The Paradigm of Recognition

Critical Studies in
German Idealism

Series Editor
Paul G. Cobben

Advisory Board
simon critchley – vittorio hösle – garth green
klaus vieweg – michael quante – ludwig siep
rózsa erzsébet – martin moors – paul cruysberghs
timo slootweg – francesca menegoni

VOLUME 7

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/csgi

The Paradigm of Recognition
Freedom as Overcoming the Fear of Death

By

Paul Cobben

Leiden • boston
2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cobben, Paul.
The Paradigm of recognition : freedom as overcoming the fear of death / by Paul Cobben.
p. cm. — (Critical studies in German idealism ; v. 7)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-23056-9 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-23150-4 (e-book)
1. Recognition (Philosophy). 2. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770–1831. Phänomenologie
des Geistes. I. Title.

B105.R23C63 2012
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2012013362

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 CONTENTS

Volume Foreword ............................................................................................ ix

1. Recognition as the New Paradigm ....................................................... 1

Introduction ................................................................................................ 1
Marx’s Materialistic Version of the Lord/Bondsman Relation .... 2
Habermas’s Criticism of the Marxist Basic Position ....................... 4
The Basic Scheme of the Theory of Communicative Action ....... 7
Thinking Through the Theory of Communicative Action ............ 10
Axel Honneth’s Elaboration of the Paradigm of Recognition . .... 13

2. Overcoming Cartesian Dualism: From Kant’s Criticism of

Hume to Hegel’s Criticism of Kant ...................................................... 18
Introduction ................................................................................................ 18
Hume’s Rejection of Descartes’s Universalism ................................. 19
Hume’s Empiricism: The Primacy of the Impressions ................... 20
The Distinction between Ideas and Impressions ............................ 23
Problems with Regard to Hume’s Conception of Ideas ................. 27
Kant’s Second Form of Synthesis: The Synthesis of the Faculty
of Imagination ....................................................................................... 29
The Categories ............................................................................................ 31
The Problems of Kant’s Project ............................................................. 34
Hegel’s Criticism of Kant’s Theoretical Reason . .............................. 35
Hegel’s Deduction of the “Kantian” Categories ................................ 41
Hegel’s Determination of the Categories of Quantity in
Perception ............................................................................................... 43
Hegel’s Determination of the Category “Particularity” at the
Level of Understanding . ..................................................................... 46
Conclusion . .................................................................................................. 51

3. Self-Consciousness: The Practical Foundation of Theoretical

Reason ........................................................................................................... 54
Introduction ................................................................................................ 54
The Program of the Self-Consciousness Chapter . ........................... 55
Desire as the Reflective Repetition of Sense Certainty . ................ 56
The Struggle for Life and Death as the Reflective Repetition
of Perception .......................................................................................... 57
vi contents

Self-Consciousness as the Unity of Mind and Body ....................... 59

The Self-Conscious Life: Aristotle’s Animal Rationale ................... 61
Hegel’s Conception of the Fear of Death ........................................... 64
Hegel’s Version of Kant’s Categories of Relation ............................. 69
The Lord/Bondman Relation as the Elementary Model to
Conceive of the Unity of the “Critique of Pure Reason”
and the “Critique of Practical Reason” . ......................................... 70
Conclusion ................................................................................................... 73

4. The “System of Freedom”: Religion of Nature . ................................. 75

Introduction ................................................................................................ 75
The Historical Form of the Lord at the Level of the
Religion of Nature ................................................................................ 77
a. The Religion of the God as Light ............................................... 79
b. The Religion of Plant and Animal ............................................. 81
c. The Religion of the Artificer ........................................................ 86
The Transition to the Greek World . .................................................... 88
Conclusion ................................................................................................... 89

5. Axel Honneth’s Interpretation of the Self-Consciousness

Chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit . .......................................... 91
Introduction ................................................................................................ 91
A Critical Analysis of Honneth’s Reading of the
Self-Consciousness Chapter . ............................................................. 92
Conclusion ................................................................................................... 100

6. Grounding the Paradigm of Recognition ........................................... 105

Introduction ................................................................................................ 105
Becoming Aware of the Independence of Objective Reality ....... 106
Reason as the Attempt to Ground the Paradigm of
Recognition . ........................................................................................... 109
The Polis as the Immediate Reality of the Human Law that
Includes the Free Individual’s Relation to the Human
Law ............................................................................................................ 114
The Medieval World (the Realm of Education) as the
Reflective Repetition of the Greek World . ................................... 119
The Moral World of Modernity as the True Realization of
Reason ...................................................................................................... 122
Conclusion ................................................................................................... 124
 contents vii

7. The Domain of Love . ................................................................................ 129

Introduction ................................................................................................ 129
Honneth’s Conception of the Basic Setting of the Domain
of Love . .................................................................................................... 130
Is Honneth’s Basic Setting Adequate for Answering the
Questions He Raises? . ......................................................................... 131
Answering Honneth’s Questions from the Viewpoint of the
Phenomenology of Spirit .................................................................... 133
The Conception of the Family and Its Relation to Empirical
Research . ................................................................................................. 137
The Philosophical Conception of the Education of the Child
and Its Relation to Empirical Research ......................................... 141
Friendship and the First Form of Mutual Recognition . ................ 143
Conclusion ................................................................................................... 144

8. The Domain of Respect: Recognition at the Level of Civil

Society ........................................................................................................... 146
Introduction ................................................................................................ 146
Honneth’s Conception of the Basic Setting of the Domain of
Respect ..................................................................................................... 147
The Domain of Legal Recognition from the View-Point of the
Phenomenology of Spirit .................................................................... 149
The Systematic Position of the Second Fundamental Form of
Reciprocal Recognition in the Philosophy of Right ................... 151
The Second Fundamental Form of Reciprocal Recognition in
Our Time ................................................................................................. 155
Jürgen Habermas’s Transformation of the System of Needs . ...... 158
Honneth’s Reaction to Habermas’s Transformation of the
System of Needs .................................................................................... 161
Conclusion ................................................................................................... 164

9. The Domain of Solidarity: The Third Fundamental Form of

Mutual Recognition .................................................................................. 166
Introduction ................................................................................................ 166
Honneth’s Conception of the Basic Setting of the Domain of
Solidarity . ................................................................................................ 166
The Domain of Solidarity from the Point of View of the
Phenomenology of Spirit .................................................................... 168
The Domain of Solidarity in the Philosophy of Right . ................. 171
viii contents

The Contemporary Interpretation of the Third Fundamental

Form of Reciprocal Recognition . ................................................... 175
Conclusion . ................................................................................................ 178

10. Hegel’s Concept of the Absolute Spirit and the Paradigm

of Recognition ........................................................................................... 182
Introduction ............................................................................................... 182
Retrospection . ........................................................................................... 183
Evaluation: Hegel’s Paradigm of Recognition in Comparison . .. 192
a. A Comparison with Habermas and Rawls ............................. 192
b. A Comparison with Axel Honneth .......................................... 193
c. A Comparison with Ludwig Siep .............................................. 196
d. A Comparison with Immanuel Kant ....................................... 197

Literature . .......................................................................................................... 201

Index .................................................................................................................... 205
 Volume Foreword

The formulation of the paradigm of recognition can be interpreted as an

attempt to stress the intersubjective dimension of social relations, i.e., as
a critique of those positions which deduce them from labor relations or
from man’s relation to nature. Social struggle does not coincide with the
classical struggle of the labor movement, but also has a cultural dimen-
sion. Reason must not be reduced to instrumental reason, i.e., to reason
which is oriented to domination of the world. Freedom and intersubjec-
tivity have their own domain, separated from the domain of necessity.
The distinction between freedom and objectivity not only has important
consequences for the conception of the relation between philosophy and
science, but also makes thinkers like Habermas and Honneth conclude
that a philosophy which tries to conceive of the unity between freedom
and nature results in a metaphysics in which the relation of recognition
gets lost.

This book elaborates how Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit in its criticism

of Kant develops the systematic unity of freedom and nature. This not
only creates the possibility of a discussion between Hegel and a num-
ber of contemporary thinkers, but also results in the thesis that he can
contribute to a more adequate conception of the paradigm of recogni-
tion. According to this thesis, Hegel’s conception of absolute spirit does
not represent a metaphysics which destroys the relations of recognition,
but rather enables us to ground this paradigm and its three fundamental
forms of social recognition. Moreover, this conception does not overcome
the historical dimension, but rather clarifies the own nature of the histori-
cal appearance of recognition. This attempt to make Hegel a contempo-
rary discussion partner corresponds to the central objective of the series
Critical Studies in German Idealism.

Paul Cobben (Tilburg University), Series Editor

 Chapter One

Recognition as the new paradigm

Introduction

With his theory of communicative action Jürgen Habermas intends to

introduce a new paradigm. This new paradigm is characterized by making
central the relation between subject and subject, and not, as in the
old paradigm of the philosophy of consciousness, the relation between
subject and nature. As a paradigm that puts the subject/subject relation at
its center, the theory of communicative action rightly can be called a para-
digm of recognition. After all, it is evident for Habermas that the relation
between subjects presupposes that they recognize one another as sub-
jects. In this book, I will put forward the thesis that Habermas’s version of
the paradigm of recognition is untenable. The relation between subjects
cannot adequately be conceptualized without involving their inner rela-
tion to nature. Precisely by separating the paradigm of the theory of com-
municative action from the paradigm of the philosophy of consciousness,1
Habermas creates a one-sided emphasis on intersubjectivity which, as we
will see, translates into a series of ungrounded assumptions.
An adequate paradigm of recognition integrates the philosophy of
consciousness as its moment. Principally, this integration is already per-
formed in the concept of recognition that Hegel develops in his Phenom-
enology of Spirit. I will even defend the position that this work already
contains all the building blocks to elaborate a paradigm of recognition
which can play a central role in contemporary discussions. In contrast
to Axel Honneth, I not only think that recognition belongs to the central
concepts of the Phenomenology of Spirit,2 but also that this work is supe-
rior to Hegel’s earlier attempts to develop this concept (in his Philosophy

1 Habermas states: “Man kann die Theoriegeschichte seit Marx als Entmischung von
zwei Paradigmen auffassen . . . ” in: Jürgen Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Han-
delns II, Frankfurt/M. 1981, p. 303. This “Paradigmenwechsel von der Zwecktätigkeit zum
kommunikativen Handelns” is performed by Mead and Durkheim and liberates Weber’s
theory of rationalizing “aus der Aporetik der Bewusstseinsphilosophie,” ibid.; p. 9.
2 Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, translated by A.V. Miller, Oxford University Press,
1977. Hereafter PhS.
2 chapter one

of Spirit). I will show that Honneth’s interpretation of the concept of rec-

ognition in the Self-Consciousness chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit
cannot be maintained, and that instead Honneth’s concept of recognition
is borrowed from Habermas.
To highlight the one-sidedness of the theory of communicative action I
first will take up the history of its origination and will delineate how the
basic ideas of this theory have their source in the young Habermas’s criti-
cism of Marx.

Marx’s Materialistic Version of the Lord/Bondsman Relation

In the Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts the young Marx has, on the

one hand, a great admiration for Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit because,
in this work, reality is conceptualized as activity, i.e. as labor, but, on the
other hand, he criticizes in Hegel that labor is only understood as “abstrakt
geistig”3 (as an abstraction of the spirit). Marx’s basic position in this work
can be characterized as the materialistic version of the lord/bondsman
relation as developed by Hegel. The human being is the bondsman, the
laborer who cultivates nature. In the first instance, the lord is the superior
nature, the nature that in last resort will defeat the laboring human being.
For, it is true that the human being can, in his labor, cultivate nature and
make it appropriate for consumption, but at the end he will die. His body
will return unto dust and again be part of the environmental nature. The
human, however, is not only a laboring being, but also a spiritual one.
As spiritual being he represents the superior nature as his godhead. The
relation between human being and godhead can be characterized as a
relation of recognition. In his representation of nature as an almighty god,
human recognizes the superior power of nature.
According to Marx, history is the history of labor, the history of the rela-
tion between human and nature, i.e. the history of the division of labor.
He characterizes this history as “natural” (naturwüchsig). As a natural
being the human being belongs to his species which reproduces itself by
means of labor. The division of labor shows that his labor is part of the
species: he belongs to a society that can be described as a labor system
in which all have their own place in the division of labor. Initially, the

3 Karl Marx, Ökonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte (1844) in MEW Ergänzungsband,

Erster Teil, Berlin 1968: “Die Arbeit, welche Hegel allein kennt und anerkennt, ist die
abstrakt geistige,” p. 574.
 recognition as the new paradigm 3

division of labor rests on distinct natural properties which make the one
better equipped for a specific form of labor than the other. The division,
however, is more and more refined by analyzing labor actions in their
constituting sub-actions which in their turn are distributed to distinct
individuals. In this manner human’s “social-existence” (the form of the
labor division) can go through a historical development. Thus, the form of
social existence has implications for the social self-consciousness. To the
extent in which the labor activity is further analyzed practically, insight
into nature increases. At the end, insight into nature is accomplished such
that man (in the form of modern science) has insight into nature’s own
essence. As a consequence, nature loses its almightiness: it is not nature
which exercises power over man, but it is rather man who exercises power
over nature. Finally, it is his scientific knowledge that enables him to rec-
ognize himself in the power that he initially represented as godhead. If
nature is given as a completely external power, it can only be represented
as a god who rules over mankind. But to the extent that the relation to
nature is more and more embedded in the division of labor it becomes
clear that nature appears in a form that is imposed by men and, conse-
quently, the lord is represented as the lord of the labor system, i.e. as
a lord who appears in the world. At the end, the laboring human (the
bondsman, or, in Marxist terms, the commodity labor force, the proletar-
iat) understands that he has produced the labor system (Capital) himself,
and thus, the bondsman can recognize himself in the lord. In this recogni-
tion the labor force becomes aware of itself: in the proletarian revolution
the bondsman learns to understand that he himself is the subject of the
labor system. Then, nature has lost its external power and appears as the
subject’s free self-expression.
Marx’s presentation of the historic development purports to be a mate-
rialistic reversal of Hegel’s lord/bondsman relation. We will see that the
development of the lord/bondman relation in Hegel also results in the self-
recognition of the bondsman in the lord. As in Marx this self-recognition
means that the subject can understand the labor system as the appearance
of his free self-realization, so too in Hegel self-recognition means that the
subject can understand the social organism as the appearance of his free
self-realization. The implication of this materialistic reversal is that Marx
understands the development as a natural (naturwüchsig)4 process, i.e.
as the development of labor division resulting in the genesis of the free

4 Karl Marx, Die deutsche Ideologie, MEW 3, Berlin 1969, p. 31.

4 chapter one

subject. Conversely, in Hegel the free subject (the free self-consciousness)

is the point of departure. The problem that has to be solved through the
lord/bondman relation does not concern a historical development, but
rather a logical problem: how is it at all possible to conceptualize (i.e.,
without logical contradiction) the unity between the free subject and the
externally given nature? How can the freedom of the corporeal subject be
conceptualized? How can the subject’s freedom be conceptualized if it is
also part of a natural domain that is characterized through the necessity
of nature, i.e. through natural laws as formulated by modern science?

Habermas’s Criticism of the Marxist Basic Position

From a Hegelian point of view, it is obvious which criticism can be passed

on Marx’s materialistic reversal. How a process of nature, i.e. the develop-
ment of labor division, can result in the genesis of the free subject? Is not
the genesis of the free subject a curious turn from a materialistic position
(in which nature (i.e. social existence) has the primacy over the subject
(self-consciousness)) into an idealistic position (in which the subject (self-
consciousness) has the primacy over nature (the labor system))? Can the
division of labor be understood as a process of nature, if this process at
the same time is interpreted as a process in which the insight into nature
increases step by step? Does it make sense to speak about insight into
nature without presupposing that the subject is principally free? Is not
the subject’s freedom already presupposed at all times in the anthropo-
logical basic position of the Economic-philosophical Manuscripts: man is
a natural being who can only adequately appear as a natural being if he
has overcome his alienation, i.e. if he has appropriated his nature which
initially appears as an alien, external power?
The young Habermas’s criticism of the young Marx is not inspired by
Hegel, but rather by the tradition of the Frankfurt School. Max Horkheimer
criticizes the one-sided understanding of reason in Western thought: rea-
son is reduced to an instrumental reason, a reason of domination that
originates in human’s striving to submit nature to his power.5 In the
later Habermas, this reason of domination returns as the paradigm of the
philosophy of consciousness. In both cases, it is about a reason in which the
subject/object relation, human’s relation to nature, is central. This relation

5 Max Horkheimer, Zur Kritik der instrumentellen Vernunft, Frankfurt/M. 1974.

 recognition as the new paradigm 5

is characterized by an instrumental utilization of reason: it becomes an

instrument to break the power of nature; it is in the service of striving for
technological domination of nature. This striving for domination is identi-
fied with the emancipatory process of humanity. To the extent in which
mankind subjugates nature, he can liberate himself, i.e., manifest himself
as an autonomous being. This process of domination not only becomes
the criterion for historical progress, but also generates the optimism of
guaranteed progress: progress is guaranteed by the ongoing domination
of nature.6
According to Habermas, instrumental reason can only be overcome if
the process of the realization of freedom can be separated from the pro-
cess of the domination of nature. Human freedom cannot be understood
as the result of the ongoing division of labor. As with Immanuel Kant,
Habermas thinks that the domain of freedom has to be carefully distin-
guished from the domain of nature. Freedom cannot be made dependent
on the form in which man is related to nature.
Habermas elaborates his criticism of instrumental reason in his criticism
of Marx. In Arbeit und Interaktion, he maintains that Marx’s fundamen-
tal categories are labor and labor division.7 Man is a laboring being, who
realizes the true form of being human in a process of ongoing labor divi-
sion. In German Ideology, the completion of this process is considered by
Marx the separation between intellectual and manual labor.8 This way the
spiritual and corporeal moment of labor can be completely distinguished.
This separation between intellectual and manual labor is characteristic
of capitalism. Intellectual labor falls under Capital and appears in the
form of the organization (the form) of the production process. Capital
utilizes science and technology to bring about the labor process. Manual
labor falls to the proletariat, to labor as commodity, and appears as the
moment of the production process that is totally spirit-less: the labor
of the production line that consists purely in the execution of physical
power. In the proletarian revolution, the commodity labor power becomes
self-conscious: intellectual labor and manual labor are united into free,

6 Actually, this criticism of the Enlightenment resembles Heidegger’s criticism of

western metaphysics: western reason, seized by the “Wille zur Macht”, is only capable of
technological domination.
7 J. Habermas, Technik und Wissenschaft als “Ideologie”, Frankfurt/M. 1971.
8 Karl Marx, Die deutsche Ideologie, MEW 3, 1969: “Die Teilung der Arbeit wird erst
wirklich Teilung von dem Augenblicke an, wo eine Tielung der materiellen und geistigen
Arbeit eintritt,” p. 31.
6 chapter one

self-conscious labor. Marx reduces freedom to free labor, to the free cul-
tivation of nature.
Habermas suggests that not labor and labor division, but rather labor
and interaction are the basic categories in which human action has to be
analyzed. According to him, Marx is not totally wrong, but it is only valid
for a specific historical period that labor and the division of labor are the
central categories. It is precisely valid for capitalism that the interaction
relations between humans are determined as labor relations. This, how-
ever, makes the capitalistic society an alienated society that is not free.
Principally, the interaction between humans is free and not determined
by the relation to nature, as the cultivation of nature through labor. The
distinction between labor and interaction anticipates his later distinction
between the paradigm of communicative action and the paradigm of the
philosophy of consciousness. The relation between subjects (interaction)
principally has another status than their relation to nature. Moreover,
in his article Wahrheitstheorien, Habermas links the distinction between
labor and interaction with the distinction between objectivity and truth.9
Objectivity corresponds to the domain of labor, i.e., to the naturally given
objects (and their cultivation). Truth corresponds to the domain of inter-
action, to the speech acts by means of which subjects communicate. Natu-
rally given reality remains outside the domain of truth.
Habermas’s separation of objectivity and truth breaks through the
Kantian scheme in Critique of Pure Reason. After all this work maintains
that true knowledge is the result of a synthesis between concept and intu-
ition, i.e., without (sensual) intuition of nature, knowledge is impossible.
If, however, we are reminded that Habermas links the domain of interac-
tion not only with truth, but also with freedom, it seems, against Marx,
that Habermas falls back in line with Kant, namely into the separation
of freedom and nature, i.e., the noumenal and the phenomenal domain.
Nevertheless, this comparison between Kant and Habermas seems to be
limited to the separation of freedom and nature. For Habermas freedom
has no noumenal status. Interaction appears in the institutions of the life-
world. Therefore, his concept of freedom rather returns to the position of

9 J. Habermas, Wahrheitstheorien (1984), “die Objektivität einer bestimmten Erfahrung

bewährt sich am kontrollierbaren Erfolg der auf diese Erfahrungen gestützten Handlun-
gen. Wahrheit, d.h. die Berechtigung des mit Behauptungen implizit erhobenen Geltungs-
anspruches, zeigt sich hingegen nicht in erfolgskontrollierten Handlungen, sondern in
erfolgreichen Argumentationen, mit der dieser Geltungsanspruch diskursiv eingelöst wer-
den kann,” p. 153.
 recognition as the new paradigm 7

Hegel’s thought. After all, freedom is, also according to Hegel, expressed
in social institutions. Moreover, Hegel also conceptualizes freedom in the
form of interaction: freedom is understood as recognition.
Nevertheless, Habermas sharply distances himself from the Hegelian
position. In the end, as with Marx, Hegel remains for Habermas a mono-
logical thinker who does not do justice to the domain of interaction.
According to Habermas, Hegel, like Marx, does not distinguish between
objectivity and truth. At long last this is expressed in the self-relation of
the absolute spirit. Hegel’s freedom is the freedom of the absolute spirit
which appears in nature (i.e., in world history).

The Basic Scheme of the Theory of Communicative Action

When we assess the results of Habermas’s relation to Kant, Hegel and

Marx, it seems justified to conclude that his theory of communicative action
has borrowed something from each of the three thinkers. First, the basic
scheme is Kantian, what Habermas expresses by characterizing his theory
“quasi-transcendental.”10 Habermas transforms, so to speak, Kant’s basic
transcendental concepts into quasi-transcendental social concepts. Kant’s
transcendental subject is transformed into the “quasi-transcendental”
speech community. Kant’s transcendental categorical schemes are trans-
formed into the “quasi-transcendental” grammatical schemes of language.
The “thing-in-itself ” is transformed into the externally given natural object
(that cannot be known, but only practically experienced). Because the
speech community is conceived of as a historical form in which freedom
is realized, Hegelian elements are integrated into the basic scheme. In the
end, Marxist elements are also integrated into this basic scheme because
social progress is mediated through labor. Habermas has the opinion that
the grammatical scheme of language goes through a historically develop-
ing process that in one way or another expresses labor relations.11
What is striking in this interpretation of the basic scheme of the theory
of communicative action is that the separation between truth and objectiv-
ity does not seem to be guaranteed, due to the fact that the schemes by
which the reality of the interaction process is interpreted are nevertheless

10 J. Habermas, Erkenntnis und Interesse (1973), p. 240.

11 J. Habermas, Wahrheitstheorien, “Kognitive Schemata sind Ergebnisse einer aktiven
Auseinandersetzung des Persönlichkeits- und des Gesellschaftssystems mit der Natur,”
p. 167.
8 chapter one

in one way or another related to labor relations. Probably, Habermas would

answer that objective reality in some way remains external to truth and
freedom.12 Fundamental for truth and freedom is the relation of interac-
tion. It is true that this interaction appears in a historical speech commu-
nity that is linked with specific grammatical schemes and specific labor
relations and is, because of this link, connected with “objectivity,” but this
connection only concerns the contingent form of freedom. In contrast to
Hegel and Marx, freedom and nature are not connected in a dialectics
of form and content. The real interactive relations can only be observed
through empirical research. For Habermas, freedom itself is freedom from
power, i.e., freedom from any natural determinedness.
The question is, however, what is worthwhile in this mixture which
Habermas has brewed out of Kant, Hegel and Marx. Whoever would
argue that Kantian transcendental philosophy has to be transformed into
a quasi-transcendental philosophy, must at least raise the question of
which problems Kant wanted to solve in his philosophy and next check
whether those questions can be answered if the quasi-transcendental turn
has been performed. Having done so, it will quickly appear how prob-
lematic this transformation is. For Kant, the transcendental subject must
make the unity of the subject of cognition thinkable. This function can
never be exercised through the speech community. This can easily be
acknowledged if one realizes that all Kantian questions return by asking
how the cognition of the speech community needs to be conceived. The
categorical schemes in Kant must make clear, among other things, how it
is possible at all to know nature as a nature that is structured according
to the laws of nature. It remains unclear how grammatical schemes that
can only be observed through empirical research can fulfill this function.
Already David Hume rightly maintained that necessary laws cannot be
deduced from empirical observations. For Kant, the thing-in-itself has to
guarantee that our objects of cognition are related to objectivity at all.
It is completely unclear how a sensually given thing could exercise this
function. Kant rightly brought to the fore that the immediately given sen-
sible reality must rather be characterized as manifold, so that all internal
unity fails.

12 J. Habermas, Wahrheitstheorien, “Plausibler ist die Auffassung, dass die Objektivi-

tät einer Erfahrung nicht die Wahrheit einer entsprechenden Behauptung, sondern nur
die Identität einer Erfahrung in der Mannigfaltigkeit ihrer möglichen Interpretationen
sichert,” p. 154.
 recognition as the new paradigm 9

In his criticism of Kant, Hegel especially tries to find a solution for

Kant’s inability to conceive of the real subject (i.e., the subject that is both
mind and body) as a unity: in Kant the free (noumenal) subject remains
separated from the corporeal subject. In reaction to Kant, Hegel develops
a concept of recognition in which the internal unity between freedom
and nature has been conceptualized. Therefore, it remains incomprehen-
sible how Habermas, with an appeal to Hegel, on the one hand, tries to
understand freedom as an interaction relation and, on the other hand,
in accordance with Kant, hold to the separation between freedom (and
truth) and objectivity. At least, the question that Hegel raised in his reac-
tion to Kant, has not been solved.
The materialistic turn that Marx has performed vis-à-vis Hegel, in effect
comes down to his rejection of Hegel’s foundation of the realization of
freedom, because he wants to present this realization as a purely practical
process. The question of whether the realization of freedom is possible,
the question of if and how the internal unity of freedom and nature can
be conceived of at all, is no longer raised by Marx. The result of practical
realization of freedom in Marx, the proletarian revolution, leads to a rela-
tional form that coincides with what in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit
is the result of the development of the lord/bondsman relation: stoicism.
At this level, the subject thinks he has the certitude that nature (that has,
here, the form of a social organism) is nothing other than the realization
of his concept: nature no longer appears as an alien, independent power.
For Marx, the development ends there. Philosophy has played its role, and
now it is all about putting freedom into practice. The complaint to Marx,
that he said few things about the post-revolutionary society, is unjustified.
His basic position implies that the elaboration of the post-revolutionary
society is a matter of practice: the real implementation of freedom can
only empirically be observed and is not regulated through philosophical
concepts.
Considered from a Hegelian view, the Marxist position remains, analo-
gous to stoicism, seized in ideology. The self-awareness of the stoic con-
sciousness, namely that it has realized its freedom, is tied to the existence
of a contingent social organism. The human law that is presupposed by
this organism, remains a coincidental fact. As a consequence, the real-
ization of human freedom can neither be determined with regard to its
content (what is the human law?), nor with regard to its form (is it neces-
sary that the human law exists?). Stoicism is tied to a specific historical
realization of the form of human freedom, but is not aware of this fact.
Therefore, this relation is, according to Hegel, no finishing post, but in
10 chapter one

some sense rather a starting point. In the remaining part of the Phenom-
enology of Spirit, he tries to arrive at a closer determination of the human
law (i.e., of the realization of freedom). The criterion for this determina-
tion consists of what according to Hegel is presupposed in the human law:
the internal unity of freedom and nature.
From Habermas’s view, Hegel’s elaboration of stoicism is precisely the
bone of contention. He thinks that this development, precisely because
it rests on a dialectics between freedom and nature, i.e., on the view that
there exists an internal unity between freedom and nature, at the end
must lead to the overcoming of the relation of interaction, to the mono-
logical position of an absolute spirit that is conceived of as a self-relation.13
Obviously, Habermas feels better at home in the Marxist position, in
which the closer determination of the realization of freedom can only be
observed empirically. It is true that Habermas, in contrast to Marx, deter-
mines freedom as an interaction relation and maintains that interaction
and labor have to be separated, but this position can be interpreted as
an elaboration of Marx’s post-revolutionary freedom. After all, insofar as
nature’s power is broken, it can be maintained that the post-revolutionary
freedom is also separated from the domain of labor. Moreover, the post-
revolutionary freedom has to also be conceived of as interaction relation.
Post-revolutionary freedom is conceptualized at the level of the commu-
nity, not at the level of the individual.
Habermas conceptualizes freedom as the interactive relation positioned
in itself: autonomy is understood as a relation between free subjects who
are not determined through their relation to nature. Nevertheless, this does
not mean that there is no relation to nature at all: the relation of inter-
action always manifests itself in a specific historical form, in a specific
speech community. However, the closer determination of this specific
historical form remains a matter of empirical research. The freedom of
the interaction relation remains in an “open” relation to nature: it has the
freedom to manifest itself in an endless series of speech communities.

Thinking Through the Theory of Communicative Action

Habermas’s basic position has Cartesian characteristics. Labor and inter-

action are separated and, consequently, are made quasi-independent

13 J. Habermas, Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne (1985), p. 53.

 recognition as the new paradigm 11

substances. It seems that the interaction relation has to be understood as

an intersubjectified res cogitans that appears as lifeworld. It seems that
labor has to be understood as an intersubjectified res extensa that appears
as system. In this scheme, the relation between freedom and nature plays
a double role: on the one hand, in the relation between the pure inter-
action relation and its appearance in the world; on the other hand, in
the relation between lifeworld and system. The lifeworld is a speech com-
munity in which the world is interpreted with the help of grammatical
schemes that Habermas links with labor relations (and, consequently,
also with the (labor-)system). It can only be observed that the relation
between freedom and nature in Habermas plays a role. However, Haber-
mas does not clarify how freedom and nature can sensibly be related. To
understand this, he should have raised the question of whether, and how,
if so, freedom and nature can be conceived of as an inner relation.
Therefore, I think that the defensibility of Habermas’s paradigm of
recognition, i.e., the theory of communicative action, is dependent on
answering a question that is not raised by Habermas: how the relation
between freedom and nature has to be conceived? Of course, this is not a
new question, but actually a question that is central to all modern west-
ern thinking. As we saw, Descartes implicitly already raised this question
when he distinguished between res cogitans and res extensa. Explicitly,
this question was raised by Kant. On the one hand, this question is thema-
tized because he discusses the relation between empiricism and rational-
ism in his Critique of pure Reason; on the other hand, because he discusses
the relation between theoretical and practical reason. In his criticism of
Kant, Hegel develops his version of the unity between rationalism and
empiricism in which he argues that theoretical and practical reason have
to be understood in an internal unity. Since theoretical reason can be
tied to the Copernican turn and practical reason to the French Revolu-
tion, Hegel shows the internal unity between the Copernican and French
revolutions.
The previous exposition has made clear that the defensibility of Hab-
ermas’s theory of communicative action is dependent on answering ques-
tions that are not raised by Habermas. Since the answers cannot be found
in Habermas, I reconstructed several responses given in the philosophical
tradition (especially, those of Kant and Hegel). This enables us to judge
whether Habermas’s attempt to overcome that philosophical tradition is
justified in the terms within which it is posed.
In chapter 2, I reconstruct how Kant develops his version of the synthe-
sis between empiricism and rationalism in his criticism of David Hume.
12 chapter one

Moreover, I discuss Hegel’s reaction to this project in the Consciousness

chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit.
In chapter 3, I explore which consequences are drawn by Hegel from
his criticism in the Self-Consciousness chapter of the Phenomenology of
Spirit. I show that this criticism leads to a position in which the inter-
nal unity between theoretical and practical reason is conceptualized. I
expose how Hegel’s lord/bondsman relation can be conceived of as the
basic model in which the unity between theoretical and practical reason
can be understood.
In chapter 4, I discuss Hegel’s view of the historical genesis of the lord/
bondsman relation in those passages of the Phenomenology of Spirit in
which Hegel treats the religion of nature. This makes it possible to under-
stand how, according to Hegel, the result of the lord/bondsman relation,
stoicism, is historically situated.
From the foregoing reconstruction, I will draw the conclusion that
Hegel, in principle, has a convincing response to the questions that Hab-
ermas does not raise, but that he should have raised (especially the ques-
tion of the relation between nature and freedom). As a consequence, I
observe that the paradigm of the theory of communicative action is not a
satisfactory conception of the realization of freedom. It is not possible to
one-sidedly make, like Marx, the closer determination of the human law a
matter of empirical research. The reality of human law, the possibility to
realize freedom at all, is tied to the internal relation between freedom and
nature. Therefore, it is insufficient to formally determine, as Habermas
does, human freedom as the intersubjectivity that is positioned in itself,
borrowing its content from externally given, empirical nature. Human
autonomy can only be adequately conceived of if its internal relation to
nature has been properly understood. In Kant, the cognition of nature
presupposes a kind of “transcendental subject.” However, in contrast to
Kant, this “transcendental subject” need not be understood as a noume-
nal subject, but rather as a real subject, i.e., as a subject that also has a
body. In the first instance, the unity between freedom and body can only
be conceived of on a social level, analogous to Aristotle’s concept of the
state human law incorporated into the state. However, the presupposition
is that individuals socialized as members of a state order are internally
purely free. Those who are not internally free cannot observe an external
law. After the French Revolution this internal freedom has been expli-
cated so that the social organism can appear as the historical realization
of the autonomous subject. Therefore, it appears that the presupposition
of the law of nature, i.e., the transcendental subject, is an abstraction from
 recognition as the new paradigm 13

the autonomous subject who is presupposed by the social law. Coperni-

can and French revolutions are thus in an internal unity.
This has consequences for the determination of the human law. This
law must be determined in such a manner that the individuals who real-
ize their freedom in this law have insight into the nature of their own
freedom, i.e., they must have insight into the internal relation of freedom
and nature. This demand implies that the determination of the human
law cannot be considered a one-sidedly empirical matter. It is true that
knowledge of the real law is tied to empirical research, but this law cannot
be a human law, i.e., a law that realizes freedom, if it is not tied to the con-
ditions that enable self-awareness. The implications for the determination
of the human law are discussed in the remaining part of the Phenomenol-
ogy of Spirit (i.e., the part that is elaborated after stoicism, except the reli-
gion of nature). This program is oriented toward the Enlightenment of the
Enlightenment, a program that Hegel shares with Horkheimer, Adorno,
Habermas, Heidegger and many other philosophers.

Axel Honneth’s Elaboration of the Paradigm of Recognition

If the previous characterization of Habermas’s and Hegel’s position can be

justified, it is of particular interest to carefully investigate the position of
Axel Honneth. Honneth, as pupil and successor of Jürgen Habermas, on
the one hand, affirms the basic position that is developed in the theory of
communicative action. Also Honneth departs from a concept of freedom
that is conceived as formal recognition. And also Honneth has the opinion
that the closer determination of this concept asks for the achievements of
empirical science. Honneth has the same fear as Habermas for the “meta-
physical” closeness of Hegel.14 On the other hand, Honneth thinks, more
than Habermas, that he can nevertheless borrow a number of fundamen-
tal insights from Hegel’s philosophy: especially the division of the rela-
tion of recognition in three fundamental basic forms, and the “struggle for
recognition” as the mechanism that underlies the historical realization of
historical forms of recognition.

14 Honneth states: “It is said that the steps in Hegel’s reasoning can be correctly fol-
lowed and judged only in relation to appropriate parts of his Logic, but the Logic has
become totally incomprehensible to us owing to its ontological conception of spirit,” Axel
Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom, Princeton University Press, 2010, p. 4.
14 chapter one

What exactly does Honneth want to add to the Habermasian paradigm?

Why is it necessary at all to add something to the closer determination
of human freedom if it still is a matter of empirical nature? Does, in the
eyes of Honneth, Habermas say too little about the way in which com-
municative action can be realized in history? If so, how precisely can an
appeal grounded on Hegel overcome this lacuna? And how it is that we
can ground such an appeal?
Habermas describes the historical realization of communicative action
as a double process: on the one hand, as a process of Ausdifferenzierung
(differentiating) and, on the other hand, as a process of Rationalisierung
(rationalizing).15 The differentiation concerns the process in which the
original lifeworld receives an institutional order which is more and more
differentiated. In this context, the original lifeworld has to be understood
as a speech community that borrows its unity from a shared interpre-
tation of reality. This shared interpretation underlies the labor process,
i.e., the process in which nature is cultivated. The labor process, however,
can lead to a learning process that results in more specified knowledge of
nature. If this more specified labor process cannot be brought into accor-
dance with the shared interpretation of reality, this interpretation has to
be revised: otherwise the social unity will be undermined. The leading
thought is that a series of revised interpretations implies a learning process
that results in a more differentiated world view. Initially, the world view is
a unity of politics, religion, philosophy, aesthetics, morality and science.
Step by step value domains are distinguished, leading to an institutional
order that does justice to these distinctions. The process of rationalization
concerns the development within the differentiated domains, the distinct
institutions. The reproduction of the institution is more rational to the
extent that it is mediated through rational discussion.
Honneth’s intervention vis-à-vis Habermas could be explained by his
disapproval of the manner in which Habermas tries to understand the
process of differentiation. In contrast to the process of rationalizing,
the process of differentiation that can be linked with the development
of labor relations, seems rather to fit the old paradigm of the philosophy
of consciousness than the theory of communicative action.16 Honneth’s

15 J. Habermas, “Philosophy as Stand-In and Interpreter,” Moral Consciousness and Com-

municative Action, Polity Press, 1990.
16 Emmanuel Renault states: “In Critique of Power, Honneth criticized the Habermasian
interpretation of social evolution, according to the model of a structural process of moral
rationalization of the lifeworld and of instrumental rationalization of the system. He
 recognition as the new paradigm 15

“struggle for recognition” could be explained as an attempt to explain dif-

ferentiation in terms of the theory of communicative action. The struggle
for recognition does not primarily take place in the relation of subject and
nature, but in the relation of subject to subject, leading to institutionally
differentiated forms of recognition. From Habermas’s view it is no prob-
lem that these forms of recognition correspond to forms that are already
distinguished by Hegel (and Mead). After all, Habermas considers theories
about reality as “rational reconstructions”17 that are based on encompass-
ing basic schemes. Habermas even suggests that this kind of basic scheme
can be borrowed from philosophical tradition. This, however, can only
be performed under the condition that the truth of these basic schemes
can only be determined with the help of empirical testing. This is pre-
cisely what Honneth desires: not a metaphysical but rather an empirically
testable Hegel.
However, many questions remain with regard to the legitimacy of
Honneth’s appeal to Hegel. How exactly does Honneth understand the
struggle for recognition? Does his understanding correspond to the mean-
ing Hegel has given to this struggle? If so, why does the category of “life”
that in Hegel has such an important role, seem to have hardly any impor-
tance for Honneth? How can it be understood that, on the one hand,
Honneth expressively refers to the young Hegel (i.e., the Hegel from the
period before the Phenomenology of Spirit) and, on the other hand, arrives
at the forms of recognition that can just be found back in the old Hegel
(of the Philosophy of Right). What does it mean that Honneth, on the one
hand, defines his project as mapping the necessary institutional condi-
tions under which the subject can realize his freedom, but, on the other
hand, is neither able to found the three forms of recognition as necessary,
nor the necessity of the “struggle for recognition?”
In this book, the thesis is brought forward that to all these questions
can be given a response with the help of the Phenomenology of Spirit. In
the Reason chapter Hegel develops the necessary conditions under which
the unity of pure freedom and nature can be conceived. This results
in the necessary conditions to which the human law must respond to be

disapproved that Habermas substituted, in Theory of communicative Action, such a model

of social rationalization for another model, that of Knowledge and Human Interests, in
which social conflicts played a determining role.” Emmanuel Renault, “Taking on the
Inheritance of Critical Theory,” in Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch and Christopher F.
Zurn, The Philosophy of Recognition, Lexington Books, Plymouth 2010, pp. 248–9.
17 See J. Habermas, Nachwort in Erkenntnis und Interesse, Frankfurt/M. 1973, p. 414.
16 chapter one

able to be understood as an adequate expression of pure freedom. This

means that the concept of life also has a central place in this context: the
unity just mentioned can only be understood if nature is conceived as self-
conscious life, as a social organism. In the next chapters Hegel elaborates
how European history (starting with Ancient Greece) can be interpreted
as a process in which the adequately standardized human law can be real-
ized step by step. The steps of this realization are mediated through a
“struggle for recognition”: this time not through a “struggle for recogni-
tion” that can only be interpreted empirically, but one that follows from
the dialectical structures to which the realization of freedom is tied. In
Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, this historical development is elaborated into
the systematic unity of a legal order characterized by three fundamental
forms of recognition. Therefore, Hegel’s project shows how the process
of the realization of freedom is necessarily tied to the “struggle for recog-
nition” and three fundamental forms of recognition that seem to match
with the forms Honneth distinguishes.
It is evident that Honneth does not share the foregoing reading of the
Phenomenology of Spirit. This can be deduced from the detailed inter-
pretation of the Self-Consciousness chapter developed by Honneth. It is
curious to observe that Honneth holds the opinion that this text actually
develops the Habermasian concept of freedom: freedom as recognition
formally positioned toward itself. The internal relation of self-conscious-
ness to nature is neglected by Honneth. His interpretation even assigns no
place to the struggle for life and death that is thematized in this text or to
the concept of fear of death that is central for the entire Phenomenology
of Spirit.18
In chapter 5 I critically discuss Honneth’s interpretation of self-con-
sciousness in Hegel. Vis-à-vis Honneth I will object in this chapter that
Hegel performs a kind of paradigm change; a transformation of the para-
digm of the philosophy of consciousness into the paradigm of the theory of
communicative action. But, in this case, the transition is into Hegel’s ver-
sion of this paradigm, in which recognition is, mediated by the concept of
life, internally related to nature. This internal relatedness does not result
in the identification of the realization of freedom and the domination of
nature, but rather in a transcendental openness, in a relation to nature in
which nature can be conceived of in itself.

18 In his book The Struggle for Recognition (1995), Honneth refers to the young Hegel,
i.e., the Hegel that precedes the Phenomenology of Spirit.
 recognition as the new paradigm 17

In chapter 6 I elaborate how Hegel, in the Reason chapter, develops

more closely the necessary determinations of the human law and how, in
Hegel’s reconstruction of European history, the human law is historically
realized. Special attention is dedicated to Hegel’s version of the “struggle
for recognition” in this process of realization.
In chapters 7, 8 and 9 the three forms of recognition and the corre-
sponding struggle for recognition distinguished by Honneth are critically
discussed in light of Hegel’s exposition.
In chapter 10 I discuss the adequate concept of the paradigm of recogni-
tion in view of the final chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit. Moreover,
I indicate how this adequate concept is related to Hegel’s project in the
Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften.
 chapter two

Overcoming Cartesian dualism:

from Kant’s criticism of Hume to Hegel’s criticism of Kant

Introduction

In chapter 1 we have seen that Habermas’s theory of communicative action

is based on the separation of truth and objectivity and that this separation
is reminiscent of the Cartesian separation between res extensa and res
cogitans. But, of course, Habermas is not a Cartesian. Descartes’s dualism
is especially criticized by Kant and Hegel, and we discussed how Hab-
ermas wants to do justice to this criticism by developing a position that
can be understood as a mixture of Kant, Hegel and Marx. It is essential
in Habermas’s position that, although truth (respectively freedom) and
objectivity are related to one another, this relation can only be observed
at the level of empirical research. At a conceptual level, truth/freedom
and objectivity/nature remain fundamentally separated. Truth, respec-
tively freedom, and nature are not dialectically mediated.
In this chapter, I reconstruct the criticism of Descartes’s dualism exer-
cised by the philosophical tradition, starting with David Hume. In contrast
to Descartes, Hume’s point of departure is not the subject of reason, the
cogito, but rather the empirical subject who is sensually related to nature.
In this relation, nature appears as a manifold of impressions. This is the
beginning of a philosophical tradition in which the cognition of nature is
conceived as an action in which the multitude of nature’s appearances
has to be brought to a unity. In Hume, this action is understood as the
association of an empirical subject, in Kant as the transcendental sub-
ject’s action of transcendental synthesis and in Hegel as the synthesizing
action of a labor community. Although the labor community in Hegel may
expressively not be reduced to an empirical community, this is exactly
what is later done by Marx and Habermas. Marx one-sidedly interprets
the labor community as a historical labor community and Habermas as a
historical speech community.
To determine the nature of the act of synthesis, the question of the status
of modern science is crucial. Can nature be conceived of as a nature that
is structured according to the necessary laws of nature? This implies that
 overcoming cartesian dualism 19

the relation between truth and objectivity appears as the relation between
philosophy and science. This raises the question of whether science,
mediated through empirical testing of the experiment, can supply us
knowledge of objective reality which is also true. Do the empirically tested
laws of science express something of reality itself ? In this chapter, I limit
myself to the theories of Hume, Kant and Hegel. Only later on it will be
possible to investigate how Marx and Habermas receive this tradition.

Hume’s Rejection of Descartes’s Universalism

The way Hume stands in life seems highly modern. He recognizes that,
at the end, we have no certainty at all. In the end, man has to be skepti-
cal of any cognitive pretention. For Hume, it makes no sense to appeal
to god to free us from our uncertainty. However, it is special in Hume’s
position that he is not prepared to draw the ultimate consequences from
this skepticism.1 If we do not know anything for sure, each meaning that
we award to life would only be totally arbitrarily. We could equally well
commit suicide.
Hume rejects the ultimate consequences of radical skepticism on prag-
matic grounds.2 Generally, we do not want to die in practice. In normal
life we do not assume that we know nothing. Life would become impossi-
ble and we would soon end up in a mental hospital. Factually, we believe
all kinds of things without having any absolute certainties. And we can
live with it pretty well.
Nevertheless, Hume is not just content with each form of belief. Reli-
gion, for example, can have a very harmful influence if it strikes fear into
human beings with the punishment that is waiting for them if they are not
living according to the standards that religion prescribes.3 Thus, Hume is
looking for a criteria to distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable
judgments concerning reality. It is true that it is also impossible to borrow

1 David Hume (Oxford, 1975) rejects “excessive scepticism”: “For here is the chief and
most confounding objection to excessive scepticisme, that no durable good can ever result
from it. [. . .] On the contrary, he (a Pyrrhonian, p.c.) must acknowledge, if he will acknowl-
edge anything, that all human life must perish, were his principles universally and steadily
to prevail,” pp. 159–60.
2 “The great subverter of Pyrrhonism or the excessive principles of skepticism is action,
and employment, and the occupation of life,” Hume 1975, pp. 158–9.
3 “Chaced from the open country, these robbers fly into the forest, and lie in wait to
break in upon every unguarded avenue of the mind, and overwhelm it with religious fears
and prejudices,” Hume 1975, p. 11.
20 chapter two

certainty from reasonable judgments about reality, but they rest on argu-
ments and, therefore, lose their arbitrariness.
However, with the introduction of reasonable argumentation Hume
seems to have given up his skeptical position. For it may be that argumen-
tation does not establish certain knowledge, but the distinction between
reasonable and unreasonable judgments seems itself to be based on a
kind of certainty, namely the certainty that I know when I am able to
provide a rational foundation and when I am not able to. The belief in
reason seems to be upgraded to a belief that offers more certainty than
other kinds of belief.
To a certain extent Hume will accept this objection. After all his reproach
to Descartes is that the last objection in his doubt experiment tries to con-
tradict skepticism with an appeal to reason.4 In advance, Descartes seems
to be convinced that reason exists and that universal doubt can be over-
come with the help of reason. Therefore, Hume is of the opinion that what
we understand by reason is precisely, in a geographical analogy, what has
to be mapped,5 if we want to speak meaningfully about reasonable argu-
mentation. Of course, also this time we can raise the question of whether
each claim that reason can be mapped is not itself a certain belief. I will
come back to this later. First, however, it is important to investigate how
precisely Hume thinks we can map reason and how by this investigation
he thinks we can reject the universalistic pretentions of Descartes.

Hume’s Empiricism: The Primacy of Impressions

Hume sets out from our daily life, from an empirical individual who has
a consciousness at his disposal. In this consciousness, separated contents
can be distinguished. The first distinction that, according to Hume, has to
be made amongst the contents of consciousness, especially as concerns
their intensity.6 Hume argues that to be able to distinguish between
brighter and weaker contents of consciousness, we must explain this

4 “But neither is there such original principle, which has a prerogative above others,
that are self-evident and convincing: or if there were, could we advance a step beyond it,
but by the use of those very faculties, of which we are supposed to be diffident,” Hume
1975, p. 150.
5 “If we can go no farther than this mental geography, or delineation of the distinct
parts and powers of the mind, it is at least a satisfaction to go so far,” Hume 1975, p. 13.
6 “Here therefore we may divide all the perceptions of the mind into two classes or
species, which are distinguished by their different degrees of force and vivacity,” Hume
1975, p. 18.
 overcoming cartesian dualism 21

distinction by way of the thesis that the weaker contents of consciousness

can be deduced from brighter ones. Hume names the brighter contents of
consciousness impressions.7 These result from immediate sensual percep-
tion. Is Hume’s point of departure attractive? With respect to daily life it
certainly is. It is not strange to say: “I only believe it if I have seen it.” With
the help of our senses we seem to be able to gain knowledge of properties
of something outside us. What we perceive seems to be objective: we do
not determine by ourselves what we perceive, but rather what we per-
ceive is determined from outside us. If we perceive a chair, it seems that
the chair determines which perceptions we have, for example the color or
shape. Moreover, the sensual perceptions seem to raise no doubts: the red
color that I perceive here and now has a greater intensity than something
that I remember. Immediate perception is much more intense than when
the actual perceptions vanish and I try to keep them in memory. But can,
on second thought, what seems plausible in daily life, be maintained in
philosophical reflection?
The first objection could be made, if we remember Descartes’s line of
questioning. After all, he argued that sensual perceptions cannot pro-
vide bright contents of consciousness. Who is right? Hume rejects this
criticism by a different definition of sensual perception than Descartes’s.
The sensual perception in Descartes is the perception of a property that
belongs to something in reality. Then, it possibly appears that the property
is not well perceived, and on reflection, the conclusion has to be drawn
that it is in reality about another property. On the contrary, in Hume the
perception is immediate: perception immediately coincides with what
is perceived. This immediacy must exclude failures. [Maybe this can be
illustrated through Aristotle’s analysis of perception: a sense, for example
the eye, has the potency to perceive colors. The actual color perception
is the actualization of this potency. Therefore, there is no question of the
perception of something outside the sense.] An impression is the result
of an immediate relation of the senses to sensual reality. The determined-
ness of the impression (for example, the impression red) falls neither one-
sidedly to the perceiver, nor to what is perceived. In the impression the
objective and subjective side immediately coincide. From this, however,
may not be drawn the conclusion that the sense perception in a certain
way represents absolute knowledge (because mistakes are excluded).

