such substitutes are constitutive, immaterial, and linguistic benefits
rather than ceremonial, material, and anthropological gifts.
4.4. Recognizing Oneself
In current English, the phrases ‘self-recognition’and‘recognizing
oneself’refer primarily to an identification as in a mirror. This
sense is already present in some way in Augustine, who considers
that self-recognition consists of remembering a model to which the
present self is compared.^51 It is also prominent in the modern lex-
icographies studied by Ricoeur. He points out that the dictionaries
often define recognition as something that is known‘by memory’.^52
Memory can assist a person in identifying something in terms of
correspondence to an already existing model. Self-recognition can be
interpreted as a particular instance of a correspondence in which this
image or description adequately represents my identity as I know it.
When we look at the historical evidence assembled in Chapters 2
and 3, it is remarkable how often the claim of self-recognition appears
in the texts. This claim is related to memory and identification, but it
also resembles the classical theme of‘knowing oneself’. Ricoeur notes
this in his long chapter on‘recognizing oneself’inThe Course of
Recognition. As Ricoeur here discusses a collection of sources that
reaches from Aristotle and Augustine to Bergson and Amartya Sen,
his treatment remains somewhat fragmentary.^53 In this section,
I willfirst marshal the evidence of the present study. I will then
discuss its relationship to Ricoeur’sfindings and the larger issue of
‘knowing oneself’.
When Augustine uses the reflexive form of recognition (se recog-
nosco), he interprets this act in terms of remembering. In the mem-
ory, issues are contained in such way that they can be actualized when
occasion arises. Typically, when something occurs here and now, the
person can connect it with some earlier things contained in the
memory. The similarity between present and past things causes an
act of recognition. For instance, music becomes more pleasant when
it is recognized as familiar in this manner. This feature of recognition
(^51) Cf. 2.2, e.g.Trin.14, 8. (^52) Ricoeur 2005, 12, 14.
(^53) Ricoeur 2005, 69–149; on self-knowledge e.g. 77, 89–90.
Recognition in Religion 233