which no ceremonial gift moderates the situation. The spirit of the
ceremonial gift manages to dissolve the conflictual relationship,
which is one reason why the token is so important as the third
party between the giver and recipient of recognition. The playful
rivalry in giving and receiving ceremonial gifts is different from the
modern struggle for recognition. For this reason, the Hegelian tradi-
tion cannot conceptualize the recognition that is available in
anthropological sources.^45
Paul Ricoeur’sThe Course of Recognitionis the work that comes
closest to the present book in its scope. Ricoeur attempts to give a
historical dimension to the concept of recognition, as well as discuss-
ing pre-Hegelian thinkers such as Descartes and Hobbes. He also
undertakes a lexical study of the French termreconnaissance, distin-
guishing between its various senses. At the same time, Ricoeur’s
choice of historical texts remains eclectic and he does not consider
religious sources. He nevertheless manages to create a synthesis that
has become influential in recent literature.
The work consists of three studies that lay out three basic senses of
recognition in Western thinking. Thefirst of these is recognition as
identification, a sense that has been obvious in English until today.
Recognizing a person often simply means identifying him or her. For
Ricoeur, this is the oldest sense, found in Descartes. The second sense
revolves around‘knowing oneself’and‘remembering’; the German
verbwieder-erkennen,‘knowing again’, expresses these dimensions.
For Ricoeur, this sense involves not only identification but also
otherness, a capability to distinguish between temporal variants of
myself and the idea of oneself as a responsible and willing person, a
person for others.^46
The third sense concerns mutual recognition. Here Ricoeurfirst
treats Hegel at length, coming close to Axel Honneth’s and Charles
Taylor’s interpretations. He is, however, uneasy with the idea of a
struggle and complements his discussion by suggesting the option of
peaceful recognition. Here he draws from Hénaff’s book, interpreting
it to suit his own synthetic picture in which the meaning of recogni-
tion evolves from identification, through Hegelian struggle, towards
friendly and mutual recognition. He concludes that Hegel’s idea of
(^45) Hénaff 2010, 136–8. (^46) Ricoeur 2005, 17–18.
14 Recognition and Religion