7 “By the term impression, then, I mean all our more lively perceptions, when we hear,
or see, or love, or hate, or desire, or will,” Hume 1986, p. 18.
22 chapter two

An impression is a purely particular determinedness that is not related to

anything else. It is immediate and in this sense is no knowledge: after all
we cannot talk about knowledge without generality.
However, the immediacy introduced by Hume, evokes a problem: if the
impressions are the result of an immediate relation, then it is not clear
how impressions can qualitatively be distinguished. Impressions are the
results of an immediate perception. If I want to qualitatively distinguish
them, I must compare them. This needs a step in reflection that over-
comes immediacy. Hume thinks that we can solve this problem by argu-
ing that impressions are ordered in time and space. A perception is always
performed at a specific moment in time and is exercised in relation to a
sensual input that is locally tied. In this manner, it can be maintained
that all impressions are the result of an immediate relation, but are nev-
ertheless distinguished: they correspond to perceptions that are done at
distinct moments in time and/or distinct places.
However, the solution offered by Hume is not convincing. It is true that,
by the introduction of time and space, he can distinguish impressions, but
this distinction is only numerical: it can only be argued that the impressions
are distinct. To determine what their (qualitative) distinction is, a further
step in reflection is still needed. Immanuel Kant solves this problem by
not speaking about a multitude of qualitatively distinct impressions, but
rather about the “manifold” (Mannigfaltigkeit),8 i.e., about a sensual input
that can only be determined as being-numerically-distinguished.
However, there is another problem. It is true that the possibility to
numerically distinguish the impressions is introduced, if impressions are
tied to spatial-temporal determinations, but this distinction has to be
actually performed through distinguishing one spatial-temporal determi-
nation from the other. Put differently, a spatial-temporal point of refer-
ence is needed towards which one determination differs from the other.
Thus, we can take the observer as this point of reference. Undoubtedly
this is Hume’s intention. However, this intention is not elaborated in
the manner with which Hume determines impressions. He only argues
that impressions are in space and time. Nowhere is it explicated that
the determinations in time and space have to be taken in relation to the
observer.

8 “In der Erscheinung, nenne ich das, was der Empfindung korrespondiert, die Materie
derselben, dasjenige aber, welches macht, dass Mannigfaltige der Erscheinung in gewissen
Verhältnissen geordnet werden kann, nenne ich die Form der Erscheinung,” Kant, Kritik der
reinen Vernunft (KdrV), A 20/B 34.
 overcoming cartesian dualism 23

Moreover, the last problem has been solved by Kant. He not only argues
that perception is at all times related to the faculty of perception (that he
names Anschauung), but he also elaborates how the determination of the
perceptions in space and time (in Kant, consequently, the determination
of the manifold in time and space) has to be conceived of in relation to
intuition (Anschauung). This is not done by, on the one hand, placing intu-
ition in time and space, and, on the other hand, what is perceived and
then looking for a connection between them. Kant solves the problem
by conceiving of the relation between intuition and what is intuited as
a (first) form of synthesis. It is intuition itself that in its intuition synthe-
sizes the material of intuition (the manifold) by putting it in the form of
time and space. Therefore time and space are not objective forms of the
impressions, but rather subjective forms of intuition. It is only through
intuition that it becomes meaningful to speak about a distinction: through
the connection of the manifold in space and time, it appears in the form
of the besides- and after-one-another.
Later on, it will appear that Kant, like Hume, assumes that sense per-
ceptions are qualitatively distinct. However, this quality cannot be deter-
mined at the level of intuition. A qualitative distinction presupposes that
the contents of perceptions are compared with one another. Kant does
not (like Hume) borrow the ordering in which this takes place from what
is sensually given, but from a second faculty of cognition, namely under-
standing. We already know the negative reasons to introduce this faculty
(the immediate relations of intuition do not allow qualitative distinc-
tions). We will, however, go into the positive reasons for introducing the
faculty of understanding.

The Distinction between Ideas and Impressions

In contrast to his predecessors (Hobbes, Locke), Hume sharply distin-

guishes between impressions and ideas. We already observed that this
distinction corresponds with more or less intensive contents of conscious-
ness. Ideas are always deduced from impressions.9 Therefore, it is about a
gradual distinction that follows from a qualitative distinction. Impressions

9 “First, when we analyze our thoughts or ideas, however, compounded or sublime,

we always find that they resolve themselves into such simple ideas as were copied from a
precedent feeling or sentiment,” Hume 1975, p. 19.
24 chapter two

follow from perceptions, from an immediate sensual relation to something

in reality. Therefore, impressions are particular. On the contrary, ideas are
determinations of thinking. They are concepts having a general mode of
being. The impressions of a chair presuppose that I am sensually related
to something in reality that I name a chair. The idea (concept) “chair” is
a determination of my thinking that is indifferent toward the existence or
the non-existence of a real chair. From this point of view the distinction
between impressions and ideas joins with daily life. On the one hand,
there exists the world of the real things; on the other hand, there is the
knowledge of the real things. The real things are particular, the knowledge
of the real things is general. Knowledge expresses an essential determina-
tion of the thing, a determination that exceeds its particularity.
According to these last formulations, ideas and impressions are not
only distinct (in their general and particular mode of being), but also
related to one another. Ideas can represent knowledge of things. How-
ever, for Hume this relation is not evident. We already saw his skeptical
point of departure: in the end, we cannot found our pretention that we
have knowledge about reality. But we also saw that he wanted to ward off
radical skepticism by a pragmatic cognition theory. Now we arrive at the
point in which this pragmatic theory begins to crystallize.
Hume assumes that, at a certain level, there is some relation between
ideas and impressions. Each impression (for example, a red perception)
can correspond to a simple idea (the idea “red” that, as a general content
of consciousness, is no longer dependent on perception). For Hume, the
transformation of an impression into a simple idea has nothing to do with
knowledge. Having a simple idea has no implication for the actual exis-
tence of real things. A simple idea has even been deduced from an impres-
sion that followed a real perception. But the idea can continue to exist
(as memory) without corresponding to any subsequent perception.
It could be questioned whether it is a matter of knowledge when a sim-
ple idea is linked with the perception of an impression. Would it not make
sense to say that the impression (red) is known in the simple idea (red)?
Later on, it will appear that these representations of impressions in ideas
are not qualified by Hume as knowledge. Maybe he has the opinion that
this kind of one to one representation adds little to the immediate percep-
tion. If this is indeed Hume’s line of thought, then it appears again that
he wrongfully assumes that impressions can qualitatively be determined.
If the impression red can be represented by the simple idea red, then the
impression has a general quality and, consequently, is not immediately
determined as an impression.
 overcoming cartesian dualism 25

For Hume, the real problem of cognition seems to present itself if the
connection between ideas is thematized: the connection of simple ideas
to complex, composite ideas, or the connections amongst complex ideas.
With regard to the connection of ideas Hume distinguishes between “rela-
tions of ideas” and “matters of fact.”10 The “relations of ideas” concern
connections that purely occur at the level of ideas. Actually, it is about
what Kant would name analytical judgments: purely tautological connec-
tions in which the judgment’s predicate only explicates what is already
encompassed in the subject of the judgment. In contrast to Kant, Hume
thinks that all mathematics can be understood in terms of these “relations
of ideas.” Because these relations of ideas are not related to sensual reality,
they cannot provide knowledge about it.
Actually, it is all about “matters of fact,” about the connection between
ideas that is mediated through impressions. Here, Kant would speak about
synthetic judgments a posteriori. A complex idea that is qualified as a “mat-
ter of fact” pretends to provide factual knowledge about reality. Hume is
not only interested in the question of to which criteria (to which schemes)
the connection between ideas has to correspond to provide this factual
knowledge, but also in the question of in what sense factual knowledge
can be spoken of as knowledge. Hume calls the suitable criteria/schemes,
“principles of association.” He argues that three fundamental principles of
association exist: 1. The association principle of Resemblance, 2. of Conti-
guity and 3. of Cause or Effect.11 (It will still appear that these principles of
association are reminiscent of the relation categories of Kant). I will dwell
on all of these three principles and go into the question of how they can
generate knowledge.
Hume gives two examples of the workings of the association principle
resemblance. “A picture naturally leads our thoughts to the original.”12 “We
may, therefore, observe, as the first experiment to our present purpose,
that, upon the appearance of the picture of an absent friend, our idea
of him is evidently enlived by the resemblance, and that every passion,
which that idea occasions, whether of joy or sorrow, acquires new force
and vigour.”13 Obviously, Hume concentrates on the resemblance between

10 “All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be devided into two kinds,
to wit, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact,” Hume 1975, p. 25.
11 “To me, there appear to be only three principles of connexion among ideas, namely,
Resemblance, Contiguity in time and place, and Cause or Effect,” Hume 1975, p. 24.
12 Hume 1975, p. 24.
13 Hume 1975, p. 51.
26 chapter two

image and reality. I can have impressions from something in reality. This
“something in reality” can also be represented. In this case, the resem-
blance implies that each impression of that “something” is represented
and that the ordering of the represented impressions corresponds with
the ordering of the original impressions. If this is what Hume means, then
his examples are confusing: if the association principle is a scheme for a
complex idea, the representation of the example has to be a complex idea
and not a representation that exists of many impressions itself (such as, a
painting or photograph).
Hume’s point seems to be that a complex idea that is structured accord-
ing to the association principle resemblance is a meaningful idea because
it can, in the end, be traced back to (is similar to) a real “something” that
can be perceived by means of impressions. The idea (the concept) flower
“resembles” a real flower because in this case an ordered complex of sim-
ple ideas resembles an ordered complex of impressions. In this sense, it
could be maintained that knowledge is possible on the base of this asso-
ciation principle.
Does this mean that this knowledge overcomes skepticism? Not at all.
According to Hume, we have no reason to conclude that our idea “flower”
is the true, known essence of the real flower. The association principle is
a psychological scheme. It helps me in daily life to order simple ideas with
the help of association principles. It is useful because this ordering helps
me to anticipate possible empirical experiences. But my ideas remain
deduced contents of consciousness that can in no manner pretend to be
the truth of the reality from which they are deduced. Reality coincides
with the particularity of impressions.
Hume also gives two examples of the association principle contiguity:
“the mention of one apartment in a building naturally introduces an
enquiry or discourse concerning others.”14 “When I am a few miles from
home, whatever relates to it touches me more nearly than when I am two
hundred leagues distant; though even at the distance the reflecting on any-
thing in the neighbourhood of my friends or family naturally produces an
idea of them.” It is obvious that this example concerns the connection of
two complex ideas (room and room, one’s own house and what is related
to it). Once again, it is valid that the relations between the complex ideas
can, in the end, be traced back to impressions. I have impressions of the
one room. In accordance with the association principle of resemblance,

14 Hume 1975, p. 24.

 overcoming cartesian dualism 27

I can represent the perceived room with the idea of room. I can connect
this idea of a room with the idea of another room that is located near
the first room, because I can, at the level of impressions, perceive that
the rooms are besides one another. As in the case of the first association
principle, this connection does not result in true knowledge. In practical
life it may be convenient to assume that there is another room beside the
first one, but it is not necessarily the case.
The third association principle concerns cause or effect. This principle
connects ideas in the relation of being-after-one-another. Hume’s exam-
ple is the connection between wound and pain.15 I can see a wound and
represent this with the idea of a wound. I can connect this idea with the
idea of pain following it, because I have experienced many times before
that I first saw my wound and afterwards felt pain. Hume is interested in
the idea that nature is causally structured: that it is possible to formulate
laws of nature telling me that a certain state is necessarily followed by
another state. Once again it is, according to Hume, not about real, but
rather about practical knowledge: because I have experienced many times
that a specific state was followed by another one, I assume that this is a
necessary relation. However, I have no insight into this necessity, because,
by implication, I should be able to deduce the idea of the one state from
the idea of another state.

Problems with Regard to Hume’s Conception of Ideas

Hume’s thinking about ideas encompasses many steps that cannot be

reproduced. To begin with, his thesis that ideas can be deduced from
impressions: the idea red is a fainter reflection of the impression red. This
implies a transition that is not allowed. An impression is something purely
particular; on the contrary, an idea has a general mode of being. How is
it thinkable that something purely particular is represented and, then,
becomes something general? We already saw that Hume unjustly thinks
that he can assign a qualitative determinedness to impressions: through
this determinedness the immediacy of the impression is overcome. If the
impression has no qualitative determinedness, this lacking quality cannot
be represented as an idea.

15 Hume 1975, p. 24.

28 chapter two

The second problem is that Hume assumes that an objective ordering

can be awarded to the impressions that in some way or another provides
the criterion according to which simple ideas can meaningfully be con-
nected to complex ideas and to which complex ideas can be meaningfully
connected to other complex ideas. However, it remains unclear on which
ground I can assume that the impressions have an objective ordering. It is
true Hume argues that if I have experienced many times that one impres-
sion follows another, this in no way implies an objective relation. At most
it could be concluded that this order will probably be experienced next
time. But on which ground is this expectation probable? Hume’s answer
is that, although nature is causally structured in itself, we are not able
to have knowledge of this structure in itself.16 Sometimes we experience
nature as being not causally structured. This is possible because there
may always hidden causes at work.17 These assumptions indeed give some
ground to the alleged probability, nature has an objective structure, but
sometimes our insight into nature is obscured. However, it remains com-
pletely obscure what is the base of these assumptions and why we should
accept them. Here, it appears that Hume’s skepticism is connected to a
knowledge pretention.
A third problem is that Hume thinks that the objective structure of
the impressions could be a criterion for the internal or mutual structure
of ideas. He does not highlight in which sense this assumption can be
meaningful. According to Hume, the impressions are structured in space
and time. On the contrary, ideas are general and not spatial-temporal
entities at all. What does it mean to impose a spatial-temporal structure
upon them, the structure of the being-besides-one-another and after-one-
another? The determination of the association principle thus remains
unclear.
A fourth problem is that Hume does not make understandable who
associates with the help of the association principles. A connection not
only presupposes a principle, a scheme according to which the connec-
tion takes place, but also a unity that establishes the connection. It is true

16 “Here, then, is a kind of pre-established harmony between the course of nature and
the succession of our ideas; and though the powers and forces, by which the former is
governed, be wholly unknown to us; yet our thoughts and conceptions have still, we find,
gone on in the same train with the other works of nature,” Hume 1975, pp. 54–5.
17 “From the observation of several parallel instances, philosophers form a maxim that
the connexion between all causes and effects is equally necessary, and that its seeming
uncertainty in some instances proceeds from the secret opposition of contrary causes,”
Hume 1975, p. 87.
 overcoming cartesian dualism 29

that Hume assumes that the cognition process is performed by a real,

empirical individual (and also assumes that the association principles
belong to empirical individuals, i.e., are psychological principles), but the
very problem is that the unity of the ideas has to conceived of as an ideal
unity, not as an empirical one (a unity that could be presupposed to be
externally observed).
I assume that Kant has acknowledged all the foregoing bottlenecks in
Hume. Regardless, his exposition in the Critique of pure Reason can be
interpreted as an attempt to solve each of these problems. To explain
this, it is important first to discuss the second form of synthesis that Kant
distinguishes: the synthesis at the level of imagination (Einbildung), the
reproduction of the representation of the sensual content.

Kant’s Second Form of Synthesis: The Synthesis of the

Faculty of Imagination

The faculty of imagination (the third faculty of cognition, besides intuition

and understanding) concretizes the appearance (in which the manifold
is spatial-temporally ordered) more closely into an image, i.e., into a rep-
resentation of the appearance.18 This image belongs to the understand-
ing (the second faculty of cognition). Analogous to Hume’s distinction
between impressions and ideas, it is also valid for the distinction between
appearances and images that it is in the first case about particulars which
are spatial-temporally ordered, and in the second case, about general con-
tents of consciousness. In contrast to Hume, however, there is no question
of images that are less intensive than appearances. After all, the images
are a closer concretizing of the appearances and this especially means
that the “manifold,” at the level of appearances, cannot qualitatively be
determined (in the immediate relation of intuition only a numerical
distinction can be made), but can, at the level of the image, appear as
qualitatively distinct. At the level of the image, immediacy is overcome,
so that, for example, the perception of red can be distinguished from the
perception of blue.

18 “Diese ist nun der Grund einer dreifachen Synthesis, die notwendigerweise in allem
Erkenntnis vorkommt: nämlich, der Apprehension der Vorstellungen, als Modifikationen
des Gemüts in der Anschauung, der Reproduktion derselben in der Einbildung und ihrer
Rekognition im Begriffe,” Kant, KdrV, A 97.
30 chapter two

The transition to the level of the image also has consequences for the
state of the forms of intuition as time and space. At the level of appear-
ances, time and space are the forms in which impressions (respectively
manifold) appear; they are the form of the sensual “material.” At the
moment that the impressions are represented, and as general properties,
are part of an image, space and time have become, at this level of the
image, general forms that can obviously be disconnected from real intu-
itions. The image is not something spatial, but the image of something
spatial. Although it is possible to maintain that the images are in time
(the images of understanding exist one-after-another), this is another
time than the time in which impressions are ordered. In this case it is
not the one-after-another of the beside-one-another. At the level of the
image, time and space appear, as Kant expresses it, as the pure forms of
intuition: as forms that are disconnected from their concrete, empirical
content. The time in which the images are positioned is not the form of
a continuum of images. These images possibly do not exist. Space is a
representation of space that in each representation can be specified oth-
erwise. If, in the image, time and space occur as pure forms, it becomes
explicit that it has no meaning to say that their ordering is borrowed from
an objective ordering at the level of impressions. Therefore, Kant argues
that the simple ideas out of which the image is synthesized and the rela-
tion between the images is structured according to schemes that do not
originate from perception, but from the understanding. Kant names these
schemes categories: they structure the form of the images, i.e., they struc-
ture pure time and space.19
With his interventions, Kant seems to solve the problems in Hume.
Now, the impressions can be qualitatively determined and the schemes
of ordering are not borrowed from the sensual world, but rather from the
understanding. Therefore, the image (and, as we will see later on, possible
knowledge) is separated from the world in itself. In contrast to Hume,
Kant does not determine this world in itself. He only maintains that we
can have no knowledge of it. Finally, however, Kant identifies who exer-
cises his association principles. He introduces the transcendental subject
that connects the categories with the pure forms of intuition by means of

19 “[. . .] so ist die Einbildungskraft sofern ein Vermögen, die Sinnlichkeit a priori zu
bestimmen, und ihre Synthesis der Anschauungen, den Kategorien gemäss, muss die trans-
zendentale Synthesis der Einbildungskraft sein, welches eine Wirkung des Verstandes auf
die Sinnlichkeit und die erste Anwendung desselben (zugleich der Grund aller übrigen)
auf Gegenstände der uns möglichen Anschauung ist,” Kant, KdrV, B 152.
 overcoming cartesian dualism 31

the action of synthesis. However, it remains unclear how the categories

can necessarily be deduced.

The Categories

The reality that we have appropriated in our images is categorically struc-

tured. However, until now we do not know what these categories look
like. Kant tries to overcome this omission by introducing a third form
of synthesis: the recognition of understanding, the domain of actual
knowledge.20 According to Kant, the process of cognition is performed
in the form of judgments. In the judgment, the subject of the judgment is
connected with the predicate through the copula. The basic idea is that
the knowledge that the image encompasses in an unarticulated man-
ner is explicated in the judgment. By judging the categorical structure is
expressed in the form of being known. Therefore, Kant thinks that the
categories can be deduced from the list of judgment forms.
The categories replace the association principles by means of which
Hume intended to structure judgment. However, in this case it is not
about psychological schemes, but about “logical” schemes that are inher-
ent to understanding. Notwithstanding this fundamental distinction, the
understanding of Kant may be helped by beginning with these association
principles.
The association principle of resemblance is introduced by Hume on the
presupposition that the impressions of something sensually given have
a determined structure that can be reproduced at the level of ideas: the
way in which a quantity of simple ideas is synthesized into a complex
idea structurally resembles the way in which, at the level of the sensually
given reality, a manifold of impressions form together something that is
sensually given. I already argued before that a resemblance in this sense
is meaningless. Actually, Hume does not succeed in his intention to main-
tain a sharp distinction between ideas and impressions. His thesis that
ideas are deduced from impressions is extrapolated into the meaningless
opinion that they could be structured in resemblance to impressions.
From his distinction between appearance and image, it appears that
Kant understood this very well. Kant is sharply aware that the struc-
ture of the image cannot be borrowed from the structure of appearance.

20 See Kant, KdrV, A 97.

32 chapter two

Nevertheless he has to solve a problem that is analogous to the problem

that Hume wanted to solve with his association principle of resemblance.
If it is acknowledged that the manifold appears, at the level of the image,
as a manifold of qualitatively distinct properties, the question is raised
of how these properties are unified at the level of the image. Kant solves
this problem through, what he calls, the categorical judgment, i.e., the first
form of judgment that belongs to the header relation.21 In this form of
judgment, the subject of the judgment is related to itself by determining
it more closely in the predicate as one of the properties that constitute
the subject. The “categorical” of this relational form is implied in its neces-
sity: to any complex idea this self-relation of a unity that manifests itself
in a manifold of properties has to be awarded. Finally, Kant shows that
the pure form of time is responsible for the unity of the image in which
the manifold of qualitatively distinct properties is represented. This self-
relation is explicated in the categorical judgment.
Also the second and third association principle can in a certain way
be found again in the judgment forms that Kant classes under the head-
ing relation. The association principle of cause and effect returns as the
hypothetical judgment. While Hume argues that the sequence in time of
certain impressions (the wound is followed by pain) results in the belief
that one idea is causally related to another, Kant argues further that in the
case of a hypothetical judgment the ideas are causally related. According
to Kant, however, this is not a belief that can be deduced from the struc-
ture of sensual reality, but rather a structure that is imposed through our
faculties of cognition: everything that we know as something in time is
caused by something in time. Therefore, the reality that is internalized
by means of images can always be explicated with help of hypothetical
judgments.
The third association principle of contiguity returns in Kant as the dis-
junctive judgment. Hume reasons that contiguity in the order of sensual
reality can be transformed into contiguity in the order of ideas. Kant
sharply distinguishes between the sensual reality and the domain of
images. At the level of images, time and space are considered pure forms.
Complex images can be “at the same time,” and yet distinct because they
distinct in a “pure” spatial sense. The images that are “at the same time”
are always logically related in a coherent entirety. The disjunctive judg-
ment expresses this by explicating that, if all possible images are divided

21 See Kant, KdrV, A 70/B 95.

 overcoming cartesian dualism 33

according a certain criterion, the subject of the judgment necessarily must

belong to one domain of the division.
Precisely Kant’s sharp distinction between the sensual world and the
domain of images (he does not make, like Hume does, the domain of
images the representation of the world of impressions) has the conse-
quence that Kant cannot confine himself to the judgment forms of relation
(as the substitute of the association principles). If I analyze the judgment
“this is a rose,” with regard to its form, appealing to the heading relation,
I conclude that it is a categorical judgment. But, according to Kant, the
form of the judgment can also be analyzed with the help of three other
headings: quality, quantity and modality. With the predicate red I ascribe a
specific quality to the subject rose with the help of an affirming (positive)
determination. But I can ascribe quality to the rose also in another form,
for example, by the judgment “this rose is not yellow,” i.e., with the help of
a negative determination. Kant names the third form of qualitative judg-
ment limitative: in this form, the positive and negative are taken together,
by comprehending the qualitative determination as a positive determi-
nation that borrows its positivity from excluding all negative determina-
tions. Which of these qualitative judgments are true has, in this case, to be
decided by empirical observation. (Since, by empirical observation it can
never be decided that a rose necessarily is red, the limitative qualitative
judgment is excluded).
The judgment “this rose is red” also has a quantitative form: the sub-
ject of the judgment concerns a specific rose. This quantitative form is
distinguished from the quantitative form of the judgment “all roses are
red” (generality) and the judgment “this rose is the only one that is red”
(the particular judgment in which the specific and general judgment are
taken together: in the midst of all roses that are not red, this particular
rose is red). Again, the truth of these judgments is dependent on empiri-
cal observations.
The modality of the form of judgment concerns the state of the copula.
The modality form of the judgment “this rose is red” is assertoric if it posi-
tively observed that the being-red is the case. The being red could have
been only a possibility (“this rose possibly is red”). Then, the modality of
the judgment form is problematic. Finally, the being red of the red could
be considered a necessary property of the rose (“this rose necessarily is
red”). In this case, Kant names the judgment apodictic. (Of course, the
discussed example is untrue: a rose may have another color.)
Kant purports to have listed all possible judgment forms in his table of
judgment forms. Each judgment must correspond to one of the forms from
34 chapter two

each list, namely quantity, quality, relation and modality. Subsequently, he

thinks that from the table of judgment forms the table of categories can
be deduced in a one to one relation. Finally, he wants to show that the
general structure of all knowledge can be conceived of as a connection of
the categories and the pure forms of time and space. In this context, the
specific elaboration is not relevant. I limit myself to discuss how Hegel
tries to give a response to the questions evoked by Kant’s project.

The Problems of Kant’s Project

It is true that the decisions that underlie the Critique of Pure Reason can
be understood from Kant’s attempt to develop answers to the problems
that Hume’s project evokes, but this does not prevent the fact that his
“solutions” bring new problems with them. Since Kant pretends to map
under which conditions true knowledge is possible, he overcomes Hume’s
pragmatic, skeptical position. Therefore, it is no longer sufficient to refer
to distinctions that are made in daily life and that appear to be functional
in a pragmatic sense. Kant has to found his entire project and each step
that is made in it. Foundation means: basing it on necessary argumenta-
tion. This indeed is Kant’s intention. After all, his project exists of con-
ceptualizing the internal unity and the boundaries of reason. His project
is already utilizing the reason it wants to think through all the time and,
therefore, can only be evaluated when it is considered in its entirety.
More specifically, this means that not only the whole of the Critique of
Pure Reason has to be investigated, but also its internal coherence with
both other Critiques, the Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of
Judgment. In this context, this cannot be done. But this does not mean
that still some criticism (maybe provisional) can be exercised on Kant’s
project as it appeared in the previous exposition. According to Hegel,
Kant’s approach is characteristic of the understanding: it consists of analy-
sis and synthesis. On the one hand, Kant makes many distinctions, on the
other hand he designs a model to bring these distinctions together. Again
and again the question can be raised of why exactly these distinctions are
made and no other ones, and why these distinctions cohere in the way
Kant has elaborated. If Kant is not able to found this in a forcing (i.e.,
a general, valid, necessary) argumentation, his project cannot be consid-
ered complete.
Kant distinguishes three faculties of cognition, intuition, judgment and
understanding. But why precisely distinguish these three ones? Is it not an
 overcoming cartesian dualism 35

option to distinguish more or less faculties? And how precisely the faculties
of cognition are related? How they relate to the transcendental subject?
Kant distinguishes knowledge that is relative to our faculties of cognition
from the thing in itself that is not knowable. Why speak about the thing
in itself if it is not knowable? How precisely relate time and space, as the
forms of intuition that constitute the synthetic product of appearance,
to time and space as the pure forms of intuition that as moments form
part of the image? Does the deduction of the categories from the forms
of judgment convince? Why do precisely twelve forms of judgment and
twelve categories exist? What is the mutual relation between the forms
of judgment and the categories? Why is knowledge structured according
to schemes in which the categories and the pure forms of intuition are
synthesized? How can we understand the fact that these schemes can
be related to appearances? In what way can the categories be the pure
concepts of understanding? If the understanding has knowledge of the
categories, must not the conclusion be that these categories are already
synthesized with the pure intuition form time, preceding to the synthesis
discussed by Kant?
No doubt, many other questions can be put to Kant. However, in the
next section I will make clear that especially the foregoing questions are
Hegel’s questions for Kant. At least, his reaction to Kant can be interpreted
as an attempt to find an answer for these questions.

Hegel’s Criticism of Kant’s Theoretical Reason

Hume’s distinction between ideas and impressions can be found again

in a certain way in the first relational form that Hegel thematizes in the
Phenomenology of Spirit, namely Sense Certainty, the first part of the Con-
sciousness chapter.22 Here, the consciousness of cognition is considered
a kind of tabula rasa related to a manifold of sensually, i.e., spatially-
temporally, given “things.” As with Hume and Kant, Hegel tries to con-
ceptualize an immediate relation of cognition in relation to immediately
given things. What is sensually given is made an immediate content by the
consciousness that is conceived of as tabula rasa and, therefore, the con-
sciousness that knows this content. This relational form sharply calls to
mind the manner in which Hume discusses the experience of impressions.

22 Hegel, PhS, pp. 58ff.

36 chapter two

As impressions, the given things are qualitatively determined. As Hume

thinks that the impressions are known as simple ideas, so consciousness
that is conceived of as tabula rasa knows the sensually given content as an
ideal content that is “deduced” from the sensually given content.
It seems that here Hegel falls back to a pre-Kantian position. After all,
Kant has already clarified the fact that there is no room for qualitative
determinedness in the immediate sensual relation: the quality overcomes
the immediacy of the relation because it is distinguished from other quali-
ties. Therefore, Kant concludes that the “thing” that is immediately given
has to be determined as “manifold.” Actually, however, Hegel radicalizes
Kant’s line of thought. According to Hegel, it is not only impossible to
determine quality in the immediate relation to something that is sensu-
ally given, but also to make distinctions about it. Therefore, Kant’s con-
ception of “manifold” is already too differentiated. The immediate relation
to something that is given means being-immediately-with-this-something
and does not mean anything else. Insofar as it is about a manifold of
immediately given sensual things, this manifold is already related to a
unity that makes it meaningful to speak about a manifold. The manifold
of sensual perceptions already presupposes the unity of the organism that
observes these perceptions throughout.
If, on the one hand, it is acknowledged that the manifold of sensu-
ally given things is only given for an organism and, on the other hand,
that consciousness that is conceived of as tabula rasa is in its immediate
relation to the sensual world immediately with a given thing, and, conse-
quently, is not able to distinguish a manifold, then the conclusion has to
be drawn that the relational form of the immediately sensual cognition is
characterized by a contradiction. From an internal perspective, this rela-
tion of cognition appears otherwise than from an observer’s perspective.
While, from an internal perspective, it seems meaningful to acknowledge
an immediate form of cognition (as tabula rasa consciousness immedi-
ately is with the given thing), from the observer’s perspective, this knowl-
edge is immediately undermined. After all, from the external perspective
it has to be observed that consciousness that is conceived of as tabula
rasa must also have a body, otherwise it is not able to relate to some-
thing sensually given. Principally, however, it is not immediately clear to
which sensually given thing the body is related. After all, this depends on
the time and place in which the body is situated. This implies that the
immediate cognitive relation of the tabula rasa is undermined. Cognition
falls apart into a manifold of possible immediate relations to a manifold
of given things. To which specific given thing the tabula rasa is related
 overcoming cartesian dualism 37

cannot be determined from the tabula rasa itself. After all, the tabula
rasa is not understood as a unity that can relate to a manifold of possible
things. The tabula rasa only has a unity insofar as it immediately coin-
cides with a given thing.
Arriving at this point, it can be sharply clarified how Hegel’s position
differs from the Kantian one. Kant acknowledges that the immediately
given sensual world has to be understood as a manifold (although he does
not discuss why this is the case—the body is not thematized). Therefore,
Kant has to solve the problem of how this manifold can be unified. After
all, no relation of cognition can be conceived of without cognition. Kant’s
and Hegel’s roads part ways when in answering the question of how this
unity must be brought into play. We have seen that Kant introduces three
forms of synthesis that, in the last resort, are dependent on the transcen-
dental subject’s act of synthesis. Hegel’s criticism of this is that the unity
introduced by Kant in the sensual world is the unity of the understanding,
i.e., a unity that is introduced from outside. Kant, by the way, would have
no problem in admitting this observation: after all, he acknowledges that
the introduced unity is our, subjective unity. As a result, the distinction
has to be made between the produced unity of the object of experience,
i.e., the object that is knowable, and the thing in itself. Hegel’s objection
is that it is not necessary at all to introduce a unity from outside. In a
certain sense, we already have this unity in hand as the unity of nature
itself, namely as the unity of the organism in relation to which it becomes
meaningful to speak about a manifold of given things.23
In all actuality, the program of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit follows
from this objection. The basic question is how the discrepancy of sensual
cognition, namely the discrepancy between the internal and the observer’s
perspective, could be overcome. This means that, starting from the imme-
diate relation of the internal perspective, i.e., the immediate relation of
the tabula rasa to a given thing, it has to develop how the observer’s per-
spective can be appropriated—namely, which steps have to be taken to
develop the cognition of the tabula rasa into the cognition that has insight
into its own presupposition, namely that it has a body. Then, it can be
understood that the unity of what is sensually known is not subjectively
introduced, but already belongs to the sensual world all along, namely to

23 “Einerseits sind Gefühlsbestimmungen die mit unseren Organen zusammenhängen,”

G.W.F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt/
M. 1971, p. 351.
38 chapter two

living nature. Then, the separation between the object of experience and
the thing in itself becomes superfluous.
The principle steps to accomplish the program just formulated are
taken in the first two chapters of the Phenomenology of Spirit. In the Con-
sciousness chapter, it is clarified that the tabula rasa, in its attempt to
know the sensual world as unity, is pushed back in itself. The unity that
it can know is only the unity that it itself has positioned. This explicates
the point of departure of the Phenomenology of Spirit. Considered from
the observer’s perspective, the tabula rasa is related to an independent
nature. However, this relation can only be conceptualized if nature can-
not only be conceived of in relation to the tabula rasa, but also indepen-
dent from it. This not only means that nature but also the tabula rasa
has to be conceived of as independent. The tabula rasa must be able to
determine itself apart from nature. As determining itself, the tabula rasa
is self-determination and, therefore, looks like the cogito, the formal self-
relation of the I that Descartes wanted to underlie all knowledge. How-
ever, there is an important difference. While Descartes had the opinion
that the I is a res cogitans, i.e., a substance, Hegel concludes that this can-
not be true. After all, the tabula rasa that is conceived of as self-relation
is the result of the attempt to understand nature’s independence. The self
of the tabula rasa results from the assumption of the self of nature. Both
selves presuppose one another. Actually, this result only explicates what
was already given throughout the initial relation. After all, we observed
that the tabula rasa also has a body because otherwise it cannot observe
sensual perceptions. At the same time, however, the tabula rasa is in no
way aware of this body, so that it must be assumed that it can determine
itself independent from the body.
Terminologically, Hegel refers to the tabula rasa that is conceptualized
as formal self-relation as self-consciousness.24 In the self-consciousness-
chapter it is elaborated under which conditions self-consciousness can be
conceived of in unity with an independent nature. Therefore, the problem
of the Cartesian substance-dualism has to be solved. After all, Descartes
also distinguished an independent self-consciousness (res cogitans) and
an independent nature (res extensa) as two substances. However, Spinoza
rightly argued that the introduction of a multitude of substances leads to

24 Hegel, PhS, pp. 102ff.

 overcoming cartesian dualism 39

a logical contradiction.25 If substances can only be determined as distinct

from one another (through distinct essential properties), then they are
dependent on one another and, consequently, are not the substance.
The Self-Consciousness chapter begins with the self-consciousness that
experiences the contradiction of substance-dualism. In contrast to con-
sciousness, self-consciousness is not looking for the unity of sensual nature.
As a formal self-relation self-consciousness satisfies itself. However, this
self-sufficiency is disturbed from outside. After all, self-consciousness also
has a body. The body is not self-sufficient, but needy. It can only repro-
duce itself as body by relating itself to the environmental nature and satis-
fying its needs. What, at the level of consciousness, appeared as the tabula
rasa that observes a sensual perception, at the level of self-consciousness,
appears as the self-consciousness that is aware of its needs, i.e., of its
relatedness to external nature as a nature that can satisfy its needs. The
awareness of needs breaks through the one-sided self-relatedness of self-
consciousness. In this consciousness it is as well related to itself as related
to something else. Thus, any self-sufficient notion of substance exclusive
of its relation to its own otherness is ruined by the awareness of needs.26
Self-consciousness can overcome its relatedness to otherness by sat-
isfying its needs. This, however, only offers a temporary solution. After
all, sooner or later the neediness will return. Therefore, it seems that the
contradiction can only be overcome if consciousness succeeds in losing
its body. But even this does not offer comfort. Because without a body
self-conscious is completely destroyed.
Hegel thinks that we can overcome this dilemma with the help of his
concept of the fear of death. Hegel’s thesis is that, in the fear of death,
self-consciousness can overcome the alien independence of nature. In the
fear of death, the body is forced back into itself.27 Because of this, self-
consciousness can recognize itself as the essence of its body. It recognizes

25 B. Spinoza, Ethica, Amsterdam 1979, p. 27: “Stelling 14 Buiten God kan geen andere
substantie bestaan noch worden gedacht” (Thesis 14 Outside God no other substance can
exist neither be conceived of ).
26 “Consciousness, as self-consciousness, henceforth has a double object: one is
the immediate object, that of sense-certainty and perception, which however for self-
consciousness has the character of a negative; and the second, viz. itself, which is the
true essence, and is present in the first instance only as opposed to the first object,” Hegel,
PhS, p. 105.
27 Speaking about the bondsman (who “has experienced the fear of death, the absolute
Lord”), Hegel remarks that it is: “as a consciousness forced back into itself,” Hegel, PhS,
p. 117.
40 chapter two

its own self-relation in the form of otherness. This internal experience by

which self-consciousness becomes the lord of its own body takes on objec-
tive shape in what Hegel names the lord/bondsman relation. This is pos-
sible if the power of death is represented by another self-consciousness.
Then, the first self-consciousness can recognize its own essence (to be
lord of its body) in the other self-consciousness. The self-consciousness
that recognizes in the other self-consciousness its being lord-of-the-body,
is the bondsman who serves his lord by laboring on nature in the name
of the lord.
With the help of the lord/bondman metaphor Hegel clarifies the fact
that self-consciousness can only be conceived of without contradiction in
relation to an independent nature if it participates in a social organism.
The bondsman who serves the lord is the corporeal self-consciousness who,
in his actions, does not intend to satisfy his corporeal needs, but rather
realizes the norms and values of a social organism. This social organism
is a “second” nature: a nature that, on the one hand, (as remaining insti-
tutional organism) has independence and, on the other hand, expresses
freedom. This freedom is symbolized by the lord. In serving the lord, the
bondsmen essentially serve their own freedom.
In the chapters following the Self-Consciousness chapter, Hegel elabo-
rates how the possible unity of self-consciousness and body, as it is repre-
sented in the lord/bondsman relation, is realized and how it, finally, can be
understood as the relation between absolute and objective spirit. As the
absolute spirit that realizes itself in human history (the objective spirit),
the unity of self-consciousness and nature has been conceptualized. In
the concept of absolute spirit, reality has been understood as a substance
that is at the same time a self.
If the systematic thinking through of consciousness’s relation to sen-
sual nature, via self-consciousness, via the lord/bondsman relation and
via the realization of the lord/bondsman relation in the relation between
absolute and objective spirit, results in a concept of reality in which the
internal unity of consciousness and sensual nature has been understood,
namely in the concept of substance, then, this can only mean that this
internal unity already existed throughout (albeit in an implicit mode).
Then the whole line of development is essentially an explication of the
internal structure of substance. In the next sections, I will elaborate how
in this line of development all Kantian categories are deduced. This time,
however, not as the pure concepts of understanding with whose help our
faculty of cognition structures nature, but as the structure of reality itself.
Before doing this, I first summarize how precisely the Hegelian program
 overcoming cartesian dualism 41

just sketched tries to formulate answers to the previous questions that are
posed to the Kantian project.
In contrast to Kant, Hegel does not distinguish between different facul-
ties of cognition (intuition, judgment and understanding) and the tran-
scendental subject. He starts from consciousness in its relation to sensual
nature and discusses step by step how consciousness develops. He con-
tends that all of these steps are necessary so that nothing is introduced
from outside. Moreover, Hegel does not make the distinction between
the phenomenal and the noumenal world. It is true that consciousness is
related to a (contingent) sensual reality, but this contingent world is con-
ceived of in itself. According to Hegel, the knowledge of contingent nature
is absolute and, therefore, cannot be distinguished from an unknowable
thing in itself. He does not distinguish between a phenomenal knowl-
edge that is mediated through sensual perceptions and absolute knowl-
edge that does not need this mediation. Nature is understood by Hegel
as self-consciousness in the form of being-otherness. Furthermore, in the
entirety of the development this form of being-otherness is adequately
conceptualized. This implies that the externality of nature (manifesting
itself in its forms of time and space) are sublated in absolute philosophi-
cal knowledge. The consequence of this staging is that self-consciousness
is not internally structured in accordance with the pure concepts of
understanding, i.e., the categories. Nor do these categories have to be
synthesized according to the schemes through which they are linked
with time and space. The categories are replaced through the forms that
(self-)consciousness passes through to reach its adequately conceptualized
unity with nature. In the Logic these forms are deduced in their internal
coherence and conceived of as the categorical structure of reality itself.

Hegel’s Deduction of the “Kantian” Categories

As do Hume and Kant (at the level of intuition), Hegel starts his discus-
sion of the relation of cognition with the immediate relation to sensu-
ally given things: namely, Sense Certainty. But, in contrast to them, Hegel
shows that it is methodically necessary to distinguish between an internal
and an external (observer’s) perspective. While Hume thinks that it is pos-
sible to conceptualize an immediate relation to a manifold of qualitatively
distinct impressions, Hegel shows that this approach utilizes internal and
external perspective unjustly. If Hume speaks about an immediate rela-
tion he must have in mind a consciousness that is conceived of as tabula
42 chapter two

rasa and is immediately open to impressions. But such an immediate rela-

tion neither has the meaning to distinguish a manifold of impressions, nor
to argue that these impressions are given in space and time. This mean-
ing can only be explicated if the internal perspective of the immediate
relation is distinguished from the observer’s perspective. Only from the
external perspective can it be observed that sensual data are perceived in
a qualitative manifold because they are relative to a body that has many
senses at its disposal. Only in relation to the body does it have the mean-
ing necessary to place the impressions in time and space: the body is
placed in time, not the tabula rasa.
Kant has understood that, in the immediate relation of intuition, it
makes no sense to speak about qualitatively distinct impressions. He
speaks, then, about the “manifold.” However, Kant is still not abstract
enough. He does not understand that speech about a manifold is, from
the immediate internal perspective, not possible. Only if the observer’s
perspective is in sight (i.e., the body with its many sensual perceptions)
does the manifold receive its meaning. From this observer’s perspective, it
is also clear that sense perceptions are in the form of time and space, i.e.,
are in the form of besides- and after-one-another. Kant, however, thinks
that he can introduce time and space as the pure and subjective forms
of intuition. Actually, what Kant names subjective is a first reflection
with regard to the immediate relation. However, this reflection is not sub-
jective, but follows from, as we will see, the objectivity of the external
perspective.
In Hegel’s view, Sense Certainty has the subjective certitude that it can
identify the sensually given immediately as something that is known.
Hegel expresses with this “subjective certitude” the immediacy of the
internal perspective: consciousness that is conceived of as the tabula rasa
which is immediately open to a sensually given thing. Considered from
the observer’s perspective, however, this immediate relation is connected
with a presupposition. Consciousness that is conceived of as tabula rasa
can only relate to a sensually given thing if it also has a body. The dialec-
tical development is initiated by the attempt to harmonize internal and
external perspectives.
Sense Certainty wants to identify what is immediately sensually given
in an act of cognition. However, as long as it is not considered for which
body something is immediately sensually given, this identification is
impossible. In principle, everything can be immediately sensually given.
Therefore, with regard to the object of Sense Certainty, it can only be said
that it is. To determine what this object is, it has to be distinguished from
 overcoming cartesian dualism 43

other objects that can be immediately sensually given. This distinguish-

ing, however, leads to an endless series: not this object, not that other one,
and also not the next one, etc. Therefore, a third step has to be taken: the
object has to be determined to be distinct from all other sensually given
objects. However, in this last step the scheme of Sense Certainty breaks
down. Obviously, it is not possible to identify the object in an immediate
relation. Therefore, the transition to Perception has to be made.
Before elaborating how this step can be taken, we must first observe
what the development of Sense Certainty has accomplished at categori-
cal level. It did not succeed in determining substance. But a number of
steps are taken on the way to this determination: the forms of relation
that must be passed through in order to provide an adequate determina-
tion of substance. The object is respectively determined as undetermined
immediate being, determined being and determined being in the midst
of many determinate beings. These determinations can be found again
in Hegel’s Logic of Being as Sein, Dasein and Fürsichsein. This gives the
Kantian categories of quality (Realität, Negation and Limitation) their sys-
tematic place.

Hegel’s Determination of the Categories of Quantity in Perception

The transition to Perception is performed through bringing into play the

implicit presupposition of Sense Certainty, the body. The object to which
the tabula rasa of Sense Certainty is related is not immediately given, but
relative to the body. In the first place, this means that this time the object
is fixed in time and space because it is related to a body positioned in
time and space. Secondly, it means that the sensually given object is this
time not immediately related to the tabula rasa, but to the many senses
that the body has at its disposal. Considered from the internal perspec-
tive, it means that the object is, on the one hand, observed as a manifold
of sense perceptions that do not exclude one another (in correspondence
with the many senses), but, on the other hand, do exclude the other sense
perceptions as specific sense perceptions: namely the sense perceptions
that cannot be understood as properties of the object. Considered from
the observer’s perspective, these points of view of Perception both corre-
spond, on the one hand, to the object that has many properties (that can
be perceived at the same time through different senses), and on the other
hand, to the object that as a specific object is distinguished from other
44 chapter two

objects: this status of being distinguished from other objects appears in

having specific properties distinct from the properties of other objects.
Perception’s problem is that it cannot bring together both points of
view. It has to understand these properties as properties that exclude as
well as include other properties. I already indicated that it is impossible to
qualitatively distinguish the impressions in the immediate relation of per-
ception in which Hume places them. However, Hume also assumes that
the impressions are represented in understanding as simple ideas. There-
fore, at the level of understanding, the immediacy in which the impres-
sions are perceived is broken down, so that it makes sense to maintain a
qualitative distinction between simple ideas. At this level, then, the prob-
lem of perception returns: on the basis of what criterion can the manifold
of simple ideas be synthetized into the unity of a thing?
According to Hume, the association principle of resemblance offers
a way out. He thinks that the way in which the simple ideas are taken
together to form complex ideas displays a resemblance to the way in which
the impressions are taken together in time and space. In the first resort,
Hume’s way out seems absurd. How can ideas that are not spatial-tem-
poral be similarly ordered as spatial-temporal impressions? What Hume
means becomes more understandable if one realizes that Hume does not
have in mind concepts but rather images. We can observe impressions of
a tree, but in our memory we are also able to retain the image of the tree.
The image is no longer dependent on impressions. In the image of the tree
some properties are taken together that form the image of the tree. How-
ever, this explanation does not solve the basic problem. Hegel has made
clear that at the level of the immediate perception (in Hume: the percep-
tion of impressions) all identification is impossible. This means that at
this level no criterion can be borrowed to make a synthesis at the level of
simple ideas to identify an image. As an illustration of the given example:
only if we already know the concept tree (because we speak a language
in which this concept tree occurs), can we synthesize some simple ideas
into the image of a tree. The fact that the impressions that provide simple
ideas with the help of which we can form the image tree occur always
together cannot be introduced as the explanation of the image tree. While
Kant, by speaking of “manifold,” already shows that at the level of impres-
sions quality cannot be identified, Hegel shows that even the notion of the
manifold itself has no meaning at this level.
But Kant’s solution is also unsatisfactory. As with Hume, Kant intro-
duces. at the level that I discussed above, a connection of qualitatively
 overcoming cartesian dualism 45

distinct properties as the second form of synthesis: the image (imagina-

tio) that judgment produces through bringing a manifold under a general-
ity, i.e., under the unity of an image. The scheme that in Kant underlies
the connection is not an association principle, but rather a categorical
scheme in which the categories are tied to time understood as the pure
form of intuition. However, Hegel makes clear that the connection at the
level of perception does not have to be understood in relation to time. The
general question that has to be solved is: is it also possible to perceive,
at the level of perception, i.e., the perception of properties, the unity of
these properties? Hegel answers that this has to be excluded: a response
can only be given if a perception can in one and the same point of view
include and exclude other perceptions as well.28 This is a logical contra-
diction.
If the relation of Perception is considered from the observer’s perspec-
tive, then we witness the corporeal consciousness as related to the many
properties of the thing. This consciousness is, on the one hand, character-
ized through what Hegel names the relation form of the Auch (Also), i.e.,
it perceives properties that include one another. (For instance, the salt is
white and also is crystalloid and has a salt taste).29 However, the presup-
position of this relation is the thing: the properties that consciousness per-
ceives are not properties in general, but rather as properties that belong
to the thing. Therefore, in this relation the thing has the position of the
Eins (One): the determinedness of the thing implies that certain proper-
ties are excluded. On the other hand, consciousness is also involved in
the relation that Hegel names the Eins (One): it perceives a property that
excludes other properties. Once again, the presupposition of this relation
is the thing. This time, however, it is not the thing in the position of the
Eins, but rather in the position of the Auch (Also), i.e., the thing that has
many properties at the same time. For the property that consciousness
perceives as excluding is only excluding because it is a property that spe-
cifically belongs to the salt. However, salt is only salt if it also has the other
properties that are characteristic for salt. So we observe that the relation
of the Auch presupposes the relation of the Eins and that, vice versa, the
relation of the Eins presupposes the relation of the Auch. At the same

28 Hegel states: “the differentiation of the properties, in so far as it is not an indifferent

differentiation but is exclusive, each property negating the others, thus falls outside of this
simple medium; and the medium, therefore, is not merely an Also, an indifferent unity, but
a One as well, a unity which excludes an other,” Hegel, PhS, p. 69.
29 As Hegel states: “it is white, also cubical, and also tart, and so on,” Hegel, PhS, p. 73.
46 chapter two

time, we know that the Eins and the Auch cannot be brought together in
a non-contradictory, harmonic relation. Considered from the observer’s
perspective, we see perception as the process in which the determinations
of the Eins and the Auch are continuously exchanged without succeed-
ing to fix this process by identifying it. I will discuss how, at the level of
Understanding, i.e., the third relation form of consciousness, the observer’s
perspective of Perception is made the internal perspective in an attempt
nevertheless to identify sensually given nature. Before exposing this devel-
opment, I first investigate how Hegel, at the level of Perception, deduces
the categories of quantity.
We have examined how Perception is determined through the problem-
atic of the Eins and the Auch. It is about two points of view that mutually
presuppose one another, but cannot be brought together. The Eins and
the Auch are related to the mutual inclusion and exclusion of properties.
However, what is the quality of these properties is not important: this
depends on the contingent thing whose properties are considered. There-
fore, the problematic of the Eins and the Auch is a purely quantitative one:
the problematic of unity and multiplicity. In this way, the two first catego-
ries of quantity appear (as categories that are the dialectical negation of
one another). Apart from that, these categories are taken together in the
Logic of Being as the logical concept of quantum. However, the category
of quantity, particularity, is still not in sight. Since the third category that
Kant discerns in each of the four domains is always the synthesis of the
first two, particularity should have to be understood as the dialectical syn-
thesis between the Eins and the Auch, i.e., between unity and multiplicity.
However, we already observed that the points of view of the Eins and the
Auch cannot be harmonized at the level of Perception. We will see that
the Hegelian version of the category particularity is developed at the level
of Understanding.

