religion