Given this, we obtain four different conceptions of interpersonal
recognition as follows. In anupward recognition, a person of lower
status recognizes a person of higher status. For instance, a servant
recognizes his lord and a Christian recognizes God in this manner.
This kind of recognition does not produce equality: the servant
remains lower than the lord and a Christian does not become God.
In astrictly downward recognition, a higher person recognizes a
lower. The word‘strictly’means that the difference between their
statuses does not change. For instance, when God recognizes a Chris-
tian, this does not mean that the Christian is elevated to divine status.
In adownward/equal recognition, however, the lower person under-
goes a status change that brings her significantly closer to the higher
person. The recognition of a child in adoption may be an example of this
kind. When the child is elevated to the status of being the legal heir of
the higher person, their relationship approaches equality after the act of
adoption. While the difference between strictly downward recognition
and downward/equal recognition is not always clear, it is heuristically
useful to make a distinction between the two conceptions.
Strictly equal recognitiontakes place between two equal partners.
Many modern forms of social and political recognition are supposed
to be horizontal in this manner. As there may be differences in power,
wealth, and status included in these kinds of recognition, the claim of
equality is not always clear. However, this conception represents the
modern paradigm of social recognition, which is horizontal rather
than vertical.
These four conceptions focus on the performative move of the
recognizer, who is assumed to represent the default perspective of
the act in question. This performative move need not be thefirst
move of the entire process. Something like a horizon of expectation
can precede it. For instance, the lord expects the subjects to recognize
him and he may have promised some favour for those who do so. At
this point, we do not define the conceptions in terms of their horizons
of expectation or the responses following the recognizer’s performa-
tive act. We will discuss them in more detail in 1.5 below.
The opportunity torecognize oneselfis another conception that
we frequently encounter in historical texts. Ricoeur is almost the
only one who has discussed this intrapersonal recognition.^91 This
(^91) Ricoeur 2005, 69–149.
32 Recognition and Religion