Hegel’s Determination of the Category “Particularity”

at the Level of Understanding

What does it mean to make the observer’s perspective of Perception the

internal perspective of the Understanding? First, it means that the exchange
of determinations (the Eins and the Auch) in the relation of the corpo-
real consciousness and the thing of many properties is made the object of
Understanding. However, how can this process be made an object? Has
something that has been made an object not always been a unity? Hegel
 overcoming cartesian dualism 47

thinks that we can solve this problem by appealing to modern physic’s

view of nature, especially Newton’s classical mechanics. I will illustrate
this view of nature with the example of gravitational force.
According to classical mechanics, gravitation is active between two
bodies that can be represented as point mass.30 Hegel describes the
mutual exercise of power through point masses as an “interplay of forces.”31
This interplay can be interpreted as an action between both masses. If I
start from mass 1 and fix it in space, then gravitation will attract mass 2
to mass 1. In this case, Hegel names mass 1 the force pushed back in itself
and mass 2 the force manifesting itself. But I can start from mass 2 as
well and fix it in space. Then mass 1 is attracted through mass 2. Now
mass 2 is the force pushed back in itself and mass 1 the force manifesting
itself. In this way, we see that the relation between both masses can be
described as an interplay of forces characterized as the ongoing exchange
of determinations. If I determine the one mass as the force pushed back
in itself, the other mass is the force that manifests itself. If, the other way
around, I determine the other mass as the force pushed back in itself, the
first mass is the force that manifests itself (or better: is the manifesta-
tion of the force exercised on the other mass). In this way, the relation of
Perception can be found again as a relation observed in nature, i.e., as an
“objective” exchange of determinations. However, this exchange still does
not make clear how the interplay of forces redefined as the exchange of
determinations can be identified as a unity. The exchange is still a pro-
cess, namely a process of mutual attraction. Classical mechanics, how-
ever, helps to identify this process. After all, it describes gravitation force
Fg active between both masses according to the form Fg=G∙(m1∙m2)/r2
(r indicating the distance between the masses and G being the constant
of gravitation).
If we consider the relational form of Understanding from the internal
perspective, then we still see a corporeal consciousness that observes sen-
sual perceptions. This time, however, sensual consciousness has passed
through a Copernican turn. Now, its sensual perceptions are mediated
through the law of gravitation. It observes experimental perceptions, i.e.,
quantitative perceptions that only have meaning within the framework of
the formula of a law. It determines the quantity of both masses and mea-
sures as the distance between them. On the basis of these perceptions,

30 A terminus technicus of classical mechanics.

31 Hegel, PhS, p. 84.
48 chapter two

it can determine its object, namely the gravitation force active between
both masses.
From the observer’s perspective, however, there is a problem. While,
from the internal perspective, the formula of the law is immediately given,
from the observer’s perspective, the question has to be raised as to where
this formula comes from. However, the formulation of the law does not
in any way seem to be sensually given. Nowhere can I deduce the law
from the visible interplay of forces. After all, the interplay of forces can
only be identified if the law formula is presupposed. Therefore, Hegel sets
up a closer investigation of the genesis of the law formula. With regard to
gravitational force, for example, it can be noticed that it manifests itself in
a movement described according to a law. Since this movement implies a
spatial-temporal change in the position of the mass, this means that the
law formula lays down a necessary connection between time and space.
Why, however, should there exist a necessary connection between time
and space? After all, these concepts cannot be deduced from one another.
Neither do they presuppose one another (as unity and multiplicity pre-
suppose one another in their dialectical relation of relative contradiction).
Therefore, Hegel draws the conclusion that the explanation of the classical
scientist has a tautological structure. Why does the stone fall? Because the
activity of gravitational force manifest itself in the stone falling. Why does
gravitation manifest itself ? Because I presuppose a connection between
space and time that is structured according to laws. Therefore, I explain
the fall of the stone with a self-made law. While the classical physicist can
be convinced of the accuracy of his observations guided by this law, the
presupposition of the form of the law itself needs to be explicated, namely,
that space and time are thus ordened.
The tautology of the explanation of Understanding does not concern
the specific law of nature (in this case, the law of gravitational force). The
validity of a specific law is a contingent matter that is dependent on exper-
imental observation. The tautology concerns rather the assumption that
nature has a law form at all. Consciousness can only identify nature as a
unity (namely in its law form), insofar as it has itself attributed this unity
to nature. This marks the completion of the development of conscious-
ness. After all, the development of consciousness started with the tabula
rasa’s attempt to conceptualize sensually given nature as a unity. Now it
has appeared that consciousness in this attempt has been pushed back
in itself. The presupposition of any attempt to identify nature appears as
the self-identification of the tabula rasa. At the level of Understanding, the
tabula rasa has found its identification in the unity that it itself is. This
 overcoming cartesian dualism 49

self-relation (reminiscent of the formal being-with-itself in Descartes) is

indicated by Hegel as the Ich=Ich,32 as the formal law form, as concept or
as pure self-consciousness. This makes explicit what, from the observer’s
perspective, was already clear at the level of Sense Certainty: the tabula
rasa exists alongside the body. Now it has appeared that the tabula rasa
must have the structure of the self to really exist alongside the body. So it
finally appears that the structure of the self succeeds in bringing together
the viewpoints of unity and multiplicity, of the Eins and the Auch, of
the force that is pushed back in itself and the force that manifests itself.
The structure of the self is the formal unity of unity and multiplicity; it
is the general tabula rasa that determines itself and returns to itself from
this determination. This exposition presents the development of Kant’s
third category of quantity, namely particularity.
If we compare Hegel’s discussion of classical mechanics with that of
Hume, we must conclude that Hume confuses the distinct levels of the
observation. His reasoning is as follows. If I let go of a body in the air,
then I perceive that it moves itself to earth (i.e., it falls), this perception is
a matter of fact. It could have been the case that the body remains floating
in the air, because both possibilities do not result in logical contradic-
tions. However, we have perceived many times that if we let go of a body
in the air, that it moves itself to the earth. Therefore, we conclude that
the falling of the body observes a law of nature. According to Hume, this
last conclusion is based on a misunderstanding. What we call a law of
nature is actually a connection according to association principle of cause
and effect. In reality, we perceive two states of things: a body that at time
point t1 has the position x1 and at time point t2 has the position x2. The
association principle connects both states of things by positing a causal
relation. However, this connection is no more than a belief based on cus-
toms. These customs make us psychologically expect that every time that
we let go of a body in the air, this body moves to the earth.
Hume’s confusion is, in the first place, that he thinks that classical sci-
ence should assume that the law of gravitation is not a matter of fact. But
for the scientist too it is not necessary the case that there exists a law of
nature that has the specific form of the law of gravitation. After all, the
gravitational law is based on (experimental) perception. Hume’s second

32 “I distinguish myself from myself, and in doing so I am directly aware that what is
distinguished from myself is not different [from me]. I, the selfsame being, repel myself
from myself; but what is posited as distinct from me, is immediately, in being so distin-
guished, not a distinction for me,” Hegel, PhS, p. 102.
50 chapter two

confusion consists of his opinion that the laws of nature connect two
concrete spatial-temporal events. However, the necessary relation of the
law of nature (its causal form) is a conceptual one. This kind of relation
cannot be explained through association principles that are the result of
customs. The only possible explanation is a logical one: do the connected
concepts internally (logically) cohere or do they not? Are cause and effect
dialectically related (is their relation a relative opposition, as the oppo-
sition between parents and children) or are they not? The third confu-
sion follows from an omission. Hume does not elaborate who applies the
association principle; there is no subject of the connection. Therefore, it
remains unclear at which level Hume criticizes modern science.
As with Hume, Kant also opposes a subjective connection to the objec-
tive connections which constitute a science. This subjective connection,
however, is performed by the subject at the level of concepts (categories
and pure forms of intuition), not (as in Hume) at the level of appearances
(the association principles which “copy” the structure observed between
impressions). Therefore, Hume is not able to develop the insight that the
objective ground for explaining the causal relation has to be looked for in
the necessary presuppositions of the possibility of science: the pure self-
determination of consciousness. This self-determination, however, still
has to be distinguished from causality.
Kant also ties the causal relation to events that take place after one
another. He asks the question of where this scheme, which could render
the “after one another” of events into a necessary relation, comes from.
In contrast to Hume, however, he does not conceive of this scheme as a
(psychological) association principle, but rather as a categorical scheme.
Since the categorical schemes structure the phenomenal world and not
the noumenal world, it is also valid for Kant that the causal structures are
“subjective” in the sense that they have to do with “our” structuring of the
world. (Although Hume, in contrast to Kant, remarks curiously enough
that the world in itself really is causally structured: however, we have
no (specified) knowledge of this causality).33 Subjectivity, however, has
another meaning than in Hume. After all, subjectivity is not related to psy-

33 “Here, then, a kind of pre-established harmony between the course of nature and
the succession of our ideas; and though the powers and forces, by which the former is
governed, be wholly unknown to us; yet our thoughts and conceptions have still, we find,
gone on in the same train with the other works of nature”. D. Hume, An Enquiry concerning
Human Understanding, Oxford University Press, 1975, pp. 54–5.
 overcoming cartesian dualism 51

chological schemes but to the a priori structures of the human cognition

faculties: it is about the connection between the category causality with
time as the pure form of intuition. Considered from Hegel’s analysis, the
categorical scheme has a status that is comparable to the one that Hegel
attributed to the specific law formula. As in Hegel, the subjective and for-
mal self-relation of consciousness (pure self-consciousness) is the condi-
tion under which the specific law can be conceived of at all, so too Kant
argues that each synthesis presupposes a transcendental subject. How-
ever, in his approach Kant is not able to provide an adequate analysis
of the given example, namely the law of gravitation. The transcendental
subject “accompanies” the synthesis.34 Therefore, Kant cannot under-
stand the logical synthesis of concepts in the law as a synthesis that is
performed by the transcendental subject and is in this sense not neces-
sary. On the contrary, he understands the synthesis between the concept
time and the concept space accomplished in the law of gravitation rather
as a necessary synthesis. After all, time and space are connected according
to a category, namely the category of causality. Therefore, it can no longer
be understood why the validity of the law of gravitation, as a specific law,
is mediated through experimental perception and has, therefore, a con-
tingent status. Moreover, Kant unjustly understands time and space as the
pure forms of intuition. Hegel has shown that time and space are concepts
in which nature is understood. In the law of gravitation time and space
function as concepts, not as the pure forms of intuition. The synthesis that
is performed is a conceptual one, not a synthesis between concept and
intuition. The last synthesis is only relevant at the level of the empirical
reality in which the law of gravitation appears.

Conclusion

We have discussed how Hume’s empiricism tries to overcome Cartesian

dualism. The relation between “mind” (res cogitans) and “nature” (res
extensa) appears in Hume as the relation between the association prin-
ciples (that connect the simple ideas) and impressions. Finally, the “mind”
connects the manifold of nature in the unity of complex ideas. However,
since the association principles are psychological schemes, the complex

34 “Das Ich denke, muss alle meine Vorstellungen begleiten können,” Kant, KdrV, B 132–3.
52 chapter two

ideas cannot be considered true. Therefore, Hume replaces Descartes’s

dualism by a position in which nature (res extensa) has the primacy and
the mind (res cogitians) loses its independence. The manifold of nature is
only overcome in appearance.
In Kant, the relation between mind (res cogitans) and nature (res
extensa) is, in the last resort, understood as the relation between the
transcendental subject and the thing in itself. Kant, in his turn, tries to
overcome Cartesian dualism through the act of synthesis performed by
the transcendental subject. Kant transforms, so to speak, the synthesis of
Hume’s association principle into a synthesis that is not dependent on
nature (Kant’s synthesis is “a priori”). Kant’s remarkable position, in which
the synthesis is independent of nature, but that nevertheless results in
knowledge of nature, follows from the double meaning that Kant attri-
butes to space and time. On the one hand, time and space are interpreted
as pure forms of the “mind” (i.e., as the pure forms of intuition), and on
the other hand, as the forms in which the manifold of nature appears
(analogous to time and space in Hume, who interprets them as the forms
of the impressions). Therefore, Kant does not succeed in overcoming dual-
ism. It returns in the impossibility to overcome the separation between
the object of experience and the thing in itself.
Hegel lays bare the Kantian ambiguity and concludes that the synthesis
has to be understood as the formal self-relation of the subject. This seems
to imply that in Hegel (at least, at the end of the Consciousness chapter
of the Phenomenology of Spirit) the Cartesian position has fully returned.
As the res cogitans the self-related formal subject has its independence
alongside the independence of nature. Not only the position of Habermas,
but also the position of Hegel seems to have Cartesian characteristics. This
conclusion, however, is too hasty. In no way does Hegel return to Des-
cartes, because he has, as does Kant, integrated the Copernican turn into
his position. The position that is developed at the end of the Conscious-
ness chapter is the result of a reflection on modern science. The formal,
self-related subject is understood as the condition under which nature
can be conceptualized as structured according to the laws of nature. The
formal subject represents the pure law form, the form in which knowledge
of nature is possible.
How precisely nature can be known when the form of the subject can
be identified with the form in which nature can be known still has to be
elaborated. This becomes only clear in the Self-Consciousness chapter of
the Phenomenology of Spirit that I will discuss in the next chapter. However,
 overcoming cartesian dualism 53

it is already clear that Habermas’s solution to this problem cannot be

maintained. After all, we observed that Habermas transformed the Kantian
categorical schemes into (historical) grammatical schemes that are
grounded in labor relations. Therefore, Habermas deduces the law form of
nature from practical (labor-)relations to nature. This implies backsliding
behind the Copernican turn. Habermas is not able to clarify why nature
is necessarily structured according to the laws of nature.
 chapter three

Self-Consciousness:
the practical foundation of theoretical reason

Introduction

In chapter 2, I discussed how Hegel develops the subject/nature relation,

that the subject’s relation to nature can only be conceptualized if the sub-
ject has an independent position in relation to nature. Therefore, the sub-
ject’s relation to nature is transformed into a self-relation—consciousness
becomes self-consciousness. This self-relatedness of the subject is not only
reminiscent of Descartes’s res cogitans, but also of Habermas’s separation
between truth and objectivity. The affinity between Hegel and Habermas
only seems to become more intensive at the level of self-consciousness.
Hegel argues that self-consciousness has to be conceived of in relation to
another self-consciousness, i.e., as a relation of recognition. This seems
to correspond to Habermas’s theory of communicative action in which the
intersubjective relation between subjects is central. However, this affinity
is deceptive. In the separation between the paradigm of theory of commu-
nicative action (in which the subject/subject relation is central) and the
paradigm of the philosophy of consciousness (in which the subject/object
relation, i.e. the relation to nature, is central), Habermas continues the
separation between truth and objectivity. On the contrary, Hegel tries,
at the level of self-consciousness, to overcome the separation between
truth (with respect to freedom) and objectivity. Referring to Habermas’s
distinction between two paradigms, it could be maintained that Hegel’s
version of the paradigm of communicative action (i.e., recognition) can be
considered the dialectical sublation of his version of the paradigm of the
philosophy of consciousness (i.e., consciousness). Therefore, truth (with
respect to freedom) and objectivity (nature) do not remain separated, but
appear to be internally connected. We will still see that the concepts of life
and fear of death play a central role in this internal relation.
According to Habermas, the dialectical relation between truth and
objectivity will lead to the sublation of intersubjectivity. The full develop-
ment of this relation results in the “monological” self-relation of absolute
spirit. I will argue that this criticism is unjustified. Moreover, I will discuss
 self-consciousness 55

how Hegel gives a response to a question that Habermas does not even
raise: how can we understand that nature itself has the structure of a
law? Although Habermas seems to assume this law structure, he does not
ground this assumption. Hegel explains that the law structure of nature
can be conceived of as an abstraction of the relation of recognition.

The Program of the Self-Consciousness Chapter

We have discussed how Kant and Hegel set up a closer inquiry into
Hume’s attempt to sharply distinguish ideas from impressions. Hegel con-
cluded that Hume had insufficiently reflected on this distinction. It is tied
to presuppositions that Hume does not involve in his investigation. On
the one hand, impressions have no meaning if they are not understood in
relation to the body, and on the other hand, ideas and impressions can-
not be distinguished if the independence of the domain of the ideas is
not justified. We have discussed how Hegel develops this independence
as the formal self-relation of consciousness, i.e., as the formal self or
self-consciousness.
For Hume, the sharp distinction between ideas and impressions under-
lies the conclusion that knowledge of the necessary laws of nature is not
possible for human beings. The point of departure is the manifold of
impressions. In the last resort, ideas are only representations of impres-
sions. Therefore, each attempt to distinguish at the level of ideas a neces-
sary relation has to fail. The alleged relations only have a psychological
state. Also for Hegel it is not clarified at all, at the level of consciousness,
that we have a possible insight into the necessary laws of nature. He has
only proved that if we can meaningfully speak about the laws of nature,
we must necessarily presuppose formal self-consciousness. But we do not
even know whether the concept of self-consciousness is tenable. Hegel’s
concept of self-consciousness seems to resemble Descartes’s concept of
the res cogitans. However, an important proviso has to be made. For Hegel
self-consciousness is not a substance. The pure self that Hegel has deduced
is a self that is distinguished from its body. Not only the formal self but
also its body seems to have independence. However, also the body (in its
relation to its natural environment) is not understood as a substance by
Hegel. Hegel has taken Spinoza’s criticism of Descartes, namely that sub-
stance cannot be conceived of in a manifold sense without contradiction,
completely seriously. Therefore, the program of the Self-Consciousness
chapter will consist of the investigation of whether the formal self can
56 chapter three

be conceived as a unity with the body without contradiction.1 We will

see that this program, in a certain sense, repeats the program of the Con-
sciousness chapter. However, this time the point of departure is not the
consciousness that is conceived of as the tabula rasa in its immediate rela-
tion to nature, but rather the self-consciousness in its mediated relation to
nature. We will see that the next development shows that the theoretical
relations of consciousness are already founded throughout in the practical
relational forms of self-consciousness. Moreover, we will see that at this
level a systematical development can again be found in Hegel’s version of
the categories of relation.

Desire as the Reflective Repetition of Sense Certainty

The development of consciousness resulted in the form of relation that

is the point of departure of self-consciousness. The tabula rasa which
is related to the sensually given nature was developed into the formal
self (self-consciousness) which is related to nature as life. Both terms of
the relation have passed through a reflection-in-itself and are now related
to one another as the “self ”: the self of self-consciousness and the self
of life.
If we consider this relation from the internal perspective, self-conscious-
ness is immediately related to itself. This formal self-relation is indiffer-
ent to its relation to nature. Nature is unimportant, inessential. However,
from the external perspective, we must observe that the formal self also
has a body. As this body, self-consciousness is related to nature outside
the body, to nature that is at this level determined as the other life. The
relation to the other life is purely practical. The origin of this relation is
the body’s neediness. The body is related to the other life insofar as this
other life potentially can satisfy its needs.
If the internal perspective is confronted with the external perspec-
tive, the subjective certitude of the internal perspective gets ruined. Self-
consciousness translates the experience of the body’s neediness into its
being externally determined. Therefore, self-consciousness can no longer

1 Terry Pinkard states: “Dialectic has to do with the relations between subjects and
objects, that is, with the status of subjectivity in a natural world; this is Hegel’s metaphys-
ics of agency,” Terry Pinkard, “Recognition, the Right, and the Good,” in Hans-Christoph
Schmidt am Busch and Christopher F. Zurn, The Philosophy of Recognition, Lexington
Books, Plymouth 2010, p. 132.
 self-consciousness 57

maintain its identity as self-relation. It is true that the body can sat-
isfy its needs (by killing the alien life and eating it), but sooner or later
the neediness returns. In this manner, we see that the relation of Sense
Certainty is repeated in reverse. Sense Certainty looked for its identity in
the immediately given manifold of things but is, in its immediate rela-
tion, not able to identify the specific something amidst the many ones.
At the level of Desire, consciousness already has an identity throughout.
However, it is not able to maintain this identity amidst the many deter-
minations of its needs. The sense perceptions that, at the level of Sense
Certainty, can only be thematized as “theoretical” (“observing”) determi-
nations, now appear to be founded in the practical relation of Desire. The
theoretical relation to the object appears to be an abstraction of the prac-
tical relation to the object of Desire.

The Struggle for Life and Death as the Reflective Repetition of Perception

Hegel tried to overcome the contradiction (between form and content) at

the level of Sense Certainty by internalizing the observer’s perspective at
the level of Perception. He repeats this methodological movement in the
transition from Desire into the struggle for life and death. From the observ-
er’s perspective, it was clear that at the level of Desire self-consciousness
and the body exist beside one another. This means that it now must
become clear that, also from the internal perspective, self-consciousness
and the body exist besides one another. Therefore, self-consciousness, at
the level following the level of Desire, must relate to a body that is also a
self-consciousness.2 Because the first self-consciousness also has a body,
this new relational form is characterized through a symmetrical relation
between self-consciousnesses that also has a body. Considered from the
internal perspective, at first sight nothing seems to have changed. The
pure self is by means of its body related to the other body and tries to kill
it in order to satisfy his needs. However, because this other body is also a

2 Therefore, I can agree with Michael Quante’s programmatic statement: “the subse-
quent course of Hegel’s analysis must show how A and B can proceed from an entan-
glement of their respective I-intentions to an explicit formulation of a We-intention in
which the prepositional basic structure Hegel has identified becomes thematic for the
involved agents themselves,” Michael Quante, “The Relation of Recognition in Hegel’s Phe-
nomenology of Spirit,” in Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch and Christopher F. Zurn, The
Philosophy of Recognition, Lexington Books, Plymouth 2010, p. 99. However, I think that
the elaboration of this program takes the entirety of what follows in the Phenomenology
of Spirit to be brought about.
58 chapter three

pure self, it is in a symmetrical relation to the first self and is, by means of
its body, related to the body of the first body. The second self then tries to
kill the other body in order to satisfy its needs. Therefore, the relatedness
to the other body is doubled. The attempt to kill the other life is at the
same time a movement in which one’s own life is staked. Therefore, Hegel
can describe this new relation as the life-and-death struggle for recogni-
tion. At this point, we should notice that the recognition that is strived
after here can in no way concern mutual recognition. It still is about the
pure self that in relation to nature wants to realize itself as pure self and,
in this sense, wants to be “recognized” as self.3,4
As in the level of Perception, the relation between the corporeal con-
sciousness and the thing of many properties can be described as the
exchange of the determinations Eins and Auch, so also the relation
between two corporeal selves in their struggle for life and death can be
described as the exchange of determinations. Considered from the view
point of the first corporeal self this corporeal self is the pure self (com-
pare to Eins) determining itself in relation to the alien life as a manifold
of needs (compare to Auch). Considered from the point of view of the
second corporeal self the relation is reversed: the second self is the pure
self (Eins) that determines itself in relation to the body of the first self as
a manifold of needs (Auch). Therefore, in the entire process of the struggle
for life and death there is an ongoing exchange between the determina-
tion as Eins and as Auch.
As long as the struggle is continued Eins and Auch cannot be brought
together, i.e., the unity of self-consciousness with its body cannot be con-
ceived without contradiction. The victory of one of the parties will not

3 Frederick Neuhouser states: “A crucial lesson that desire’s experience has taught us
is that true self-sufficiency for a subject—self-sufficiency that affords full and stable sat-
isfaction—does not consist in absolute independence from everything other but involves
instead dependence on other (numerically distinct) subjects that one also recognizes as
in some sense oneself.” Neuhouser, “Desire, Recognition, and Lord and Bondsman,” in
Kenneth R. Westphal (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Oxford,
2009, p. 46. However, it is not desire, but rather the “fear of death” that will teach us that the
subject must give up his purely negative relation to others (resulting in the lord/bondsman
relation).
4 Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer rightly states: “Der Kampf um Anerkennung ist damit
ein Kampf zwischen freiem Wollen und unfreier Begierde. Er stellt sich als Kampf um
Anerkennung der Idee des Menschseins durch das reale Tun dar. Es geht zunächst noch
nicht um die Anerkennung anderer Personen, zumal ganz unklar ist, was es eigentlich
bedeuten soll, dass eine Person mit einer anderen um Anerkennung kämpft, und das auch
noch auf Leben und Tod” Stekeler-Weithofer, “Subjektive Seele und intersubjektive Geist
bei Hegel,” Hegel-Jahrbuch, 2010, p. 15.
 self-consciousness 59

contribute to a solution. After all, the victory implies the death of the
adversary, so that self-consciousness falls back into the preceding rela-
tion of Desire.5 Then, the transition to the struggle for life and death has
to be made again resulting in the struggle with another corporeal self.
This leads to an endless cycle in which the adequate determination of the
unity of self-consciousness and its body never succeeds.6

Self-Consciousness as the Unity of Mind and Body

We discussed how the contradiction of Perception was sublated in Under-

standing by internalizing the observer’s perspective. At the level of Under-
standing, it became possible to get insight into the process of the exchange
of determinations as such. In this transition Hegel joins the Copernican
turn with regard to the view of nature. The immediate relation to nature
of Sense Certainty and Perception is left and exchanged for a mediated
relation. Nature is considered as the conceptual essence of nature. In the
transition from the second (the struggle for life and death) to the third
stage of self-consciousness, a comparable movement is accomplished.
For the time being, I will characterize this stage as the stage of the social
organism and later indicate how it is tied to the problematic that Hegel
discusses under the title lord/bondsman relation.
Analogous to the question of whether the exchange of determinations
can be conceived of as a process of nature itself (what appeared to be the
case, namely as an interplay of natural forces), the question can now be
raised whether the exchange of determinations in the struggle of life and
death can be conceived of as a process of living nature. Also this time
the answer is positive, namely as the (biological) species relation of living
nature. In the first resort, the species relation does not seem to imply a
huge change in comparison with the struggle for life and death. In the rela-
tion between man and woman, a continuous exchange of the perspectives

5 Hegel states: “Their act is an abstract negation, not the negation coming from con-
sciousness, which supersedes in such a way as to preserve and maintain what is super-
seded, and consequently survives its own supersession,” Hegel, PhS, pp. 114–5.
6 Georg W. Bertram is right when he concludes that recognition cannot be the result
of a struggle that is situated in a “state of nature”: “Hegel zieht aus der Unmöglichkeit,
Anerkennung auf der Basis eines Naturzustands des Kampfes zu explizieren, den Schluss,
dass Anerkennung allein im Rahmen gesellschaftlicher Verhältnisse verstanden werden
kann,” Bertram, “Hegel und die Frage der Intersubjektivität. Die Phänomenologie des
Geistes als Explikation der sozialen Strukturen der Rationalität,” Deutsche Zeitschrift für
Philosophie, 56 (Berlin 2008), pp. 877–898; p. 880.
60 chapter three

of the Eins and the Auch takes place. Considered from the internal per-
spective, man and woman are, on the one hand, the self-consciousness
that the other excludes. But, on the other hand, they are also related to
one another through their bodies. In this relation they are the Auch, the
relation in which again and again the needs have to be satisfied. As in the
struggle for life and death, man and woman make one another in this rela-
tion the object of the satisfaction of needs. The satisfaction of the sexual
needs does not result in the death of the other. But once again, it is valid
that the satisfaction is only temporal. The relation to the other has to be
looked for again and again to satisfy the newly generated needs. There-
fore, as in the satisfaction of needs in which the other is utilized for food,
the satisfaction of sexual needs is also part of a cycle that is endlessly
repeated.
However, the distinction just noted between the struggle for life and
death and the sexual species relation can be put into perspective. Finally,
biological beings will die, so also in the relation of sexual needs satisfac-
tion cannot be accomplished by the same individuals. Once again it is true
that the process of needs satisfaction is endlessly repeated but always with
other individuals. The consequence seems to be that we must conclude
that at the level of needs satisfaction the unity of the process of life, or
better, the unity of self-consciousness and body, still remains something
purely external. The unity of the process of life and, consequently, the
unity of the points of view of the Eins and the Auch, only seems to exist
for an observer’s perspective in which the unity of the process as such
is visible.7 For example, that the cycle of sexual needs satisfaction must
repeat itself within one and the same species, because it is always related
to individuals that belong to this species, is not clear for the individuals of
the species themselves (after all they die). It is only clear for the observer’s
perspective that can identify the individuals that belong to the species.
The conclusion, however, that the unity of the species fully remains
external to the species is overhasty. In a practical sense, the unity of the
species is expressed in the reproduction process as the result of sexual
needs satisfaction. In reproduction it is practically explicated that each
individual is a species being. In the individual, as offspring, the species
relation is objectively expressed. The new individual is the practical
expression of the unity of the Eins and the Auch: on the one hand, it is a

7 Hegel states: “on the contrary, in this result, Life points to something other than itself,
viz. to consciousness, for which Life exists as this unity, or as genus,” Hegel, PhS, p. 109.
 self-consciousness 61

new self-consciousness, and on the other hand, this new self-conscious-

ness only exists as the result of sexual needs satisfaction.
As long as the reproduction process of the species is only practically
performed, it is indifferent to the internal perspective whether the corpo-
real self-consciousness is part of a cycle of the struggle for life and death
or is part of the cycle of the sexual reproduction process. The distinction
only becomes important if the practical reproduction can also be known
from the internal perspective. This raises the question of under which
conditions this knowledge is possible. To answer this question we have to
go into the nature of the biological reproduction process.
The sexual reproduction of the species is embedded in the action
framework of sexual individuals. This action framework responds to the
instinctual laws that the sexual individuals have to observe if they want to
produce offspring. Therefore, knowledge of the practical reproduction of
the species, presupposes knowledge of these instinctual laws. At the level
of consciousness, we already saw under which conditions knowledge of
the law of nature (at this level, lifeless nature) is possible. It must be pos-
sible to understand the law of nature as the expression of a supra-sensual
essence: the concept of the law. Under which conditions, however, can
it be understood that the corporeal self-consciousness has insight into
the law of nature according to which it accomplishes its reproduction
process? In response to this question, Hegel appeals to Aristotle.

Self-Conscious Life: Aristotle’s Animal Rationale

Aristotle defines the human being as animal rationale, i.e. as the self-
conscious animal. While the animal species reproduces itself according
to the law of instinct, i.e. according to laws that are naturally given, the
human being is an animal that is able to generate the laws of its reproduc-
tive process itself. In this sense, the human being is autonomous. Humans
are beings that are not dependent on the immediately given nature; the
human being creates a second nature, a social organism (in Aristotle’s
idiom, the state) in which its autonomous laws are expressed. Human
beings can relate to their species because they have objectified their spe-
cies in a social organism. More precisely, this relation enables him to give
the reproduction of the species the form of freedom. They can autono-
mously determine to which laws the social organism is subjected. There-
fore, the human species can pass through a historical development: the
laws of the social organism are not fixed once and for all.
62 chapter three

Insofar as the human species is understood as a species that reproduces

itself according to laws that are autonomously defined, the unity of the
species is not externally determined. After all, the species now has unity
insofar as the reproduction law that expresses this unity is known. How-
ever, this does not allow the conclusion that the species is fully internally
determined. It is true that the autonomous (human) law that underlies
the social organism only exists insofar as it is realized in and through the
self-conscious actions of the citizens who belong to the social organism
(implying that the law that underlies the unity of the social organism is
known to them), but this does not clarify where the content of the law
comes from. For Aristotle, this content is traditionally given, i.e. the con-
tent remains external to the autonomous self that realizes the law. Only if
the content of the law can not only be understood as the self-realization
of the citizens with regard to its form, but also with regard to its content,
has the unity of the social organism overcome all externality.
If the social organism can be conceived of in a way that all citizens
actually have the self-consciousness realization that the ruling human law
is only a traditional law and that they have the freedom to determine the
content of the law themselves (we still will see that Hegel connects this
insight with the era of the French Revolution), then it is clear the each
human law only exists in a contingent state. It does not borrow its unity
from a real social organism but from the free citizen who is prepared to
accept the law as an expression of his freedom. Its identity does not objec-
tively exist because it is realized in the actions of the citizens but rather
refers to the self-consciousness of the citizens that underlies the law, to an
“I” that the generality of the law (the social organism as Eins) and the par-
ticularity of the many actions in which it is expressed (the social organism
as Auch) accomplishes.
Now we can describe the social organism as an interplay of forces that
is again characterized through the exchange of the determinations Eins
and Auch. The citizen is Eins (as general self ) and Auch (as the self that
manifests itself in many actions). The same is valid for the social organ-
ism: this is Eins (as the generality of the law) and Auch (as the realiza-
tion of the law in many actions). In the relation between citizens and
social organism these determinations are exchanged. The social organism
is, so to say, the thing of many properties that is practically realized as
the organism of the many actions. The citizen who knows that he is part
of the interplay of forces between self-consciousness and social organism
knows at the same time that he, as pure self, is distinguished from this
 self-consciousness 63

interplay of forces and that the ruling law of the social organism is a con-
tingent expression of his self-realization: as the pure self he knows himself
as the pure unity of the Eins and the Auch.
The interplay of forces between the citizens and the social organism
that has become aware of itself, i.e. the developed version of self-con-
scious life, can be understood, considered from the observer’s perspec-
tive, as the “life” to which the Ich=Ich (the result of the Consciousness
chapter) is related. In this form of “life,” the contradiction in the relation
between Ich=Ich and life (implying that, in this relation, life has to be
taken as independent and dependent as well) has been overcome. Now
the Ich=Ich is able to end its negative relation to the other (to life). After
all, now Ich=Ich, in its relation to life, is not related to an external inde-
pendence but rather to its own essence in the form of otherness. The life
to which it is related has become aware of itself as the pure self that is
the essence of life, i.e., the essence of the social organism. Therefore, the
Ich=Ich is related to an object that objectively expresses what, considered
from the internal perspective, the Ich=Ich already was all along: the pure
self that has distinguished itself from life. This must offer Ich=Ich the pos-
sibility to develop self-insight.
The foregoing exposition has mapped under which conditions the con-
tradiction of Consciousness can be solved. Ich=Ich, understood as the tran-
scendental subject, as the pure subject that underlies the contingent laws
of nature that theoretical reason can discover in nature, presupposes a
“noumenal I” that has to be understood as the pure self that underlies the
contingent social laws in which the pure self tries to express itself. The
relation of theoretical reason is an abstraction of a relation of practical
reason. At the level of practical reason, the pure self practically realizes
itself by producing a (contingent) social organism. The social organism
presupposes a known human law that can be realized in and through the
actions of the “noumenal subject.” This realization is only possible if, in
one way or another, the known human law has internalized knowledge of
the nature in which it is realized. This knowledge is conditional since it is
dependent on a contingent social organism. This conditional knowledge
can only be expressed as such by the theoretical reason.
However, the possibility that is offered here to solve the contradiction
of consciousness is tied to a presupposition that until now has not been
made visible: the Ich=Ich must be able to recognize itself in the pure self
that is aware that it underlies the social organism. This pure self, however,
is at the same time the self that is not only pure but is also trying to realize
64 chapter three

itself in the contingent human law expressed in the social organism. Here
the problem of self-consciousness returns. How can the Ich=Ich which,
considered from the internal perspective could only have a negative rela-
tion to otherness, recognize itself in the pure self that has overcome this
negative relation and rather thinks itself able to realize itself in the other-
ness-of-itself ? In the next section, we will discuss how Hegel tries to solve
this problem with his conception of the fear of death.

Hegel’s Conception of the Fear of Death

At the level of Understanding, we were confronted with the problem that

the unity between the Eins and the Auch accomplished by the “transcen-
dental subject” remained external to nature (the unity appeared to be
only a subjectively accomplished unity). We have investigated whether
we can conceive of this unity as the unity of nature itself. The response
to this question was: yes, this is possible if nature is conceptualized as
the living species. Subsequently, we expanded this line of thought to the
level of the self-conscious species, the pure self who gives shape to his
species life in the contingent law (of a social organism). This last turn
evoked a problem: on which grounds can I assume that nature lends itself
to imposing a human law? In which sense is nature internally tied to free
self-determination? Is it possible at all to determine a human law that can
be actually realized in actions? This question concerns the problem of
the internal coherence between freedom and nature (the problem that is
thematized by Kant at the level of the Critique of Judgment). Hegel thinks
that he can clarify this coherence with his conception of the fear of death.
We will see that his conception of the fear of death, as the mediating link
between freedom and nature, is the central category of the entire Phenom-
enology of Spirit.8

8 Therefore, I disagree with Robert Pippin when he states: “But there is little indica-
tion that Hegel thinks of himself as trying to provide a general theory of the conditions of
human freedom here. For one thing, he introduces the risk of life issue only to quickly ‘sub-
late’ its significance,” Robert Pippin, Hegel’s Idealism: The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness,
Cambridge 1989, p. 161. It is simply not true that, according to Hegel, “the significance of
human labor, the active transformation of the objective world (a transformation that, with
its success, promises some sort of mediated subject-object identity), is initially merely the
avoidance of death (the modern, secular Lord),” Pippin 1989, p. 162. The bondsman’s labor
is in the service of the lord, who for the bondsman, represents his free essence. The labor
of the bondsman is the most elementary realization of freedom.
 self-consciousness 65

First, the conception of the fear of death makes clear that the unity
of the pure self is not external to the nature to which this pure self is
tied: the body. In the fear of death it is “experienced” that the unity of
the pure self is the conceptual essence of the body’s unity. The basic
thought is that the relation of the interplay of forces that we at first met
at the level of Understanding has to be reduced finally to the interplay of
forces that takes place at a higher level: the interplay of forces between
the self-conscious body and the earth. We discussed how Understanding
analyzed nature as an interplay of forces, i.e. as a relation between forces
of nature in which the forces continuously exchanged their determina-
tions. The force pushed back in itself (the force as Eins) transforms in the
force manifesting itself (the force as Auch), because it is related to a force
that passes through the reversed movement: from manifesting itself into
being pushed back in itself. In the development of the Understanding, it
became clear that the unity of this interplay of forces (the law form) can
only be conceptualized at the level of the Understanding, namely as the
concept of law. Subsequently, it was clarified that the unity of the law (of
nature) is not grounded in nature but rather in the “I” (Ich=Ich). Also here,
the relation between freedom and nature already plays its role. How can
it be understood that the “I” (that as Ich=Ich is an independent, “free” I) is
able to subject nature to the unity of the law of nature? What implies this
possibility for nature itself? How is it possible at all that some hypotheses
underwriting a law can be transformed into true knowledge mediated by
experimental testing? Hegel argues that we have to understand the inter-
play of forces of lifeless nature as an abstraction of the interplay of forces
between the self-conscious body and earth. Since we can understand the
internal unity of nature and freedom if we focus on the last interplay of
forces (to understand this unity the conception of the fear of death is elab-
orated), we can, thanks to this understanding, also develop insight into
the unity between freedom and nature at the level of the first interplay of
forces (the interplay of forces of nature).
The relation between an organism and the earth can indeed be ana-
lyzed in terms of the interplay of forces. The organism is a unity towards
which forces from outside (the earth) are active (the organism is needy)
and threaten its unity. The organism reacts by satisfying its needs so that
the process can repeat (until the organism dies). In this process between
organism and earth, mediated through needs and needs satisfaction, both
can be described as forces that exchange their determinations (the force
pushed back in itself (Eins) and the force manifesting itself (Auch)). How-
ever, this process is suspended at the moment of the fear of death.
66 chapter three

Hegel characterizes the organism in the fear of death as the force

pushed back into itself.9 However, this time it does not concern the force
pushed back into itself as a moment in the interplay of forces. For, in
case of the fear of death, the earth appears as the power of death, i.e., the
“absolute lord.”10 At the moment of the fear of death the absolute power of
the earth is felt throughout the organisim: the interplay of forces is inter-
rupted because the absolute power of the earth does not allow any more
reaction. The attempt of the organism to maintain itself in the process of
life is suspended: the organism immediately is pushed back into itself. In
this position, the organism in the fear of death is the organism that feels
through itself as the force pushed back into itself. It had the drive to prac-
tically manifest itself (in order to satisfy its needs) but this manifestation
is immediately pushed back into itself through the absolute power of the
earth. Towards the absolute power of the earth it feels the finitude of its
existence. In this sense, the fear of death is the experienced awareness of
finitude, the feeling through of the possibility of dying. In the being-in-
itself of this feeling the unity of the interplay of forces, the unity of the
Eins and the Auch, is also felt through. In the fear of death of the natural
organism nature experiences its own unity, the fear of death is the feeling
through of life as life (the experience of life in its determinedness as such,
in its negativity as such).
The experience of the fear of death gets an extra dimension if it concerns
an organism that is also self-conscious. We discussed the logical genesis
of the pure self. The pure self appeared to be the source of the unity of
the interplay of forces, the source of the unity of the Eins and the Auch.
The pure self appeared to be the “I” that was pushed back in itself when
it tried to identify itself in nature. The unity that it observed appeared to
be the unity that it had projected itself. This led to the problem of how
the pure self could nevertheless be conceptualized in unity with its body.
The experience of the fear of death of the self-conscious organism gives us
a response to this problem. If the organism of a self-conscious organism
experiences the fear of death, i.e., if it has the experience that was just ana-
lyzed as the fear of death, then the pure self can recognize the pure-being-
at-itself, i.e., the pure unity of the Eins and the Auch, as the pure form of
being-in-itself that is experienced in the fear of death. Here, the pure self

9 In the fear of death, the self-conscious organism (later on we will see why this it indi-
cated as the bondsman) is “a consciousness forced back into itself,” Hegel, PhS, p. 117.
10 Hegel states: “for it [i.e., the self-conscious organism, the bondsman, P.C.] has experi-
enced the fear of death, the absolute Lord,” Hegel, PhS, p. 117.
 self-consciousness 67

appears as a transcendental openness: the pure law form of the pure self
is not a form besides nature, i.e., a form that is imposed on nature (as it is
the case in Kant’s “transcendental subject”), but is the structure of nature
itself conceptualized as such.11 The unity of the Eins and Auch that practi-
cally appears in the process of life is in the pure self conceived as such,
i.e., in its own nature. The Eins and the Auch are internally related. In the
process of life they are continuously transformed in one another. In this
being-transformed-into-one-another their dialectical relation is expressed
(the Eins and the Auch are in a relative contradiction). This dialectical
relation is, in its internal unity, conceived as such by the pure self. In the
fear of death, the pure self is in the other as other (i.e., in its own nature of
the body in the fear of death) in itself. Therefore, the fundamental struc-
tures of cognition are no a priori structures in the Kantian sense, i.e., not
categorical schemes.
For the time being however, the unity between concept and nature can
only be conceived from the observer’s perspective. The superior power of
nature (the absolute, “divine” power) appears in a contingent form. This
contingent form becomes the “image” of its own essence: in the image of
the absolute power the pure self recognizes his own essence. The absolute
power of nature does not remain external but becomes in this representa-
tion a self-relation, i.e., a relation to its own essence (the “lord”).12
For the time being, the “recognition of the lord” is a purely practical
matter.13 First, it has to be understood that the pure self does not exist
in itself but also has a body.14 The pure self is the corporeal self that has

11 At the level of the Absolute Knowing chapter, Hegel formulates this transcendental
openness as: the self-consciousness which is “in communication with itself in its otherness
as such” (das Selbstbewusstsein das “in seinem Anderssein als solchem bey sich ist,” PhdG,
p. 422), Hegel, PhS, p. 479.
12 Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer remarks: “Und es bedarf der gegenseitigen Anerkennung
von Seele und Leib, Herr und Knecht,” Stekeler-Weithofer, “Subjektive Seele und intersub-
jektive Geist bei Hegel,” Hegel-Jahrbuch 2010, p. 16.
13 Therefore, Stephen Houlgate is mistaken when he remarks with regard to the bonds-
man: “he is terrified by the thought of himself, now, as nothing whatsoever,” Stephen
Houlgate, An Introduction to Hegel: Freedom, Truth and History, Blackwell, 2005, p. 70. The
bondsman has no awareness of a self distinct from the world. His self is represented by
the lord. The awareness of a “nothing” is only developed at the level of the Unhappy Con-
sciousness. It takes many steps to identify this “nothing” as its own self.
14 Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer rightly states: “Schon in der berühmten, aber in ihrem
Sinne selten begriffenen Passage zum Verhältnis des ‘Herrn’ zum ‘Knecht’ in der Phänom-
enologie des Geistes geht es (zumindestens zunächst) noch nicht um eine soziale Bezie-
hung zwischen zwei Personen, etwa einem Ich und einem Du. Genaueres Lesen zeigt ganz
klar, dass das allgemeine Thema (noch) eine intrapersonale Selbstbeziehung ist. Neben
der Leipziger Schule der Hegel-Lektüre (ausgehend von Christoph Hubig und Andreas
68 chapter three

experienced the possible non-existence of the body, i.e. the fear of death.
Only under this condition is the body (nature) not only the domain to
which a relation of absolute negation is possible (Desire), but also the very
domain that can express the real existence of the pure self. This appears in
the practical service of the lord. In this (laboring) service the negation of
nature is not immediate, but mediated, i.e., nature is already represented
in an image throughout, and the negation of nature is focused on the real-
ization of this image. Finally, the realization of this image means, as we
saw, the realization of pure freedom.15
In the next chapter, we will discuss how the representations of the
religion of nature can be understood, one by one, as historical forms of
the “lord.” This may be surprising as it will take many chapters after the
lord/bondsman relation before the Phenomenology of Spirit discusses reli-
gion. However, we will first demonstrate how the relation between the
representation of the lord and the religion of nature has to be understood.
From this, it can be made understandable why the image of the lord in
the initial lord/bondsman relation will not do. In this image the superior
power of nature is performed by the other self-consciousness. It is, then,
this other self-consciousness that functions as the image of the lord. In
this case, the lord can coincide with a specific historical ruler. However,
we will see that this is not generally the case (so that the identification
between lord and ruling class, as is common in the Marxist tradition, does
not do justice to Hegel’s intention here). Before turning to the next chap-
ter, I first show how Hegel develops at the level of the lord/bondsman rela-
tion his version of the categories of relation and how the lord/bondsman
relation can be conceived of as the elementary model by which Kant’s
Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Practical Reason can be conceived
of as a unity.

Luckner) hat das neuerdings John McDowell erkannt. Die Frage ist: Wie kann ich meiner
selbst bewusst sein? Was ist das für eine Beziehung zwischen mir und mir, meinem Selbst-
bewusstsein und meinem Bewusstsein oder auch meinem ganzen Ich oder Selbst und mei-
nem Leib?” Stekeler-Weithofer, “Selbstbildung und Selbstunterdrückung. Zur Bedeutung
der Passagen über Herrschaft und Knechtschaft in Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes,”
Dialektik. Zeitschrift für Kulturphilosophie, 2004/1, pp. 49–68; pp. 59–60.
15 Since the lord/bondsman relation is the most elementary model of “spirit,” it is unten-
able to defend, as Pippin does, spirit’s “independence from nature.” See Robert B. Pippin,
Hegel’s Practical Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 2008, p. 111.
 self-consciousness 69

Hegel’s Version of Kant’s Categories of Relation

We have discussed how in Kant the association principle of resemblance

transformed into the relational categories of substance and accidents, the
scheme by which we can identify something as independent in reality.
Hegel also develops the formal conditions under which something can be
identified in reality. However, we have observed that, according to Hegel,
no substances can exist at the level of lifeless nature; only a social organ-
ism can appear as a real substance. Therefore, the logical structure that
Hegel identifies as the first stage of reality, the relation of substantiality,
can be found again in the Phenomenology of Spirit as the formal structure
of the social organism, i.e., as the formal structure of the lord/bondsman
relation.16 Only at this level do we succesfully conceive of unity (Eins) and
manifold (Auch) in a unity that is not externally imposed. In the social
organism, the interplay of forces receives a substantial, self-conscious
reality. Therefore, the sub-moments that, according to Hegel, constitute
the relation of substance (namely, as an immediate unity of these sub-
moments) can be found again in the lord/bondsman relation: condition,
activity and identity 17 appear in the framework of this relation respectively
as nature, the labor of the bondsman and the lord.
The second stage of reality, the relation of causality,18 is Hegel’s version
of Kant’s second category of relation, cause and effect (and also Hegel’s
version of Hume’s association principle of cause and effect). In Hegel, this
logical structure should not be understood as a structure against the rela-
tion of substantiality (as a relation between substances) but rather as a fur-
ther development of the relation of substantiality. Here, the sub-moments
have a relative independence so that condition and identity, mediated
through activity, relate to one another as cause and effect. This relation
appears in the social organism as the lord who, mediated through the
labor of the bondsman, makes nature the effect (realization) of his law
and is, in this sense, its cause.

16 See Paul Cobben “The Logical Structure of Self-Consciousness,” in Alfred Denker and
Michael Vater (ed.), Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, New York 2003, pp. 193–209.
17 G.W.F. Hegel, Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (1830),
Meiner Verlag, Hamburg, 1999, § 148. Hereafter Enz.
18 Hegel, Enz, §§ 153–4.
70 chapter three

The third stage of reality consists of the relation of reciprocity 19 in which

Hegel’s version of Kant’s third category of relation (the interaction between
acting and enduring) or Hume’s principle of contiguity is elaborated. This
logical structure appears in the social organism in which the bondsman
has recognized the lord as his essence, i.e., in the social organism in which
the lord/bondsman relation has passed through stoicism. In this relation,
self-consciousness and nature mutually determine one another.

