interpersonal recognition. At this point I will not discuss the complex
issue of whether A and B change when this act is performed, the
qualifications‘upward’and‘downward’simply describing the overall
relationship between A and B.
Part R1 is often preceded by an act of seeking recognition; let us call
this R0. In contemporary political discussions, this act typically
involves both equality and submission. For instance, Kosovo wants
the USA to recognize it as a state. In legal terms, Kosovo asks for
recognition among equals (R1E). In realpolitik, however, the USA has
the power to grant or withhold recognition, and this decision is highly
significant for Kosovo. For this reason, the USA in some sense
exercises an act of R1D in recognizing Kosovo.
The procedure R1U moves along sufficiently different lines to
exemplify a different conception of recognition. The act R1U is
semantically an act of submission to an authority. While Ikäheimo
counts the attribution of authority among horizontal recognitions,
I interpret it as submission in which a servant recognizes a lord. In
this case, the lord also has his own horizon of expectation (R0).
However, as this expectation often looks sufficiently different from
the R0 described above, I do not call it‘seeking recognition’. Rather,
the lord grants a favour or makes a promise or recommendation, on
consideration that the servants who recognize this person as lord are
well received. I take it, therefore, that in R1U, the servant’s act of
submission, the preceding act R0 of the lord is normally qualified as
an R0F that can be read as‘the lord’s favour’.
The part called‘favour’may have different degrees of intensity,
since the term may refer to mere openness and friendly persuasion or
to very determined offers and promises that a potential servant
should not ignore. In some theoretical sense, upward and downward
recognitions may be two sides of the same process. In historical texts,
however, it is instructive to look carefully at whether it is the upward
or the downward moves (or both) that are explicitly referred to as
‘recognition’.
In order that an interpersonal recognition may occur, act R1 must
in both conceptions be followed by an act of R2 in which the
recognizee (B) responds to the act R1 of the recognizer (A). While
this act can also be differentiated, I do not qualify it further, since it is
prudent to keep the heuristic conceptions robust. Thus we obtain two
different initial conceptions, a downward/equal one and an upward
one, both consisting of three parts as follows:
36 Recognition and Religion