The Lord/Bondman Relation as the Elementary Model to Conceive

of the Unity of the “Critique of Pure Reason” and the
“Critique of Practical Reason”

I discussed how Hegel in the Consciousness chapter discussed the basic

position of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. As with Kant, Hegel also accom-
plishes the Copernican turn. But, in contrast to Kant, this turn does not
seem to result in the transcendental structures that are the result of syn-
thesizing categories and pure forms of intuition. Although Hegel devel-
oped his alternatives to the categories of quality and quantity, he does not
accept time and space as the a priori forms of intuition. Finally, the only
result of Hegel’s Copernican turn seems to be his alternative version of the
transcendental subject, namely the pure Ich=Ich relation. However, this
Ich=Ich relation more resembles the Cartesian res cogitans than Kant’s
transcendental subject. After all it remains unclear how the Ich=Ich is
related to nature.
However, in the Self-Consciousness chapter it turns out that Hegel’s
reception of the Critique of Pure Reason is inextricably bound up with his
reception of the Critique of Practical Reason. Hegel identifies his transfor-
mation of the transcendental subject, the Ich=Ich relation, with his version
of Kant’s noumenal subject (the free subject of the Critique of Practical
Reason), namely self-consciousness. However, while Kant argues that we
cannot have knowledge of the relation between the noumenal subject
and nature, Hegel, on the contrary, develops under which conditions self-
consciousness can be conceived as a harmony with nature. Therefore, this
development combines two lines of thought that in Kant are distributed
between the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason:
on the one hand, he thematizes our relation to nature which results in

19 Hegel, Enz, §§ 155–159.

 self-consciousness 71

theoretical knowledge, and on the other hand, he thematizes the realiza-

tion of our freedom which results in practical insights.
We have observed that, according to Hegel, the harmony between freedom
and nature presupposes a social organism whose elementary structure
can be represented through the lord/bondsman relation.20 Freedom can
only be realized in a human law that underlies the social organism. Since
the real human law is always a contingent historical law, this realization
of freedom seems to contradict the demand of the Kantian categorical
imperative, namely the demand to strive after the realization of pure free-
dom. The realization of freedom in the human law rather seems to be
more comparable with the realization of subjective freedom in Kant, i.e.,
with the subjective maxims in which the individual realizes his subjec-
tive, finite freedom. The only difference is that Hegel transforms these
subjective maxims into intersubjective, social laws. Considered from the
observer’s perspective, however, it is also clear that in Hegel the realiza-
tion of freedom in the human law cannot be the realization of “objec-
tive,” pure freedom. The lord symbolizes the pure freedom (the pure self )
and the bondsman realizes this pure freedom in a contingent historical
form. We will discuss how in the further course of the development of
the Phenomenology of Spirit the observer’s perspective will be internal-
ized by the internal perspective. This will result in a position in which the
Kantian demand is appropriated in order to realize pure freedom. Finally,
this demand results in the striving after eternal peace at the level of world
history. Therefore, there is no disagreement between Kant and Hegel with
regard to the highest end of humankind.
At the level of self-consciousness, the development of the Conscious-
ness chapter is repeated in a reflexive form. This implies that, after hav-
ing developed the social organism in which the practical relation of the
free individual to nature has been objectified, the conclusion can be
drawn that the theoretical relations that are developed at the level of the

20 Patricia Purtschert discusses how Simone de Beauvoir and Frantz Fanon interpret
the bondsman as woman and as the “colonized”: “Ausgangspunkt dieser Überlegungen sind
Simone de Beauvoirs und Frantz Fanons Interpretationen eines Schlüsseltexts moderner
Anerkennungstheorien, Hegels Herr-und-Knecht-Passage. Indem sie Hegels Analyse mit
der Situation der Frauen beziehungsweise der Kolonisierten in Verbindung bringen, zielen
Beauvoir und Fanon erst einmal auf das gesellschaftskritische Potenzial der Hegelschen
Theorie ab,” Patricia Purtschert, “Anerkennung als Kampf um Repräsentation,” Deutsche
Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 56 (Berlin 2008) 6, pp. 923–933; p. 923. However, interpretations
of this type contradict Hegel’s intention.
72 chapter three

Consciousness chapter are abstractions of the practical relations that

appear in the concrete entirety of the social organism. The logical struc-
tures that determine the practical relations of the free individual in the
framework of the social organism at the same time structure the possible
theoretical knowledge of natural reality. This means that the alterna-
tives for Kant’s categories of relation, i.e., the logical structures that Hegel
develops at the level of the lord/bondsman relation, do have implications
for our theoretical knowledge of nature. The practical relation to nature
objectified in the human law structures the possible theoretical knowl-
edge of nature. The human law is the necessary condition for knowledge
of nature that has the form of a law of nature.
Not only Hegel’s alternative for the Kant’s categories of relation, how-
ever, plays a role in characterizing the structures of possible theoretical
knowledge for Hegel. Hegel’s alternatives for the categories of quality and
quantity also play their role. We noticed that Hegel developed these alter-
natives at the level of the Consciousness chapter. At the end of this chap-
ter, resulting in the formal Ich=Ich relation, these alternatives seemed to
have lost their function in structuring theoretical knowledge. However,
since the moments of the Consciousness chapter are reflexively repeated
at the level of self-consciousness, they keep their meaning for theoretical
knowledge. We observed that Sense Certainty (at which level Hegel devel-
oped his alternative for the categories of quality) is repeated at the level
of Desire and that Perception (at the level of which Hegel developed his
alternative for the categories of quantity) is repeated at the level of the
struggle for life and death. Since Desire and the struggle for life and death
are constituting moments in the concrete entirety of the social organism,
Hegel’s alternative for the categories of quality and quantity are part of
the free individuals practical relation to nature. Once again Hegel’s alter-
natives for the categories of quality and quantity can be interpreted as
abstractions from these practical relations.
Until now I have not discussed whether Hegel developed alternatives to
the Kantian categories of modality. With regard to this matter it is impor-
tant to remark that the entire logical structure that Hegel develops in the
first part of the Phenomenology of Spirit (Consciousness, Self-Consciousness
and Reason) are possible relations. Real relations are thematized in the
chapter on Spirit and Religion. Necessary relations are the topic of the last
chapter, Absolute Knowledge.
 self-consciousness 73

Conclusion

In the Self-Consciousness chapter, Hegel develops under which condi-

tions the internal unity between freedom and nature must be under-
stood. Hegel has conceptualized freedom as the formal self-relation of
the Ich=Ich, as the pure law form. Thus, the elaboration of this project
implies that the law form cannot be considered a form that, as in Kant’s
Critique of Pure Reason, is externally imposed upon nature, but is rather
understood as the form in which nature itself is conceptualized. This is
possible if nature is not taken as lifeless nature but as living one. In the
reproduction process of the living species, nature has a law form that is
practically accomplished. If there is talk of a living species that also has
self-consciousness, this self-consciousness can, mediated through the fear
of death, become aware of itself as the self-consciousness which explic-
itly conceptualizes the essential structure of nature itself. As an internal,
momentary experience, self-consciousness’s fear of death which results in
the awareness of being the lord of its body, is only a subjective experi-
ence. However, this subjectivity is overcome in the lord/bondsman rela-
tion which can be regarded as the objectified fear of death. In this relation,
the lord stands for the objective representation of pure self-consciousness
and the bondsman, who in his labor produces the social organism, stands
for the objective representation of the body.
Hegel’s thesis is that the internal unity between freedom and nature is
tied to the relational form that is symbolized in the lord/bondsman rela-
tion. Freedom can only be conceived of as the essence of nature if it is
conceptualized as the essence of the social organism. The lord/bondman
relation expresses the minimal condition under which freedom and nature
can be understood as an internal unity. This internal unity between free-
dom and nature is also presupposed in the theory of communicative action.
After all, Habermas thinks that theoretical discourse can develop knowl-
edge of nature. Under the condition of the ideal speech situation Haber-
mas even considers this knowledge as true. Since the discussion partners
in the ideal speech situation are freed from any power influence, and are
in this sense purely free, the relation between lord and bondsman can
be compared to the relation between the ideal and the historical speech
community in Habermas.
In chapter 4 and 6 I will discuss how the lord/bondsman relation is his-
torically realized. This realization consists of the process, from the internal
perspective, by which it becomes clear what, from the observer’s perspec-
tive, was already clear the whole time, namely that the social organism
74 chapter three

(produced through the labor of the bondsman) is a specific historical

appearance of the form of pure freedom (i.e., the lord).
In this process of historical realization it will turn out that the lord/
bondsman relation is indifferent with regard to the distinction between
the paradigm of the philosophy of consciousness and the paradigm of the
theory of communicative action. In chapter 4 I will elaborate the fact that
the historical realization of the lord/bondsman relation first results in a
position that can be characterized as Hegel’s version of the paradigm of
the philosophy of consciousness. In chapter 6, I will elaborate how this
position can, subsequently, be developed into a relational form that can
be characterized as Hegel’s version of the paradigm of the theory of com-
municative action.
The indifference of the lord/bondman relation with regard to both
paradigms contradicts Habermas’s criticism of Hegel. After all, Habermas
argues that Hegel’s interpretation of the process of the realization of free-
dom, a process conceived of as a dialectic between freedom and nature,
finally leads to the monological self-relation of absolute spirit, i.e., to a
version of the paradigm of the philosophy of consciousness.21
In chapter 5, Axel Honneth’s interpretation of the Self-Consciousness
chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit is discussed. I argue that Honneth
interprets this chapter one-sidedly from the point of view of the theory of
communicative action. I not only conclude that his interpretation is inad-
equate, but that moreover, it is not necessary to rescue the dialogical posi-
tion of the theory of communicative action from the framework of Hegel’s
philosophy.

21 J. Habermas, “From Kant to Hegel and Back again—The Move Toward Detranscen-
dentalization,” European Journal of Philosophy, 7.2 (1999), pp. 129–157: “With this move
Hegel strips away from the concept of spirit the traces of origin in the intersubjective
forms of objective spirit,” p. 147.
 chapter four

The “system of freedom”: religion of nature

Introduction

We discussed under which conditions we can meaningfully speak about

“the” reality. In daily life, we interpret “reality” as naturally given exist-
ing independently of us: in Hegelian terminology, a naturally given “sub-
stance.” If we assume that we are able to know such a substance, we have
to conceive of our consciousness as tabula rasa, i.e., as an instance that is
open to a cognitive reception of reality. However, we examined to which
fundamental presuppositions this relation of cognition is tied: conscious-
ness can only identify reality if it is capable of self-identification. After all,
without self-identification self-consciousness cannot distinguish itself from
reality; then, it would be meaningless to talk about objective knowledge,
i.e., about a cognitive relation to objective reality. Therefore, Descartes is
right if he makes the self-knowledge of the cogito, i.e., formal self-relation,
the absolute condition of any knowledge. Descartes’s concept of the cogito
expresses the fact that the cognitive identification of something in reality
is preceded by the self-identification of the cognitive instance.
However, Descartes is wrong when he concludes that the cogito is a
substance (res cogitans). He deduces the cogito by distinguishing it from
naturally given reality. Therefore, it has to be assumed that the cogito is
already related to this naturally given reality all along, i.e., the cogito con-
ceived of as an “I” is also a corporeal “I,” i.e., an “I” sensually related to
nature. This implies that the problem has to be solved as to how the “I”
which is essentially determined as a self-relation can nevertheless have
a body that enables it to be related to nature. We discussed how Hegel
deduces the conditions under which this problem can find its solution.
Nature has to be conceptualized as living nature. Only as living does
nature have its own identity, a self. Under the conditions of the fear of
death this self can be experienced as such and the cogito can recognize
itself (its pure self-relation, its law form) in its body. In the fear of death,
the cogito experiences itself as the “lord” of its body; it experiences the fact
that its pure self-relation already presupposes the corporeal self-relation
of the fear of death all along and actually conceptualizes this corporal
76 chapter four

self-relation as such in its pure self-relation. The internal experience of

being-lord-of-the-body is objectified in the lord/bondsman relation which,
therefore, can be characterized as the socially objectified fear of death.
In the lord/bondsman relation, the transcendental turn accomplished in
modern science (the identification of nature in a law of nature which
already refers to the self-identification of the cognitive subject through-
out) is reduced to a social relation: the identification of social reality in
a human law which already refers to the cognitive subject represented in
the figure of the lord.
Initially, the self-identification of the cognitive subject in the lord is
distinct from the reality of the human law that the bondsman practically
realizes in his labor. We have discussed how this labor leads to a process in
which the bondman is educated: nature no longer appears as an alien oth-
erness. In and through his labor, the bondsman “cognitively” appropriates
nature. If nature loses its alien otherness in the experience of the bonds-
man, he recognizes himself in the lord, i.e., he understands himself as the
essence of nature. Hegel expresses this relation as the relation of stoicism.
The stoic consciousness has the subjective certitude that the determina-
tions of its thinking immediately are determinations of nature.1
At the level of stoicism, self-consciousness realizes itself. Its contradic-
tion, being essentially self-related and being also related to nature, has
been overcome. After all, self-conscious thinks that its relation to nature
is a self-relation. Here nature appears as the reality of self-consciousness’s
determinations. It is very important to notice that the realization of self-
consciousness, at this stage, only has the form of being-for-itself. Consid-
ered from the internal perspective of self-consciousness, nature has lost
its strangeness and it thinks itself as being autonomous. However, consid-
ered from the external perspective, this autonomy is only apparent. That
is, self-consciousness has realized itself in a specific historical form, i.e., in
the form of a specific historical human law. For self-consciousness the law
is a fact situated in a tradition and, in this sense, stands in contradiction
with its autonomy. The stoic consciousness, however, still has no insight
into this contradiction (only at the level of skepticism is it developed that
the free self-realization of self-consciousness contradicts the being-given
of the law).

1 As Hegel states: “The manifold self-differentiating expanse of life, with all its detail
and complexity, is the object on which desire and work operate. This manifold activity has
now contracted into the simple positing of differences in the pure movement of thinking,”
Hegel, PhS, p. 121.
 the “system of freedom”: religion of nature 77

Many thinkers after Hegel (for example, Jürgen Habermas) seem to

think that Hegel’s concept of self-realization can be identified with the
level of stoicism. As a consequence, we fall under the illusion that Hegel
held the opinion that the realization of freedom can be totally accom-
plished in a positive way. After all, the realization of freedom could coin-
cide with the positive reality of a (traditionally given) human law. This
law rightly would fall a prey to Adorno’s positivism criticism. The law is
valid because the determinations of the law have intersubjective valid-
ity. However, it remains unexplained where these determinations come
from and under which conditions this intersubjectivity becomes valid.
Moreover, Hegel’s concept of freedom would totally fall under what Hab-
ermas has called the paradigm of the philosophy of consciousness (or what
Horkheimer called instrumental reason). Freedom would coincide with
the cognitive appropriation of nature that is mediated through labor. This
would reduce Hegel to an Enlightenment philosopher in the sense meant
by Heidegger. Progress in knowledge would coincide with progress in
knowledge of nature and the power to dominate nature with the help of
this knowledge. However, we will see that many of Hegel’s efforts are ori-
ented toward showing that in stoicism the true realization of freedom has
not been reached by a long shot. Before elaborating this program, I first
investigate which historical consequences Hegel draws from his concept
of self-consciousness.

The Historical Form of the Lord at the Level of the Religion of Nature

Until now we have observed that self-consciousness can only be con-

ceived of as a social organism that can be represented through the lord/
bondsman relation. The lord is self-consciousness’s representation of
its essence, i.e., of its pure self. As bearer of this representation, self-
consciousness is the bondsman. Therefore, as bondsman, self-conscious-
ness recognizes the lord as its essence. In the first resort, the recognition
is purely practically expressed, namely in serving the lord.2 This means

2 It makes no sense to speak about the “common perspective” of lord and bondsman,
as Habermas suggests: “This, then, is the dialectical development of perspectives: Although
the slave first makes the master’s view of his own, the master, in the course of his inter-
action with the slave, comes in turn to recognize and acknowledge the elaborations and
extensions of their common perspective that, step by step, result from the slave’s intelli-
gent interaction with what is thus becoming the same world for both of them,” Habermas
1999, p. 143.
78 chapter four

that the bondsman is not an organism that instinctively acts in the service
of the survival of the species but rather a social being that acts in service
of the lord, i.e., in service of the survival of the social organism. The bonds-
man observes the law of the lord, i.e., he serves the specific form of the
lord that is characteristic of the social organism. To express it in other
terms, serving the lord is the realization of freedom, i.e., the realization
of the possibility of non-existence. The representation of the lord is the
reality of the transcendental turn. The point of departure is not a given
world. The world is always conceived of under the perspective of its pos-
sibility; it is free self-realization. As free being, man is a “religious” being,
i.e., a being that has represented its essence as a pure essence, as pure self.
Therefore, the real individual already has passed through the struggle for
life and death throughout. It has already experienced the power of nature
as self-determination. It explicitly has become aware of its death. The real
individual has experienced itself as the lord of its own body and has rep-
resented this experience in the objective lord.
We have discussed how the bondsman passes through a process of edu-
cation which finally results in his explicit recognition of the lord as his
own essence. At this moment, the bondsman is aware that the lord coin-
cides with the human law that standardizes his actions, i.e., the form in
which the bondsman realizes his freedom is no longer distinguished from
his representation of his freedom. Therefore, the form in which the lord
is represented is developed in correspondence with the extent to which
the bondsman appropriates nature through his labor. Hegel thematizes
the development of the representation forms of the lord at the level of the
religion of nature.
In the religion of nature, the development of consciousness and self-
consciousness is resumed, but this time in a manner in which the devel-
opment is conceived from its result (the lord/bondman relation). After all,
the real self-consciousness can only exist as the concrete totality of all
its moments of development. Starting from this result we could be left
with the impression that conceptualizing a development is no longer nec-
essary at all. This, however, is not the case. If the entirety of the devel-
opment is already given from the observer’s perspective all along, this
can be different from the internal perspective. The development implies
the passing through of those moments which were already a part of the
entirety of self-consciousness throughout, i.e., that are part of self-con-
sciousness conceptualized in the concrete totality of the lord/bondsman
relation. We will see how in the religion of nature the three stages of con-
sciousness are passed through in correspondence with the three stages
 the “system of freedom”: religion of nature 79

of self-consciousness and how this development already presupposes the

unity of the entirety of the lord/bondsman relation.

a. The Religion of the God as Light

In this form of religion, the point of departure is Sense Certainty, the rela-
tion of tabula rasa to a manifold of objects. At this level, this relation is
conceived of from the result of the lord/bondsman relation. This means,
that consciousness has already passed through self-consciousness: it has
already experienced the fear of death as well as already represented its
internal essence as the “lord.” (Initially, however, the representation of the
lord is inadequate; the content of the representation contradicts its form.
In the development of the religion of nature this contradiction is sub-
lated.) As Sense Certainty, consciousness has the subjective certitude that
its absolute essence (substance) can be immediately observed as a given
object. As consciousness which is also self-consciousness, it has made a
representation of its absolute essence. Since this representation is a pre-
sentation of an absolute essence, it appears as representing a godhead.
What, considered from the observer’s perspective, is the basic relation of
Sense Certainty (consciousness that as tabula rasa is immediately related
to a manifold of objects) is now represented in the image of a godhead.
In this representation, Sense Certainty has developed self-consciousness.
After all, it has objectified its own self in the image of the godhead. This
means, that the relation of Sense Certainty, at this level, can be under-
stood as a real relation (not merely as consciousness, i.e., as an abstract
moment). As a consequence, the “experience” of consciousness can not
only be reconstructed as an experience that can be accomplished by Sense
Certainty itself (and not only as an experience that is explicated by phe-
nomenological consciousness), but also that it makes sense to look for
the historical forms in which this relation appears.3 It is obvious that it
is a matter of contingency in which object Sense Certainty represents its

3 Terry Pinkard argues that the observed consciousness in Hegel is always historically
situated: “It is in that sense that the ‘liberal individual’ is a historical achievement, not a
transcendental condition of agency, and as such a historical achievement, it rests on pre-
volitional relations to others which themselves makes such moral volition possible in the
first place,” Pinkard, “Liberal Rights and Liberal Individualism,” in Espen Hammer (ed.),
German Idealism: Contemporary Perspectives, Routledge, New York, 2007, p. 218. However,
the development which precedes the Spirit chapter can be interpreted as the development
of the transcendental conditions under which the free individual can be conceptualized.
Only the relations in the Spirit- and Religion-chapters are historically situated.
80 chapter four

godhead. It is only necessary that there is a historical religion that corre-

sponds with Sense Certainty. If the concept of the human self that Hegel
developed in the Consciousness and Self-Consciousness chapters does not
appear in one way or another, the conclusion must be that this concept
is inadequate.
Hegel historically specifies the religion of Sense Certainty as the religion
of God as Light,4 the religion of Ancient Persia. In this religion, the object
that represents the divine being is the sun. The sun that lights a manifold
of objects is actually an excellent image of the basic relation of conscious-
ness. Here the light represents the tabula rasa. The objects and the light
are actually in an immediate relation. Without light, the objects do not
appear; and without objects, the light has no reality. At the same time, this
representation expresses the contradiction immanent to Sense Certainty.
With regard to its content, this representation concerns an immediate
relation in which light and object immediately coincide. With regard to
the form, however, there is a distinction to be made: the light realizes
itself in a manifold of objects. The lightening goes unnoticed from one
object to another. Therefore, it is impossible to identify God as the Light.
The reality of the God as Light is reduced to the imperfect infinitude of an
endless manifold of objects. Because Sense Certainty has represented this
basic relation it is able (in contrast with Sense Certainty at an elementary
level) to “experience” this contradiction. It experiences the fact that the
God as Light and the objects illuminated do not coincide. This experience
is related to the rising and the setting of the sun. From this it appears
that the conception of God as Light has its own determination (negation).
After all, the sun appears as the ongoing transition from light into dark-
ness and from darkness into light. This transition is not induced through
the object. From this it appears that the God as Light has its own self
independent of the objects of the world. This self is the unity of dark-
ness (Eins) and light (Auch). At the same time, it appears that the self of
the God as Light only manifests itself in relation to the sensual world. The
self of the God as Light sheds light on the possible non-existence of the
sensual world (the darkness).
Since, in its experience of the contradiction that the God as Light is
both dependent as well as independent on the sensually given world, con-
sciousness has become aware of the relational form of Desire, the first

4 Hegel, PhS, pp. 418ff.

 the “system of freedom”: religion of nature 81

stage of self-consciousness. The explicit experience of this contradiction

also implies that the religion of the God as Light has come to its end. Obvi-
ously, it is tied to a relation to a naturally given reality that is internally
contradictory. This internal contradiction characterizes nature insofar it
appears as lifeless nature. Lifeless nature is the nature of objects that are
distinguished from one another. They are only distinct and lack the abil-
ity to identify themselves in their mutual relation. Each identification,
each unity, has to come from outside. Therefore, tabula rasa’s attempt to
identify itself in an immediate unity with lifeless nature has to fail. The
contradiction in which this failure results can apparently only be over-
come if a new concept of nature can be designed: a concept of nature in
which the unity of nature is not externally imposed, i.e., the concept of
living nature. I will discuss how this concept of nature is central in the
second stage of the religion of nature. The transition to the second stage
is accomplished in consciousness’s attempt to find a practical solution for
the experienced contradiction. In this attempt consciousness has become
the self-conscious experienced Desire. It tries to rescue the pureness of the
representation of its godhead through the negation of the objects of expe-
rience. Then, consciousness experiences in a self-conscious manner what
implicitly already was experienced at the primary level of Desire. It is true
that in the temporal satisfaction of needs the relation to the object can
be sublated, but since neediness returns, this again and again leads to a
relation to another object. The object appears as the process in which the
object appears and disappears. Whoever has insight into the living nature
at his disposal can conceive of this movement as the process in which the
living species reproduces itself.

b. The Religion of Plant and Animal

The contradiction that comes to light at the level of Sense Certainty and
the God as Light, makes clear that consciousness and nature do not imme-
diately coincide. With regard to consciousness nature has independence.
We already observed that this independent nature does not concern life-
less but rather living nature: only living nature has its own self. We also
observed that this living being already implicitly played a part in the dia-
lectics of Perception: the Eins and the Auch of the thing of many properties
interacting with the Eins and the Auch of corporeal consciousness. Living
nature also plays its role in the religion of plant and animal in which the
second moments of Consciousness and Self-Consciousness (Perception
and the Struggle for Life and Death) are resumed as moments of a real
82 chapter four

self-consciousness, i.e., as moments of a form of society that in one way or

another historically appears. At the level of the religion of the God as Light
the objects still had no independence with regard to (social) conscious-
ness. Here society can be considered as a primitive unity within which it
is in no way possible to distinguish between the cultural and the natural
order. Everything that brightens is a flash of something which belongs
to both the natural order and the cultural, divine order.5 However, if the
contradiction between consciousness and nature develops itself (and
the relational form of Desire becomes thematic), this is accompanied by
the further development of society. The nature upon which consciousness
is dependent no longer appears as undifferentiated lifeless nature, but
rather as the nature in which a manifold of living beings exist, especially
the plants that provide the food for survival. By this the immediate rela-
tion to nature is broken through: the living species that guarantees again
and again that the exemplars of the species are available is especially rel-
evant here: the exemplars of the species which serve as food for survival
differentiate the shape of nature. If at this level the superior power of
nature is internalized and represented as an image, this image has to sym-
bolize the living species. Hegel thinks that this symbolizing historically
can be found again in the religion of the plant, in which the divine being is
represented through a manifold of plants. As symbol of the living species,
the plant symbolizes the sublated particularity, the particular exemplar of
the species that is represented by the symbol of the species.
In the religion of the plant the relation of Perception is represented
which, considered from the observer’s perspective, consisted of the rela-
tion between the corporeal consciousness and the thing of many prop-
erties. After all, we observed that the dialectics of Perception oscillated
between the Eins and the Auch on the subject-side and the Eins and the
Auch on the object-side. Consciousness was Eins, but as corporeal also
Auch; the thing of many properties was as thing, Eins, but with regards to
its properties, also Auch. Perception did not succeed in bringing Eins and
Auch in unity. This relation is in the religion of the plant represented as
the relation between plants. As symbol of the godhead, or as symbol of the
species, the plant is Eins. As real plant, however, the plant is determined,
or as related to other plants, it is also Auch. So the oscillation between Eins

5 Hegel, PhS, p. 419: “The movements of its own externalization, its creations in the
unresisting element of its otherness, are torrents of light; in their simplicity, they are at
the same time the genesis of its being-for-self and the return from the existence [of its
moments], streams of fire destructive of [all] structured form.”
 the “system of freedom”: religion of nature 83

and Auch accomplished at the level of the original Perception between the
consciousness and the thing is now represented in the relation between
the distinct plants as the image of the godhead. In this representation,
its contradiction between form and content can be made explicit: with
regard to its content the godhead is absolute, but with regard to its form
it is related to other representations and, consequently, not absolute.
To sublate this contradiction, the Eins and the Auch have to be brought
together; the many representations of plants must, so to speak, be unified.
The first step of this unity is made by the practical development of the
social order.6 The social order develops into a tribe society, the first primi-
tive form of a social organism. The tribe society is a “natural” organism
that encompasses, as it were, the natural organisms that serve as food: it
eats a plurality of organisms in order to survive. This development is the
precondition of the religion of the animal in which the tribe’s unity is rep-
resented in a totem animal.7 The many plants (Auch) are brought into a
unity in the representation of the tribe (Eins). However, in this transition
the peaceful pantheism of the religion of plants is transformed in the war-
minded religion of tribal struggles.8 The Eins of the one tribe excludes the
Eins of the other one. Therefore, in the religion of the animal the struggle
for life and death, the second moment of the original self-consciousness,
is represented. Therefore, neither can the Eins and the Auch be brought
into a satisfying unity at the level of the religion of animals. Each totem
represents the unity of a divine being. This unity, however, remains tied
to the endless struggle to let appear the unity as such. The spirits of the
animal cannot become self-conscious.
We already discussed how the contradiction of the struggle for life
and death principally can be solved. The unity of the Eins and the Auch
can only be conceived of at a conceptual level: as the pure form of con-
cept, or as the pure law form, the pure self as the unity of generality and
particularity.9 Therefore, an appeal has to be made to a new essential

6 At this level of historical development, the practical relations are not explicitly
known, but rather only represented.
7 To be able to represent the social organism in a totem animal some implicit knowl-
edge of the nature of life seems to be presupposed.
8 Hegel, PhS, p. 420: “The actual self-consciousness of this dispersed Spirit is a host of
separate, antagonistic national Spirits who hate and fight each other to death and become
conscious of specific forms of animals as their essence; for they are nothing else than ani-
mal spirits, animal lives which separate themselves off from one another and are uncon-
scious of their universality.”
9 While the concept of life was introduced to connect self and nature, they now must
be separated again, to be, finally, united at a higher level.
84 chapter four

insight: the insight into self-conscious life. The pure form of the concept is
thematized in the third stage of consciousness (in the Understanding which
distinguishes the pure self from the natural world) and self-conscious-
ness (in the lord/bondsman relation that again unites the pure self with
(living) nature). Considered from the observer’s perspective, both of these
moments are united in stoicism (in which, as it were, the Ich=Ich relation
has passed through nature). The implication for the religion of nature is
twofold: on the one hand, the unity of consciousness and self-conscious-
ness is developed from the internal perspective, departing from the result,
namely the representation of the lord (after all, the lord is the represen-
tation of the unity of consciousness and self-consciousness). Therefore,
the development of the representation is explicitly thematized in which
respectively the Understanding and the lord/bondsman relation become
self-conscious. On the other hand, this logical development is linked to a
historical development: there presentations appear in a contingent, his-
torical form. Contingent forms of society clarify why the representations
are realized in specific objects.
With regard to the relation between the logical and historical devel-
opment the following remarks can be made. The logical development of
consciousness already has accomplished itself throughout. The real self
always is the unity of consciousness and self-consciousness as conceptual-
ized in the lord/bondsman metaphor. At the level of religion, the moments
of this (logical) development are placed in a concrete entirety, i.e. they
are regarded from the view point of the lord’s representation, such that
the development is interpreted as the development of the lord’s adequate
form. This does not imply that a historical meaning can be attributed to
the struggle for life and death, to the experience of the fear of death or to
the labor of the bondsman. Rather, this development is about the logical
moments of a whole. Therefore, Hegel remarks that all moments can be
recovered in all religions.10 This, however, does not imply that all moments
co-exist explicitly, i.e., are part of the religious representational form. In
a specific societal form the conditions can be fulfilled under which it is
possible to become aware of a specific moment. Under the condition of
the struggle between tribes, for example, the struggle for life and death can
become self-conscious in the representation of the totems. Nevertheless

10 Hegel, PhS, p. 415: “Similarly, all forms in general are certainly in themselves or for us
contained in Spirit and in each Spirit, but as regards Spirit’s actuality, the main point is
solely which determinateness is explicit for it in its consciousness, in which determinate-
ness it has expressed its self, or in which ‘shape’ it knows its essence.”
 the “system of freedom”: religion of nature 85

the tribe as a whole cannot be conceived of as the historical appearance

of the self-consciousness which struggles for life and death. Also the tribe
is a societal form in which the logical unity of the lord/bondsman rela-
tion is objectified. The logical unity of the lord/bondsman relation deter-
mines which moments the real self has to observe. After all, the self of
the tribe can only be conceived of without contradictions if we do justice
to the totality of this logical unity. This does not alter the fact that the
logical developmental moments that lead to the lord/bondsman relation
can factually offer a format for the historical development insofar as these
moments can achieve a self-conscious representation in this develop-
ment. This is valid for the transition to the religion of the artificer. Hegel
argues: “In this hatred, however, the determinedness of purely negative
being-for-self consumes itself, and through this movement of the Notion
Spirit enters into another shape. Superseded being-for-self is the form of
the object, a form produced by the self, or rather is the produced self, the
self-consuming self, i.e. the self that becomes a Thing. The artificer there-
fore retains the upper hand over these mutually destructive animal spir-
its, and his action is not merely negative, but tranquil and positive” (421).
The spirit appears in a new shape: the spirit of the religion of the animal
passes into the laboring spirit, the spirit of the artificer. From a logical
point of view, it is about the representational form which corresponds
to the struggle for life and death and the lord/bondsman relation. But the
historical dimension also plays its role: in the specific historical societal
form of the tribe, the representation of the struggle for life and death can-
not only be realized, but it can also become clear which contingent form
this representation is given, namely the representation of a specific totem
animal. Analogously, this is valid for the representational form of the lord/
bondsman relation (including, by the way, of the representational form of
the Understanding: after all, we discussed how stoicism, in which the lord/
bondsman relation results, can be understood as the reflective repetition
of Understanding). Hegel historically situates this representation in the
Egyptian realm. This historical situation is responsible for the contingent
representations (pyramids, obelisks, mummies, animal images, etc.) of the
religion of the artificer. By the way, thematic is not the reality of a spe-
cific historical society, but the specific representation that this historical
(Egyptian) society has made of its essence.
For connecting the transition into the religion of the artificer with a
real historical development we can, therefore, revert to the constitution
of the lord/bondsman relation, resulting from the fear of death. We can,
moreover, look back into history for a real form of society that can be
86 chapter four

interpreted as a real lord/bondsman relation. Obviously, Hegel thinks he

can find it in the Egyptian realm. In an effort to complete Hegel’s insight,
I elaborate this as follows: Egyptian society is the realm of a labor system
ruled by the pharaoh (the lord). In that labor system, the slaves (bonds-
men) practically have submitted themselves to working (though their self-
consciousness has not yet been thematized). Concentrating especially on
the cultivation of the Nile valley, the labor system is linked with knowl-
edge of nature ordered in the manner of the Understanding (triangle mea-
surement of the land, astronomical knowledge of time, ordering of time
and space with the help of mathematics). In the religion of the artificer it
is thematized how this labor system can be symbolized. Again, the logical
status of the representation of the labor system in general has to be dis-
tinguished from the specific historical representation of a historical labor
system.

c. The Religion of the Artificer

In the first resort, the image of the artificer concerns the representation
of the subjective certitude of the Understanding. Understanding has the
certitude that its subjective concept (the subjective, supra-sensual, pure
law form) is the essence of natural reality. At this level, natural reality is
disconnected from its subjective essence. It is the lifeless nature that can
be described with the help of the formulation of laws that have a math-
ematical form. This nature is represented with the help of labor products:
“The crystals and pyramids and obelisks, simple combinations of straight
lines with plane surfaces and equal proportions of parts, in which the
incommensurability of the round is destroyed, these are the works of this
artificer of rigid forms” (421). As labor products these representations do
not have a self of their own. They are representations of lifeless nature,
produced in mathematical forms that refer to the subjective being out-
side of them. The representations receive this reference to the “spiritual
self ” from outside: “Thus either these works receive Spirit into them only
as an alien, disported spirit that has forsaken its living saturation with
reality and, being itself dead, takes up its abode in this lifeless crystal;
or they have an external relation to Spirit as something which is itself
there externally and not as Spirit—they are related to it as to the dawn-
ing light, which casts its significance on them” (421/2). In this way, the
relation between the pure self and lifeless nature is represented as the
relation between the mummy and the pyramid or the relation between
the light of the sun and the obelisk. By this the relation of Understanding
 the “system of freedom”: religion of nature 87

has become self-conscious in a representation that represents also the

relation between the lord (the pharaoh who, as mummy, is made a repre-
sentation, or the pure self ) and the bondsman (the pyramid, the product
that is produced in service of the lord).
In this representation of lord and bondsman, spirit and body are rep-
resented as separated entities. Finally, the development is focused on
bringing both together in a unity (as we observed this in the original
lord/bondsman relation: finally, the bondsman recognizes himself in the
lord). However, this development cannot be accomplished as a dialectic
between the representations of lord and bondsman: these representations
do not stand like that of the image of the absolute being which has only to
be developed into its adequate form. Hegel remarks: “Since the in-itself is
reduced, through opposition, to being a determinedness, it is no longer the
proper form of absolute Spirit, but a reality which its consciousness finds
confronting it as an ordinary existent thing, and which it supersedes . . .”
(421). The dialectic between lord and bondsman is enacted in the real
world; in the real world a development is enacted in which the bondsman
recognizes himself in the lord. It is this development that (indirectly) is
mirrored in the world of the religious representation. On the one hand,
the representation of the pure self is clothed and given shape “in its own
self ” (422), i.e., is developed into a real self; on the other hand, the body,
the representation of lifeless nature, is step by step endowed with soul. At
the end, the leap can be made in which soul and body can be united. This
will appear to be the transition to the Greek world. This whole process
represents the education of the bondsman.
Hegel describes the development of the representation of the labor
product as the endowing of these dead forms with soul (namely, of the
“dead” forms of the pyramids and the obelisks that are produced by the
Understanding) with the help of the decorations representing the life of
plants. “The organic form which, left to itself, proliferates unchecked in
particularity, being itself subjugated by the form of thought, in turn raises
these rectilinear flat shapes into a roundness more typical of the organic
form—a blending which becomes the root of free architecture” (422).
The “laborer” accomplishes the development of the representation of
the pure self by an appeal to the animal shapes that—being part of the
hieroglyphics—receive a spiritual meaning.
The unification of the self as internal and external is accomplished by
the Sphinx. “The artificer therefore unites the two by blending the natural
and the self-conscious shape, and this ambiguous being which is a riddle
to itself, the conscious wrestling with the non-conscious, the simple inner
88 chapter four

with the multiform outer, the darkness of the thought mating with the
clarity of utterance, these break out into the language of a profound, but
scarcely intelligible wisdom” (424).
The solution of the riddle of the Sphinx is the free human being; the
human being who knows that the objective reality coincides with the
realization of his freedom. The free human being is the bondsman who
practically recognizes his essence in the lord. At the same time, it is the
bondsman who was aware of the lord/bondsman relation by representing
it in his religious consciousness and, now, theoretically has recognized
himself in this representation. The free human is the Ich=Ich that not only,
considered from the observer’s perspective, has become self-conscious
in the relation of stoicism, but, mediated through the religion of nature,
also has become self-conscious considered from the internal perspective.
However, the historical reality of the free human cannot be found in the
Egyptian realm, but rather in the ancient Greek world.

The Transition to the Greek World

The transition to the free, Greek society means a turning point in the
development. While Hegel could have ordered the Phenomenology of
Spirit otherwise and let the religion of nature immediately follow the lord/
bondsman relation (as I did in my exposition), this order is not allowed for
the Greek world and the corresponding religion of the work of art. We can
now understand why this is the case. At the level of the lord/bondsman
relation it is clear, considered from the observer’s perspective, under
which conditions the corporeal self-consciousness can be conceptualized
without contradiction. Once the bondsman has recognized himself in
the lord and the position of stoicism has been developed, it is clear that
the reality of self-consciousness can only be understood in relation to a
“second nature”: a nature that is modeled according to self-consciousness
and, therefore, does not contradict self-consciousness. We have observed
what this modeling implies: the second nature is the social organism in
which the human law is expressed. In the solution of the riddle of the
Sphinx this relation is represented for the internal perspective. This, how-
ever, does not clarify in any manner the reality of the human law. It is
only clear that this law is the result of human action, but which contents
these actions realize, to which norms and values they are tied remains
completely undetermined. If it is only clear that social order is a human
product, then all content would satisfy the human law: the only demand
 the “system of freedom”: religion of nature 89

would be that the human law expresses a convention that is accepted by

all involved. But in that case, it would remain unclear whether such con-
vention can exist at all. Precisely for this reason, after the original lord/
bondsman relation has issued in stoicism, Hegel raises the question of how
the human law, considered from the internal perspective, can receive a
determination with a necessary content. What are the necessary condi-
tions that the human law must satisfy? If these necessary determinations
can be developed, self-consciousness has a reason to recognize the law
which satisfies these determinations as the law that realizes his freedom.

Conclusion

We have observed how, considered from the observer’s perspective, cor-

poreal self-consciousness can only be conceptualized without contradic-
tion if it belongs to a social organism. The elementary model to describe
this organism is the lord/bondsman relation that is involved in a develop-
ment into stoicism. At the level of the religion of nature, the development
of the lord/bondsman relation to stoicism is regarded from the internal
perspective. Starting from the lord/bondsman relation as an immediate
totality that has become self-conscious in the religious representation, the
immediate totality is developed into a self-conscious totality. At this level,
the real self knows that it realizes its freedom in the human law.
If, however, the real self is free, it seems that the content of the human
law cannot be determined.11 After all, all free selves have the freedom to
determine the human law in their subjective way. This problem cannot
be solved by the assumption that the content of the human law has to be
empirically determined. In that case, the “second nature” of the human law
would be as alien to freedom of the real self as “first nature.” Realization
of freedom would be tied again to the presuppositions of the paradigm of
the philosophy of consciousness. Therefore, Hegel investigates under which
conditions not only the form, but also the content of the human law does
justice to the freedom of the self. Formulated in Habermasian terms, this

11 The determination of the human law seems to undermine the freedom of the self:
“Die Anerkennung eines bestimmten Tuns scheint sich gut so verstehen zu lassen, dass sie
das Entsprechen des Tuns zu einer normative Ordnung konstatiert und in diesem Sinn von
dieser Ordnung bedingt wird. Sie gilt damit der Bestimmtheit des Tuns. Das Anerkennen
selbst allerdings soll als ein unbedingtes Tun verstanden werden—als ein Tun, das sich
nicht von Bestimmungen ableiten lässt”, Georg W. Bertram, “Hegel und die Frage der Inter-
subjektivität”, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 56 (Berlin 2008) 6, pp. 877–898; p. 883.
90 chapter four

investigation is focused on the sublation of the paradigm of the philosophy

of consciousness into the paradigm of the theory of communicative action.
Until now, this sublation has been accomplished with respect to the form
(freedom has the form of a social organism); subsequently, it has to be
accomplished with respect to the content (which qualification of the
human law corresponds to the formal freedom of the self ?).
Before discussing Hegel’s version of the paradigm of the theory of com-
municative action in chapter 6, I examine Axel Honneth’s interpretation
of the self-consciousness-chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit. I will put
forward the thesis that Honneth does not understand Hegel’s attempt to
sublate the paradigm of the philosophy of consciousness also with regard
to the content. As a consequence, Honneth remains tied to the paradigm
of the philosophy of consciousness. He thinks that an immediate empirical
determination of the human law does not affect the formal freedom of
the self. It is true that, according to Honneth, the empirical determination
is mediated through a struggle for recognition, but, since this struggle is
also completely conceptualized empirically, this in no way helps to over-
come the contradiction between formal freedom and an objectively given
“second nature.”
 chapter five

Axel Honneth’s interpretation of the Self-Consciousness

chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit

Introduction

In his book Struggle for Recognition,1 Honneth refers to the concept of

recognition as it is elaborated by the young Hegel, i.e. the Hegel before the
Phenomenology of Spirit (1807). He mentions two reasons for not relating
himself to the Phenomenology of Spirit. First, the struggle for recognition
has a less prominent place in the Phenomenology of Spirit than in earlier
work: “the topic of a ‘struggle for recognition’ was restricted to the issue
of the condition for the emergence of self-consciousness” (145). Secondly
he remarks that the dialogical position of the recognition relation is lost in
the further development of the Phenomenology of Spirit and finally results
in the monological self-relation of the absolute Spirit.
In this chapter, I critically analyze how Honneth interprets the Self-
Consciousness chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit. I will argue that
Honneth totally ignores the intention of Hegel’s argumentation. While
Honneth thinks that, in Hegel’s view, recognition results from the struggle
for life and death, Hegel rather argues that the reality of self-consciousness
cannot be conceptualized in a relation of struggle. As for Emanuel Levinas,2
culture is for Hegel a matter of peace, not of war. According to Hegel, the
reality of self-consciousness can only be conceived of if it is already par-
ticipating in a social organism throughout. Only at the level of the social
organism, whose elementary form Hegel describes with the metaphor of
the lord/bondsman relation, it becomes clear under which conditions rec-
ognition is possible. Therefore, it is surprising to observe that Honneth
does not give any attention to this relation.
In Honneth’s reading of the Self-Consciousness chapter it becomes crys-
tal clear how his methodological approach is fundamentally distinct from
the Hegelian one. As with Hegel, Honneth concludes that self-consciousness

1 Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammer of Social Conflicts,
Polity Press, Cambridge 1995.
2 Emmanuel Levinas, Totalité et Infini, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, La Haye, 1991.
92 chapter five

can only be conceptualized if it is involved in a relation of recognition.

For Honneth, this seems to be sufficient for establishing the standpoint
of the paradigm of the theory of communicative action. The relation of
recognition is a working hypothesis of social theory. The further elabora-
tion of this theory is dependent on rational reconstructions that can be
empirically tested. For Hegel, however, the result of the self-consciousness
chapter is still insufficient to ground a theory of communicative action.
It could be argued that the recognition relation that is developed in
the Self-Consciousness chapter also has for Hegel a hypothetical status:
if the reality of self-consciousness can be conceived of at all, then it is
conceivable only when involved in a relation of recognition with another
self-consciousness. The relation of recognition only expresses the formal
conditions under which self-consciousness can be conceptualized with-
out contradiction: it must participate in a social organism characterized
through a human law in which it realizes its freedom. The central ques-
tion is whether this human law can really exist. In order to answer this
question an immediate appeal to the empirical sciences is meaningless.
This is only possible if a more fundamental question can be answered: Is
it at all possible to determine a human law that at the same time has to
be understood as a realization of freedom? Does not freedom exclude the
determinateness of this law? In what manner can a law that cannot be
determined be empirically tested? These questions guide the program of
the further development in the Phenomenology of Spirit.

A Critical Analysis of Honneth’s Reading of the Self-Consciousness Chapter

In his article “From desire to recognition: Hegel’s account of human

sociality,”3 Axel Honneth rightly argues that Hegel “by employing his
phenomenological method [. . .] sought to demonstrate, that a subject
can arrive at a consciousness of its own ‘self ’ only if it enters into a rela-
tionship of ‘recognition’ with another subject” (76). If however, he adds
that this exposes a “transcendental factum” that “should prove to be a
prerequisite of all human sociality” (76/7), this already is an indication
of a reading of Hegel that does not do justice to the central thesis which

3 Dean Moyer and Michael Quante (ed.), Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: A Critical
Guide, Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 76–90. The numbers in this chapter refer to
the pages of this article.
 axel honneth’s interpretation of the self-consciousness 93

Hegel defends. I will demonstrate this by systematically showing in which

respect Honneth’s interpretation cannot be maintained.
In the first part of the article Honneth wants to indicate what is at
stake for Hegel in his exposition of the relation form that he designates
as Desire. To accomplish this, he first describes the point of departure
(that he, as it will turn out, incorrectly considers to be the first stage of
self-consciousness): on the one hand, he discusses the relational form in
which self-consciousness initially is placed and considers this from the
internal perspective; on the other hand, he considers the same relation
from the observer’s perspective. To do this Honneth begins with a citation
from Hegel: “But now there has arisen what did not emerge in these previ-
ous relationships [of sense certainty, perception, and understanding], viz.
a certainty which is identical with its truth; for the certainty is to itself its
own object, and consciousness is to itself the truth” (78).
From this, Honneth concludes that self-consciousness in this stage
as well from the internal and from the external perspective has “thus
advanced to an epistemological standpoint already characterized by Kant
in his transcendental philosophy” (78). Therefore, from both perspectives,
one is faced with the question “as to the nature of the knowledge that
subjects can have of themselves as creators of true claims” (78).
Is this analysis right? Is Honneth’s characterization of the point of
departure of the Self-Consciousness chapter adequate? Not at all. We
discussed the genesis of self-consciousness at the end of the section that
deals with the Understanding: at this level, consciousness conceptual-
ized as a tabula rasa has understood that the sensually given nature (that
appears here as an interplay of forces, as the exchange of the Eins and the
Auch) has no unity in itself. Insofar as the interplay of forces is known as
a unity, this unity is imposed on nature by the Understanding. Therefore,
in its attempt to identify itself with sensually given nature, consciousness
is forced back into itself.
Honneth’s reference to Kant’s transcendental philosophy is under-
standable. The movement accomplished in the section concerning the
Understanding refers to the Copernican turn which Kant discusses in
the Critique of Pure Reason. This, however, does not mean, as Honneth
argues, that self-conscious can be identified with the transcendental sub-
ject which still has to become aware of its “synthesizing and determining
activity” (78). Rather self-consciousness can be identified with the Carte-
sian cogito, with the “I” that thinks itself to exist in its formal self-relation.
Hegel expresses this in a passage also quoted by Honneth: “but since what
it [self-consciousness, a.h.] distinguishes from itself is only itself as itself,
94 chapter five

the difference, as an otherness, is immediately superseded for it; the differ-

ence is not, and it [self-consciousness, a.h.] is only the motionless tautol-
ogy of: ‘I am I’; but since for it the difference does not have the form of
being, it is not self-consciousness” (79). In contrast to the transcendental
subject, self-consciousness is not an “I” that can accompany the constitu-
tion of objects, but rather a self-distinction that thinks itself authorized to
attribute existence to itself. Hegel’s problem is not that the manifold, as in
Kant, has to be synthesized by the “I” (to which aim Kant has to introduce
the power of judgment) as multitude that is externally unified. His point
is that the relation to otherness can only be conceived of as self-relation.
Hegel’s version of the “I” identifies itself, without the help of a faculty of
judgment. Therefore, the I is not a unity that can accompany the synthesis
of the faculty of judgment, but rather a unity that distinguishes itself and
returns from its self-differentiation into itself. The “I” is the pure law form,
the pure unity of unity and multitude, or the pure form of judgment.
Honneth thinks that the “mere duplication,” the self-differentiation of
self-consciousness, has to be interpreted as Hegel’s criticism of Kant and
Fichte (78). However, it is difficult to situate Honneth’s position here. As
an “I” that positions itself as “I” (in its self-differentiation), this form of self-
consciousness rather seems to refer to Fichte. Moreover, Honneth himself
already compared self-consciousness with Kant’s transcendental subject.
Honneth’s remark that Hegel here criticizes Kant and Fichte, makes sense
only if self-consciousness is regarded from the observer’s perspective.
Then, it becomes clear that the subjective certitude of self-consciousness
(to be pure self-relation, to be the “cogito”) is untenable: after all, self-con-
sciousness is the result of the development of consciousness. Therefore,
considered from the observer’s perspective, it was already clear that con-
sciousness also has a body. Precisely because of this body consciousness
developed from the tabula rasa into the self-relation of self-consciousness.
Therefore, the self-distinction of self-consciousness is tied to the presup-
position that it also has a body.
Also Honneth concludes that the self-distinction of self-consciousness
cannot adequately be conceived of as pure self-distinction: “There must be
a difference between the type of consciousness that I have of my mental
activities and these activities themselves that is not yet present in the ini-
tial state of self-consciousness” (79). Also according to Honneth the pure
self-distinction is tied to real presuppositions. He argues that: “I lack the
experience that would make me aware of the fact that, unlike my accom-
panying and floating attention, the activities of my consciousness posses
an active and reality-modifying character” (79). Honneth had previously
 axel honneth’s interpretation of the self-consciousness 95

stated that self-consciousness “is already abstractly aware of its constitu-

tive, world creating cognitive acts” (78). To explicate this presupposition,
the transition to the second stage has to be made, which has, to Hon-
neth’s surprise, the title Desire. Self-consciousness “must first grasp reality
as something that it can aim at with the purpose of satisfying elementary
needs” (79). Honneth adds: “Hegel uses the notion of ‘Life’ to elucidate
this intermediate step, which is meant to explain why observing subjects
are motivated to take up a stance of ‘Desire.’ This notion consequently
occupies a key position in its argumentation, for otherwise we would not
be capable of understanding the transition that compels individuals to
continue the process of exploring their self-consciousness” (79).
However, Honneth’s thesis that self-consciousness is already “abstractly
aware of its constitutive, world-creating cognitive acts” is no where sup-
ported in Hegel’s text. Moreover, the transition to Desire is not surprising
at all, neither must it be considered an externally introduced intermediary
that is necessary to accomplish the transition into “activities of my con-
sciousness [that] posses an active and reality-modifying character” (79).
It is completely unnecessary to introduce these assumptions insofar as it
is immediately clear that self-consciousness, considered from the observ-
er’s perspective, is also corporeal. Honneth rightly states that Hegel intro-
duces the concept of life at the level of the Understanding. This, however,
is not done in the way he indicates: “To understand reality in its totality
with the help of understanding as ‘Life’ not only means to ascribe the
dissociated elements of perception a unified principle in the form of
‘Force’ (Kraft), but also, and more importantly, to learn how to grasp the
synthesizing capacity of one’s own consciousness in relation to this sort
of knowledge” (79). First, Hegel does not think that “reality in its total-
ity” has to be understood as life. As a matter of course the existence of
lifeless nature remains. The point is only that, if consciousness, at the
level of the Understanding, has developed itself to the Ich=Ich relation,
it is presupposed that the Ich=Ich relation can explicitly be distinguished
from nature. Nature can no longer only be conceived of in its relation to
consciousness. It has to be conceptualized as an independent domain,
i.e., as a relation to itself, namely as “life.” If the dissociated elements of
Perception (Eins and Auch) are unified by the Understanding, this is not
accomplished with the help of the concept of life. On the contrary, it is
the Understanding itself that Hegel conceives as the ground of the law
that unifies the dissociated elements.
Maybe Honneth’s identification of the unity of the Understanding with
the unity of life means that he presupposes that Hegel’s exposition about
96 chapter five

life in the Self-Consciousness chapter is also accessible to the conscious-

ness under consideration (at the level of Desire). Honneth argues: “What
the observer already knows—that the subject must take up a stance of
desire in order to arrive at a better a more complete self-consciousness—
is something that this subject only gradually calls to mind by applying the
notion of life reflexively to its own stance toward the world. It learns that
its self is not a placeless, selective consciousness, but that it instead relates
to organic reality in active praxis, for it can no longer behave [purely
epistemically, but only]4 actively, i.e. as a naturally self-reproducing being,
towards a world that is full of liveliness” (80). At this level, however, self-
consciousness still is “a placeless, selective consciousness” that in no way
is able to determine (positive) thoughts: its object only is its own self.5
The transition to a practical relation to the world is not a change that fol-
lows from a reflection of self-consciousness. Because self-consciousness
also has a body it is already practically related to the environmental real-
ity at all times. Therefore, the transition that is accomplished in desire
can be understood if this having-a-body-also is recognized: this body
means that self-consciousness has not only itself as object, but is also con-
fronted with other contents. After all, the body is needy, and as needy,
related to nature outside itself. The relatedness to otherness manifests
itself for self-consciousness as an alien determination that contradicts
its self-determination.
In his discussion of life, Hegel showed that, considered from the observer’s
perspective, there is coherence between self-consciousness and life. Life
is a process of the species, a process in which the species maintains itself
as species. For life itself, the reproduction process is purely practical, it

4 In the translation from the German version of the article into English “rein episte-
misch, sondern nur” is omitted, resulting in a meaningless sentence. See Axel Honneth
“Von der Begierde zur Anerkennung. Hegels Begründung von Selbstbewusstsein,” in Klaus
Vieweg/Wolfgang Welsch (Hg.), Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes. Ein kooperativer Kom-
mentar zu einem Schlüsselwerk der Moderne., Frankfurt/M. 2008, pp. 187–204. The omitted
passage is on page 192.
5 Honneth quotes Hegel: “What self-consciousness distinguishes from itself as having
being, also has within itself, in so far as it is posited as being, not merely the character of
sense-certainty and perception, but rather it is being that is reflected into itself, and the
object of immediate desire is a living being (104, ¶168),” p. 80. It remains a riddle to me
how Honneth can conclude from this sentence that the “observed subject” [In the English
translation is “das beobachtende Subjekt” wrongly translated as “the observing subject”]
applies “the notion of live reflexively to its own stance toward the world,” p. 80.
 axel honneth’s interpretation of the self-consciousness 97

is not aware of itself as species. In this sense, the species refers to self-
consciousness that is able to conceive of species as species.6
Honneth rightly concludes that the program that has to be passed
through by self-consciousness follows from the search for the coherence
between life and self-consciousness. Self-consciousness has to experience
in order to understand its self not only “as pure, non-situated conscious-
ness, but from the perspective of the observer it must understand itself
as a individual member of a living genus” (81). By the way, this is not the
second stage of self-consciousness that, as desire, follows the first stage
(in which self-consciousness should relate to a world of objects). From the
beginning, self-consciousness is desire.
However, Honneth’s elaboration of self-consciousness’s learning pro-
cess is not tenable. His misunderstanding is that self-consciousness would
already acquire insight into its own living-being. This, however, cannot be
maintained. At the level of desire, self-consciousness only can experience
life as threatening his own essence (the pure self). Therefore, secondary
literature that, according to Honneth, unjustifiably dismisses life as “some-
thing negative, as something to be overcome” (82), is completely right.
Honneth thinks that Hegel, at the level of desire, sees self-consciousness
transform from the pure into the living self-consciousness. Self-conscious-
ness is compelled into this transition “if it must recognize its own liveli-
ness in the liveliness of the reality it constitutes” (81). However, nowhere
does Hegel develop the absurd thought that self-consciousness constitutes
the “liveliness of the reality.” Moreover, at this level, it is still not devel-
oped that self-consciousness can consider another object to be true other
than its own self. Therefore, the experience of desire is a totally different
(and a more limited) one than Honneth wants us to believe. The pure
self-consciousness also is living (although, considered from the observer’s
perspective, it does not know itself). For self-consciousness itself, this life
appears as an alien and, therefore, inessential independence. The experi-
ence of self-consciousness as desire consists of the movement in which it
tries to transform its subjective certitude into truth, i.e., self-consciousness
tries to show in practice that the alien life is inessential: it kills this life
and satisfies its needs. Because its neediness returns, the cycle repeats
itself and, consequently, self-consciousness is confronted again with alien

6 Hegel, PhS, p. 109: “on the contrary, in this result, Life points to something other than
itself, viz. to consciousness, for which Life exists as the unity, or as genus.”
98 chapter five

independence.7 Considered from the observer’s perspective, the repeti-

tion means that self-consciousness is practically related to life as species
(life as species exists in and through the appearance and disappearance
of particular exemplars). Considered from the external perspective, how-
ever, it means that self-consciousness as desire is not able to transform its
certitude into truth. Desire must be overcome.
In the second part of his article, Honneth states that in the stage of self-
consciousness that follows desire the distinction between “the perspective
of the observer and the perspective of the participant” (83) fails. In my
opinion this is not right. After all, it is clear why desire’s striving does not
succeed: the alien life has to appear as dependent and independent as well.
This is a contradiction that desire cannot solve. Therefore, Hegel inserts an
exposition in which he raises the question as to under which conditions
self-consciousness can indeed realize itself. His methodological approach
is again the “bestimmte Negation”: the failure of desire to realize itself is
due to the conditions to which desire is tied. Therefore, the question is
raised under which condition this realization can be made possible. The
response is clear: if nature negates itself, it is for self-consciousness depen-
dent and independent as well. In this manner Hegel constructs the new
subjective certitude of self-consciousness. It has the subjective certitude
that it can realize itself in relation to nature that negates itself. Considered
from the observer’s perspective, this implies that self-consciousness can
only realize itself in a symmetrical relation to another self-consciousness.
Considered from the internal perspective, however, this implies that self-
consciousness is practically related to nature that negates itself. Hegel
elaborates this practical relation as the symmetrical struggle for life and
death between self-consciousnesses. In this relation both self-conscious-
nesses are independent, because they risk their lives themselves, i.e., the
possible negation of their life is their own act. At the same time, they are
dependent because they only risk their life in a symmetrical relation, i.e.,
in a relation in which they are identical with the other. On the contrary,
Honneth states that “it is much more difficult to answer the question as
to why this sort of self-deception should motivate a transition to a new
stage of self-consciousness. It is unclear why the disappointment over the
independence of the object should lead to an encounter with the other
and to recognition. Nearly all the interpretations of this point in the text

7 Hegel, PhS, p. 109: “In this satisfaction, however, experience makes it aware that the
object has its own independence.”
 axel honneth’s interpretation of the self-consciousness 99

that I have seen resort either to metaphorical bridges over this divide or
to additional constructions not found in the text itself ” (84). In his inter-
pretation Honneth observes: 1. We already know “what kind of self the
observed subject is to attain consciousness after having gone through the
previously analyzed stages: this subject must truly realize that it itself is
the rational, reality-constructing actor of which it is only abstractly and
generally aware at the beginning of our chapter” (84); and 2. The expe-
rience of desire (in which self-consciousness has understood itself as a
consuming being) has made the subject aware that its “reality-creating
activity is not merely a particularity of its own self, but a fundamental
property of human beings in general” (84). According to Honneth, the
experience of desire has freed self-consciousness from its “delusion of
almightiness” (85), namely from the delusion that the life to which it is
related can be a product of its particular activity.
However, with regard to both points Honneth’s interpretation is not ade-
quate. It is not of importance that self-consciousness learns to understand
itself as a “reality-constructing” actor (be it at the level of the species), but
rather that it experiences that it is also itself a living self-consciousness.
Only then can it realize the subjective certitude that the other life is as
well independent (as self-negation) and dependent (because the relation
is completely symmetrical). Nor, as we will see, at this level the transition
to the human species is made. After all, the relation of self-consciousness
to self-consciousness appears, in the first resort, as the struggle for life and
death, i.e., not as an activity of the species as species.
For Honneth, the sentence “immediately following Hegel’s description
of the failure of ‘Desire’ is quite possibly the most difficult sentence in the
Self-Consciousness chapter” (86). Hegel writes: “On account of the inde-
pendence of the object, therefore, it can achieve satisfaction only when
the object itself effects the negation within itself (an ihm); and it must
carry out this negation of itself in itself, for it is in itself the negative, and
must be for the other what it is”. (108, ¶175) (86).
However, we have discussed how this transition can uncomplicat-
edly be understood as the “bestimmte Negation” of desire’s certitude.
Honneth, however, interprets otherwise. He thinks that, at the level of
desire, an animal drive has been satisfied, i.e., an organic need has been
appeased. This would bring to the fore an “ontological” aspect of desire:
the ontological need to confirm “the ‘nothingness’ or ‘nullity’ of the world,
of its character as a mere product of its own mental activity” (86). We
have observed, however, that the “ontological aspect” was already part of
desire’s need throughout (be it that desire does not want to affirm with
100 chapter five

the nullity of the world its “character as a mere product of its own mental
activity”). Honneth’s construction of the two meanings of desire is totally
superfluous. Honneth, however, departing from this ontological desire,
thinks that it is “not difficult” (87) to understand that self-consciousness
is now related to an other self-consciousness. Since Honneth understands
the relation of self-consciousness to self-consciousness as a “turn to
intersubjectivity,”8 it again turns out that the tenor of Hegel’s exposition
escaped his notice. At this level, self-consciousness has the subjective cer-
titude that it can only realize itself in relation to otherness that performs
the negation towards itself (an ihm). This, however does not imply that,
considered from the internal perspective, this relation is an intersubjec-
tive one. For both self-consciousnesses it is valid that they only consider
themselves as the essence of reality. Therefore, the relation between two
self-consciousnesses is for the time being only a twofold relation of desire:
both self-consciousnesses try to kill one another and get involved in a
struggle for life and death. This struggle has nothing to do with intersub-
jectivity and recognition, let alone that moral notions be introduced into
this relation.
We observed that the struggle for life and death cannot result in the
recognition of the other. The recognition of the other is only thematic at
the level of the lord/bondsman relation, although even then, considered
only from the observer’s perspective, it is a matter of a relation between
self-consciousnesses. I have analyzed how the constitution of the lord/
bondsman relation is mediated by the fear of death, the moment at which
the struggle is suspended and at which, a relation is generated which,
how implicitly it may be, can be characterized as recognition from the
observer’s perspective.

Conclusion

When Honneth states that the relationship of recognition in Hegel has the
status of a transcendental factum that has to be disclosed as a prerequi-
site of all human sociality, then it already becomes clear to what extent
Honneth misunderstands the framework in which the development of
self-consciousness should be read. Hegel’s problem does not concern the
transcendental condition under which society can be conceived of at all,

8 This “Wendung zur Intersubjektivität” (p. 201) is lacking in the English translation
(p. 87).
 axel honneth’s interpretation of the self-consciousness 101

but is much more abstract and fundamental. The Self-Consciousness chap-

ter thematizes the conditions under which a free self (self-consciousness)
can be conceived as a unity with nature at all. Rather what is thematic in
the text is the overcoming of Descartes’s substance dualism. Honneth’s
misunderstanding has consequences for the way he structures self-
consciousness’s development. He thinks that self-consciousness, also con-
sidered from the internal perspective, has performed the Copernican turn:
it knows that the objective reality to which it is related has to be under-
stood as the result of its own activity. According to Honneth, this under-
standing is developed in three steps.
In the first stage of self-consciousness, it already knows that the objec-
tive reality to which it is related is a living one. However, in its purely
theoretical relation it cannot make itself the producer of this reality. In
the second stage (desire), self-consciousness is practically related to living
reality and tries to make itself the producer of nature by its real actions. In
the third stage (the struggle for life and death), self-consciousness acquires
insight into its hubris: it learns to understand that it is only at the level
of the (human) species that it can be the producer of the living objective
reality. Then self-consciousness understands itself to be involved in a rela-
tion of recognition.
In chapter 3, I discussed how the development of self-consciousness
has to be structured. There it turns out, for example, that Honneth’s dis-
tinction between the first and the second stage does not exist at all. Self-
consciousness is already related to reality as desire from the beginning.
Therefore, its relation to reality is already practical all the time: self-
consciousnesss wants to realize its subjective certainty as the essence of
reality itself. This certitude implies that self-consciousness, considered
from the internal perspective, does not have the viewpoint of Kantian
transcendental philosophy. The only content of its consciousness is the
certitude of itself as the essence of reality.
The development takes place because self-consciousness, considered
from the observer’s perspective, also has a body. At the level of desire,
the attempt has been made to overcome the contradiction between self-
consciousness and life by the annihilation of life. At the level of the strug-
gle for life and death, the contradiction between self-consciousness and
life is experienced practically. It is only at the level of the lord/bondsman
relation that the just mentioned contradiction can be overcome.
Honneth rightly states that the contradiction between self-consciousness
and life can only be overcome at the level of the human species, namely
in the framework of a social organism in which the free self expresses
102 chapter five

itself. But, although Hegel describes this organism in terms of recognition

(especially the recognition of the lord by the bondsman), this recognition
still has nothing to do with intersubjectivity, neither considered from the
internal perspective, nor from the observer’s. Considered from the inter-
nal perspective, the third stage of self-consciousness (the lord/bondsman
relation) is characterized through self-consciousness’s subjective certitude
that otherness is essential insofar as it sublates itself as otherness. It is of
great importance to understand what it means at this level to speak about
the subjective certitude of self-consciousness. This subjective certitude
may not, as Honneth thinks, be interpreted as the “knowledge” that self-
consciousness thinks it has with regard to objective reality. Self-conscious
does not have the ability at all to relate positively to a reality to which it
attributes independence (we will discuss the fact that this positive rela-
tion is only possible at the level of Reason). After all, self-consciousness
is characterized through the negation of consciousness, i.e., through the
negation of alien independence. If we attribute “subjective certitude” to
self-consciousness, this actually can have only a metaphorical meaning.
If we state that self-consciousness, at the level of desire, has the subjec-
tive certitude to be the essence of all reality, then this certitude can only
be attributed to self-consciousness by an observer who bases his view
on his insight into the practical relation involving self-consciousness: as
desire, self-consciousness is purely related to reality negatively. If we, at
the level of the struggle for life and death, attribute to self-consciousness
the subjective certitude that otherness is both essential and inessential,
then we can only do this because we have, from the observer’s perspec-
tive, the insight that self-consciousness is practically related in a symmet-
rical struggle for life and death in which the otherness is both essential
(because otherness is another self-consciousness) and inessential (because
otherness has to be killed). Analogously, it is also true at the third stage
of self-consciousness (the lord/bondsman relation) that the attribution of
subjective certitude has to be based on the observer’s interpretation of
the practical relation in which self-consciousness is involved. At this level,
this practical relation is the fear of death. In this relation, otherness (i.e.,
the absolute lord, death) is sublated as otherness (death is internalized in
self-consciousness’s experience to be the lord of the own body). From the
observer’s perspective, the experience of the fear of death can be described
as a process of recognition: self-consciousness recognizes his body as self-
expression. Therefore, this primary form of recognition has nothing to do
with intersubjectivity.
 axel honneth’s interpretation of the self-consciousness 103

However, also if the subjective certitude of the experience of the fear

of death is brought to its truth, such that it appears in an objective form,
intersubjectivity does not play any role. We have discussed how the fear
of death is objectified in the lord/bondsman relation. From the observer’s
perspective, it can be maintained that the bondman “recognizes” the
lord as his essence. However, this recognition still has nothing to do with
intersubjectivity. The recognition of the lord by the bondsman only man-
ifests itself purely in a practical way. The bondsman serves the lord in
his actions, i.e., he acts as a participant in a social organism. (Also if the
bondsman, as we discussed in chapter 4, represents the lord as godhead,
this relation has nothing to do with intersubjectivity: after all, the bonds-
man represents his own essence in the godhead).
We have discussed how the bondsman’s labor activity, at the level of
stoicism, finally leads to the situation in which he recognizes himself in
the lord. This recognition can no longer be purely interpreted in a practi-
cal way. Precisely because the bondsman can no longer be distinguished
from the lord, the bondsman has acquired self-awareness. However, also
this becoming-self-aware cannot be conceived of in terms of intersubjec-
tivity. That the bondsman becomes aware of himself means that he has
developed the insight that the determinations of the law that he observes
are the determinations of his own self-consciousness. Put it in other
words, he recognizes that the social organism can be conceptualized as
the appearance of his essence.
At the level of stoicism, it has become clear, considered from the observ-
er’s perspective, under which conditions the unity of self-consciousness
and life must be conceived. Self-consciousness has to express itself as self-
consciousness in a social organism. Put differently, if the real existence of
self-consciousness is possible, i.e., as the unity of the body and the mind,
then it exists as a self-consciousness that participates in a social organ-
ism. This could be interpreted in the way Honneth does, namely imply-
ing that “a subject can arrive at a consciousness of its own ‘self ’ only if it
enters into a relationship of ‘recognition’ with another subject.” After all,
the just formulated conditions for existence of the corporeal subject are
valid for all subjects. All self-consciousnesses that belong to a social organ-
ism have to understand this organism as the expression of their essence.
This seems only to be possible if the self-consciousnesses recognize one
another as self-consciousnesses and, consequently, recognize another as
a co-subject who participates in the determination of the social law’s con-
tent. Therefore, the relation of stoicism seems to already anticipate the
104 chapter five

basic thesis of the theory of communicative action. For Hegel, however,

this anticipation is not yet under discussion. Before thematizing the real
relation of a subject to another subject, first a more fundamental question
has to be answered: under what conditions can the reality of the social
organism be conceptualized? If the social law has to be understood as the
self-expression of all free self-consciousnesses (who belong to the same
social organism), it is in no way understandable why these self-conscious-
nesses should express themselves in the same social law. Therefore, the
real unity of self-consciousness and life begs the question for a further
development. The simple observation that this unity has to be expressed
in a social organism is insufficient. It is also necessary that the law of this
social organism must be determined with regard to its content.
It is striking that Honneth, who wants to analyze the relation between
struggle and recognition in his book Struggle for Recognition, pays no
attention in his analysis of the Self-Consciousness chapter to the passages
in the Phenomenology of Spirit in which this relation is thematized for
the first time. In the next chapter I will discuss how the relation between
struggle, the fear of death and recognition returns at many levels in the
Phenomenology of Spirit.
In his Struggle for Recognition, Honneth formulates his program among
others as follows: “[The concept of social struggle] suggests the view that
motives for social resistance and rebellion are formed in the context of
moral experiences stemming from the violation of deeply rooted expecta-
tions regarding recognition. These expectations are internally linked to
conditions that allow subjects to know themselves to be both autono-
mous and individuated beings within the social cultural environment”
(163). This is a rather adequate description of the program that Hegel
accomplishes in the Phenomenology of Spirit. In Hegel, however, this pro-
gram is not based on the results of empirical sciences, but has rather to
be regarded as a program which thinks through the self-realization of self-
consciousness from its very foundations.
 chapter six

Grounding the paradigm of recognition

Introduction

In the previous chapter, we discussed how Hegel argues in the Self-

Consciousness chapter that the reality of self-consciousness can only be
conceptualized in relation to another self-consciousness, but this obser-
vation alone is insufficient to ground a theory of communicative action.
At the level of the lord/bondsman relation, self-consciousnesses (i.e., the
bondsmen) can only practically “recognize” one another insofar as they
observe the same human law (they serve the lord). Only considered from
the observer’s perspective, the lord/bondsman relation can be described as
a relation of recognition. But even then the recognition does not concern
the symmetrical relation between self-consciousnesses who recognize the
lord as their essence. Considered from the internal perspective, the rec-
ognition is only practically expressed in serving the lord. Although the
bondsman becomes aware of himself (he recognizes himself in the lord),
also this “recognition” is only a metaphorical expression from the observ-
er’s perspective. Considered from the internal perspective, this recognition
only means that the determinations of the human law are no longer only
practically expressed (by the specific labor actions of the bondsman), but
now appear as the determinations of the bondsman’s self-consciousness.
The bondsman is transformed into the stoic consciousness that thinks
that the determinations of his consciousness immediately coincide with
the determinations of objective reality.1 (Considered from the internal
perspective this objective reality is nature; considered from the observer’s
perspective the objective reality is the social organism).
The reality of self-consciousness presupposes the reality of a social
organism in which self-consciousness realizes its freedom. Until now,
however, the human law which underlies the social organism is unspeci-
fied. This not only means that the determination of the human law, i.e.,

1 Hegel, PhS, p. 120: “It is essential, however, in thus characterizing this shape of self-
consciousness to bear firmly in mind that it is thinking consciousness in general, that its
object is an immediate unity of being-in-itself and being-for-itself.”
106 chapter six

the determination of its content, is dependent on the real existence of

a contingent, historical human law, but also that it remains accidental
whether this real law expresses self-consciousness’s freedom. Therefore,
the foundation of a theory of communicative action is only sufficiently
accomplished if it is clear under which conditions a real human law can
be considered the realization of freedom for all those self-consciousnesses
which participate in the social organism.2
In this chapter, I shall show that the just mentioned program is elabo-
rated in the remaining part of the Phenomenology of Spirit (excluding the
religion of nature that we discussed earlier). I limit myself to indicating the
programmatic steps of the argument.3 These steps must highlight what
is precisely necessary to sufficiently ground the paradigm of recognition.
In this manner, criteria can be deduced to evaluate the project of Axel
Honneth. They will shed light on the question of how recognition can
meaningfully be connected with struggle.

Becoming Aware of the Independence of Objective Reality

Actually, self-consciousness has realized itself at the level of stoicism. After

all, the concepts of stoicism’s consciousness seem to be the essence of
objective reality. Considered from the observer’s perspective, however,
objective reality is a contingent, historical social organism. The specific his-
torical conditions of the social organism cause self-consciousness to have
the illusion that objective reality is nothing other than the appearance
of its concepts. Therefore, the first step of self-consciousness’s appropria-
tion of the observer’s perspective consists of becoming aware of reality’s
independence.4 Put in the technical terms of the Phenomenology of Spirit:

2 Saul Tobias states: “The importance of self-determination in the success of the ser-
vant reveals the limits of a reading that privileges intersubjective recognition as the main
contribution of the master-servant dialectics to theories of political autonomy. While the
dialectic begins with recognition as a condition of the autonomy of self-consciousness, by
the end of the dialectics such autonomy appears to be furthered through the tribulations
of fear and labor, rather than through intersubjective recognition,” Saul Tobias, “Hegel and
the Politics of Recognition,” The Owl of Minerva, 38:1–2 (2006–7), pp. 101–126; p. 113. He is
right in criticizing these interpretations which neglect “the relationship between self and
its concrete environment,” p. 103. However, it is important to understand that recognition
and labor are always related in Hegel.
3 For the further exposition of the structure of the Phenomenology of Spirit, see Paul
Cobben, The Nature of the Self, De Gruyter, Berlin/New York, 2009.
4 Habermas (1999) rightly remarks: “Participants who find themselves related to one
other in an intersubjectively shared life-world must at the same time presuppose—and
 grounding the paradigm of recognition 107

while, considered from the observer’s perspective, self-consciousness was

the result of the sublation of consciousness (characterized by its relation
to an independent objective reality), this insight is now internalized by
self-consciousness itself. It learns to understand that the relation of con-
sciousness is its presupposition. This learning process is thematized at the
level of skepticism and Unhappy Consciousness.
At the level of skepticism [pp. 123–126], self-consciousness experiences
the limits of its autonomy. It experiences that the determinations of his
thoughts are distinct from his world.5 The identity between concept and
reality presupposes a reality that allows for this identity. The experience
of skepticism announces the contingency of objective reality. Objective
reality, however, is not completely contingent. After all, objective real-
ity has the form of self-consciousness. Therefore, objective reality cannot
appear as a completely external power, as the chaotic and blind power
of a nature that lacks all reason. Even if the reality of the social organism
is totally destroyed, this does not imply the decay of self-consciousness.
Self-consciousness has experienced that it could realize itself in a human
law. Therefore, self-consciousness and nature can be reconciled in prin-
ciple. Therefore, self-consciousness interprets the destruction of the social
organism only as the destruction of a specific historical form in which
self-consciousness has realized itself. Self-consciousness learns that its
self-realization is not tied to the existence of a contingent social organ-
ism. The social organism is not itself essential, but the fact that it is the
result of self-conscious’s free actions. Therefore, if the social organism is
destroyed (by an external force), self-consciousness can experience what
was, considered from the observer’s perspective, already clear throughout.
The lord does not coincide with the specific historical form in which he
is served by the bondsman, but is the pure self who can manifest him-
self in the manifold of shapes in which the human law can be given.
Hegel thematizes this experience under the title Unhappy Consciousness
[pp. 126–138]. As Unhappy Consciousness, self-consciousness has under-
stood that his essence is the pure self. This understanding becomes aware

assume that everybody else presupposes—an independent world of objects that is the
same for all of them,” p. 142.
5 Hegel, PhS, p. 122: “Hence, freedom in thought, too, is only the Notion of freedom, not
the living reality of freedom itself. For the essence of that freedom is at first only thinking
in general, the form as such [of thought], which has turned away from the independence
of things and returned into itself.”
108 chapter six

in the representation of the pure self as the Unchangeable.6 At this stage,

self-consciousness is unhappy precisely because its essence has no real
existence. In its pureness the essence seems to exclude all determinations.
In the development of the Unhappy Consciousness the representation
of the pure self passes through several forms. An absolute being that
can only be determined as pure and subjective is self-contradictory. The
exclusion of determinedness and objectivity undermines its absoluteness.
To overcome this contradiction self-consciousness tries to annihilate its
real existence (according to Hegel, the medieval monks who tried to sup-
press their spiritual and corporeal existence exemplify this movement).7 If
however, self-consciousness has the power to annihilate its real existence,
then it turns out that self-consciousness is itself the pure self which is the
essence of objective reality: self-consciousness has internalized the pure
self as its own, subjective essence.8
The self-consciousness internalization of the pure self demarcates
the transition into the stage of Reason [pp. 139–262], the unity of self-
consciousness and consciousness. As Unhappy Consciousness, self-
consciousness experiences itself as dependent on an objective reality, i.e.
it has become aware that consciousness is its presupposition. The devel-
opment of the Unhappy Consciousness results in the awareness that it
itself is the essence of objective reality. Therefore, on the one hand, the
Unhappy Consciousness has returned into self-consciousness, but, on the
other hand, it has maintained consciousness as its moment: the return
to self-consciousness is accompanied by a positive relation to objective
reality.9 Nature is no longer one-sidedly considered from the perspective
of its possible not-being.
The qualification of reason as the unity of self-consciousness and con-
sciousness can be interpreted as the program that must establish the
adequate foundation of the paradigm of recognition. The relation of rea-
son formulates the demand that objective reality must respond to self-
consciousness. The development of reason is the program in which it
is investigated under which conditions self-consciousness and objective

6 Hegel, PhS, p. 127.

7 By serving the church (the mediator) the consciousness (of the monks) tries to give
up its particular existence: “In the mediator, then, this consciousness frees itself from
action and enjoyment so far as they are regarded as its own,” Hegel, PhS, p. 136.
8 Self-consciousness has become reason: “Reason is the certainty of consciousness that
it is all reality; thus does idealism express its Notion,” Hegel, PhS, p. 140.
9 Hegel, PhS, p. 139: “Now that self-consciousness is Reason, its hitherto negative rela-
tion to otherness turns around into a positive relation.”
 grounding the paradigm of recognition 109

reality can be really reconciled. The formal conditions of the reconcili-

ation are already developed at the level of the lord/bondman relation:
objective reality has to be understood as a social organism in which self-
consciousness can realize its freedom. Therefore, the development of the
real conditions of the reconciliation implies the determination of the con-
tent of the human law underlying the social organism.

Reason as the Attempt to Ground the Paradigm of Recognition

In the first stage of Reason, observing Reason [pp. 145–210], the develop-
ment of the Consciousness chapter is repeated, this time however made
explicit for the internal perspective. The observed consciousness already
has developed itself into self-consciousness, but now it knows itself to be
related to an independent, objective reality. As Consciousness, observing
Reason tries to identify objective reality. Since, however, observing Reason
is also a self-consciousness, it tries to identify objective reality by finding
its own identity with it. Therefore, observing Reason tries to find the pure
self (the formal law form) in nature. Since nature is by definition not pure,
the quest of observing Reason has to fail. Hegel expresses this failure as
the absurd conclusion drawn by observing Reason: “Spirit is a bone” (Der
Geist ist ein Knochen).10 If Spirit can be found again in nature, it has to be
a “thing.” This conclusion is absurd indeed because it expresses the most
extreme contradiction. A thing is a thing because it is distinguished from
the self (namely, as externality) and the self is a self because it is not a
thing (the self is in itself not something that borrows its identification
from others). The experience of this ultimate contradiction also makes
Reason accomplish the Copernican turn. The observing Reason passes into
active reason [pp. 211–235: The actualization of rational self-consciousness
through its own activity], in which Self-consciousness is repeated, but this
time this is made explicit from the internal perspective.
As active Reason, the observed consciousness is practically related to
the “second nature”, i.e. to a social organism. As self-consciousness, active
Reason has the certitude of being the essence of objective reality. But the
active Reason is also consciousness, i.e. it knows that objective reality
has its own dependence. These demands are both unified in its relation
to a social organism. After all, the social organism has an independent

10 Hegel, PhS, p. 208: “and what really is said is expressed by saying that the being of
Spirit is a bone.”
110 chapter six

existence, but at the same time, this existence is posited by self-consciousness

itself. In its development, active Reason repeats the three forms of the
original self-consciousness. At the level of Pleasure and Necessity [pp. 217–
212], the first stage of self-consciousness (Desire) is repeated. In this rela-
tion active Reason expects that objective reality can immediately satisfy
its needs. However, the social organism has its own law. Therefore, active
Reason is confronted with an external power: necessity. (As in Desire, self-
consciousness tries to negate otherness and experiences that otherness as
its own independence.) At the level of The law of the heart and the frenzy
of self-conceit [pp. 221–228], the second stage of self-consciousness (the
struggle for life and death) is repeated. Self-consciousness tries to realize
itself as the essence of objective reality by making its own law the law of
objectivity. However, other self-consciousnesses make the same attempt.
Therefore, their laws turn out to be only subjective laws, not the law of
objectivity. (As a result, all self-consciousnesses can only struggle in their
attempt to impose their own law.) At the level of Virtue and the way of the
world [pp. 228–235], the third stage of self-consciousness (the lord/bond-
man relation) is repeated. Self-consciousness is virtuous because it hopes
to realize its essence by sacrificing its content (i.e., self-consciousness is
the “bondsman” who serves the general interest by sacrificing its particu-
lar interest). However, it turns out that the virtuous actions do not result
in the realization of the general interest, but rather in the “way of the
world”: what is realized is a contingent, historical content of the human
law. Now the observed consciousness can become aware of what we (from
the observer’s perspective) already know: it is explicitly related to a social
organism that only exists in and trough its own actions. The human law
that underlies this social organism is a contingent, specifically historical
law. The observed consciousness not only knows that it is distinguished
from the existing social organism, but also that, insofar as it wants to real-
ize itself, it must realize itself in the existing social organism. The observed
consciousness has the subjective certitude that his concrete individuality
is realized in the historically given (contingent) human law. The stage of
active Reason has developed into the stage of the Individuality which takes
itself to be real in and for itself [pp. 236–262].
At the level of the Individuality which takes itself to be real in and for
itself, the observed consciousness explicitly raises the question which
interests us. The observed consciousness wants to know under which con-
ditions the existing human law can be considered the realization of its
(free) individuality. If it is possible to give a response to this question, we
know under which conditions the paradigm of recognition can be realized.
 grounding the paradigm of recognition 111

We will be able to determine under which qualifications the human law

must be considered in order to be an adequate realization of the rela-
tion of recognition. This is exactly the program that is formulated by Axel
Honneth: the concept of ethical life is “meant to include the entirety of
intersubjective conditions that can be shown to serve as necessary pre-
conditions for individual self-realization.”11
In the section the Individuality which takes itself to be real in and for
itself, Hegel examines three options for determining the human law. The
first option is (at the level of The spiritual animal kingdom and deceit, or
the ‘matter in hand’ itself [pp. 237–252]) that the human law immediately
coincides with a traditionally given human law. Traditional society can
indeed be indicated as a “spiritual animal kingdom.” On the one hand, it
is a spiritual kingdom insofar as it is a human law, and on the other hand,
it is an animal kingdom insofar as tradition is naturally developed (and,
in this sense, not free). This option has to be rejected because an imme-
diately given tradition cannot be reconciled with subjective freedom. If
the observed consciousness pretends to do his utmost best to support
the “matter in hand itself ” because he is convinced that the tradition-
ally given society is the concrete realization of his individuality, it is justi-
fied to mistrust his intentions. Precisely because consciousness is free, it
remains always possible that he has hidden intentions and is actually not
interested in society, but rather his own interests.12
The second option is formulated at the level of Reason as lawgiver
[pp. 252–256]. The point of departure is no longer an immediately given
traditional society, but rather a society whose underlying human law is
rationally determined, i.e. whose law is determined in correspondence
with the freedom of all. This second option also has to be rejected. If the
law is only rationally determined, there is no room for individuality. After
all, the subjects of the social organism are exchangeable (as general) inso-
far as they are rational. However, insofar as they are concrete individuals,
they exclude one another.13

11 Honneth 1995, p. 173.

12 Hegel, PhS, p. 249: “While, then, it seems to him that his concern is only with the
‘matter in hand’ as an abstract reality, it is also a fact the he is concerned with it as his
own doing.”
13 Hegel, PhS, p. 256: “All that is left, then, for the making of a law is the mere form
of universality, or, in fact, the tautology of consciousness which stands over against the
content, and the knowledge, not of an existing or a real content, but only of the essence
or self-identity of a content.”
112 chapter six

The third option, Reason as testing laws [pp. 256–262], is a combination

of the first two options. The point of departure is a contingent, given law,
but this law is not immediately accepted. This law has to be tested as to
whether it is compatible with freedom. Hegel concludes that this option
also offers us no solution. It is true that the testing excludes self-contra-
dictory contents, but this does not mean that a non-contradictory content
expresses free individuality. If a contingent law is non-contradictory it is
a possible candidate for the expression of individual freedom, but it can
never be decided whether this possibility can be realized.14 On the one
hand, the free individual can never be identified with a given contingent
content. Precisely because the individual is free, he can also realize him-
self in another content. The individual’s free relation to the contingent
content is part of his free identity. On the other hand, if the contingent
law expresses the freedom of the one individual, it is not guaranteed at
all that it also expresses the freedom of the other. Any criterion for the
intersubjective validity of the realization of freedom fails.
The result of the Reason chapter seems to be very disturbing for the
aspiration of any definitive foundation of the paradigm of communicative
action. It seems impossible to formulate the general conditions which a
contingent human law must follow to be compatible with the realiza-
tion of freedom. Neither the primacy of an immediately given contingent
law (spiritual animal kingdom), nor the primacy of freedom (Reason as
lawgiver), nor the combination of the input of contingency and freedom
(Reason as testing laws) leads to satisfying results. However, in the chap-
ters of the Phenomenology of Spirit that follow the Reason chapter (Spirit,
Religion, absolute Knowing), Hegel elaborates a solution that is crucial for
evaluating Honneth’s version of the paradigm of recognition.
Hegel’s basic idea is, in accordance with Honneth, that the human law
that can be considered the adequate realization of human freedom has
to be formulated with the help of empirical testing. Hegel and Honneth,
however, disagree in their opinion about the methodological setting of
the testing procedure. At the level of Reason as testing laws, we already
observed that it is insufficient to test empirical human laws by reason
in general. This testing resolves itself into applying the generalization

14 Hegel, PhS, p. 259: “The criterion of law which Reason possesses within itself fits
every case equally well, and is thus in fact no criterion at all. It would be strange, too, if
tautology, the maxim of contradiction, which is admitted to be only a formal criterion for
the cognition of theoretical truth, i.e. something which is quite indifferent to truth and
falsehood, were supposed to be more than this for the cognition of practical truth.”
 grounding the paradigm of recognition 113

principle: Is the law self-contradictory? Therefore, we need further crite-

ria to test whether the empirical law expresses individual freedom. Obvi-
ously, Honneth recognizes that these further criteria are needed. After all,
he identifies these criteria as three forms of recognition (love, respect,
solidarity). However, it remains completely unclear how Honneth can
justify these criteria. It is true Honneth states that he borrows these cri-
teria from thinkers of our tradition (especially, Mead and Hegel) and that
they can only be justified through empirical tests. But this justification is
insufficient. The fact that these criteria can be affirmed by empirical tests
does not explain why they should be fundamental. Nor does it explain
why they are exclusive or why they are mutually coherent. Moreover, the
criterion for testing a paradigm of recognition can only be consistently
justified within this paradigm if they are also justified from the internal
perspective, as elaborated above.
In Hegel’s attempt to generate further criteria for testing the human
law, not only does this attempt conform to the demand that these crite-
ria be recognized from the internal perspective, but also that they con-
form to the result of the Reason chapter: the free individual’s relation to
the human law must be part of the human law itself.15 On the one hand,
the demand that the relation to the human law is part of the human law
itself is only a further determination of the human law, which is not itself
imposed externally, because this demand only explicates what the human
law already was throughout. After all, the human law is the law in which
freedom is expressed. This further determination only expresses the
demand that this realization of freedom explicitly has to be performed.
The realization of freedom must be aware of itself as the realization of
freedom. On the other hand, this further determination is necessarily
recognized from the internal perspective. Making totally explicit what is
done implicitly means that the separation between internal perspective
and observer’s perspective has to be overcome.

15 Although Robert Pippin (2008) states, “Second, it is highly unlikely that one could
deduce a priori just what social conditions are required for the achievement of the actual
empirical capacities and competencies necessary to function as a fully rational, end-
setting subject of one’s own life,” Pippin, Hegel’s Practical Philosophy, p. 255, the relational
forms of Reason offer, according to Hegel, the structural criteria that social conditions
have to meet.
114 chapter six

The Polis as the Immediate Reality of the Human Law that Includes the
Free Individual’s Relation to the Human Law

Like Honneth, Hegel also thinks that the determination of a concrete

human law has to be mediated through empirical testing.16 And Hegel
also looks for further criteria to perform the process of testing. However,
while the criteria introduced by Honneth (the three forms of recognition)
lack foundation, Hegel introduces a criterion that is the result of the devel-
opment of Reason.17 If we want to test whether a contingent human law
can be considered the expression of individual freedom, this contingent
law has to observe the demand that the relation of the free individual to
the human law is part of the human law itself. In the first resort, it seems
impossible to find a law that corresponds to this demand. How can a free
individual who, precisely because he is free, i.e. transcends all determina-
tion (and, in this sense, is pure), be institutionalized at all? Although we
will see that Hegel finally admits that this question is rightly raised, he
nevertheless argues that the Ancient Greek world is the beginning of an
answer.
First, Greek society, the city-state of the polis, is characterized by a
contingent human law, the law of the state. Each polis has its own, con-
tingent tradition. But secondly, the Greek society does not coincide with
the human law. Apart from the human law, there is another law which
Hegel names the divine law (or the law of the family). The divine law is
not the law of the state, the law of the real world, but rather the law of
another world: the underworld or the realm of the death. Crucial for the
understanding of Hegel’s experiment (testing a contingent human law)
is the awareness that Hegel interprets the divine law as the elementary
(immediate, and therefore, inadequate) institutionalization of the free
individual.
The command of the divine law does not concern the citizens of the
state but the members of a family. It is the absolute duty of the family

16 Habermas (1999) thinks that the recognition relation in Hegel is “detranscenden-

talized,” i.e., is part of the (historical) objective spirit. Thus, Hegel’s model is seen by
Habermas as incomplete: “Hegel had to extend the model of ethical self-understanding by
replacing the ‘self ’ with something as important as reason,” Habermas 1999, p. 145. How-
ever, the historical dimension only plays its role starting with the Spirit chapter, not with
the Reason chapter of Habermas’s analysis.
17 Therefore, Robert Pippin’s view is too one-sided: “Hegel has what could be consid-
ered a historicized or social or pragmatic conception of practical reason,” Pippin, Hegel’s
Practical Philosophy, p. 7.
 grounding the paradigm of recognition 115

members to bury their deceased family members. The act of burying sym-
bolizes that death is not a fact of nature, but rather a cultural event. By
this act the family members take on the duty not to forget the deceased
individual. The deceased individual survives, so to say, in the memory
of the family members: not as a real individual, but as the shade of the
deceased. Considered from the observer’s perspective, the shade can be
interpreted as the representation of the free individual, as the representa-
tion of the pure self. As the pure self, the shade transcends the real world
and has no real determinations.
If it is clear that the divine law is the elementary institutionalization of
the free individual,18 the conclusion can be drawn that the entirety of the
Greek society consists of two poles: on the one hand, the institutionaliza-
tion of the free individual and, on the other hand, the institutionalization
of the human law. It is true that this does not mean that the relation of the
free individual to the human law is itself part of the human law (after all,
both laws exist beside one another in separated domains), but neverthe-
less the institutionalization of the free individual is at least in the picture
in some way. In the next step Hegel wants to show that both laws are
internally related and that the development of the polis has to be under-
stood as the process in which this internal relation is explicated.19
The divine law is not only the elementary institutionalization of the free
individual, but also the elementary institutionalization of the Unhappy
Consciousness. After all, for the human law the free individual appears as

18 Of course, Divine Law cannot immediately be identified with the moral person. Only
at the level of Conscience does the real moral person appear. However, the shade of the
deceased already anticipates the absoluteness of the moral person. George Di Giovanni
also points out the relation between Divine Law and Conscience: “Since it [the Divine
Law, P.C.] spoke her [Antigone, P.C.] particular language but was heard by her as coming
from time immemorial, it already was the voice of an individual conscience. But it was a
conscience still ignorant of itself as conscience,” George Di Giovanni, “Religion, History,
and Spirit,” in Kenneth R. Westphal (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Hegel’s Phenomenology of
Spirit, Oxford 2009, pp. 233–4.
19 Therefore, it is one-sided to state that: “A ‘we’ grounds the ‘I’; not only is my free-
dom possible only by my agency being acknowledged by my community, but the very
concept of individuality is a reciprocal concept and can be thought only in relation to
another self,” Marina F. Bykova, “Spirit and Concrete Subjectivity,” in Kenneth R. Westphal
(ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Oxford, 2009, p. 281. Later
on, Bykova rightly remarks: “Thus the individual remains the ultimate measure and the
“absolute form” of the process of enculturation” (p. 288). Compare to Ludwig Siep’s state-
ment: “Mutual recognition takes place between individuals but also between individual
and community, the ‘I’ and the ‘We,’ ” Ludwig Siep, “Practical reason and spirit,” in Dean
Moyar and Michael Quante (ed.), Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: A Critical Guide, Cam-
bridge 2008, p. 183.
116 chapter six

a being whose essence is internal, absolute and elusive. Therefore, con-

sidered from the observer’s perspective, the entirety of the polis (divine
law and human law) can be considered as the institutionalization of the
initial relation of reason. Moreover, we discussed earlier how this rela-
tion has to be understood as the relation of the Unhappy Consciousness
to an independent social organism. It is true that divine law and human
law only exist beside one another, but this is only valid considered form
the internal perspective. At the level of reason it has become clear that,
considered from the observer’s perspective, the Unhappy Consciousness
and the social organism are internally related. Consequently, this is also
the case for the relation between divine and human law. Furthermore,
since the development of reason implies nothing else than explicating
what is already presupposed all the time, it must be possible to recover
all moments of the development which are passed through by reason as
constitutive moments of the concrete totality of the polis. After all, the
polis has real existence, i.e., it is the real substance that can not only be
characterized by the initial relation of reason, but must have, precisely
because it is real, integrated all of these presupposed moments.20
The development of the polis is the process in which the internal rela-
tion between divine and human law also becomes explicit for the inter-
nal perspective. Considered from the observer’s perspective, the human
law can be interpreted as the (true)21 realization of the lord/bondsman

20 “Spirit [the concrete totality of the polis, P.C.] is thus self-supporting, absolute, real
being. All previous shapes of consciousness are abstract forms of it,” Hegel, PhS, p. 264.
Later on, Hegel concretizes this statement: “In this content of the ethical world we see
achieved those ends which the previous insubstantial forms of consciousness set them-
selves; what reason apprehended only as object has become self-consciousness, and what
the latter possessed only within itself is now present as a true, objective reality. What
observation knew as a given object in which the self had no part, is here a given custom,
but a reality which is at the same time the deed and the work of the subject finding it.
The individual who seeks the pleasure of enjoying his individuality, finds it in the Family,
and the necessity in which that pleasure passes away in his own self-consciousness as a
citizen of his nation. Or, again, it is in knowing that the law of his own heart is the law of
all hearts, in knowing the consciousness of the self as the acknowledged universal order;
it is virtue, which enjoys the fruits of its sacrifice, what brings about what it sets out to do,
viz. to bring forth the essence into the light of day and its enjoyment is this universal life.
Finally, consciousness of the ‘matter in hand’ itself finds satisfaction in the real substance
which contains and preserves in a positive manner the abstract moments of the empty
category. That substance has, in the ethical powers, a genuine content which takes the
place of the insubstantial commandments which sound Reason wanted to give and to
know; and thus it gets an intrinsically determinate standard for testing, not the law, but
what is done,” Hegel, PhS, pp. 276–7.
21 In contrast to the realization forms at the level of the religion of nature, the law of
the social organism is recognized as a human law.
 grounding the paradigm of recognition 117

relation. Here, the bondsman appears as the citizen who serves the lord by
realizing in his actions the human law.22 For the citizen, the lord is rep-
resented in the religion of the work of art, namely as the statue of the god-
head. Actually, the totality of the social organism that is produced by the
actions of the citizens can be recovered in religious representation. The
statue of the godhead is the representation of the idealized citizen. And
the Greek temple, the house in which the godhead lives (i.e. the objec-
tive world of the godhead) represents the objective reality of the social
organism: as the social organism the temple is an objective reality that is
mediated by labor, i.e., it is a work of art.
The divine law exists as another world beside the human law. Consid-
ered from the observer’s perspective, however, both laws are internally
related: the divine law (the institutionalization of the pure self ) is the
hidden presupposition of the human law. This means that as a product of
free action the social organism presupposes the pure self. The movement
in which this presupposition is explicated begins with the representation
of the social organism in a (religious) work of art. As the social organism,
the work of art is also the product of free action, this time not the free
action of the citizens, but the free action of the artist. Also the work of art
presupposes the free self.23 The artist who is confronted with his work of
art realizes that the work cannot be the full realization of his freedom. The
work does not express the free activity leading to the end result. There-
fore, the work of art (statue of the godhead) can no longer be considered
the representation of an absolute substance. This threatens the stability of
the polis, because the absolute foundation of its political order is under-
mined. This threatening can only warded off if also the free activity is
symbolized in an absolute work of art. In that case, the free activity does
not seem to be an undermining force, but rather a constituting moment
of a remaining objective reality.
The free activity is represented at the level of the hymn (after the godhead,
the second stage of the abstract work of art). Actually, the hymn is the reli-
gious representation of the Unhappy Consciousness, i.e., the consciousness

22 Actually, the citizen has already developed the stoic consciousness, because the
determinations of the law are internalized as self-conscious determinations.
23 This does not mean, however, that the artist already has the modern, subjective free-
dom as Robert Pippin seems to think: “The definition of an action [Handlung] is simply an
“expression [or ‘externalization’] of subjective will” [Äusserungen des subjektiven Willes].
Hegel’s most frequent example of this is the one made much of in chapter 6: the ‘transla-
tion’ or expression relation between artist and his art work,” Robert Pippin, Hegel’s Practi-
cal Philosophy, p. 189.
118 chapter six

that the pure self is the essence.24 We discussed how the development
of the Unhappy Consciousness resulted in the relation of Reason: in the
subjective certitude of the self related to an objective reality that has to
be the expression of its free essence. The same development is repeated
at the level of the abstract work of art. Mediated through the representa-
tions of the abstract works of art (the abstract Cult and the actual Cult),
the citizens learn that the free self is their own internal essence and that
their objective reality, the social organism of the human law, has to be the
objectification of the free self. Considered from the observer’s perspective,
the shade has been transformed into a real citizen. As a consequence, the
real world of the polis, the relation between citizen and the human law
can be interpreted as the (immediate) objective reality of Reason.
The citizen becomes aware of their relation to the human law in the
form of the religious representation that, at this level, concerns the stage
of the living work of art. On the one hand, he represents his free self (body
and mind of the free self are represented in the “mystery of bread and
wine” symbolized in Ceres and Bacchus),25 on the other hand, he repre-
sents his reality as citizen in the hero of the Olympic Games.26 The repre-
sentations of the living work of art repeat the moments of observing Reason;
the representations of the free and the real self remain separated as in the
theoretical relations of observing Reason. Only if the representations of
the free and real self are actively related so that the free self realizes itself
in the real self, i.e., at the stage of the spiritual work of art, the moments of
active Reason are repeated. The three stages of active Reason (Pleasure and
Necessity, The law of the heart and the frenzy of self-conceit and Virtue and

24 Hegel, PhS, p. 430: “In other words, self-consciousness, in the objectification of

its essence, abides immediately with itself. Abiding thus with itself in its essence, it is
pure thought, or the devotion whose inwardness in the hymn has at the same time outer
existence.”
25 Hegel, PhS, p. 438: “Consequently, its self-conscious life is only the mystery of bread
and wine, of Ceres and of Bacchus, not of the other, the strictly higher, gods whose indi-
viduality includes as an essential moment self-consciousness as such. Therefore, Spirit has
not yet sacrificed itself as self-conscious Spirit to self-consciousness, and the mystery of
bread and wine is not yet the mystery of flesh and blood.”
26 Hegel, PhS, p. 438: “Man thus puts himself in the place of the statue as the shape that
has been raised and fashioned for perfectly free movement, just as the statue is perfectly
free repose. Although each individual knows how to play the part of at least a torch-bearer,
one of them comes forward who is the patterned movement, the smooth elaboration and
fluent energy of all the participants. He is an inspired and living work of art that matches
strength with its beauty; and on him is bestowed, as a reward for his strength, the decora-
tion with which the statue was honoured, and the honour of being, in place of the god in
stone, the highest bodily representation among his people of their essence.”
 grounding the paradigm of recognition 119

the way of the world) are repeated in the three forms of the spiritual work
of art (Epos, Tragedy and Comedy). The citizen who passes through these
forms of the religious representation accomplishes a learning process that
makes him conclude that the existing human law is a contingent reality.
The absolute legitimacy of the polis, provided by religious representation,
has been ruined. The polis is internally weakened by the lack of neces-
sarily shared norms and values.27 The internal weakness is manifested in
the struggle for life and death between the poleis. The struggle marks the
decay of the entire Ancient Greek world.28

The Medieval World (the Realm of Education) as the Reflective

Repetition of the Greek World

The contradiction of the Greek world, the incompatibility of freedom and

tradition, seems to be solved in the Roman World which follows the strug-
gle between the poleis. The Roman world exists so to speak of a manifold
of contingent social organisms, namely of families. These organisms do
not contradict one another because they are not part of a shared public
world. In the public world only the representatives of the family, the free
and equal legal persons are active. Therefore, freedom and tradition are
combined through the banishment of tradition into the private domain.
In the relation between the legal persons of the Roman Law, the formal
recognition relation is institutionalized.
The institutionalization of the formal recognition relation in the Roman
Law seems to affirm the point of departure of the paradigm of communi-
cative action. The recognition relation is practical and can be separated
from the relation of the recognition partners to objectivity and from their
theoretical knowledge of the objective world. Hegel, however, underlines
that the objective world cannot be neglected. Although Hegel character-
izes the Roman Empire as the world in which the ethical life has been lost,

27 Hegel, PhS, p. 452: “The power of dialectic knowledge puts specific laws and maxims
of conduct at the mercy of the pleasure and frivolity of youth which is led astray by it,
and provides weapons for deceiving old age with its fears and apprehensions and which is
restricted to life in its individual aspect.”
28 Hegel, PhS, pp. 288–9: “War is the Spirit and the form in which the essential moment
of the ethical substance, the absolute freedom of the ethical self from every existential
form, is present in its actual and authentic existence, [. . .] Now, it is physical strength and
what appears as a matter of luck, that decides on the existence of ethical life and spiritual
necessity. Because the existence of ethical life rests on strength and luck, the decision is
already made that its downfall has come.”
120 chapter six

i.e. as a world without shared norms and values (besides the normative
framework of the intersubjective legal relations), this does not mean that
the qualitative content of the objective world is meaningless. This con-
tent is not shared, but divided over the manifold of social organisms: the
families that are headed by the legal persons. All of the legal persons can
practically realize their freedom in the family organism. This realization of
freedom, however, is a purely private matter. Shared is only the awareness
that all persons have the right to the private realization of freedom and
to interact with other persons only insofar as this interaction expresses a
shared choice made by the interacting persons. The (private) presupposi-
tion of the public (shared) consciousness is the content of the given family
organism. This especially means that the different wealth of the families
is a coincidental factum that is not justified by any criterion of legitimacy.
Therefore, the harmony between the legal persons is also a matter of
coincidence. The person’s acceptance of the existing division of wealth is
dependent on a coincidental balance of power. Since the power relations
between the families principally are involved in a process of change (after
all, the wealth of the families changes under influence of the free actions
of its constitutive persons), sooner or later the balance of power will be
broken through and the stability of the Roman Empire will decay.
The decay of the Roman Empire does not imply the decay of the free-
dom of the persons. They only experience the fact that the practical
realization of freedom in the family organism is no longer guaranteed.
Since they have experienced before that they could realize their freedom
(because the Roman Law guaranteed the existence of the family organ-
ism), the decay of the Roman Empire makes clear that their freedom
does not coincide with its realization under the conditions of the Roman
Empire. Therefore, the legal persons acquire an insight that, considered
from the observer’s perspective, is not surprising. They become aware that
the essence of their freedom is their pure self, not its positive objectifica-
tion in a family organism.
The legal person that has transformed itself in the individual that has
the subjective certitude that the pure self is his essence can be interpreted
as a version of the Unhappy Consciousness.29 This time, however, the pure
self is not represented as the shade of the deceased family member, or as a

29 Hegel, PhS, pp. 454–5: “We see that this Unhappy Consciousness constitutes the
counterpart and the completion of the comic consciousness that is perfectly happy within
itself.” In revealed religion the lost substance reappears.
 grounding the paradigm of recognition 121

moment of the living work of art, but the representation is internalized as

an internal image of self-consciousness. The shade has become, as it were,
a living individual and its pure essence is not in the memory of the family
members, but the pure essence of the living individual itself. Compared
with the objectification of the Unhappy Conscious in the Greek world, this
version of the Unhappy Consciousness has become self-conscious.
Hegel interprets the medieval world as a development that can be
described in two stages. The first stage concerns the movement in which
the Unhappy Consciousness realizes itself: the self-consciousness is the
objectification of the Unhappy Consciousness.30 This movement is a self-
conscious repetition of the immediate objectification of the Unhappy Con-
sciousness in the divine law of the Greek world. As the divine law, also this
repetition is performed besides the human law, namely in the institutions
of the church. The second stage consists of the proper Realm of Education,
that results from the realization of the Unhappy Consciousness. The initial
relation of this stage is the individual who, on the one hand, has the sub-
jective certitude that the pure self is his essence, and on the other hand, is
related to a contingent objectivity that, for the individual, has to appear as
a reality in which his essence is objectified. Therefore, the development of
the Realm of Education can be interpreted as the self-conscious objectifi-
cation of the movement of reason in which the immediate objectification
of reason in the polis is repeated in a self-conscious form.
The development of the Realm of Education ends in the terror of the
French Revolution. Here, the individual (the citizen of the French Revo-
lution) wants to realize the freedom of his pure self as the human law
(the law of the French state).31 If, however, the individuals want to real-
ize themselves in the human law, they must exclude one another. This
results in their struggle for life and death, the revolutionary terror. This
terror makes us aware of the internal contradiction of the Realm of Edu-
cation. The pure freedom of the self cannot be objectified in a contingent
world. After all, freedom has to be understood as the transcendence of
objective world. Just as the contradiction between freedom and tradition
was experienced at the level of the polis, so the contradiction has become

30 This movement is not discussed in the Spirit chapter. In the initial exposition of the
unhappy consciousness in the Self-Consciousness chapter Hegel illustrates the develop-
ment with examples of the medieval world.
31 This individual can be considered the lord who is immediately unified with the
bondsman.
122 chapter six

self-conscious at the level of the Realm of Education, namely as the con-

tradiction between freedom and contingent objectivity.
Just as the decay of the polis and its transition into a new world is
marked by the struggle for life and death between the poleis, so the decay
of the Realm of Education and its transition into a new world is marked by
the struggle for life and death between the citizens of the French Revolu-
tion (by the realized lawgiving reason). This world is the world of Moder-
nity that Hegel calls the moral world.

The Moral World of Modernity as the True Realization of Reason

The contradiction between freedom and contingent objectivity is sublated

in the moral world of Modernity. With his distinction between volonté de
tous and volonté générale, Rousseau already understood that the reality
of pure freedom cannot be made dependent on a contingent world. Pure
freedom is not the greatest common divisor of the freedom that is real-
ized by all citizens in the human law (volonté de tous), but has rather an
absolute status that cannot be deduced from the contingent reality. In
contrary, the legitimacy of the real world has to be tested by the volonté
générale as an absolute criterion: the human law is legitimate insofar
as it can be considered the realization of the pure freedom of the self.
Rousseau, however, insufficiently succeeds in explicating the free will’s
independence of the world. Rather, this explication is established in the
practical philosophy of Immanuel Kant.
In Kant’s practical philosophy the world of the pure self is explicitly dis-
tinguished from the contingent world of an objective reality. On the one
hand, there is the noumenal world of the pure self, and on the other hand,
the phenomenal world of contingent objectivity. The noumenal world
is characterized by the pure law form (autonomy) and the phenomenal
world by laws that are the product of a synthesis. In the pure law form, the
categorical imperative as the demand to realize the pure freedom of the
pure self, the divine law of the Greek world and the belief of the Medieval
World receives its adequate, true form. The free self is no longer externally
represented by the rituals of the family or the monks, but is autonomous,
i.e. exists on the basis of its free self-realization. Therefore, its mode of
existence is not religious representation, but rather philosophical self-
reflection.
Kant’s distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal world
corresponds, as we discussed in chapter 1, to Jürgen Habermas’s distinction
between truth (c.q. freedom) and objectivity. Moreover, Kant’s autono-
 grounding the paradigm of recognition 123

mous self is not, as Habermas assumes, a monological self, but rather a

self that has integrated the recognition relation. After all, the self is only
autonomous insofar as its freedom is universally realized, i.e., the auto-
mous self is a universal self, the normative condition of the universal
realization of freedom. Therefore, the criticism that we raised against the
position of Habermas and Honneth also concerns Kant. The paradigm of
recognition (the theory of communicative action) is insufficiently founded
if it has not been made clear whether the pure self can realize itself at all
in the objective (phenomenal) world. Hegel discusses this criticism in the
section Dissemblance or Duplicity.
In Dissemblance or Duplicity, Hegel analyses the contradiction of Kant’s
practical philosophy.32 On the one hand, the noumenal and the phenom-
enal world are fundamentally separated (because otherwise the existence
of freedom is threatened). On the other hand, both worlds cannot be
separated. The real individual participates in both worlds: insofar as he
is free he belongs to the noumenal world and insofar as he is corporeal
he belongs to the phenomenal world. Therefore, the precondition of his
autonomy is that the phenomenal world is in harmony with his freedom.
Since, however, the phenomenal world is a contingent, independent real-
ity, the demanded harmony transcends his autonomy.
According to Hegel, this contradiction is sublated at the level of Con-
science. As Conscience, the individual has the subjective certitude that,
although the objective world is independent, it nevertheless incorporates
the realization of freedom.33 This time, its certitude has not the form of a
religious representation or a religious work of art, but rather the form of
the concept. Therefore, the development of Conscience can be considered
the true objectification of Reason. Since it is the existing objective reality
itself that Conscience wants to find again as the realization of its freedom,
the development can also be interpreted as the historical realization of
Reason as testing laws.
Conscience repeats the movement of Reason. This time, however, the
objective of the movement is not the determination of the human law’s
content. The human law rather is already given all the time as a contingent

32 Hegel, PhS, p. 374: “The moral world-view is, therefore, in fact nothing other than
the elaboration of this fundamental contradiction in its various aspects. It is, to employ
here a Kantian expression where it is most appropriate, a ‘whole nest’ of thoughtless
contradictions.”
33 Hegel, PhS, p. 384: “It is itself in its contingency completely valid in its own sight,
and knows its immediate individuality to be pure knowing and doing, to be the true real-
ity and harmony.”
124 chapter six

reality. In its development, Conscience learns to explicate the moments of

Reason, i.e., the forms presupposed by its relation to a contingent objectiv-
ity. Therefore, the result of this movement is the insight into contingent
reality as such. Conscience understands the nature of contingent reality
in distinction from the nature of its own pure freedom. On the one hand,
it understands that its freedom is pure. Consequently, the realization of
freedom in the human law implies the destruction of freedom’s pureness.
On the other hand, freedom has to be realized, because the absoluteness
of freedom does not tolerate an alien reality that limits freedom. This
dilemma is solved when the transition is made into the domain of abso-
lute spirit.34
At the level of absolute spirit, the observed consciousness has gained the
same insight that, considered from the observer’s perspective, was already
developed at the level of the lord/bondsman relation. Objective reality has
to be understood as a specific historical form of the human law. As human
law, objective reality realizes freedom; but as historical human law, it is
distinguished from the pure self. Now the lord is understood as the pure
freedom that underlies objective reality. Pure freedom is only realized in
a finite manner, namely in the process of world history, in which it is
realized in a manifold of historical human laws. From the viewpoint of
absolute spirit, the forms of religion can be understood as representations
of the lord, i.e. as stages in which the insight into the nature of the lord
is developed step by step. The realization of the absolute spirit is the his-
torical process in which insight into the nature of reality is realized: real-
ity as the self-realization of pure freedom. This insight is systematically
developed in the last chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit, at the level
of absolute knowing.

Conclusion

In contrast to Habermas and Honneth, Hegel raises the question under

which conditions the paradigm of recognition can be founded.35 It is

34 Hegel, PhS, p. 408: “The world of reconciliation is the objectively existent Spirit, which
beholds the pure knowledge of itself qua universal essence, in its opposite, in the pure
knowledge of itself qua absolutely self-contained and exclusive individuality—a reciprocal
recognition which is absolute Spirit.”
35 Honneth’s point of departure is an empirically given society. The reality of the para-
digm of recognition is dependent on empirical testing, that is, whether an empirically
given society corresponds to the three forms of recognition Honneth distinguishes. Neither
 grounding the paradigm of recognition 125

insufficient to demonstrate the truth of the paradigm by empirical testing

whether an empirically given social organism corresponds to recognition
relations. Insofar as a social organism is characterized by a shared human
law (or, as in Habermas, a shared speech) the assumption that a social
organism is empirically given already presupposes the truth of the para-
digm throughout. At best, the testing leads to the further determination
of the human law. But this further determination is either dependent on
a criterion that is not itself sufficiently founded (Honneth’s three forms of
recognition), or is only a generalization of the determinations of contin-
gent human laws (Habermas’s system of rights) such that the generaliza-
tions are insufficiently founded.36
At the level of Reason, Hegel tries to develop the necessary determina-
tion of the human law. He examines under which necessary conditions
objective reality can be considered the realization of the free self.37 At
first sight, the result of the Reason chapter seems to affirm Habermas’s
and Honneth’s position. The necessary deduction of the human law’s
content is not possible. It is only possible to test whether an empirically
given human law corresponds to the criteria of reason. However, this
testing does not result in substantial determinations: it only determines
that human law’s content has to be non-contradictory. Since what is self-
contradictory cannot exist at all, this result does not seem to be very
instructive: it only seems to imply the insight that the real human law
must be able to really exist.
At the level of the Spirit chapter, however, Hegel elaborates how the
criterion of non-contradiction can be productive for the further determi-
nation of the human law. The criterion of non-contradiction implies that

the unity of the given society, nor the three forms of recognition are founded. Also Hab-
ermas’s system of rights is dependent on an empirically given lifeworld: “ ‘Das’ System der
Rechte gibt es nicht in transzendentaler Reinheit,” J. Habermas, Faktizität und Geltung,
Frankfurt/M. 1992, p. 163.
36 Honneth founds neither the claim of which contingent humans laws have to be con-
sidered nor which points of view have to be taken into account.
37 Terry Pinkard has the opinion that we have to “understand the role of reason in his-
tory,” Pinkard, “Shapes of the Active Reason: The Law of the Heart, Retrieved Virtue, and
What Really Matters,” in Kenneth R. Westphal (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Hegel’s Phe-
nomenology of Spirit, Oxford, 2009, p. 137, and concludes that “it turns out, that the notion
of a ‘constitutive standard’ for agency itself is a historically developing norm,” p. 148. More-
over, Pinkard states that the path of reason has no necessity: “But was it necessary to enter
that path in the first place? Nothing in the development of modern individualism would
answer that question,” p. 148. Pinkard’s interpretation is very misleading. Making the moral
person the result of a historical process undermines its uniqueness, and therefore, leaves
no room for the moral person at all.
126 chapter six

the observer’s perspective of the polis may not contradict the internal per-
spective. Therefore, the observer’s free relation to the human law must be
part of the human law itself. Hegel argues that the Ancient Greek polis
corresponds to this demand because the polis does not only consist of
the human law, but also of the divine law in which the pure self is institu-
tionalized. Therefore, the polis can be reconstructed as the objectification
of reason (the relation between the pure self and the social organism).
However, insofar as the polis is also the objectification of reason consid-
ered from the internal perspective, the human law would immediately
appear as a contingent law leading to the decay of the polis. Although this
decay finally takes place, it is postponed because initially the two laws
exist alongside one another. The pure self belongs to the underworld and
is excluded from the human law and its self-consciousness.
The citizens of the polis practically recognize the human law as their
lord: in their actions they serve the human law and realize it. The citizens
are aware of their lord in the form of the religious representations of the
religion of the work of art. In the form of these works of art, the citizens
become aware of the pure self as the presupposition of the polis (at the
level of the abstract work of art) and of the polis as the objectification of
observing (at the level of the living work of art) and active (at the level
of the spiritual work of art) reason. The process of becoming self-aware
results in the insight into the contingency of the human law such that its
legitimacy is undermined. The actual decay of the polis is performed in
the form of the struggle for life and death between the poleis.
The contradiction of the Greek World, i.e. the contradiction between
freedom and tradition, is sublated in the Medieval World, in which the
immediate objectification of Reason in the polis is transformed into
the self-conscious objectification of Reason in the Realm of Education.
The self-conscious repetition of the divine law can be found again in the
institutions of the medieval church; the self-conscious repetition of the
human law can be found again in Realm of Education; finally, the religion
of the work of art is repeated in a self-conscious form at the level of the
revealed religion.
As a result of the development of the medieval world, the contradiction
of the polis is also understood in a self-conscious manner. The contradic-
tion of the polis, the contradiction between freedom and tradition, can be
interpreted as the historical manifestation of The spiritual animal kingdom
and deceit, or the ‘matter in hand’ itself. After all, at this stage reason tests
whether a traditionally given human law can be considered the realiza-
tion of the pure self. In the process of education of the medieval world,
 grounding the paradigm of recognition 127

consciousness has become aware that not only the traditional form of the
human law is contingent, but rather the human law as such. Therefore, the
contradiction between freedom and tradition has become self-conscious
as the contradiction between freedom and objectivity. The citizen of the
French Revolution tries to overcome this contradiction by making himself
the lawgiver of the human law. Obviously, this attempt can be interpreted
as the historical realization of Reason as lawgiver.
In the struggle for life and death between the citizens it is experienced
that pure freedom transcends any human law. This insight is integrated at
the level of the moral world, Hegel’s characterization of Modernity. In the
moral word, pure freedom is understood as moral freedom, as the freedom
that belongs to its own, noumenal world. At this stage, Conscience tests
whether the contingent (phenomenal) world can nevertheless be consid-
ered the objectification of its pure freedom. Therefore, this stage can be
interpreted as the historical realization of Reason as testing laws.
The contradiction of the moral world, in which the realms of freedom
and of nature are separated and nevertheless related to one another, is
sublated at the level of the absolute spirit. At this level, consciousness has
acquired the adequate insight into reality as the self-realization of pure
freedom in the process of world history.38 Hegel discusses the systematic
structure of the absolute spirit at the level of absolute knowing. In chapter
10 we will come back to this section. We will argue that the concept of
absolute spirit does not mark Hegel’s return to a monological position, as
Habermas and Honneth seem to assume, but rather elaborates the ade-
quate foundation of the paradigm of recognition.
In this chapter, I disproved Honneth’s thesis that the three forms of rec-
ognitions that Hegel distinguishes have only a “metaphysical” status and
can only be accepted if they can be supported with the help of empirical
testing. It not only turned out that this “empirical testing” of the para-
digm of recognition is performed by Hegel himself (namely, with regard
to European history), but also that precisely this empirical testing leads
to the differentiation of the recognition relation into three fundamental
forms. It is rather Honneth, not Hegel, who introduces the three forms of
recognition in a “metaphysical” manner. Moreover, Hegel shows how, in

38 “Regarding the development and articulation of freedom, the acknowledgment of

individuality as an absolute value and criterion is the ‘organizing principle,’ ” Ludwig Siep,
“Practical reason and spirit in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit,” in Dean Moyar and Michael
Quante (ed.), Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: A Critical Guide, Cambridge 2008, p. 186.
128 chapter six

line with Honneth’s position, the historical realization of the three forms
of recognition are mediated by a “struggle for recognition.”
In my Nature of the Self, I have not only elaborated how Hegel, in his
Philosophy of Right, develops the systematic unity of the three forms
of recognition that are practically established in European history (the
immediate realization of recognition in the tradition of the family, the
mediate realization of recognition in the rational unity of civil society and
the true realization of recognition in the ethical community of the state),
but also how the struggle for recognition is institutionalized in institu-
tions of education at all three levels of recognition. Moreover, I argued
that, according to Hegel, the Philosophy of Right not only develops the
systematic unity of the three forms of recognition, but also claims to per-
form the “empirical testing” of how this systematic unity appears in the
real institutions of (north-west) Europe of Hegel’s era. Hegel expressively
underlines that a philosopher can never go “beyond the world as it is”: “It
is just as absurd to fancy that a philosophy can transcend its contempo-
rary world as it is to fancy that an individual can overleap his own age,
jump over Rhodes.”39 Therefore, each time has to write its own Philosophy
of Right, mediated through the empirical testing of existing institutions.
Consequently, I worked out how an actual Philosophy of Right would look
like for the present.
Also Honneth’s “empirical testing” of the three forms of recognition can
be interpreted as an attempt to write a contemporary Philosophy of Right.
In the next three chapters, I will examine how Honneth’s empirical testing
of the three forms of recognition relate to the methodical considerations
that Hegel developed to justify the process of testing.

39 G.W.F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, p. 11. Hereafter PhR.

 CHAPTER SEVEN

The domain of love

Introduction

The point of departure of the normative social theory that Honneth wants
to develop “has to be the basic claim on which the pragmatist Mead and
the early Hegel are agreed in principle: the reproduction of social life is gov-
erned by the imperative of mutual recognition, because one can develop a
practical relation-to-self only when one has learned to view oneself, from
the normative perspective of one’s partners in interaction, as their social
addressee” (92).1 Since this imperative is “anchored in the social life pro-
cess,” it implies the “dynamic element” of the historical expansion of the
relations of mutual recognition. This expansion mediated through “mor-
ally motivated struggles of social groups” results in the three-part division
of the relations of mutual recognition: “the emotional concern familiar
from relationships of love and friendship is distinguished from legal recog-
nition and approval associated with solidarity as particular ways of grant-
ing recognition” (94). This three-part division corresponds, for example, to
Hegel’s distinction between family, civil society and state.2
Honneth argues that the three-part division is insufficiently justified
by Mead and Hegel: without empirical research all justification remains
inadequate. This observation underlies Honneth’s program. He wants to
develop “a phenomenologically oriented typology that aims to describe
the three patterns of recognition in such a way that they can be checked
empirically against the data from individual sciences” (93). Moreover, the
struggle for recognition that leads to the threefold form of recognition

1 The page numbers in this chapter refer to Honneth 1995.

2 In his recent book “Das Recht der Freiheit” (2011), Honneth again borrows the three-
part division from Hegel, this time as three forms of “social freedom.” Honneth stresses
that these domains must be separated “vom Hintergrund seiner (i.e., Hegel’s, p.c.) Geist-
metaphysik” (p. 107). The concept of the three domains has to function as the basis for a
“normative Rekonstruktion” (p. 106) of the historic reality. The “domain of love” is then
indicated as “das ‘wir’ persönlicher Beziehungen.” By separating the “social freedom” from
Hegel’s “Geistmetaphysik,” Honneth gives no answer to the question as to how recognition
between corporeal individuals can be conceived without contradiction or to the question
of why there are precisely three dimensions of social freedom and not more.
130 chapter seven

has to be based on social experiences: “Neither in Hegel nor in Mead does

one find a systematic consideration of those forms of disrespect that, as
negative equivalents for the corresponding relations of recognition, could
enable social actors to realize that they are being denied recognition” (93).
In this chapter, I critically examine what precisely Honneth’s empirical
testing means for the first form of recognition related to the domain of
love. I compare this empirical testing with the corresponding testing in
Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.

Honneth’s Conception of the Basic Setting of the Domain of Love

Honneth wants to define love relations “as neutral as possible” (especially

to avoid a one-sided romantic interpretation): “Love relations are to be
understood here as referring to primary relationships insofar as they—on
the model of friendships, parent-child relationships, as well as erotic rela-
tionships between lovers—are constituted by strong emotional attach-
ments among a small number of people” (95).3 He states that this usage
of the concept of love overlaps with Hegel’s, for whom:
love represents the first stage of reciprocal recognition, because in it sub-
jects mutually confirm each other with regard to the concrete nature of their
needs and thereby recognize each other as needy creatures. In the recipro-
cal experience of loving care, both subjects know themselves to be united
in their neediness, in their dependence on each other. Since, moreover,
needs and emotions can, to a certain extent, only gain ‘confirmation’ by
being directly satisfied or reciprocated, recognition itself must possess the
character of affective approval or encouragement. This recognition relation-
ship is thus also necessarily tied to the physical existence of concrete others
who show each other feelings of particular esteem. The key for translating
this topic into a context of scientific research is represented by Hegel’s for-
mulation, according to which love has to be understood as ‘being oneself in
another.’ (95/6)
The scientific research that Honneth has in mind turns out to be, at
this stage, the research of the psycho-analytical tradition. He examines
whether the development of the love relation between mother and child,
as it is interpreted and tested by psycho-analytical research, results in a
relation of recognition that corresponds to Hegel’s first stage of reciprocal
recognition. However, it is not immediately clear why the elaboration of

3 This sub-division of the love relation returns in Das Recht der Freiheit, p. 237.
 the domain of love 131

this program would answer all the questions that Honneth raises. Why
does the examination concentrate on the love between mother and child
and not, for example, on the love between husbands or the love between
friends?4 If psycho-analytical research confirms reciprocal recognition in
a Hegelian sense, does this imply that this form of recognition is suffi-
ciently justified? What are, at this stage, the forms of disrespect that lead
to a struggle for recognition? In what sense, the development of the child
can be qualified as a struggle for recognition?

Is Honneth’s Basic Setting Adequate for Answering the

Questions He Raises?

To some extent, it is comprehensible that Honneth’s starting point is the

mother/child relation. If the love relation is the result of a development,
i.e. if love has to be learnt, must start from a situation that precedes any
learning process. This situation seems to be represented by the initial
symbiosis between mother and child that underlies the development of
the love relation. In the symbiosis all recognition fails. Actually, consid-
ered from the internal perspective, the symbiosis is no relation at all. The
child cannot make a distinction between itself and the external world; the
relation only exists for the observer. Therefore, the child’s overcoming of
this symbiosis seems indeed to be the precondition for all forms of the
love relation.
After a second look, however, Honneth’s starting point is less plausible.
After all, the initial symbiosis between mother and child is itself condi-
tioned. The relation of mother and child presupposes the social organism
of the family. This seems to be in line with Honneth’s remark that the
“imperative of mutual recognition” is “anchored in the social life process.”
However, it is not evident that this “social life process” coincides with the
social organism of the family. It is more presumable that Honneth aims
at an initial social life process of the entire society that has to be differ-
entiated into three forms of mutual recognition mediated by correspond-
ing struggles for recognition. But both interpretations of the “social life
process” imply that the development of the child already presupposes a

4 In Das Recht der Freiheit, Honneth extensively discusses friendship (p. 237 ff.) and
“Intimbeziehungen” (p. 252 ff.).
132 chapter seven

recognition relation throughout: the mutual recognition of the parents

which results in the constitution of the family organism.5
If we leave alone the question of the constitution of the family organism
and if we assume that it is sufficiently justified that our point of departure
is an existing, contingent family organism in which mother and child have
a symbiotic relation, what conclusions can we drawn from the psycho-
analytical research that Honneth has in mind? Is it possible to justify the
first form of mutual recognition by this kind of empirical research? Sev-
eral methodological problems prevent us from accepting this conclusion.
First, the empirical testing that Honneth proposes has a tautological
structure. The point of departure is a given (contingent) family organism
characterized by a specific form of recognition. Psycho-analytic theory
reconstructs the development the child must go through to reach this
specific form of recognition. If the reconstruction succeeds, this does not
imply that the first form of recognition is sufficiently justified to be con-
sidered a necessary form of recognition. Secondly, if the family organism
is a contingent reality, it is possible to design and test models to interpret
this reality. But it always remains possible to design alternative models
that are more adequate. The process of scientific modeling is in principle
never finished. Thirdly, if it is possible to reconstruct in psycho-analysis
the child’s development according to a concept of recognition, we still
have to examine how this concept of recognition is related to the concept
of recognition as elaborated, for example, by Hegel or Mead. As Andreas
Wildt points out, it is necessary to distinguish several senses of recognition

5 In Das Recht der Freiheit, Honneth repairs this omission. He argues that the love
between partners is characterized by “einen Vorgriff auf eine gemeinsam zu durchlebende
Geschichte [. . .] Was die Liebesbeziehung jedoch von aller Freundschaften abhebt und sie
zu einer einzigartigen Institution der persönlichen Bindung macht, ist ein wechselseitiges
Verlangen nach sexueller Intimität und eine alles umfassende Freude an der Körperlich-
keit des Partners,” p. 263. However, it remains unclear how “wechselseites Verlangen” can
be conceived of as being internally united with a relation of recognition. It seems rather
that Honneth’s explanation undoes the recognition of the other: “In einem anderen bei
sich selbst zu sein bedeutet daher in der Intimität der Liebe, sich die natürliche Bedürf-
tigkeit des eigenen Selbst in der leiblichen Kommunikation erneut anzueignen, ohne
dabei Angst vor Blossstellungen oder Verletzungen haben zu müssen,” p. 270. Moreover, it
remains unclear how the intimate relation between the partners is related to the educa-
tion of possible children. Honneth observes that it seems to be the case that the defini-
tion of the family is more than in the past oriented to “die gemeinsamen Sorgen um das
Kindeswohl,” p. 289. Does this mean that these “gemeinsame Sorgen” can be separated
from the intimacy between the partners?
 the domain of love 133

within psycho-analytic theory.6 Fourthly, even if the assumption that the

family organism can be interpreted in correspondence with the first form
of mutual recognition is sufficiently justified, the question still has to be
answered as to whether this form of recognition is compatible with the
two other forms of mutual recognition and how these forms are necessar-
ily related. If Honneth really wants to explicate “the entirety of intersub-
jective conditions that can be shown to serve as necessary preconditions
of individual self-realization” (173), he must accomplish Hegel’s project
and make clear under which conditions a social organism can be under-
stood as the realization of the pure self (conceptualized as the pure form
of recognition) at all, before any empirical testing in the sense of psycho-
analysis.
Furthermore, it does not seem meaningful to interpret the develop-
ment of the child in terms of disrespect that leads to a struggle for rec-
ognition. The development of the child is rather a process of education.
Later on, I will discuss how, in Hegel’s view, processes of education have
to be understood as the sublation of struggles for recognition.

Answering Honneth’s Questions from the Viewpoint of the

Phenomenology of Spirit

We have discussed how the lord/bondsman relation formulates the mini-

mal conditions under which the possibility of real consciousness can be
conceptualized. Self-consciousness is related to its pure freedom (the
lord) and realizes this freedom in the specific historical form of a social
organism. It turned out that it is not possible to determine the content of
the human law that underlies the social organism. The human law is con-
tingent and the only necessary determination that can be applied to this
law is that it may not contradict itself. This conclusion is drawn from an
examination of the conditions under which objective reality in the devel-
opment of reason can be conceived as the expression of pure freedom.
This does not imply, however, that the only necessary determination of
the human law is its contingency and its being non-contradictory.
A contingent, non-contradictory human law can only be considered
the realization of self-consciousness if it is not only contingent and

6 Andreas Wildt, “Recognition in Psychoanalysis,” in Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch/

Christopher F. Zurn (eds.), The Philosophy of Recognition, Lexington Books, Plymouth
2010, pp. 189–209.
134 chapter seven

non-contradictory from the observer’s perspective, but also from the inter-
nal perspective. Only under that condition can the human law have a real
existence (and not only a hypothetical one). This demand can only be
met if the human law corresponds to specific institutional qualifications.
The human law that from an observer’s perspective can be described as a
lord/bondsman relation (i.e., as a social organism which is the contingent
realization of the pure self ) must also be a lord/bondman relation if it is
considered from the internal perspective. The citizens of the human law
must themselves understand that they realize their pure self in the form
of a contingent (historical) social organism.
At first sight, it seems impossible to identify a historical social organ-
ism whose citizens are aware of its contingency: after all this awareness
seems to undermine the stability of the social organism. However, we dis-
cussed how Hegel reconstructs European history as the process in which
the citizens of the human law develop the insight into the human law as a
contingent realization of the form of the pure self. The point of departure
is that the human law of the polis presupposes the pure self in the form
of the divine law. Since the divine law does not belong to the realm of
the real world (but rather to the realm of the underworld), the contingent
status of the human law is initially hidden. Therefore, the religion of the
polis can represent the reality of the human law as an absolute one. The
development of the polis is the process in which the pure self becomes
part of the religious representation which results in the awareness that
the human law only has a contingent status. In this way, the testing of
reason (i.e., the testing under which conditions objective reality can be
considered the realization of the pure self ) can be interpreted as a process
institutionalized in the historical world of the polis. The result of this his-
torical testing corresponds to what is thematized in the Reason chapter at
the level of The spiritual animal kingdom and deceit, or the ‘matter in hand’
itself [pp. 237–252]: the contingently given human law is not an adequate
realization of the pure self. The historical insight into the contingency of
the human law results in a struggle for recognition between the poleis.
Since each polis wants its own human law to be recognized as the stan-
dard, they thereby exclude the other human laws. The historical solution
of this struggle for recognition is projected by Hegel in the Roman Empire
characterized by the Roman Law. Basically, Roman Law offers room to a
manifold of contingent social organisms: a manifold of families (repre-
sented as the legal persons) which have their own particular norms and
values (and, in this sense, their particular human law). The contradiction
 the domain of love 135

between freedom and tradition is sublated into a manifold of traditions

that can be freely chosen.
However, the immediate objectification of reason in the Ancient world
is reflected in the medieval world. In the Roman world, pure freedom
is only practically realized in the private domain of the family, it is not
yet understood as the fundamental ground that legitimizes the law itself.
After the decay of the Roman Empire, the individuals become aware
that the pure self cannot coincide with the real world: they can only pre-
serve the notion of the pure self as an internal pure essence. Hegel inter-
prets the medieval world (the realm of education) as the process in which
the individuals try to realize this internal essence. The process results in
the French Revolution, i.e. in the attempt of the French citizens to imme-
diately realize the human law as the expression of the pure self. This leads
to a second struggle for recognition appearing as the terror that follows
the French Revolution.
At the level of the realm of morality, Hegel’s interpretation of the mod-
ern world, the second struggle for recognition is sublated within con-
science. Conscience does not only have the subjective certitude that the
pure self is its absolute essence, it also realizes this essence throughout
its engagement in the objective world. The conditions under which this
certitude is guaranteed is elaborated in the development of conscience.
This results in the insight into objective reality as the process in which
the absolute spirit realizes itself in world history. At this point the citizens
have become aware of the lord/bondsman relation from the internal per-
spective. The lord is the absolute spirit that is served by the bondsmen,
i.e., by the citizens who strive for realizing their freedom in a specific his-
torical form of the human law. Even at this level, the realization of free-
dom is still linked with a struggle for recognition: the struggle between the
nation states in world history.7
Hegel’s reconstruction of European history proves that the recognition
relation can be actually realized. This shows that Hegel’s position is not
metaphysical in Honneth’s sense. Moreover, the reconstruction also makes
clear that the distinct forms of recognition are mediated by a struggle for
recognition. In this respect Hegel has remained true to his earlier posi-
tion. However, the three forms of recognition correspond to three differ-
ent periods in European history: Antiquity, Middle Ages and Modernity.

7 See Cobben 2011.

136 chapter seven

Therefore, only if it possible to transform these historical forms into sys-

tematic moments of the institutional structure of the human law, can they
be considered necessary forms of recognition.
As moments of the systematic unity, the historical moments have to be
rethought from the end-result, i.e. from conscience. The conscientious cit-
izens know that the human law is a specific realization of the form of their
absolute essence, the free self. Therefore, the contingent social organism
of the polis is re-taken as the contingent organism of the family, but this
time the “human law” does not coincide with the institutional form of
the family. The institutional structure of society must enable the citizens
to explicitly understand that the social organism (here: the family) is the
contingent expression of their pure freedom. It is not sufficient that the
institutions guarantee traditional norms and value, they must also guar-
antee the insight into the contingency of these norms and values. This
means that the social organism of the family is embedded in a framework
of other institutions. Here, I restrict myself to the question as to what this
implies for the first fundamental form of recognition, the relation of love
(which corresponds to the historical level of Antiquity).
The new born child is part of a contingent social organism—the family
by which it is produced. Initially, the child has no insight into the contin-
gency of the family. To gain this insight the child has to be educated: it
has to develop itself into the free person (compare the legal person of the
Roman Law) who is able to distinguish the contingent content of his fam-
ily life from his formal freedom. As the free person, the child is a grown
up individual that leaves his original family and has the right to establish
his own family (PhR, § 177). The establishment of a new family is an act
of freedom in which the contingency of the original family is sublated. On
the one hand, the formal constitution of the family is the result of a free
choice of persons: persons freely decide to form a new family organism
together. On the other hand, the content of the new family organism is
also free; the persons who constitute the new family have the freedom to
choose their own norms and values. Therefore, the struggle for recogni-
tion that characterized the Ancient Greek world and resulted in the decay
of this world has been made superfluous. Because a manifold of traditions
can co-exist, it is no longer necessary to exclude other traditions. The
struggle for recognition is, as it were, transformed into the institutional-
ized process of education. Education is the mediated negation of tradition
that results in a free relation to tradition.
Of course, the previous determination of the first form of mutual recogni-
tion is still very general and has to be elaborated in more detail. Moreover,
 the domain of love 137

Axel Honneth is completely right if he argues that this completion is also

dependent on empirical research. In the next sections of this chapter, I
programmatically explore what place empirical research can have for the
further elaboration of (necessary) philosophical considerations.

The Conception of the Family and Its Relation to Empirical Research

In his elaboration of the love relation, Honneth focuses on the mother/

child relation. Since the mother/child relation presupposes the institu-
tional form of marriage, it is striking that he does not pay attention to
the love between partners in life. In his Philosophy of Right, it is evident
that for Hegel the family is the encompassing framework of the process
of education.
Until now we qualified the family as a social organism. Of course, this
qualification is not precise. At least it is clear that the form of the family
changes from culture to culture and from historical period to historical
period. But insofar as the family is considered the first form of mutual
recognition, and consequently, the institution in which freedom is imme-
diately realized, according to Hegel, a number of universal characteristics
can be added to its determination as a social organism. First, the mar-
riage is a marriage between two persons, i.e., the marriage is monogamous
(PhR, § 167). This demand is related to the essential meaning of the real-
ization of freedom: the adequate expression of one’s free identity. If there
are more than two partners either the expression of identity is divided
over the partners (so that the identity gets lost)8 or the relation between
several partners must be hierarchically ordered (so that the equality
between the partners gets lost).9 Secondly, the marriage has to be concep-
tualized as an institution that reproduces itself, so that the existence of
the contingent social organism is guaranteed. Marriage is the social organ-
ism in which the new members of the larger social body are raised (PhR,
§ 173). Thirdly, in principle marriage has to be a life-long relationship (PhR,
§ 163), otherwise the immediate expression of identity has to be divided
over several marriages (such that the expression of the free identity can
fall apart into episodes without internal coherence).

8 If, for example, two different love relations are equally important sooner or later con-
flicts of loyalty will arise.
9 If there is a hierarchy of relations, it is impossible that all these relations are sym-
metrical.
138 chapter seven

In his Philosophy of Right, Hegel examined how the institution of mar-

riage appears in his own era, i.e., at the beginning of the nineteenth
century. This examination has an empirical dimension. The question is
which of the positively existing forms of the institution of marriage (in
the countries of northwest Europe, i.e., in the countries whose laws can
be interpreted as the realization of freedom) correspond to the general
philosophical concept of marriage as it is developed by Hegel. He con-
cludes that reason in this respect is indeed realized in his era. It is pos-
sible, starting from the existing forms of the institution of marriage, to
reconstruct an idealized completion of the philosophical concept of mar-
riage. The three general characteristics of this concept can be recovered
empirically.
In the Christian Europe of Hegel’s time, it was generally accepted that
marriage can be monogamous. The relation between the marriage partners
is basically symmetrical, such that in the relation to the partner the real-
ization of its own free identity is reflected. This means that monogamous
marriage specifies a relation between two grown individuals, between two
persons. A monogamous marriage, for example, between a grown indi-
vidual and a child or a grown person and an animal is forbidden.10
The second general characteristic of marriage, the capacity to repro-
duce itself, was according to Hegel, safeguarded in the specification that
the marriage partners must have a different sex (PhR, § 166). Of course,
this is not in itself a sufficient condition for the reproduction of the mar-
riage institution. Children can only reproduce the marriage institution if
they are educated as free persons and can make the decision to marry and
form a new family. Therefore, it is not only important that the marriage
partners have a different sex, but also that sexual intercourse is reserved
for the marriage partner, that the children are part of the social organism
of the family and that they are raised to grown up as persons. Hegel thinks
that the family life of the children is a necessary material precondition for
their own family in the future. The family life has to be learned during the
years of the child’s youth (PhR, § 175).
For the parents, the education of the children is not only an instrumen-
tal task in service of the reproduction of the institution of marriage. Hegel

10 Another example of a forbidden monogamous marriage is that between brother and

sister. Since the marriage is executed between two free and equal persons, i.e., between
individuals who have emancipated themselves from the tradition of their original family,
a marriage between brother and sister is suspect: possibly they have not finished their
process of emancipation and do not relate freely and equally to one another.
 the domain of love 139

considers the child as the objectification of the love of his parents (PhR,
§ 173). For me this interpretation makes sense if I relate it to the suc-
cessful reproduction of the family institution. The reproduction can only
succeed if the child has developed into a harmonious (free) grown person.
This harmony depends on the harmony of the family life that his parents
created. Since the harmony of the family expresses the mutual love of the
parents, the harmony of the grown child reflects the love of his parents
and is in this sense an “objectification” of this love.
The third general characteristic of marriage, the long-life connection
of marriage partners can, according to Hegel, also be exemplified by the
nineteenth century institution of marriage. The endurance of the rela-
tion between man and woman is rooted in their complementary gender
roles (PhR, § 166). Man and woman form together the dialectical unity of
the concrete person which is realized in the family organism). Man and
woman are the constituting moments of the entirety of the family organ-
ism. The woman takes care of the family insofar it concerns the internal
affairs and the man represents the family in the outside world, namely in
civil society and state.
It is obvious that today Hegel’s concept of the institution of marriage is
outdated. Probably most of us will not accept this conception of marriage.
This, however, is not an argument against Hegel’s philosophical point of
departure, but rather an affirmation of them. For Hegel it is evident that
each era has to make its own empirical tests. As Hegel did this for his
time, we have to investigate for our time whether the existing forms of
partner relations in our globalized world can be interpreted as a particu-
lar, historical appearance of the general characteristics of the philosophi-
cal concept of marriage.
With regard to the first general characteristic, monogamy, the situation
does not seem to be dramatically changed in comparison with Hegel’s
time. Of course, there are countries and cultures in the contemporary
world in which forms of polygamy are allowed. But Hegel’s arguments
against polygamy are universal: polygamy is incompatible with the ade-
quate realization of freedom because it breaks through the symmetrical
relations between the persons, so that their freedom becomes unequal.
For the same reason a marriage between a grown up person and a child
cannot be accepted as an adequate realization form of the institution of
marriage. The most significant change seems to be that more and more
persons have no partner relationship at all and live in a so-called single
household. From Hegel’s point of view this situation is unsatisfying. He
regards the marriage as an ethical duty: without the social organism of
140 chapter seven

the family freedom cannot be adequately expressed because the first fun-
damental form of mutual recognition is not realized.
The second general characteristic of the marriage, the capacity to repro-
duce itself, seems to be a problem in the actual forms of partner relations.
This is not only because sex and reproduction are separated, implying that
“marriage” is no longer “automatically” linked with having children, but
also because more and more countries introduced the marriage between
persons of the same sex. At the same time, however, the birth of children
is no longer exclusively reserved to couples that live in a heterosexual
partner relationship. Homosexual couples can adopt children, or make
use of other techniques for getting children (in vitro fertilization or, in
the future, cloning); woman can decide to raise children on their own;
divorced parents or parents whose partner died can chose to take care
of their children alone. Therefore, the link between heterosexual partner
relations and the reproduction of these relations through the education of
children seems no longer to be considered the standard.
This does not imply, however, that the relation between some form of
family and the education of children has lost all validity. We do not want
laboratories for the production of children or aspire to state institutions
for their education. At least, we know that real free individuals must be
part of a social organism that is reproduced in the form of freedom. The
best model to conceptualize this institution seems to be a modified ver-
sion of the well-known nuclear family, i.e. two partners who reproduce
the family by raising children who are part of that family. Empirical sci-
entific research can answer the questions of whether it is important that
the partners have or have not a different sex, whether or not there is a bio-
logical bond with the children, or of what are the consequences of being
raised in a single parent family.
The third general characteristic of the philosophical conception of mar-
riage evokes, compared to Hegel’s time, the most problems. We do not
longer accept fixed, traditional gender roles because we consider them as
a token that traditional bonds are insufficiently overcome such that these
bonds contradict the formal freedom of the person. If, however, the mar-
riage partners are no longer complementary and related to one another
as “complete,” independent individuals, it is not understandable on what
ground a life-long relationship can be based. Therefore, it is not surprising
that divorce has no longer the extraordinary status that Hegel claimed for
it. In the Nature of the Self, I tried to elaborate the conditions under which
two independent individuals can be conceptualized in a life-long relation-
ship. Since these conditions have to make clear how two independent
 the domain of love 141

individuals can express their freedom in a shared social organism, they

are structured according to the relation forms that Hegel develops (in the
Phenomenology of Spirit) at the level of Conscience. Consequently, it has
to be figured out how these relational forms can be empirically retraced
in actual partner relations. I concluded that modern partner relations
must be embedded in a special, institutionalized discussion between the
partners: an ongoing discussion in which the partners try to reconstruct
their life history with mutual help in order to get insight into their free
identity. At this place, I will not go into the argumentation that resulted
in this conclusion. I only want to observe that if my conclusions are right,
they must be affirmed by empirical research. This research must clarify
whether and how modern partner relations are oriented in discussions in
which the partners try to reconstruct their life history. This presupposes
the explication of a philosophical framework that formulates the criteria
by which the life history of a free individual must correspond.

The Philosophical Conception of the Education of the Child

and Its Relation to Empirical Research

We observed that Honneth’s analysis of the development of the love rela-

tion between mother and child started from a situation that he interprets
as a symbiosis. Honneth does not thematize the presupposition of this
situation, namely the existence of the social organism of the family. A
possible explanation of this omission may be that he assumes that the
law that underlies this social organism is purely contingent. After all, we
already discussed how Honneth does not question the relation between
the recognition relation and the objective world. He seems to think that
the further determination of the objective world is just a matter of empiri-
cal research. We already elaborated our objections against this point of
view. Although Honneth is right insofar as the law that underlies the
social organism is indeed a contingent law (i.e., it cannot philosophically
be deduced). This does not imply that the institutional differentiation of
the human law is also completely contingent. We examined the institu-
tional conditions under which the human law is not only contingent from
the observer’s perspective, but also from the internal perspective.
We specified these conditions with regard to the social organism of the
family. Only if the family organism is constituted by individuals who have
developed themselves into persons can it appear, considered from an
internal perspective, as a contingent organism. Therefore, if the institution
142 chapter seven

of the family has to be conceptualized as an institution that reproduces

itself, it must produce children who are educated into persons.
If, in contrast to Honneth, the starting point of the education process is
not taken as the symbiotic mother/child relation, but rather as the child’s
immediate relation to the social organism of the family, then again the
starting point can be described as a symbiotic relation. The child can-
not differentiate between the family organism and itself. But now it is
clear that it is insufficient to reconstruct the stages of the development
process one-sidedly through empirical research. Hegel has shown, at the
level of the polis, that these stages are structured according to the differ-
ent moments of reason.
Initially, the citizen of the polis also has a symbiotic relation to the
human law: the actions of citizens as citizens completely coincide with the
realization of the human law. The development of the citizen’s conscious-
ness is only possible because the polis also encompasses the divine law,
in which the individual is represented as a pure self.11 Therefore, it turned
out that the entirety of the polis objectifies the basic relations of reason.
On the one hand, the notion of the pure self is objectified as the essence
of the individual, and on the other hand, the notion that the objective
world is the realization of the individual is objectified in the human law.
We discussed how this implies that the polis is structured according to the
moments of reason and how the citizens become aware of these moments
in the representations of the religion of the work of arts.
The considerations with regard to the symbiotic relation of the citizen
are also valid for the symbiotic relation of the child. The child can only
develop (explicit) self-awareness if it has already (implicit) self-awareness
throughout its development. Thus, Honneth must presuppose this implicit
self-awareness. Otherwise, it would be incomprehensible who the “sub-
ject” is that is involved in the development. The relation of the child to
the social organism can be interpreted, therefore, as a version of the rela-
tion between the divine and the human laws. This means that before all
empirical research, the conclusion can be drawn that the child’s stages of
development are structured according to the moments of reason. Empiri-
cal research is needed to observe in which specific forms these moments
of reason precisely appear.12

11 See Chapter VI.

12 In The Nature of the Self, I tried to reconstruct the child’s development through the
translation of the representations of the religion of the work of arts into representations
 the domain of love 143

Friendship and the First Form of Mutual Recognition

Although Honneth, in his Struggle for Recognition, only discusses the

love relation between mother and child, he distinguishes three forms of
love that seem to be mutually comparable. We already concluded that
the love between parents and children has another status than the love
between partners. Moreover, we argued that it is important to lay down
how precisely these forms are related. This is also valid for love in rela-
tion to friendship. It has to be clear how this kind of love is related to
both other forms. Once again it will turn out that love in friendship has
its own quality.13
It is essential that friends do not belong to one’s own family. There-
fore, the relation between friends seems not to be part of the first fun-
damental form of mutual recognition, but rather of the second form, the
civil society. In the next chapter, it will be elaborated how this domain is
related to the manifold of families. However, since the relations between
persons in civil society is pragmatic, friendship cannot be plainly classi-
fied in civil society. Honneth rightly links friendship with love relations.
Like love partners, friends in some sense “share” their identity: if a friend
dies, it is the partial death of oneself. The relation to friends is a relation
to the other in his uniqueness, not to the other as an exchangeable per-
son. Therefore, friendship has to be situated somewhere in between the
domain of the family and the domain of civil society. On the one hand,
friends have their own families; on the other hand, friends are loved indi-
viduals. But this love is distinguished from the love between partners in
love. Friendship concerns the unique individuality of the other, as is the
case between love partners. But at the same time friendship has a “prag-
matic” element (in this regard it belongs to civil society). Friendship is not
“undivided.” People have many friends, corresponding to different sides of
one’s individuality. Friendship presupposes the partner relation, while the
partner relation does not necessarily presuppose friendships.14

that can be borrowed from the family organism. Of course, such a transformation has to
be tested through empirical research.
13 In Das Recht der Freiheit, Honneth extensively discusses friendship. But again it
remains unclear in what sense friendship is for Honneth a relation of recognition: “In
einem anderen bei sich selbst zu sein bedeutet daher in der Freundschaft, das eigene
Wollen in all seiner Unschärfe und Vorläufigkeit der anderen Person ungezwungn und
ohne Angst anvertrauen zu können,” p. 249.
14 Therefore, Honneth is wrong when he remarks: “Hegel does not make a sufficiently
clear distinction between an ethical sphere that depends on appropriate legal conditions
144 chapter seven

Conclusion

Honneth’s definition of the first fundamental domain of mutual recogni-

tion remains unclear. It is true that he characterizes this domain through
love relations between friends, partners and the parent and child and
argues that love relations are “constituted by strong emotional attach-
ments among a small number of people,” (95) but he neither clarifies
how precisely these different love relations can be distinguished, nor how
love relations can be interpreted as mutual recognition. It is in no way
evident why “strong emotional attachments” are related to reciprocal
recognition.
We discussed the fact that Honneth determines recognition as a sym-
metrical relation between persons. This raises the question as to how rec-
ognition can be subdivided into the three fundamental forms distinguished
by Honneth. Does it make sense to relate symmetrical recognition to a
small number of people? Although Honneth’s examples of love relations
do indeed concern a small number of people, the general determination
of love as “constituted by strong emotional attachments” is completely
insufficient to differentiate between these examples as though through
empirical research. Before it is possible to set up a research project, the
criteria for discriminating between emotional attachments between lov-
ers, between friends or between parents and children must be clearly
determined. But even then, it would still be unclear what links emotional
attachment and recognition. Empirical research to concretize recognition
relations only makes sense if an underlying fundamental question has
been answered: How it is possible to realize a recognition relation in a
contingent social organism at all?
We discussed Hegel’s answer to this question. Recognition can only be
objectified in a social organism that is institutionally differentiated into
three specific forms of reciprocal recognition. Only on the base of this
general insight, can the specific nature of the domain of love be deter-
mined. Only on the base of this determination, moreover, does it make

in order to flourish and a institution that owes its very existence to a contract sanctioned
by the state; if he had made such a distinction, he would not have had to restrict his first
sphere of ethical life to the one institution represented by the family based on the mar-
riage contract, but he would have been able to keep it open for other varieties of personal
relations,” Honneth 2010, p. 72. Hegel had good reasons to exclude friendship from the first
sphere of ethical life.
 the domain of love 145

sense to set up empirical research for identifying the specific historical

forms of love.
We observed how Hegel’s determination of the first fundamental form
of mutual recognition is not the love relation “constituted by strong emo-
tional attachments among a small number of people.” The love relation is
rather interpreted as the immediate form in which the free persons realize
their freedom. The institution of marriage is interpreted as a social organ-
ism in which two persons realize their subjective freedom. The norms and
values that underlie the social organism of the family are freely chosen by
the marriage partners.
Honneth only elaborates the development of the love relations
between mother and child. He examines how their original symbiosis can
develop into a relation of recognition. This approach, however, presup-
poses the existence of the family organism (in which participate mother
and child). This presupposition, in turn, presupposes that it is possible to
combine recognition with a contingent social organism. If Honneth had
been aware of these presuppositions, he could have understood that his
appeal to empirical sciences is too immediate. Hegel showed that the rec-
ognition relation objectified in a contingent social organism is necessar-
ily structured according to the moments of reason. Therefore, the child’s
development is also necessarily structured in correspondence with these
moments. Empirical research only becomes relevant to identify the spe-
cific historical forms of these moments.
The way in which Honneth thematizes the mother/child relation seems
to be a backsliding behind the paradigm of recognition. The symbiosis
between mother and child looks more like a biological relation than the
symbiosis that corresponds to the paradigm of recognition: namely the
symbiosis between the child and the social organism of the family.
Finally, it remains unclear how, at this level, the expansion of the rela-
tion of mutual recognition (the development of the child?) is mediated
through “morally motivated struggles for recognition.” As in Hegel, the
struggle for recognition is sublated into the child’s process of education
instead.
 CHAPTER eight

The domain of respect:

Recognition at the level of civil society

Introduction

In this chapter, I discuss the second fundamental form of recognition.

After having examined Honneth’s distinction between legal respect and
social esteem in the first section, I compare his approach in the second
section to the Realm of Education of the Phenomenology of Spirit. Here, it
turns out that in contrast to Honneth’s account the legal respect experi-
enced initially (in the Roman Law) is not connected with a moral dimen-
sion. Only under the influence of Christianity is the legal person, in the
Realm of Education, step by step united with a moral dimension, result-
ing in the citizen (the “subject”) of the French Revolution. At this level,
however, the legal and the moral dimensions are contradictory. In the
third section, I investigate how the historical development of the Realm
of Education is transformed into a systematic moment of the Philosophy of
Right. In this work, Honneth’s distinction between legal respect and social
esteem returns in the institutional differentiation between the System of
Needs and the corporation. The differentiation of both these institutions is
mediated through a process of education. In the fourth section, I interpret
the relation between the System of Needs and the corporation in contem-
porary terms. I conclude that the corporation has to be transformed in the
more general conception of the community of value that is not one-sidedly
oriented toward the production process. In the fifth section, I conclude
that this interpretation is in line with Habermas’s distinction between
system and lifeworld. In contrast to Hegel, however, Habermas does not
succeed in conceptualizing the internal relation between the system and
the community of value. In the sixth section, I discuss how Honneth tries
to develop the internal relation between the system and the community of
value. As in the corporation of the Philosophy of Right, Honneth’s approach
focuses too much on the domain of production. Some concluding remarks
follow in the last section.
 the domain of respect 147

Honneth’s Conception of the Basic Setting of the Domain of Respect

The second fundamental form of mutual recognition concerns the rela-

tion between legal persons. In contrast to the relation of love, the rela-
tions between the legal persons are not “constituted by strong emotional
attachments among a small number of people” (95).1 The legal persons
relate to one another as the “generalized other.” Therefore, they are
exchangeable; they are not emotionally attached, nor is their number
restricted to special individuals. As Honneth states: “[. . .] only once we
have taken the perspective of the ‘generalized other,’ which teaches us to
recognize the other members of the community as the bearers of rights,
can we also understand our selves to be legal persons, in the sense that
we can be sure that certain of our claims will be met” (108).
Honneth argues that this conception of the legal person is “dependent
on the premises of a universalist conception of morality” (109). “Since, in
this connection a willingness to adhere to legal norms can only be expected
of partners of interactions if they have, in principle, been able to agree
to norms as free and equal beings, a new and highly demanding form
of reciprocity enters the relationship of recognition based on rights. In
obeying the law, legal subjects recognize each other as persons capable of
autonomously making reasonable decisions about moral norms” (109/10).
The modern legal order must, according to Honneth, “detach itself from
the self-evident authority of ethical traditions and is reoriented towards a
universalistic principle of justification” (110).
According to Honneth as well the symmetrical relation between the
legal persons and the underlying moral order asks for a response to a
further question. With regard to the legal order, “we need to clarify the
requisite structure of the form of recognition that brings to the light the
same quality of individual autonomy in all members of the community
of citizens” (110). With regard to the moral order, “the question must be
answered as to what it can mean to say that, under conditions set by mod-
ern legal relations, subjects reciprocally recognize each other with regard
to their status as morally responsible” (110).
In line with Honneth’s “anti-metaphysical” program, one would expect
that the determination of the requisite legal order and the presupposed
moral order is a matter of empirical research. Nevertheless he states that,
at this level, the required empirical research is not possible:

1 The page numbers in this chapter refer to Honneth 1995.

148 chapter eight

Although we were able to back up the explication of the form of recogni-

tion found in love with empirical research, this route is not available with
respect to these two questions. I must instead be content here to sketch
the answers with the help of empirically supported conceptual analysis. The
claim will be that with the transition to modernity, individual rights have
become detached from concrete role expectations because they must, from
that point on, be ascribed in principle to every human individual as a free
being. (110)
Honneth’s conceptual analysis of the second form of mutual recognition
leads to the conclusion that, under post-conventional conditions, legal
recognition is uncoupled from social esteem. As a result “two different
forms of respect emerge” (111). On the one hand, the form of respect that
is linked with the legal recognition within the legal community; on the
other hand, the form of respect is linked with the social esteem found in
communities of value. The latter form of respect will be discussed in the
next chapter in relation to the third form of mutual recognition.
With Ihering, Honneth states that legal recognition expresses the idea
“that every human subject must be considered to be an ‘end in itself ’ [. . .]
As the use of the Kantian formulation indicates, we are dealing [. . .] with
universal respect for the ‘freedom of the will of the person’ ” (111/12).
For demarcating “more clearly various forms of interpersonal respect,”
Honneth argues that “the recent attempts of analytical philosophers” are
“of some assistance” (112). Referring to Stephen L. Darwall, Honneth states:
“In legal recognition, two operations of consciousness flow together, so
to speak, since, on the one hand, it presupposes moral knowledge of the
obligations we must keep vis-à-vis autonomous persons, while, on the
other hand, it is only an empirical interpretation of the situation that can
inform us whether, in the case of a given concrete other, we are deal-
ing with an entity possessed of the quality that makes these obligations
applicable” [. . .] “As we will see, this zone of application and situation-
interpretation represents one of the contexts of modern legal relations
where a struggle for recognition can arise” (112/13).
Referring to F.H. Marshall, Honneth gives some indication of this strug-
gle: “As Marshall’s historical sketch shows, this expansion—through social
struggle—of basic individual rights is only one side of a process that took
the form, on the whole, of an interlocking of two developmental paths
that need to be distinguished. As a result of the introduction of the prin-
ciple of equality into modern law, the status of a legal person was not only
gradually broadened with regard to its content, in that it cumulatively
incorporated new claims, but was also gradually expanded in the social
 the domain of respect 149

sense that it was extended to an ever increasing number of members of

society” (117/18).2

The Domain of Legal Recognition from the View-Point of the

Phenomenology of Spirit

In Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit the second form of reciprocal recogni-

tion is also in some sense the negation of the first form. But in contrast to
Honneth, it is not the result of conceptual analysis and indirect affirmation
through empirical research. Instead of conceptual analysis, at the level of
reason, Hegel developed the general conditions under which the recogni-
tion relation can be realized. In the Spirit chapter, he reconstructs Euro-
pean history as the process in which these general conditions are realized
step by step. In this manner, the reality of the general conditions is tested

2 Although Honneth in Das Recht der Freiheit (2011) pretends to be more in line with
Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, his definition of the second fundamental form of recognition
has not fundamentally changed. In this work, Honneth’s central question is how to under-
stand in which sense “es sich bei der Sphäre des kapitalistisch organisierten Marktes um
eine ‘relationale’ Institution sozialer Freiheit handeln kann,” p. 320. He concludes: “Nur so
lange wir uns an das von Hegel und Durkheim entwickelte Bild der Marktsphäre halten,
sind wir dazu in der Lage, im Wirtschaftsverkehr der liberaldemokratischen Gesellschaften
normative Ansprüche angelegt zu sehen, die sich als allgemein akzeptierte Unterstellun-
gen von sozialer Freiheit verstehen lassen,” p. 358. If the domain of the market is under-
stood in this manner we, on the one hand, find again the “symmetrical relation between
the legal persons” (“eine Sphäre von rechtlich domestizierten Austauschbeziehungen
zwischen strategisch handelnden Privatpersonen,” p. 322), and on the other hand, “the
underlying moral order.” Honneth tries “die gegenwärtige Marktwirtschaft normativ unter
dem Gesichtspunkt zu rekonstruieren, welche Ansatzpunkte und institutionelle Gestalten
einer Verwirklichung sozialer Freiheit sich in ihr finden,” p. 360.
In Das Recht der Freiheit Honneth has, it should be noted, an inadequate understand-
ing of Hegel’s System of Needs. The criticism of Honneth which I elaborate in this chapter
remains valid without restrictions. In Hegel’s conception, the System of Needs is a synthesis
between, on the one hand, Contract, the second moment of abstract Right in which the
symmetrical relation between legal persons is thematized, and on the other hand, Inten-
tion and Welfare, the second moment of Morality in which the subjective welfare of the
subjects is thematized. The market guarantees the realization of subjective freedom; the
realization of social freedom is only guaranteed by the institutions which, according to
Hegel, are presupposed by the market (the System of Needs), i.e. the Administration of Jus-
tice, the Police, the Corporation and the State. These institutions ensure that the subjective
realization of social freedom is embedded in the good life. Honneth thinks that alienation
(the failure of the realization of freedom) can already be observed at the level of the mar-
ket (he notices consumption patterns (p. 364) and production processes (pp. 410 ff.) which
could be alienating in themselves). From Hegel’s perspective, however, this implies an
unjustified moralization of the market which undermines its intersubjective relations.
150 chapter eight

through empirical research. Hegel’s testing, however, leads to results that

remarkably differ from Honneth’s conception of legal recognition.
First, we discussed how the relations of the legal persons of the Roman
Law are internally related to the immediate recognition relations of the
Greek world. The relation between the legal persons turned out to be the
dialectical sublation of the contradiction between divine and human law.
This sublation implied the loss of ethical life: in the Roman Law only the
formal legal form of divine and human law is maintained. Therefore, if
Honneth argues that legal recognition is in itself “dependent on the prem-
ises of a universalist conception of morality,” it is not justified. On the one
hand, the legal persons of the Roman Law relate to one another as “gen-
eralized others,” but on the other hand, it is completely contingent which
individual is a person. However, being a person is not morally justified at
all: it does not even contradict the law that some individuals are slaves.
Under these conditions, it is thinkable that some groups should have a
struggle for recognition (as, for example, the slaves under the command of
Spartacus). But this struggle is not based on a moral conception underly-
ing the Roman Law.
In Hegel’s reconstruction of European history, it is only after the decay
of the Roman Empire that some form of a universalist conception of
morality plays its role. Initially, however, this universalist conception of
morality is separated from the domain of legal relations. This is the sec-
ond important difference from Honneth’s analysis. We discussed how in
the medieval Realm of Education the relation between divine and human
law is repeated in a self-conscious version. The divine law is repeated in
the belief of the medieval church, the awareness that the pure self is the
essence of human individuals is represented in a god for which all human
beings have the same absolute value. It is true that this religious belief
stands for a universalist morality, but this morality is separated from
the legal domain. The human law of the Greek world is repeated in the
human law of the medieval world. That this repetition is self-conscious
is expressed in the awareness that the institutions of the human law are
contingent. In the development of the Realm of Education, the institutions
of the human law are judged by religious belief: the question is raised as
to what extent these institutions realize the human essence, i.e. his pure
and free self. The experience that the pure essence is not realized leads to
a process of education in which the individual and the objective institu-
tional world is transformed as well. The result of this process is the French
Revolution in which the individuals (as the citizens of the French Revolu-
tion) immediately want to realize their pure self as the human law. At this
 the domain of respect 151

moment the moral individual (who wants to realize his absolute essence,
the pure and free self ) immediately coincides with the legal person (who
realizes the human law).
This coincidence of the moral subject and the legal person seems to
affirm the two operations of consciousness that, according to Honneth
(referring to Darwall) flow together in legal recognition. On the one hand,
legal recognition presupposes “moral knowledge of the obligations we
must keep vis-à-vis autonomous persons,” and on the other hand, “it is
only an empirical interpretation of the situation,” i.e., whether the situa-
tion is a legal order in which these moral obligations are demanded has
to be interpreted. However, here the third important difference between
Honneth and Hegel comes to the fore. Hegel argues that the terror, fol-
lowing the French Revolution, proves that the moral subject and the legal
person cannot immediately coincide. Any attempt to immediately realize
morality in legal relations results in terror. Therefore, Honneth’s reference
to the Kantian moral subject in his conceptual analysis of the legal person
seems to be out of place. Not only Hegel but Kant too stringently distin-
guishes between the moral subject and the legal person. We will see that
the moral subject in Hegel can only adequately be conceived at the level
of the third fundamental form of reciprocal recognition. For Kant, the
moral subject belongs to the noumenal world, not to a real legal order.

The Systematic Position of the Second Fundamental Form of Reciprocal

Recognition in the Philosophy of Right

The comparison of Honneth’s analysis of legal recognition with the devel-

opment in the Phenomenology of Spirit is incorrect insofar as we compare
a systematic analysis to a systematic reconstruction of a historical devel-
opment. But at least this comparison makes clear that Honneth draws
three conclusions that are untenable. After all, we concluded that (i) legal
relations are not in themselves moral, (ii) our universalist moral origi-
nates in Christianity, not in legal relations, and (iii) the immediate unity
between moral subject and legal person is impossible because it results in
a contradiction. However, for an “honest” comparison between Hegel and
Honneth it remains necessary to examine Hegel’s systematic account of
the second form of reciprocal recognition.
To transform the historical learning process of the Realm of Education
into a systematic moment of the Philosophy of Right (in Civil Society), we
must precisely understand what is the content of this learning process
152 chapter eight

and what is the reason that it results in a contradiction that cannot be

overcome. It is not difficult to identify the content of the learning process.
At the level of the Roman Empire, the formal recognition relation was
institutionalized as the Roman Law. However, under the conditions of the
Roman Law, it remains coincidental whether the objective content is or
is not in harmony with the legal form of reciprocal recognition. What is
learnt at the level of the Realm of Education explicates what we already
knew at the level of the lord/bondman relation. The existence of a human
law presupposes that the human essence (the pure, free self) can be real-
ized (although in a specific historical form). This means that, in principle,
nature is reasonable, i.e., nature does not resist being brought under the
form of a human law. The citizen of the French Revolution has learnt that
nature is in itself reasonable and tries to objectify this insight by positing
nature in the form of reason, i.e., by giving nature the form of a human
law in which he immediately expresses his pure self.
The contradiction in which the Realm of Education ends is due to the
subjective determination of the human law. It is impossible that the sub-
jectively determined human law is also necessarily valid for the other
subjects. Therefore, to transform the Realm of Education into a systematic
moment, we must admit that the content of the human law is already
determined all the time. In the next chapter, we will see how this assump-
tion is elaborated at the level of the third fundamental form of reciprocal
recognition, namely at the level of the state. Next, it must be clarified
how the learning process of the Realm of Education can be understood as
an ongoing learning process that is performed in a specific institutional
structure. Thereby, it is of central importance to observe that this learn-
ing process has a double meaning. On the one hand, it has to be learnt
that nature is in harmony with legal recognition, i.e., that it is possible to
impose a human law on nature. On the other hand, it has to be learnt that
this human law is a free law, i.e., that each subject has the possibility to
determine its own human law. Therefore, it must also be clarified under
which institutional conditions the subjective determination of the human
law can be transformed into a human law that has intersubjective validity.3
Hegel classes these both sides of the learning process in two distinct insti-
tutions: the System of Needs (PhR, §§ 189–208) and the Corporation (PhR,
§§ 250–256).

3 These two meanings seem to correspond to the two senses of respect distinguished
by Honneth. See Honneth 1995, p. 111.
 the domain of respect 153

The System of Needs presupposes the existence of a state that guaran-

tees the institutionalization of the Administration of Justice.4 Within the
framework of this Administration of Justice all individuals are legal persons
who are formally related to one another. As real individuals (or better:
families), however, these persons have specific, subjective needs. Initially,
these needs are, as in the Roman Empire, immediately given, i.e., their
content is completely contingent. But, in contrast to the persons of the
Roman Law, the persons of the System of Needs are involved in a process
of education in which their needs are more and more socialized. The per-
sons of the System of Needs are, so to say, the bondsmen who initially only
practically serve their “lord,” namely the Administration of Justice: as per-
sons they observe the law system, i.e. they are related to other persons in
the form of legal contracts. By serving their lord, however, the bondsmen
become aware that they themselves are the lord. They become aware that
their actions as persons not only are means to satisfy contingent needs,
but rather express their own free essence. The fact that human beings do
not satisfy their needs in the form of externally given instinctual laws,
but in the form of autonomy, i.e., in a self-made system that is based on
self-conscious (scientific) laws, is objectified in the System of Needs. If the
person understands himself to be his own lord, the Administration of
Law has also been developed from the internal perspective (PhR, § 208).
Therefore, we have conceptualized the Administration of Law as an insti-
tution that can reproduce itself, as the family.
Why the legal person of the Roman Law is not involved in a process
of education? This becomes clear if we remind ourselves that the pure
freedom of the Roman person is still implicit. The Roman person realizes
his freedom in the family organism. He expresses his free will in the con-
tingent family property. Exchange of properties between families is inci-
dental, not structural. For the person of the System of Needs, however, the
exchange of properties is structural. The modern person has explicated his
pure self in the relation to his conscience (this relation will be discussed
at the level of the third fundamental form of reciprocal recognition, the
level at which Hegel thematizes morality). Therefore, the modern person

4 Terry Pinkard (2010) states: “However, he thought that the basis coordinating mecha-
nisms that are internally generated in civil society (laws, the ‘police,’ etc.) would be enough
to temper it and make it suitable for a kind of full identification with the ‘people’ or the
‘nation’ that fleshes out the contours of a political state,” p. 143. However, in contrast to
Pinkard’s view, it is one-sided to argue that “the basic coordinating mechanisms” are inter-
nally generated in civil society. Without the state, there is no civil society.
154 chapter eight

is a universal person. All commodities that are supplied to the market are
potentially a means to satisfy his needs. As a consequence, at the level of
the System of Needs, reason is not only formally objectified (as the formal
legal relations between the persons), but also with regard to its content.
All produced commodities belong to one “system” (of needs). Initially, this
system remains implicit (as underlying the laws of the free market), but
to the extent that the division of labor is gradually developed, it becomes
more and more explicit. Hegel discusses this development as the theo-
retical and practical education of the labor process. The laborers learn to
conceptualize their theoretical knowledge and their practical actions as
expressions of general laws. Objective reality is principally understood as
a manifestation of reason.
If, in the System of Needs, objective reality is explicated as objectified
reason, there is at the same time room for the subjective dimension. If
the objective world is conceptualized as such, it is distinguished from the
subject that conceptualizes this world. Considered from an observer’s per-
spective, this insight is already developed at the level of the lord/bonds-
man relation. The social organism (nature given the form of the human
law) presupposes the freedom of the pure self which has objectified his
freedom in a specific, historical, and in this sense, subjective, human law.
Formulated in other terms, the human law’s content is contingent and
therefore subjective. We already observed that this historical content of
the human law cannot be determined at the level of Civil Society. At the
level of Civil Society, the point of departure is the individual person. These
individual persons lack the ability to determine a human law that is inter-
subjectively valid. Since these individual persons, under the condition of
the objectivity of the System of Needs, have insight into their subjectivity,
and consequently, know that the human law has be subjectively deter-
mined. But since at the same time they lack the ability to make their sub-
jective determination intersubjectively valid, a problem has to be solved.
On the one hand, it must be assumed that the content of the human law
is already given at the state level, namely as a specific historical comple-
tion of good life (the specific historical content of the human law). On
the other hand, the individual persons must subjectively determine the
human law. Therefore, the subjective determination of the human law
must be transformed into an intersubjective determination. Hegel tries to
solve this problem with the help of an institution that mediates between
the individual person and the state, namely the corporation.
The corporation is a kind of branch organization and is part of the
entirety of the System of Needs. Participation in a corporation is mediated
 the domain of respect 155

by the subjective choice of the individual persons. This makes it com-

prehensible that Hegel thinks the community of value (to use Honneth’s
terminology) in his time can be recovered in the corporation.5 At the level
of the state, an intersubjective completion of the human law (the concrete
reality of the good life) is already given all the time. Therefore, the System
of Needs has to provide the conditions necessary to realize this conception
of the good life. Therefore, through their labor in the System of Needs, the
individual persons help to realize the intersubjective completion of the
human law. As a member of a corporation, the individual persons, on
the one hand, participate in a “local” version of the human law that is their
subjective choice, and on the other hand, they participate in the realiza-
tion of the intersubjective human law that was already given through-
out. While the manifold of corporations forms together a “system,” the
subjective choice for any individual corporation is implicitly linked with
the other corporations. Under this condition the transition from the sub-
jective choice for a human law into a intersubjective human law can be
made. The organic coherence between the corporations can be explicated
at the level of the state.

The Second Fundamental Form of Reciprocal Recognition in Our Time

In accordance with Hegel’s methodology, we have to rewrite the Philoso-

phy of Right and to ask ourselves how the fundamental structures of civil
society appear in our time. Although Hegel has valid arguments for his
conception of the corporation, it is especially this conception, more than
his conception of the System of Needs, that seems to be problematic in
our time. Why interpret the community of value as a labor community? It
seems difficult to discern in contemporary society institutions that resem-
ble Hegel’s corporations. Moreover, other kinds of communities of value,
for example denominations or political ideologies (or, in Rawlsian ter-
minology, comprehensive doctrines) are probably more dominant. Were
those communities of value less important in Hegel’s era? Has Hegel more
important reasons for focusing on corporations than I already presented?
Which other choices are basically possible?

5 Therefore, it is curious that Honneth remarks that the corporation is based on “addi-
tional assumptions that seem hardly compatible with the system of arguments so far,”
Honneth 2010, p. 75. Moreover, since participation in the corporation is mediated by sub-
jective choice, the corporation is not “modeled on the medieval guilds,” ibidem.
156 chapter eight

Besides the actual predominance of the domain of labor in the nine-

teenth century, it may be the case that Hegel is the victim of a conceptual
confusion. At the level of Civil Society, labor has a well defined, limited
meaning: labor produces commodities and services for the market. At the
level of the lord/bondsman relation, however, labor has a more fundamen-
tal meaning. The labor community of the bondsman is a social organism, a
political community that is legitimized through a religious representation.
If the labor community is interpreted in this sense, then indeed a variety
of alternatives for the corporation appears: communities of value that are
religious communities, political communities or cultural communities. It
is a matter of empirical research to observe which kinds of communities
of value are relevant in contemporary society.
If the corporations are transformed into communities of value with con-
temporary relevance, the problem has to be solved how these commu-
nities are related to one another. In contrast to the corporations, these
communities cannot be interpreted as moments of one production sys-
tem. Therefore, we have to understand why the relation between the com-
munities of value does not result in a struggle for life and death, i.e., in the
ultimate struggle to realize one’s own values at the cost of others.
Since Rawls’s “comprehensive doctrines” are examples of modern com-
munities of value, it seems worthwhile to consider the solution he pre-
sented for this problem: political liberalism. According to Rawls, the values
of the comprehensive doctrines are basically incommensurable, i.e., it is
impossible to develop an encompassing reasonable point of view in which
all doctrines have their place as a specific realization form of a universal
reason. Human reason is “burdened,” i.e., it is finite.6 Although reason can
manifest itself in a manifold of comprehensive doctrines (insofar these
doctrines are reasonable), this does not imply that these doctrines can
accomplish a common community of value by rational consensus.7 But
because the members of a rational comprehensive doctrine can have

6 See J. Rawls, Political Liberalism: “To conclude: reasonable persons see that the bur-
dens of judgment set limits on what can be reasonably justified to others, and so they
endorse some form of liberty of conscience and freedom of thought. It is unreasonable for
us to use political power, should we possess it, or share it with others, to repress compre-
hensive views that are not unreasonable,” p. 61.
7 Hans Lindahl stresses that the unity of Rawls’s reason is the result of a closure that
precedes reasonable deliberation: “Notice that the prior closure does not only concern
who counts as a citizen. In effect, the initial boundaries that determine what counts, in
Rawls’ terms, as ‘fair terms of cooperation’ and ‘reasonable conceptions of justice’ are not
and cannot themselves be the outcome of deliberation guided by the principle of reci-
procity; to the contrary, a non-deliberative closure must already have taken place to get
 the domain of respect 157

insight into the burden of human reason, they can accept a political struc-
ture that tolerates other reasonable comprehensive doctrines.
Rawls’s thesis of the incommensurability of the communities of value is
completely in accordance with Hegel’s view. After all, Hegel stresses, at
the level of world history, that there is no overall point of view to make
the nation states moments of one world community. Actually, the notion
of incommensurability expresses nothing else than the contingency of
subjectivity. Insofar as the communities of value are subjective, they can-
not be sublated into a higher unity. However, the incommensurability of
the communities of value does not mean that they are incommensurable in
all aspects. They are not only comparable insofar as they are communities
of value, but also insofar as they are reasonable comprehensive doctrines.
We have discussed how, considered from Hegel’s point of view, the
problem of multicultural society, i.e., the society with a manifold of (rea-
sonable) comprehensive doctrines, is not how to accomplish a unity
between many cultures. Since society is a social organism, its unity is
already presupposed all the time. We observed that multiculturality is
rather the expression of society’s internal institutional differentiation.
The real problem of the multicultural society is rather how to understand
the mechanisms that make the relation between, on the one hand, the
manifold of cultures, and on the other hand, the relation of the manifold
of cultures to the underlying meta-culture, are not static, but involved in
a dynamic, “living” development.
Although the precise determination of these mechanisms must be the
result of empirical research, nevertheless some general remarks can be
made. Since the cultural communities are embedded in a meta-culture,
they can tolerate one another. Since they have insight into their burdened
reason, they do not only know that their own community of value is a
finite manifestation of reason, but also the other ones. Therefore, it makes
sense to have discussions with other communities. These discussions can
clarify irrational elements in specific value systems. However, in the end,
rational consensus between communities of value is impossible. Sooner or
later, the subjectivity or contingency of the community of value manifests
itself. Because, however, circumstances can prevail under which practical
consensus is required (for example, if the legal framework needs adap-
tation), there have to be settled some rules for decision making. Many

deliberation going,” Hans Lindahl, “Recognition as Domination: Constitutionalism, Reci-

procity, and the Problem of Singularity,” manuscript, p. 3.
158 chapter eight

contemporary states have these kinds of rules. Communities of value can

be represented in political parties. The discussion between these par-
ties is institutionalized in the modern parliament. But discussions about
law proposals must lead to a decision. Therefore, the discussion is finally
concluded through a voting procedure. Actually, a voting procedure is a
mechanism to settle compromises in the knowledge that rational consen-
sus is impossible. Insofar as the participating parties are aware that human
reason is “burdened” they can rationally accept these kinds of procedures.
In the next chapter, the law giving institutions will be elaborated.
Discussion between different communities of values, however, is not
only important at the level of law-giving institutions. They are also part
of the learning process in which individual persons develop their world
views. These discussions do not take place in the parliament, but rather
in the public domain: on television, in newspapers or on the internet.
Therefore, institutions that guarantee the adequate functioning of public
discussions are necessary conditions for the realization of freedom.

Jürgen Habermas’s Transformation of the System of Needs

Although, considered from a contemporary point of view, Hegel’s con-

ception of the System of Needs is less problematic than his interpretation
of the community of value as the corporation, inspired by Marx, the “sys-
tem-character” of the System of Needs is broadly discussed in the Marx-
ist tradition (including Habermas). If the System of Needs is generated by
self-conscious persons, how can we understand its relative independence?
Which mechanism, for example, ensures that the general interest is served
if all serve their own interest? Hegel expresses this relative independence
when he remarks that “despite an excess of wealth civil society is not rich
enough” (PhR, § 245).
According to Hegel, the “system” is determined through two fundamen-
tal principles: the principle of universality and the principle of particular-
ity (PhR, § 182). In the process in which the system exists, both principles
are practically related in a movement that continuously transforms one
another. Marx describes this movement as the transformation of use value
(as manifestation of the principle of particularity) into the exchange value
(as the manifestation of the principle of universality) and vice versa. This
movement is indeed a practical movement. The individual (the real per-
son) is the owner of a specific use value (that he has produced). If he
brings the use value to the market it transforms into an exchange value:
 the domain of respect 159

its general value becomes important. Inversely, if the real person brings a
commodity to the market and uses this commodity in his household, the
exchange value of the commodity transforms into use value. Therefore, the
mechanism of the market makes that the commodities are brought under
a law form: they appear as the expression (namely as a specific quantum)
of the general value (exchange value). But it is the “use value community”
(the family) that conditions this law form. Only in these “communities”
exchange value can be transformed into use value.
Marx’s central thesis is that, under the conditions of the capitalist free
market, the “use value community” of the family is repressed as a presup-
position of the System of Needs. To clarify this repression, he has to make
two assumptions. The first assumption is that the real person (the family)
is transformed into the commodity labor force. The second assumption is
the labor value doctrine, borrowed from Adam Smith. Both assumptions
guarantee that the exchange value can be fully uncoupled from the use
value. On the one hand, the source of the value is no longer the validat-
ing activity of the family (that results in use value), but rather the objec-
tification of (abstract) labor in the commodities. On the other hand, the
intrinsic end of exchange value is no longer the satisfaction of needs, but
rather the production of more exchange value.
Although Marx’s conception of exchange value enables us to understand
the relative independence of the System of Needs, the explanation of this
independence remains problematic. Due to the repression of use value,
the System of Needs now appears as an alienated system, i.e. as a system
that has become a subject (Capital) that dominates the real person (the
family). This alienation can only be overcome if the market is abolished.
Habermas seeks for an alternative interpretation of the System of Needs
that, on the one hand, can explain its relative independence, but on the
other hand, avoids the alienation of Marx’s interpretation.
Habermas elaborates his alternative with the help of Parsons’s concep-
tion of money, i.e. money as Steuerungsmedium. According to Parsons the
Steuerungsmedium money is characterized by four properties. The first
two properties (money as “code” and money as quantifiable medium) are
trivial. Money as code corresponds to the function of money as a rep-
resentation of exchange value. As general value it can mediate between
persons. As quantifiable medium, money always represents a specific
quantum of exchange value. The third and fourth properties, however,
enable Habermas to render his criticism of Marx. Habermas describes the
third property as the structure of Anspruch und Erlösung (Promise and
Redemption). Habermas basically indicates that money functions thereby
160 chapter eight

as a medium in the exchange between persons. As representation of

exchange value money is a kind of Anspruch (promise). This promise is
only redeemed if the money is actually exchanged to a commodity that
has use value for the person. This means that Habermas, as with Hegel,
determines the relation between exchange value and use value as the rela-
tion between essence and appearance. Exchange value expresses use value
as such. Marx’s separation between use value and exchange value is made
undone by Habermas. Habermas returns to Hegel’s version and, therefore,
eliminates the thread of an alienated system.
However, the question is whether this return to Hegel does sufficient
justice to the system’s relative independence. After all, Marx modified
Hegel’s version of the System of Needs to clarify its independence. Accord-
ing to Habermas, the fourth property of money as Steuerungsmedium is
responsible for its “system building effect.” While Parsons thinks that a
system can be defined when the relation between the persons are deter-
mined through a Steuerungsmedium that can be contrasted to another
Steuerungsmedium which determines another system, Habermas argues
that this contrast can also be interpreted as the contrast between life-
world and system. The system then is defined through its specific relation
between the persons in contrast to their specific relation in the lifeworld.
A relation that is mediated through a Steuerungsmedium is distinguished
from a relation that is mediated through communicative action in service
of social integration.8
The manner in which Habermas conceptualizes the relation between
lifeworld and system corresponds to what we observed in Hegel. The Sys-
tem of Needs presupposes a community of value. The functional relations
between the persons of the System of Needs are contrasted to the social
integration in the communities of value in which the persons reproduce
their shared values. However, a crucial difference between the approaches
of Habermas and Hegel is maintained throughout. In contrast to Hegel,
Habermas does not make clear how the relation between system and life-
world can be developed from the internal perspective. He only introduces
this distinction from the observer’s perspective. His interpretation of the
exchange relation between the persons corresponds to the exchange rela-
tion between the persons of the Roman Law. We discussed how Hegel

8 For a discussion of Habermas’ conception of money, see Paul Cobben, “Geld in the
context van systeem en leefwereld,” in M. Korthals and H. Kunneman (ed.), Het communi-
catieve paradigma. Mogelijkheden en beperkingen van Habermas’ theorie van het communi-
catieve handelen, Boom, Amsterdam 1992, pp. 171–190.
 the domain of respect 161

distinguishes this relation from the exchange relation in the System of

Needs. The ultimate need that the person of this System of Needs wants
to satisfy is his pure self. He must understand that the external nature is
the expression of his pure essence. Therefore, the System of Needs incor-
porates a process of education, a process of ongoing labor division that
results in the insight that nature in itself has a law form and that this law
form has its unity in the pure self. This process of education fails in Haber-
mas’s interpretation. Here again, it comes to the fore what we observed in
our discussion of the paradigm of communicative action. Habermas sepa-
rates between freedom and objectivity, between the formal recognition
relation and nature.9

Honneth’s Reaction to Habermas’s Transformation of the System of Needs

In his article “Work and Recognition: A Redefinition” (2010),10 Honneth

observes that the relation between system and lifeworld in Habermas
remains external.
According to Habermas, the difference between “system” and “lifeworld”
consists in the fact that the coordination of action in the former only occurs
through the mediation of purposive strategic stances, while in the latter it
presupposes moral attitudes. That is why Habermas cannot ascribe any
moral infrastructure to the capitalist economic sphere, even if he occasion-
ally concedes that the modern organization of work is marked by certain
norms. (228/9)
He raises the question as to whether the normative presupposition of the
system cannot internally be deduced from the system: “These relations
would be much different, however, if it could be shown that the function-
ing of the capitalistic labor market also presupposes the existence of a
whole series of moral norms. In this case, not only would the categorical
opposition between “system” and “lifeworld” collapse, but it would also
become possible to take up a perspective of immanent criticism vis-à-vis
actual relations of work” (229). Therefore, Honneth seems to share the

9 Habermas seems to complicate the Hegelian scheme by introducing a second system

with its own Steuerungsmedium above the economic system (as does Parsons), namely the
bureaucratic system with its power relations. I will omit to elaborate how this bureaucratic
system can be compared to Hegel’s institution of the Police.
10 In Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch and Christopher F. Zurn (ed.), The Philosophy
of Recognition: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Lexington Books, Plymouth, 2010,
pp. 223–240.
162 chapter eight

criticism towards Habermas that we formulated in the previous section:

in contrast to Hegel, Habermas does not develop the relation between
system and lifeworld from the internal perspective.
For answering the question he raised, Honneth takes Hegel’s Philosophy
of Right as point of departure: “In the Philosophy of Right, Hegel sought to
uncover the elements of a new form of societal integration in the struc-
tures of the capitalist economy developing before his eyes” (229). Honneth
argues that, according to Hegel, the free market has only moral legitimacy
if two normative conditions are fulfilled: (1.) the individual’s “subjective
self-seeking” must be transformed into a willingness to work for “the sat-
isfaction of the needs of everyone else,” and (2.) the market must create
“a system of mutual dependence that secures the economic subsistence
of all its members” (230). Only under these conditions the real person can
“mutually recognize each other as private autonomous beings” (230).
Hegel, Honneth continues, was aware of the fact that the capitalist mar-
ket economy cannot fulfill these normative conditions: “profits” will be
concentrated in the hands of the few, while “the subdivision and restric-
tion of particular jobs” will intensify for “a large mass of people,” which
will in turn lead to “dependence and distress.” “ ‘The rabble,’ a not insig-
nificant portion of the population, will lack any chance to gain market-
mediated recognition for their work, and will thus suffer from a lack of
‘self-respect.’ ” (230). To make that the normative conditions are as yet
fulfilled “Hegel proposed supplementing the capitalist market economy
with two organizations whose task it would be to ensure the normative
conditions of existence for mutual recognition and ‘self-respect,’ ” (231)
namely the police and the corporation. Honneth concludes that, although
the “ ‘police’ and ‘corporation’ constitute organizational structures whose
formation and function are far too specific to the early phase of capital-
ist industrialization to be very relevant for us today,” we can learn from
Hegel that the directions and the design of corrective institutions must
be derived from “the normative principles of the very economic system”
that we seek to correct.
Honneth pretends to reformulate the normative principles of the capi-
talist market economy in a “more precise, sociological form”: “The struc-
tures of a capitalist labor market could only develop under the highly
demanding ethical preconditions that all classes are able to entertain the
expectation both of receiving a wage that secures their livelihood and
having work that is worthy of recognition” (232/33). Since the capitalist
labor market cannot necessarily fulfill these normative principles, they
 the domain of respect 163

must be understood as a “counterfactual basis for the validity of the capi-

talist organization of work” (233).
With an appeal to Emile Durkheim, Honneth gives an example of the
tension between the capitalist organization of work and its normative
presuppositions. In the course of the capitalist development, the “central
experience of the majority of the employed” consists “in the emptying of
their work of all qualitative content” (233). Work becomes meaningless
because workers become supplements of the machines. This kind of work
cannot generate social integration. Therefore, work has to be redefined:
“the new relations of work can only generate ‘organic’ forms of solidarity
if all workers can experience them as a common, cooperative effort in the
common interest” (235).
Considered from the conception of the System of Needs we developed
in this chapter, we must reject Honneth’s attempt to derive the norma-
tive principles that underlie the System of Needs from this system itself. It
is true that the conception of the System of Needs is normative. After all,
it belongs to the institutions that are necessary to realize the individual’s
freedom. However, this does not imply that the System of Needs is itself a
community of value. Hegel shows rather that the System of Needs necessar-
ily presupposes a community of value that he interprets as the corporation.
Therefore, the corporation is not an institution that has to compensate for
the normative failures of the System of Needs. The process of rationaliza-
tion that characterizes the System of Needs (the process that is responsible
for its quality as system) cannot be understood if the System of Needs is
not explicitly distinguished from the community of value. Honneth is right
if he concludes that Hegel’s interpretation of the community of value as a
corporation is not “very relevant for us today.” We argued, however, that
this interpretation needs to be criticized because it one-sidedly deduces
the community of value from production relations and excludes differ-
ent sources like religion and political ideology. In this sense, Honneth’s
attempt is a return to the Hegel of the nineteenth century, i.e., the Hegel
who was tied too much to the dominance of the domain of production.
Honneth is also right in observing that the “emptying of the work of all
qualitative content” (233) has to be criticized and asks for “new relations
of work” (235). However, this criticism concerns the capitalist version of
the System of Needs, not its normative version as developed by Hegel. We
discussed how this capitalist version is conditioned by two assumptions
that are formulated by Marx (the labor force has become a commodity
and the labor value doctrine is valid). If these assumptions are fulfilled,
164 chapter eight

work can indeed lose its qualitative content. In the Hegelian version of
the System of Needs, however, the work relation is the result of a contract
between two real persons. As a consequence, work is performed in the
framework of a community of value. In the next chapter we will see that
this community has to be determined at the level of the state, not at the
level of the System of Needs.11

Conclusion

The second fundamental form of reciprocal recognition is institutionalized

at the level of civil society. Hegel, Habermas and Honneth agree that in
civil society the distinction has to be made between the economic system
(the System of Needs) and the community of value. In the economic system
the relations between the persons are functional—in the community of
value the persons are as real persons related to one another by means of
a process of social integration. The central problem is how precisely the
relation between the economic system and the community of value should
be conceived. Honneth argues that the normative principles of the com-
munity of value have to be deduced from the economic system. This seems
to be in line with Hegel’s conception of the corporation. The Phenomenol-
ogy of Spirit, however, shows that the community of value principally can-
not be deduced from the economic system (so that the corporation turns
out to be a specific nineteenth century interpretation of the community
of value). In the Realm of Education, however, Hegel not only develops the
idea that the legal person of the Roman Empire only gets a moral dimen-
sion at the level of the French Revolution, but also that this transition is
mediated by Christianity. Not the market but rather religion is the source
of the moral dimension.
With his distinction between system and lifeworld, Habermas does jus-
tice to the fundamental distinction between economic system and com-
munity of value. However, Habermas introduces this distinction only from
the observer’s perspective. He omits to clarify this distinction from the
internal perspective. Here the limitation of the paradigm of the theory

11 In §198 of the Philosophy of Right, Hegel remarks: “Further, the abstraction of one
man’s production from another’s makes work more and more mechanical, until finally
man is able to step aside and install machines in his place.” This pertains to work that
can only be replaced through machines under capitalist conditions, i.e., if Marx’s assump-
tions are fulfilled. Therefore, Hegel is not critical enough against the capitalist reality of
his time.
 the domain of respect 165

of communicative action is manifested: the formal recognition remains

separated from objectivity. Hegel, conversely, develops the internal rela-
tion between the System of Needs and the community of value as a process
of education. The result of this learning process is the explication of the
relation to a moral dimension. At the level of civil society, however, this
moral dimension still falls apart in the pure freedom that the person tries
to realize in the economic system (the process of rationalization) and the
real freedom that the person tries to realize in the (subjective) community
of value. In the next chapter, we will see that these poles of the moral
dimension can only be unified at the level of the state.
 CHAPTER nine

The domain of solidarity: The third fundamental form

of mutual recognition

Introduction

In this chapter I discuss the third form of reciprocal recognition. I start

by reminding the reader of Honneth’s exposition of reciprocal recogition
as a relation of social esteem. With the help of Hegel’s Phenomenology of
Spirit, I argue that the relation of social esteem is tied to presuppositions
that are not elaborated by Honneth. The relation of social esteem presup-
poses that the individual has developed the figure Hegel characterizes as
Conscience. In the Philosophy of Right, this relation is integrated in the
third moment of ethical life, the domain of the state. In the last section,
I examine which standards a contemporary interpretation of the state has
to meet.

Honneth’s Conception of the Basic Setting of the Domain of Solidarity

Honneth borrows the third form of reciprocal recognition from Hegel and
Mead: “in order to be able to acquire an undistorted relation-to-self, human
subjects always need—over and above the experience of affectionate care
and legal recognition—a form of social esteem that allows them to relate
positively to their concrete traits and abilities” (121).1 The prerequisite of
social esteem is “the existence of a intersubjectively shared value-horizon”
(121). This shared horizon seems to be a conception of good life, a “sym-
bolically articulated—yet always open and porous—framework of orien-
tation, in which those ethical values and goals are formulated that, taken
together, comprise the cultural self-understanding of a society” (122). Indi-
viduals can acquire social esteem by the “degree to which they appear to
be in a position to contribute to the realization of societal goals” (122).
Moreover, Mead and Hegel thinks that this social esteem is necessarily
acquired in some communities of value: they “sought to single out only

1 The numbers in this chapter refer to the pages of Honneth 1995.

 the domain of solidarity 167

one type—and, in normative terms, a particularly demanding type—of

value-community, into which every form of esteem-granting recognition
necessarily must be admitted” (122). Honneth wants to determine this
third relation of mutual recognition more completely, “in the sense of an
empirically backed phenomenology,” (121) by returning to the historical
development discussed in the previous chapter: the transition from pre-
modernity into modernity resulting in the emergence of the formal rela-
tion of legal recognition.
In chapter 8, we observed that this emergence of formal legal recogni-
tion was coupled with the genesis of the community of value (in which
esteem is situated): “as with legal relations, social esteem could only take
on the shape familiar to us today after it had outgrown the framework
of corporatively organized societies of the pre-modern period” (122). The
value-systems of these communities of value can “no longer be viewed as
an objective system of reference [. . .]. Along with the metaphysical foun-
dation for validity, the value-cosmos lost both its objective character and
its ability to fix, once for all, a scale of social prestige in a way that could
govern conduct” (124). While in the pre-modern society “a person’s sta-
tus is measured in terms of social honor” (123) determined through tra-
ditional relations, in modern society the social esteem is individualized:
“It is only from this point on that the subject entered the contested field
of social esteem as an entity individuated in terms of a particular life-
history” (125).
The individualization of esteem is at the same time the process that
makes the values subjective. Therefore, there is room for a multitude of
communities of value. “The individualization of achievement is inevitably
accompanied by the opening of social value-ideas for differing forms of
personal self-realization” (125). This can result in the struggle to make the
own value-system the dominant system in society. “In modern societies,
relations of social esteem are subject to permanent struggle, in which dif-
ferent groups attempt, by means of symbolic force and with reference to
general goals, to raise the value of the abilities associated with their way
of life” (127). It is precisely this struggle between communities of value that
can result in symmetrical relations between the valuing individuals: “The
more conceptions of ethical goals are open to different values and the
more their hierarchical arrangement gives way to horizontal competition,
the more clearly social esteem will be able to take on an individualizing
character and generate symmetrical relations” (122).
Symmetrical relations of esteem can also be developed between mem-
bers of a specific community of value. In the mutual recognition of their
168 chapter nine

shared values the members have a relationship of solidarity: “In the inter-
nal relations of such groups, forms of interaction normally take on the
character of relationships of solidarity, since each member knows himself
or herself to be esteemed by all others to the same degree” (128). However,
if the struggle between different communities of value has resulted in a
society that is open to a multitude of value-systems, esteem is no longer
linked with a specific community of value. Esteem is transformed into self-
esteem and solidarity gets a general meaning: “To the extent to which
every member of a society is in a position to esteem himself or herself,
one can speak of a state of social solidarity” (129). At this level, the indi-
viduals know that they can contribute to the realization of the good life
by realizing their subjective values: “In this sense, to esteem one-another
symmetrically means to view one another in the light of values that allow
the abilities and traits of the other to appear significant for shared praxis.
Relationships of this sort can be said to be cases of ‘solidarity,’ because
they inspire not just passive tolerance but felt concern for what is indi-
vidual and particular about the other person” (129).

The Domain of Solidarity from the Point of View of the

Phenomenology of Spirit

We observed how Honneth’s “state of social solidarity” presupposes a

shared praxis which is the result of the struggle between communities of
value. This shared praxis is a social organism whose members are sym-
metrically related insofar as they recognize one another as individuals
who contribute to the shared praxis by realizing their subjective values.
Honneth, however, does not make clear how it is possible that all indi-
viduals can without contradiction realize their subjective values in the
same social organism. It is true that he assumes that the social organ-
ism is the result of the struggle between communities of value, but this
does not explain why all members can realize subjective values that are
recognized by all as contribution to the shared praxis. As the result of
a struggle, the shared praxis is a contingent social organism. It not only
remains coincidental whether individuals can realize their subjective val-
ues, but also whether the realized subjective values are recognized by oth-
ers. Moreover, if the subjective values that the individuals realize express
their “particular life-histories,” it seems obvious that they express their
free identity. Therefore, the setting that Honneth presents to character-
ize the third fundamental form of reciprocal recognition is, in last resort,
 the domain of solidarity 169

not distinguished from Hegel’s description of the French Revolution. After

all, the citizens of the French Revolution want to realize their subjective
identity as the law of the social organism. However, the realized law con-
tradicts their subjective freedom.2 Therefore, the third fundamental rela-
tion of recognition can only be conceptualized if the relation to the social
organism is not immediate. The conditions under which the contingent
organism can be in harmony with the realization of subjective freedom
have to be explicated. It is precisely this explication that is developed in
the program that Hegel discusses at the level of Conscience.3
Just as the individuals that are related to one another in a “state of
social solidarity,” the conscientious individuals in Hegel are also related
to a contingent social organism in which they can realize their pure free-
dom. The level of Conscience is the last stage of the process in which the
lord/bondsman relation is also developed from the internal perspective. In
the Roman World lord and bondsman were formally united in the legal
person that remained dependent on a contingent social organism. The cit-
izen of the French Revolution tried to overcome this dependency by mak-
ing the social organism the immediate expression of his pure freedom.
The revolutionary citizen is so to say the lord who tries to immediately
realize himself as bondsman (i.e., by making the social law the immedi-
ate expression of his pure freedom). However, the absolute freedom of
the citizen contradicts the positivity of a contingent social law. Finally,
Conscience tries to combine the pure freedom of the revolutionary citizen
with the externality of the contingent social organism which characterizes
the Roman World. Conscience repeats the section concerning Reason as
testing laws insofar it tests the law of the contingent social organism: this

2 Basically, Schmidt am Busch signifies this contradiction when he writes: “[. . .] the
conception of social esteem that is described in RR [Axel Honneth, “Redistribution or Rec-
ognition: a Response to Nancy Fraser”, in: Fraser and Honneth, Redistribution or Recogni-
tion? A Political-Philosophical Exchange, London/New York, Verso, 2003, p.c.] is in tension
with Honneth’s conception of legal respect. In societies where people esteem one another
according to the usefulness of their work and where this usefulness is determined by mar-
kets, the practice of social esteem tends to be problematic with regard to the preservation
of social rights,” Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch, “Can the Goals of the Franfurt School
be achieved by a Theory of Recognition?” in Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch and Chris-
topher F. Zurn, The Philosophy of Recognition, Lexington Books, Plymouth 2010, p. 272.
3 Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch remarks: “In my view, markets can be understood
in terms of recognition theory, and it is possible to legitimate their existence with recogni-
tion-theoretical reasons. This can be shown with resources provided by Hegel’s Philosophy
of Right”. Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch, “Can the Goals of the Franfurt School be
achieved by a Theory of Recognition?”, in: Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch and Chris-
topher F. Zurn, The Philosophy of Recognition, Lexington Books, Plymouth 2010, p. 277.
170 chapter nine

law must express its pure freedom. But this time, the law that is tested
is not only a possible law, but rather the law which makes Conscience a
real individual.4 Conscience is the lord (the pure self ) who has the subjec-
tive certitude that he has already realized himself in the contingent social
organism throughout. In its development, Conscience becomes aware of
under which conditions this certitude can be maintained.
In chapter 2, we discussed how the real individual, i.e. the individual
as unity of mind and body, has to be conceptualized in the framework of
the lord/bondsman relation. Considered from the observer’s perspective,
the lord is the representation of the individual’s pure self; the bondsman
is the representation of his real action. At the level of Conscience, as just
remarked, the individual has become aware of himself as the lord, i.e., he
has understood that the pure, free self is his essence. This relation to the
pure self can be compared with the Kantian categorical imperative. Not
only because Conscience knows it has the duty of realizing the pure self,
but also because the pure self is the absolute essence shared with other
individuals. However, in contrast to the Kantian moral subject, Conscience
is also aware of being the bondsman.
Initially, this bondsman-moment of Conscience implies that it is imme-
diately related to a contingent action it interprets as the realization of his
duty. In this immediate relation the qualification of the contingent action
as realization of the duty remains fully internal. It is still not objectified
as such that the contingent action is a realized duty. For the others it is
indeed a contingent action that might be or might not be a realized duty.
If we consider this relation from the observer’s perspective, it becomes
clear under which conditions Conscience’s interpretation of the action as
duty can be performed. The action to which Conscience is immediately
related is a moment of the social organism collectively produced by all
members of this social organism in order to realize the pure self in a spe-
cific, historical form.
Therefore, we can identify the presupposition of Conscience’s interpre-
tation as a specific form of the symmetrical relation between individuals.
They must mutually recognize one another as individuals who realize their
free self in a contingent (historical) social organism. In the development
of Conscience, this presupposition is explicated as the relation that Hegel

4 Hegel, PhS, p. 389: “The ‘thing in itself ’ has substantiality in general in the ethical
sphere, external existence in culture, the self-knowing essentiality of thought in morality;
and in conscience it is the subject that knows the moments within it.”
 the domain of solidarity 171

calls “absolute Spirit.”5 It is true that the process in which the individuals
realize their freedom is a historical process, but this process is exercised
within a framework that is already given all the time. The formal rela-
tion in which the individuals recognize one another is already realized all
the time in a specific historical social organism. Therefore, the concept of
absolute Spirit does not contradict the formal recognition of the paradigm
of the theory of communicative action, but rather explicates the necessary
conditions for its existence.
The individuals who have insight into their reality as a specific form
for the realization of absolute spirit can be characterized as individuals
who stand in a relation of social solidarity. They recognize one another as
contributing to the shared reality of the good life through their actions.
However, in Hegel’s view, social solidarity is not the result of a struggle for
recognition between specific communities of value, but rather the result of
the conceptual explication of the conditions under which real recognition
is possible. In the next section, I will discuss how the specific content of the
good life can be conceived of as the product of a confrontation between
communities of value. However, the confrontation does not have the
form of a struggle, but rather is an institutionalized process of education.

The Domain of Solidarity in the Philosophy of Right

In the Philosophy of Right, the moment of Conscience discussed in the

Phenomenology of Spirit as a historical moment is transformed into a
systematic moment, i.e., the moment of the state. The state is a social
organism whose law incorporates a contingent interpretation of the good
life. After all, the state is distinguished from other states with other inter-
pretations of the good life. However, in contrast to the contingent social
organism to which Conscience is related, the state is the unifying moment
of the entirety of ethical life that has two other moments, family and civil
society. Therefore, ethical life in its entirety is the systematic unity of the
three fundamental forms of reciprocal recognition.
By participating in the institutions of ethical life (family, civil society
and state) individuals reproduce at a personal level the development of

5 Hegel, PhS, p. 408: “The word of reconciliation is the objectively existent Spirit, which
beholds the pure knowledge of itself qua universal essence, in its opposite, in the pure
knowledge of itself qua absolutely self-contained and exclusive individuality—a reciprocal
recognition which is absolute Spirit.”
172 chapter nine

European history. Therefore, the citizens of the state, as with Conscience

in the Phenomenology of Spirit, relate to the social organism of the state
as a contingent organism. They are not only citizens, but also persons and
(at least some of them) are members of the corporation. As persons the
individuals participate in the System of Needs and are educated into moral
persons who have emancipated themselves from tradition. As members of
the corporation they engage themselves in a specific community of value
(that Hegel interprets as the corporation). As citizens, they participate in
the social organism of the state, i.e., in a version of the good life in which
the manifold of corporations is sublated in the unity of the state. For the
citizens, the social organism of the state is immediately given. The citizens
only exist as real citizens insofar as they realize themselves within the
framework of the state. But, because the existence of the state is mediated
by the institutions of family and civil society, the individuals are related
to the social organism of the state as a contingent one. The good life that
is incorporated in the state is not only just a given traditional order, but
a traditional order mediated by freedom. This freedom is the freedom of
the persons who have realized their subjective freedom at the level of civil
society. The production system of civil society is a dynamic system that
is open to ongoing technological innovation and differentiation of needs.
At the level of the state, this continuous innovation is integrated in the
tradition of good life.
As a contingent social organism to which the individual can have a
free relation, the state has its own self, the monarch. The monarch is a
contingent individual who represents the social organism. As represent-
ing the social organism, the self of the monarch is an institutionalized
self (the Crown, PhR, § 275 ff.) realized in a specific individual. This insti-
tutionalized individual is the lord of a social organism. The law of this
social organism institutionalized in the Legislature (PhR, § 298 ff.) formu-
lates the legal framework which incorporates a conception of the good
life and explicates the manifold of corporations as a system in the service
of this conception of the good life. Therefore, the members of the Legis-
lature represent the viewpoints of specific corporations (not as members
who specifically watch after the interests of these corporations, but who
are able to make their specific viewpoints part of the rational delibera-
tion of the parliament, PhR, § 311).6 The law is realized by the Executive

6 The “assembly of the Estates is divided in two houses,” Hegel, PhR, §312. Also the land
owners are represented: “Its particular members attain their position by birth, just as the
 the domain of solidarity 173

(PhR, § 287 ff.), the third power of the social organism. The Executive
encompasses what we call today the government and the judiciary as well
(PhR, § 287).
The real individual has a free relation to the organism of the state. After
all, the individual is also the person who through his participation in the
System of Needs is already educated throughout as the moral subject who,
as Conscience, has the certitude that pure freedom is his essence. How-
ever, the real individual is not only a moral subject, but also a member of
the community of value Hegel interprets as the corporation. In this com-
munity of value the individual has already realized his duty throughout. As
a citizen, the individual is explicitly aware that the execution of his duty
is dependent on the existence of the state organism. After all, the corpora-
tion is part of a production system in service of the interpretation of the
good life which is incorporated in the state. This awareness has the form
of patriotism (PhR, § 268):7 the citizen’s subjective certitude that he has to
realize his freedom as a citizen of the state to which he already belongs.
For the citizen, the monarch is the representation of the realized duty.
The citizen’s conviction that ethical life is the realized duty (is the
“absolute end and aim of the world,” PhR, § 129) seems to be incompat-
ible with the contingent status of the state organism. How can an absolute
content be realized in a finite social organism? Hegel tries to solve this
problem at the level of world history. At the level of the nation state, the
duty can only be realized in a finite manner. World history is the ongo-
ing process in which absolute spirit tries to realize itself in a manifold of
states. As absolute spirit pure freedom is the “subject” of world history that
realizes itself in the origination and decay of states. As a moment of world
history the state’s finitude has been overcome (PhR, § 341 ff.).8
This solution seems to affirm Habermas’s and Honneth’s criticism of
Hegel, namely that his position is in the last resort monological. The con-
cept of absolute spirit seems to imply that the human subject is exchanged

monarch does, and, in common with him, they possess a will which rests on itself alone,”
Hegel, PhR, §305.
7 For a discussion of Hegel’s concept of patriotism in relation to Honneth, see Paul Cobben,
“Hat Hegels Begriff von Patriotismus noch aktuelle Bedeutung?” in Hegel-Jahrbuch, 2011.
8 Therefore, Terry Pinkard is wrong to state that the state’s legitimacy is generated in
civil society: “However, he thought that the basic coordinating mechanisms that are inter-
nally generated in civil society (laws, the ‘police,’ etc.) would be enough to temper it and
make it suitable for a kind of full identification with the ‘people’ or the ‘nation’ that fleshes
out the contours of a political state,” Terry Pinkard, “Recognition, the Right, and the Good,”
in Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch and Christopher F. Zurn, The Philosophy of Recogni-
tion, Lexington Books, Plymouth 2010, p. 143.
174 chapter nine

for a divine subject. The pure self seems no longer to be the content of
human conscience, but rather to be substantiated in an independent sub-
ject to which human beings are subjected. Although the concept of abso-
lute spirit is discussed in the next chapter, I will already highlight at this
point that this interpretation is false.
Since the citizen’s conscience is focused on patriotism, the realiza-
tion of freedom remains restricted to his own state. The relation to other
states, the domain of world history, is not part of the citizen’s conscious-
ness. However, we observed that the citizen represents the realization of
his freedom in the monarch. The conscience of the monarch is not only
focused on his own state, but also transcends this relation. This transcen-
dence has a double meaning. On the one hand, the monarch is the maj-
esty, he has the “right to pardon criminals” (PhR, § 282), and therefore,
can with an appeal to his conscience remit a punishment imposed in
accordance with normal jurisdiction.9 On the other hand, the monarch
is the head of the state, and in this position, is related to other states. For
example, he can enter into treaties with other states. However, in Hegel’s
time international law was lacking, so he characterizes the relations
between the states as a “state of nature” (PhR, § 333). Basically, it is only
the subjective (conscientious) decision of the monarch to observe or not
to observe treaties. Once again, the relations between states seem to be
subjected to an external power. At least, Hegel does not conceptualize the
relation between the states as a relation of recognition. In the next sec-
tion, I will argue that a contemporary interpretation of the state implies
international law and recognition relations between the states. However,
this neither means that the concept of absolute spirit is superfluous, nor
that world history can be conceived as a domain fully determined by
self-conscious human actions. We have discussed the fact that the social
organisms in which human freedom is realized are contingent. However,
precisely because human beings are free they can develop (in a historical
process) insight into contingency as such. This insight presupposes the
pure freedom that Hegel explicates as absolute spirit. Contingency itself
cannot be overcome, not even under the conditions of a world state.

9 See Paul Cobben, “The Citizen of the European Union from a Hegelian Perspective,”
in Andrew Buchwalter (ed.), Hegel and Global Justice, Springer, 2012.
 the domain of solidarity 175

The Contemporary Interpretation of the Third Fundamental Form of

Reciprocal Recognition

Our contemporary world is characterized by developments that Hegel

could not know. We live in a globalized world in which international law
becomes more and more important. The world market resulted in the cre-
ation of multicultural societies. Modern technology generates a continu-
ous stream of world-wide communication. Human rights and democracy
are presented as universal norms. In this section, I will argue that Hegel’s
recognition relations, especially the third form of mutual recognition, are
fundamental and that these relations allow us to interpret the develop-
ments of our world.
In the previous chapter, we already argued that Hegel’s interpretation
of the community of value as the corporation cannot be maintained in our
time. The development of the globalized world, or, more precisely, the
genesis of a world market, has shown the limits of Hegel’s interpretation
in a double sense. On the one hand, it has become clear that the pro-
duction system cannot be considered a kind of practical social organism
(a system of corporations) that at the state level is explicated in a human
law, i.e., in a self-conscious social organism.10 Under the condition of the
world market, labor division acquired world-wide dimensions. Therefore,
production systems cannot be defined at a national level. Insofar as the
world production system can be subdivided into subsystems, there is no
necessary relation between these subsystems and nation states. On the
other hand, the world market brought about the importation of labor
forces from foreign cultures. The result was the genesis of multicultural
societies in which value communities were no longer one-sidedly oriented
toward production, but rather toward the shared cultural tradition.
Under the condition of civil society, the membership of value commu-
nities is mediated by subjective choice. In the family and in the System
of Needs, individuals are educated as moral subjects who recognize the
pure self as their absolute essence. Although they already belong to a
value community (they are educated according to the norms and values
of their original family), they are aware that this value community is only

10 Actually, this kind of reasoning still shows a reminiscence of what Habermas would
call the “philosophy of consciousness”: it seems as though the state organism could be
compared with a natural organism which is tied to an objective pattern of needs.
176 chapter nine

a finite realization of their free essence. Therefore, they can, informed

by the discussions in the public domain, choose another value commu-
nity or transform the norms and values of the value community to which
they already belong. Insofar as individuals belong to a value community,
they share norms and values with other members. In this sense, the value
communities are domains of solidarity. Therefore, the problem is how a
general social solidarity can be developed. There seems to be no internal
coherence between the manifold of value communities.
We already argued that Rawls’s solution (political liberalism to unify the
manifold of comprehensive doctrines) has to be reformulated. The central
problem is not how to unify a multitude of comprehensive doctrines. The
existence of a manifold of comprehensive doctrines already presupposes
an encompassing social organism. We sketched how the human law of this
encompassing social organism, on the one hand, formulates the institu-
tional conditions under which a manifold of comprehensive doctrines can
co-exist, and on the other hand, is flexible enough to integrate the ongo-
ing development of civil society. Insofar as value communities oppose one
another, they can find compromises and integrate themselves with the
human law, mediated by the political discussions in the parliament and
the public domain. Therefore, the central problem is how the encompass-
ing social organism can generate social solidarity. How does this social
organism have legitimacy for the members of the value communities?
Even if they understand that compromises are unavoidable, why should
they regard it their duty to be a good citizen? What alternative can be
presented to Hegel’s concept of patriotism?
The citizens are aware of the finitude of the value community to which
they belong. They relate to this community as moral subjects who realize
their duties in this community. However, compared to their absolute value
as moral subjects this realized duty remains finite. Therefore, in the first
place, only the moral subjects have absolute value, not the social organ-
ism of the state. Independent from their position as citizens of the state,
the individuals are bearers of human rights, expressing their absolute
value as moral subjects. In contrast to Hegel’s account, the citizens cannot
concretize the content of their duty in the representation of the monarch.
They know that the social organism is produced by their own actions as
a historical entity that is susceptible to historical change. If they want to
represent this organism in a real self, this self will not be a monarch, i.e.,
a natural individual who is “immediately” given. Rather, the self who rep-
resents the social organism is a self whose existence is mediated by the
 the domain of solidarity 177

actions of the citizens, i.e., he is an elected self, who can in due course be
replaced for another. But precisely because the monarch is transformed
into an elected president, he cannot represent absolute duty.
For the contemporary citizen, the state can only be the expression of
his duty insofar as it explicitly objectifies this duty as only a finite, histori-
cal realization form of the duty. If the finiteness of the state is objectified
as such, it indirectly refers to absolute essence, i.e., the absolute spirit.
However, the finitude of the state cannot be adequately expressed in a
Hegelian way, namely in the practical process of world history character-
ized as the state of nature, ultimately conceptualized as a struggle for life
and death. The state’s finitude is only expressed as such if the struggle of
world history is sublated in international law, i.e., in a system of states
(as the result of a historical learning process). Only if the nation state is
legitimized by international law is it explicitly objectified that the lord
who underlies the social organism is an absolute lord, namely the absolute
spirit. To put it in more contemporary terminology: the state borrows its
legitimacy from human rights and democracy. Only then does it manifest
its internal essence: as pure freedom or the pure self.
Honneth characterizes the third fundamental form of recognition as
the domain of solidarity. At this level, citizens who belong to the same
social organism recognize one another as citizens who deserve esteem
because they deliver their subjective contribution to the realization of a
shared conception of the good life. Social esteem is only possible under
conditions of modernity. In pre-modern society, it is rather social honor,
borrowed from the membership of a social group, than the individualized
social esteem, which expresses the estimation of the merits of the concrete
individual. Only if the individual has emancipated himself from the social
group (as a result of the struggle between groups), is there room for social
esteem. However, Honneth does not make it clear under which conditions
social esteem is possible. After all, Hegel’s analysis of the French Revolu-
tion shows that, if all citizens immediately claim to realize the good life,
the result is terror. The symmetrical relation between free citizens, that
includes the awareness that all contribute to the realization of the good
life, can only be conceived under the condition of Conscience. The citizens
must relate to absolute spirit and be aware that they can only realize their
absolute freedom in a finite, historical form.
178 chapter nine

Conclusion

In the Philosophy of Right, the third fundamental form of recognition is

objectified in the state, situated in systematic coherence with the two
other fundamental forms of reciprocal recognition, and objectified in fam-
ily and civil society. Hegel interprets the state as a social organism which
the citizens can relate to as a contingent organism. This contingency is
represented in a contingent “lord,” namely the monarch. I argued that in
a contemporary interpretation of the state, the institutions of the state
must guarantee that the contingency of the state is expressed as such.
Therefore, the social organism of the state cannot be represented in the
monarch, but rather in a constitution explicitly legitimized in interna-
tional law.
Axel Honneth wants to present Hegel’s Philosophy of Right “as a theory
of justice that has great persuasive power even though, or perhaps pre-
cisely because, it does not depend on any argumentative backing by his
logic” (48).11 But, although he tries to interpret the theory as “a theory of
justice which aims at assuring the intersubjective conditions of individual
self-realization to all,” (7) he argues that Hegel is “very unclear about the
extent to which he has to portray his third sphere of “ethical life,” the
state, as a relationship of public freedom” (78). Honneth states: “[. . .] at
the point at which Hegel starts to speak about the corresponding relation-
ship of recognition in the chapter on ‘the state,’ a horizontal relationship
has suddenly been replaced by a vertical one” (78).
I am not quite aware what other meaning “persuasive power” in phi-
losophy could have otherwise than a power based on logic argumentation.
But it would have been helpful if Honneth had paid more attention to
the logic dimension of Hegel’s project. Then, he would have understood
he is mistaken if he thinks that Hegel has suddenly replaced a horizontal
relationship by a vertical one.
We have discussed how Hegel’s model of the lord/bondsman relation
pretends to be the elementary expression of the human individual as
unity of mind and body. In this model, the human essence, the pure self,
is represented as the lord. This pure self is realized in a social organism
(the bondsman). In the Reason chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit,
Hegel examines whether the human law that underlies the social organ-
ism can be necessarily determined. He concludes that this is not possible:

11 Honneth 2010.
 the domain of solidarity 179

the social organism has to be understood as contingent. However, this

does not imply that the human law is not tied to necessary institutional
structures. In the Spirit chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel
reconstructs European history as a process in which the contingent social
organism is developed into a social organism characterized by institu-
tional structures that enable its citizens to become explicitly aware of its
contingency. This reconstruction of the historical process is structured
according to the logic forms that are developed in the Reason chapter.
It interprets the three stages of European history (Ancient World, Middle
Ages and Modernity) as periods in which the three fundamental forms of
mutual recognition are institutionalized. In the Philosophy of Right, the
three historical stages are systematically integrated as the three moments
of ethical life: family, civil society and state.
The family is the institutional reality of the first fundamental form of
reciprocal recognition; it is the moment of ethical life in which the lord/
bondsman relation has its immediate (ansichseiende) reality. The family
is the immediate, contingent social organism (the bondsman moment),
realized by free and equal persons (the lord moment). These persons are
the individuals who constitute marriage. As the realization of freedom,
the family has to be an independent subject: a substance that is an und für
sich, a substance that is at the same time subject.12 To put it in different
terminology, the lord/bondsman relation has not only to be immediately
realized, but must be realized as a reality which is an und für sich. The
realized lord/bondsman relation must be aware of itself as this relation.
This independence seems to be guaranteed insofar as the family is able
to reproduce itself. If the family has educated its children to adulthood, it
has reproduced its presupposition: the free persons who are able to cre-
ate a new family. The reproduction of the family, however, explicates the
fact that the institution of the family is not independent but rather pre-
supposes a manifold of families, each having their own contingent social
organism. This presupposition, the domain of many families, is the second
moment of ethical life, civil society.
Hegel reconstructs civil society as the domain in which the second
fundamental form of reciprocal recognition is objectified. The process of
education performed in the domain of the System of Needs results in a
multitude of moral subjects who have realized themselves in a multitude

12 Hegel’s project of thinking substance as subject is accomplished at the level of abso-

lute spirit. Therefore, I cannot agree with Pippin when he remarks: “Spirit is not a ‘thing’
(even ‘in itself ’) or substance in any sense,” Robert B. Pippin, Hegel’s Practical Philosophy,
p. 15.
180 chapter nine

of value communities. Insofar as civil society reproduces itself as a system

of value communities, it reproduces the preconditions of the institution of
the family. Nevertheless, insofar as ethical life only encompasses the insti-
tution of the family and civil society as its constituting moments, it still
does not adequately realize freedom. The multitude of value communities
has no internal unity. As a consequence, the value communities can oppose
one another. Therefore, in civil society the objectification of the lord/bonds-
man relation has become self-conscious. The moral subjects are the free
and equal persons who explicitly know that the free self (the lord) is their
essence. In their relation to the opposing value communities they explicitly
know that they only realize their freedom in a contingent social organism.
At the level of the state, the preconditions of civil society are realized.
The multitude of value communities can only exist if they are already a
moment of a harmonious unity throughout. In the state the third funda-
mental form of reciprocal recognition is objectified. The citizens of the
state recognize one another as citizens who contribute to the realization
of the shared interpretation of good life. However, this mutual recogni-
tion is not possible if the state is for the citizens only a contingent social
organism. They must explicitly understand the state as a finite, historical
realization of the form of their absolute essence, the pure (free)self. This
demand is fulfilled if the state explicitly appears as a state which bor-
rows its legitimacy from its foundation in international law. In Hegelian
terminology this means that the state is understood as a manifestation of
absolute spirit. The pure self is represented as absolute universal norms,
namely human rights and democracy. Only when the constitution of the
national state can be interpreted as a specific, historical appearance of
human rights and democracy, the nation state is legitimated and can be
recognized by other states as a state in which the individuals can realize
their freedom. Under this condition the citizens can recognize that state
as the realization form of their absolute essence. This does not mean that
a horizontal relation is replaced by a vertical one. The citizens symmetri-
cally relate to one another. The relation to the absolute essence (the lord)
can be characterized as vertical. But this a-symmetrical relation can be
found again in all three fundamental forms of recognition. It concerns the
a-symmetry between the infinite level of pure freedom and the finite level
of realized freedom.13

13 In Das Recht der Freiheit, the domain of solidarity returns as “das ‘Wir’ der demokrati-
schen Willensbildung,” Honneth 2011, p. 470 ff. Again, Honneth refers to Hegel’s Philosophy
of Right: “Schon Hegel hat seine Rekonstruktion moderner Sittlichkeit ja in die Institution
des ‘Staates’ münden lassen,” p. 471. And again, he criticizes Hegel because he has replaced
 the domain of solidarity 181

In the next chapter, I will discuss Hegel’s conception of absolute spirit.

At this level, the logical structure of Hegel’s project can be made explicit.
It will turn out once more that the transition into the level of absolute
spirit is not a return to a monological position, but rather an absolute
foundation of the paradigm of recognition.

horizontal recognition relations by a vertical one: “die Schilderung der innerstaatlichen

Ordnung ist ihm vielmehr so zentralistisch und substanzhaft geraten, war so unbeküm-
mert um institutionelle Vorkehrungen mit Blick auf die horizontalen Beziehungen unter
den Bürgern, dass seither mit Recht der Verdacht besteht, seine Sittlichkeitslehre sei letz-
tlich an der wirklichen Befähigung zur Demokratie herzlich wenig interessiert,” p. 471.
Therefore, the conception of the state, i.e. the institutionalization of the third fundamental
form of mutual recognition, has to be subjected to a “normative reconstruction,” so that
we can understand how the state incorporates a democratic public domain “als einem
gesellschaftlichen Zwischenraum, in dem sich unter den Bürgerinnen und Bürgern im
deliberativen Widerstreit die allgemein zustimmungsfähigen Überzeugungen bilden sol-
len, an die sich dann gemäss rechtsstaatlicher Verfahren die parlamentarische Gesetzge-
bung im weiteren zu halten hat,” p. 471. Honneth repeats his criticism of Hegel’s dialectical
logical framework: “Die Voraussetzung eines idealistischen Monismus, in den er seinen
dialektischen Begriff des Geistes verankert hat, ist für uns, die Kinder eines materialis-
tisch aufgeklärten Zeitalters, nicht mehr vorstellbar,” p. 17. Although Honneth is right to
observe that “alle institutionellen Verhältnisse, auf deren normative Stabilität Hegel noch
wie selbstverständlich vertrauen konnte im Zuge einer sich beschleunigenden, ‘reflexiv’
genannten Modernisierung ihre ursprüngliche Gestalt verloren [haben],” p. 17, I tried to
make clear that the conceptualization of the reflexivity of the actual institutions is not
prevented by Hegel’s dialectical framework. Hegel’s application of the logical framework at
the level of the state, not the logical framework itself, must be criticized. The third domain
of recognition must be understood as the unity of conscience and social freedom, i.e., as
the adequate realization of the lord/bondsman relation. Lord and bondsman must not be
concretized as monarch and nation state, but rather as human rights and democracy.
 CHAPTER ten

Hegel’s concept of the absolute spirit

and the paradigm of recognition

Introduction

The Phenomenology of Spirit can be considered as a project in which

Descartes’s doubt-experiment is radicalized. While Descartes looks for an
Aristotelian point, an absolute, indubitable point which is a fixed basis
for developing further knowledge, Hegel thinks that such an indubitable
point cannot be a point of departure, but at the best is a result. Whoever
claims to have an absolute insight into the world already claims to have
an absolute insight into truth and, therefore, has already overcome radical
doubt. Whoever appeals to a concept of substance, to a reality founded
in itself, i.e. to a reality which can be determined without any interfer-
ence of an “out-side,” already claims that truth is a meaningful concept.
Whoever introduces a concept of substance assumes that it is possible to
identify something in itself; he assumes that it makes sense to speak about
something as not contradicting itself. Without the possibility of identify-
ing something in its own nature, speaking about “truth” is meaningless.
Therefore, the introduction of the concept of substance for Hegel is already
the termination of the doubt-experiment, not its point of departure. In
his Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel claims to develop the necessary deduc-
tion of the concept of substance, and therefore, to prove that the concept
of truth is meaningful. His argumentation shows that substance has to
be conceived as subject,1 i.e. as absolute spirit. Without absolute spirit,
there is no truth. Although Habermas and Honneth take up a position in
which they recognize truth, they nevertheless hold the opinion that in the
transition to absolute spirit something happens that contradicts the para-
digm of recognition: it comes down to a transition from a dialogical to a

1 See Hegel, PhS, p. 488: “It is in itself the movement which is cognition—the transform-
ing of that in-itself into that which is for itself, of Substance into Subject, of the object of
consciousness into an object of self-consciousness, i.e. into an object that is just as much
superseded, or into the Notion.”
 hegel’s concept of the absolute spirit 183

monological position.2 We argued that the transition to absolute spirit has

to be understood rather as the foundation of the paradigm of recognition.3
After all, if we do not perform this transition, speaking about truth has no
meaning at all. In this chapter, I further examine what the exact meaning
of Hegel’s conception of absolute spirit is. I look back on the preceding
development to make clear in what sense absolute spirit is the comple-
tion of Hegel’s project. In the next sections I evaluate Hegel’s project by
comparing it to other positions: namely those of Jürgen Habermas, John
Rawls, Axel Honneth, Ludwig Siep and Immanuel Kant.

Retrospection

The point of departure of the Phenomenology of Spirit is the relation of

consciousness, the immediate relation between the “I,” and the “thing.”4
This relation can be understood as an elementary formulation of Hegel’s
version of the doubt-experiment. The “I” thinks it knows the “thing,” i.e.,
it thinks to be able to identify the thing. However, because the thing is

2 J. Habermas, Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/M. 1985,

p. 53: “Wenn das Absolute als Unendliche Subjektivität gedacht wird (die sich ewig in die
Objektivität gebiert, um sich aus ihrer Asche in die Herrlichkeit des absoluten Wissens
zu erheben), können die Momente des Allgemeinen und des Einzelnen nur im Bezugs-
rahmen der monologischen Selbsterkenntnis als vereinigt gedacht werden: im konkreten
Allgemeinen behält deshalb das Subjekt als allgemeines Vorrang vor dem Subjekt als
einzelnem.”
3 Also Reinhold Aschenbach (“Das Recht des Bewusstseins. Eine These der Phänome-
nologie des Geistes und ihre System- und Kritik-Funktion”, manuscript) elaborates that
the transition into the absolute spirit in no way contradicts (inter-)subjective relations:
“Ist nämlich erst das mögliche ( jedenfall tradierte) metaphysische Missverständnis des
absoluten Geistes und damit die vor-spekulative, teils der Religion entstammende, teils
altmetaphysische Vorstellung aufgelöst, es handele sich um so etwas wie eine ontisch oder
ontologisch absolute Entität (was immer das sei!); ist stattdessen eingesehen, dass Hegel
im Begriff des absoluten Geistes lediglich die ausgezeichnete Struktur derjenigen subjekti-
ven, dann auch intersubjektiven Selbstbezüglichkeitsrelationalität zu fassen sucht, welche
er generell ‘Geist’ nennet und deren ontische Träger konkrete endliche Subjekte sind (wer
auch sonst?); so folgt, dass in dem Masse, in dem die basalen Bestimmungen der Subjek-
tivität diese Subjekte in der Philosophie des subjektiven Geistes exponiert werden, jene
ausgezeichnete, spezifische Selbstbezüglichkeitsstruktur, die im Begriffe des absoluten
Geist zu denken ist, gar nicht anders denn aus diesen basalen Bestimmungen konstru-
iert werden kann. Die Theorie der absoluten Subjektivität des Geistes muss daher sowohl
ihren Inhalt nach wie methodisch an Phänomenologie und Noologie der konkreten Sub-
jektivität gebunden sein. Das spekulative System nimmt im Stadium seiner Vollendung
Züge transzendentaler Subjektivitätsontologie in sich auf,” p. 16.
4 See Hegel, PhS, p. 480: “Thus the object is in part immediate being or, in general, a
Thing—corresponding to immediate consciousness.”
184 chapter ten

externally given, this certitude cannot be brought into truth. The dis-
tinction between the “I” and the “thing” prevents the thing from being
conceived in itself. The thinking through of this relation of conscious-
ness to the thing makes clear that the “I” can only develop knowledge
if it identifies itself as substance (Ich=Ich). This result seems to coincide
with Descartes’s Archimedean point: the res cogitans, i.e., the self-relation
of thinking conceived as substance. However, in contrast to Descartes,
Hegel shows that the Ich=Ich is immediately distinguished from nature
conceptualized as a self, i.e., from nature conceived of as life.5 As distin-
guished from nature as life, Ich=Ich is not adequately conceived as sub-
stance. This is only possible if the self as life is sublated as the outside of
substance. The internal unity of “mind” (Ich=Ich) and body (nature as life)
has to be proven. The internal unity between mind and body can only be
conceived if, on the one hand, the mind (Ich=Ich) has already made the
transition to the body throughout, and on the other hand, the body has
already made the transition to the mind throughout. It is precisely this
having-already-made-the transition-throughout of the “I” and the (living)
“thing,” that Hegel represents in the metaphor of the lord/bondsman rela-
tion. The social organism which is the result of the bondsman’s labor is
the “I” that has already been transformed into the living “thing” through-
out. The “lord,” as the representation of the pure essence of the social
organism (the pure “I”), is the living “thing” which is already transformed
in the “I” throughout.
In the lord/bondsman relation, Hegel presents a model in which
the relation of cognition principally can be conceptualized. The lord/
bondsman relation is the most immediate form in which the substance
can be conceived without contradiction. In the lord/bondsman relation
substance is already conceived of as subject: the social organism is the
living thing in which the pure “I” (the lord) is realized by means of the
actions of the individuals (the bondsmen) who are part of this organism.
However, at the level of the lord/bondsman relation we have not proven
yet that it makes sense to speak about truth. At this point, we have only
clarified the fact that true knowledge is only possible under the condition
of the lord/bondsman relation. We still have to examine whether this rela-
tion has real existence.

5 See Hegel, PhS, p. 106: “But for us, or in itself, the object which for self-consciousness
is the negative element has, on its side, returned into itself, just as on the other side con-
sciousness has done. Through this reflection into itself the object has become Life.”
 hegel’s concept of the absolute spirit 185

To conceptualize the real existence of the lord/bondsman relation, it

must not only be conceived of as a possible model, but also as a (sub-
stantial) reality in itself, i.e., a reality that is in and for itself. Basically, the
remaining program of the Phenomenology of Spirit consists of this transi-
tion of possibility into reality—of thinking through the lord/bondsman
relation as a relation that cannot only be conceived of from the observer’s
perspective, but also from the internal perspective.
The first step to accomplish this program is made in the Reason chap-
ter. The relation of reason can be characterized as the lord (represented
by the “I” as its pure essence) who tries to realize itself as a thing (respec-
tively as a living thing and a social organism). This entire development
could also be interpreted as a quest for the necessary determination of the
content of the human law which underlies the social organism.
The result of reason’s development is that the thing cannot be under-
stood as the necessary self-realization of the lord. The human law cannot
be determined as necessary law. After all, the human law is contingent
with regard to its content: the social organism is a finite, historical real-
ization of freedom, and therefore, is principally distinguished from pure
freedom. However, this does not mean that the development of reason
does not produce a result such that the conclusion can be drawn that it
is indifferent as to which social organism is taken as the realization of
the lord. The development of reason explicates the contingency of the
social organism as such. The realization of the lord in the social organism
implies that the lord is aware that he has realized himself in a contingent
social organism (and that he principally has the freedom to realize himself
in another social organism). Therefore, only the real social organism can
be accepted as the self-realization of the lord which explicitly expresses
its own contingency. From the internal perspective of the social organism,
the distinction between the pure self and the realized freedom has to be
explicitly expressed, i.e., it has to be institutionally objectified.
Hegel thinks that he can identify the Greek polis as the historical social
organism that meets this demand. The social organism of the polis, ethi-
cal life, is characterized by two laws, the divine and the human law. The
divine law can be interpreted as the institutionalization of the lord (its
central objective is the realization of the pure self ) and the human law
as the institutionalization of the bondsman (its central objective is the
realization of the real free self, the citizen). Therefore, both laws can be
understood as the institutional realization of the ground relations of rea-
son (at least of observing and active reason). The pure self is related to an
independent reality which is at the same time its self-realization.
186 chapter ten

Hegel elaborates how all relational forms of reason are objectified in

the institutional reality of the polis. The development of the polis consists
of the process in which these objectified relational forms become self-
conscious. This is possible because the religion of the polis represents them
as works of art. The result of this process of becoming self-aware is that
the social organism of the polis (insofar as it is real, i.e., insofar as it con-
cerns the human law) is explicitly understood as a contingent organism.
As soon as the human law is explicated as a contingent social organism,
the relational form that Hegel discussed at the level of reason as The spiri-
tual kingdom and deceit, or the ‘matter in hand itself,’ has been historically
realized. The social organism appears as a real self and the pure self needs
to find its essence again in it. Once again, the realization of the pure self
turns out to be inadequate. If we have understood that the social organ-
ism in which the pure self has realized himself is contingent, then the self
can realize itself in a manifold of social organisms. This relational form
is first realized in the Roman Empire in which the many persons of the
Roman Law realize themselves in a manifold of contingent family organ-
isms. However, in these social organisms the fact that these are contingent
organisms in which the pure self appears is not explicitly expressed. It is
true that the person is the pure self that practically realizes itself in the
family organism, but this freedom remains limited to the private domain.
At the social level, however, it is not sufficiently explicated that the many
contingent social organism (the families) express the pure self and borrow
their legitimacy from the pure self. This means that in the Roman Empire
the moment of the lord, in contrast to the moment of the bondsman, is
not objectified explicitly.
In the Realm of Education, Hegel’s reconstruction of medieval Europe,
the moment of the lord also achieves historical reality. This results finally
in the French Revolution in which the citizen immediately wants to real-
ize his pure freedom as the “human law,” as the law which underlies the
shared, contingent social organism. At this level, we realize the moment
of reason which Hegel discussed as Reason as Lawgiver.
As with the development of the polis, the development of the Realm of
Education is also mediated by the religious representation. In revealed reli-
gion, Hegel articulates explicitly that independent reality (the moment of
the bondsman) has to be understood as the self-realization of the free self
(the moment of the lord). God is represented as the absolute being real-
ized in the religious community in and through free action. However, the
terror of the French Revolution shows that in reality the self-realization
of the free self is impossible: lord and bondsman cannot immediately
 hegel’s concept of the absolute spirit 187

coincide; pure freedom cannot be made immediately real. To adequately

realize freedom, not only must the contingency of the social organism be
explicitly expressed, but it must also be explicated how this expression
of contingency is distinguished from pure freedom. It has to be clear that
pure freedom is essentially transcendent to realized freedom.
This last step is performed in the chapter Morality in which Hegel inter-
prets Modernity as a reflection of the French Revolution. The exposition
of Conscience can be understood as the historical realization of Reason as
testing laws. Conscience has the certitude that it is part of a contingent
social organism in which it has already realized its freedom throughout.
The development of Conscience explicates what it means that Conscience
does not immediately coincide with the contingent social organism, but
rather is aware of the relation between itself and that reality as the rela-
tion between the pure self and the realized pure self.
At the level of the Self-Consciousness chapter, Hegel already has princi-
pally expressed (considered from the observer’s perspective) under what
conditions a pure (free) self related to a contingent reality can realize itself
as a pure self: this is only possible in a relation to another free self, i.e., in a
symmetrical relation of recognition. In its development Conscience draws
a comparable conclusion (this time considered from the internal perspec-
tive): the free self can only realize its freedom as the essence of contingent
social reality if it attains a symmetrical relation to another free self. Hegel
discusses this relation as the beautiful soul: “The spirit and substance of
their association are thus the mutual assurance of their conscientiousness,
good intentions, the rejoicing over this mutual purity, and the refreshing
of themselves in the glory of knowing and uttering and fostering, such an
excellent state of affairs” (398).
In the Self-Consciousness chapter, it has been clarified that it is not just
like that possible to conceptualize a symmetrical relation of recognition
as a real relation. It is true that the model of the lord/bondsman relation
is developed to explain what conditions the realization of the symmetrical
recognition has to meet: the individuals must (as bondsmen) be part of
a social organism; and this social organism has to be understood as the
realization of the pure self (the lord). The symmetry between the individu-
als is guaranteed by recognizing the lord as their shared absolute essence.
However, it turned out to be problematic to determine the human law
that underlies the social organism. Insofar as individuals are part of the
social organism as real individuals (as real legal subjects), they lose their
symmetry. Only as moral subject are they symmetrical, not as subjects of
law. The beautiful souls have to handle a similar problem. It is true that
188 chapter ten

in their mutual recognition they are symmetrically related, but it remains

unclear how this symmetry can be expressed in their real actions. In con-
trast to self-consciousnesses, at the level of the Self-Consciousness chap-
ter, the beautiful souls can try to express this symmetry in speech acts.
However, recognition expressed in speech acts, “dies away” (399): it is a
fleeting reality which is not an adequate expression of absolute essence,
the free self. Insofar as beautiful souls are real individuals, they belong to a
contingent social organism and in their real actions are not symmetrically
related.
The relation between beautiful souls can be compared with the relation
that Jürgen Habermas describes as the ideal speech situation.6 The free-
dom experienced in the ideal speech situation is a pure freedom which
Habermas calls “counter-factual.” It is a freedom besides the contingent
social organism that Habermas identifies as the contingent lifeworld.
The relations within the ideal speech situation are power-free, i.e., they
abstract from the contingent content of the lifeworld. As beautiful souls,
the members of the ideal speech situation express their pure freedom in
speech. However, this speech in a certain sense also dies away. Not so
much because uttered speech has no continuing existence, but rather
because real speech is tied to specific cognitive schemes.7 However, in
the ideal speech situation it has to be possible to switch from one speech
(“Begründungssprache”) to the other.8 In this sense, the speech used in
the ideal speech situation is also “counter-factual”: it is not tied to any spe-
cific grammar.
To map the historical development of the lifeworld Habermas distin-
guishes, as does Hegel, an observer’s from an internal perspective. Ini-
tially, the lifeworld can only be described from the observer’s perspective
as a speech community whose reproduction is mediated by speech acts.
Habermas interprets the development of the lifeworld as a process of
Rationalisierung (rationalizing) and Ausdifferenzierung (differentiation).

6 Hegel, PhG, p. 482: “The Spirit that, in its existence, is certain of itself, has for the ele-
ment of existence nothing else but this knowledge of itself; when it declares that what it
does it does out of conviction of duty, this utterance is the validating of its action.”
7 J. Habermas, Wahrheitstheorien (1984), p. 167: “Kognitive Schemata sind Ergebnisse
einer aktiven Auseinandersetzung des Persönlichkeits- und des Gesellschaftssystems mit
der Natur.”
8 J. Habermas, Wahrheitstheorien (1984), pp. 171–2: “Ein argumentativ erzielter Konsen-
sus darf dann, aber nur dann als Wahrheitskriterium angesehen werden, wenn strukturell
die Möglichkeit besteht, die jeweilige Begründungssprache, in der Erfahrungen interpre-
tiert werden, zu hinterfragen, zu modifizieren und zu ersetzen.”
 hegel’s concept of the absolute spirit 189

The Ausdifferenzierung concerns the ongoing institutional differentiation

of the social organism. The Rationalisierung concerns the development
with the result that the reproduction of these institutions is mediated by
speech acts and acquires the shape of rational argumentation. Finally,
the lifeworld has developed into a social organism which not only has
insight into its own contingency but which also knows that the reproduc-
tion of the social organism is mediated through communicative action
which, in the last resort, is grounded in the ideal speech situation. As
with Hegel, Habermas distinguishes between the social organism (system
and lifeworld) and the pure cognitive relations (ideal speech situation in
Habermas, beautiful souls in Hegel). By naming the ideal speech situa-
tion counter-factual, Habermas only indicates that the pure freedom of
the symmetrical recognition contradicts the reality of the social organ-
ism. It is precisely this contradiction that Hegel thematizes at the end of
the Morality chapter. He constructs a discussion between an individual
which thinks that pure freedom is only real in the relation of the beautiful
soul (because all real action ruins pure freedom) and an individual which
believes that freedom is not at all real if it is not expressed in real action.
Hegel formulates the conditions under which this contradiction can be
overcome as the formal absolute spirit: pure freedom can be realized in a
social organism understood as the contingent (historical) appearance of
pure freedom.9
That the subjective certitude of the formal absolute spirit can be
brought to truth (such that the formal absolute spirit can transform into
the real absolute spirit) is already made clear by Hegel in his discussion of
the fear of death at the level of self-consciousness: in the fear of death the
superior power of nature is internalized and represented as lord. At this
level, it principally appears that nature is reasonable in itself and allows
the realization of the pure self. In the Religion chapter, Hegel elaborates
how the lord stands in for pure freedom in that, depending on the cor-
responding social organism, it represents freedom in a specific historical
manner. From the retrospective view of the (concluding) last chapter of
the Phenomenology of Spirit, it becomes clear that religion pervaded the
entire development. For this reason, Conscience reflects on a society that
has passed through the development of revealed religion. After all, the

9 Hegel, PhS, p. 408: “The world of reconciliation is the objectively existent Spirit, which
beholds the pure knowledge of itself qua universal essence, in its opposite, in the pure
knowledge of itself qua absolutely self-contained and exclusive individuality—a reciprocal
recognition which is absolute spirit.”
190 chapter ten

French Revolution followed from an attempt to realize “heaven on earth.”10

Conscience’s reflection shows that heaven cannot be immediately real-
ized, not even by means of the autonomous action of citizens. But this
reflection also shows that the historical development can be interpreted
as a process by which the awareness of what the real realization of free-
dom means is developed step by step. Implicitly, the human being has
already realized its freedom in a social organism. The religious represen-
tation already expresses that the social organism is the objectification of
freedom (be it in an implicit form) all the time. In the religious repre-
sentation, the social organism is understood as a reality not alien, but as
an expression of what the individuals consider their absolute being: the
godhead. In the reconstruction of the historical process the nature of this
godhead is revealed step by step: the godhead is absolute spirit, the pure
self realized in the social organism in a contingent, i.e., specific histori-
cal manner. As eternal peace, pure freedom is the ideal of the historical
human being. But it remains an ideal which is distinguished in principle
from this contingent reality.
In the concluding chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit (absolute
knowing), Hegel presents the realization of absolute spirit as the result
of two movements.11 On the one hand, as the movement of the “I” which
produces the thing,12 and on the other hand, as the movement of the
thing which produces the “I.”13 On the basis of this double movement,
the “I” and the thing can be identified (substance can be understood as
subject). In the previous chapters, we discussed how these movements
can be more closely concretized. The “I” which transforms itself into a
thing is the bondsman who realizes itself in a social organism. Finally, the
thinking through of this movement leads to the beautiful soul in which
the “I” has been transformed into a thing that only consists of the actions
of the pure self, i.e., the pure recognition between beautiful souls. The

10 Hegel, PhS, p. 355: “The two worlds are reconciled and heaven is transplanted to
earth below.”
11 Hegel, PhS, p. 479: “This surmounting of the object of consciousness is not to be taken
one-sidedly to mean that the object showed itself as returning into the Self, but is to be
taken more specifically to mean not only that the object as such presented itself to the
Self as vanishing, but rather that it is the externalization of self-consciousness that posits
the thinghood [of the object] and that this externalization has not merely a negative but a
positive meaning, a meaning which is not only for us or in itself, but for self-consciousness
itself.”
12 Hegel, PhS, p. 480: “And we saw Observing Reason at its peak express its specific
character in the infinite judgment that the being of the ‘I’ is a Thing.”
13 Hegel, PhS, p. 481: “The Thing is ‘I.’ ”
 hegel’s concept of the absolute spirit 191

thing that makes itself the “I” is external nature represented as the lord.
Finally, thinking through the position of the lord leads to the represen-
tations of revealed religion in which the absolute being realizes itself in
and through the actions of the religious community. Therefore, the thing
which is made an “I” is represented as the pure self which realizes itself
in and through the actions of the real self. At the level of absolute knowl-
edge, both movements are taken together.14 The subjective certitude that
the contradiction between two opinions—the opinion that duty has to be
pure, and consequently, cannot be realized in real action, and the opinion
that duty’s realization cannot be opposed to reality, and thus can only be
overcome in absolute spirit—can only be brought to truth by appealing
to the religious representation in which revealed religion results. This rep-
resentation expresses how the real social organism has already become
self-conscious all the time, namely as the specific manner in which the
pure self is realized by the real self. This means that the highest form
of the consciousness of the bondsman can recognize itself in the highest
form of the religious representation, i.e. in the highest form of the repre-
sentation of the lord. This recognition completes the development of the
Phenomenology of Spirit: the insight that the human self conceived only
from the lord/bondsman relation has now been developed also from the
internal perspective.15

14 Hegel, PhS, p. 485: “This last shape of Spirit—the Spirit which at the same time gives
its complete and true content of the Self and thereby realizes its Notion as remaining in
its Notion in this realization—this is absolute knowing.”
15 Habermas argues that the transition into absolute spirit implies that the absolute
spirit “is uncoupled from the objective spirit,” Habermas 1999, p. 152. This transition entails
a transition from substance into subject, that is, into an “obscure self-consciousness”: “But
at the end of the Jena period the ‘self ’ of an obscure self-consciousness is still the only
model which Hegel had available for a higher-level subjectivity to which a higher knowl-
edge could be ascribed,” p. 148. Habermas explains this point of view by assuming that
Hegel’s “critical retrospective of the French Revolution provided a spectacular back-up
for his desire to avoid one specific consequence of detranscendentalization,” p. 150. The
freedom of the French Revolution threatens to end up with lawlessness. “Hegel responds
to this problem with his conviction that history as a whole follows the path of reason.
Politically acting citizens can be released from the burden of creating the morally sup-
portive institutions of the constitutional state only by a reason which can realize itself
historically through its own dynamic,” p. 152. However, we discussed how the transition to
absolute spirit can be performed in order to ground the paradigm of recognition. In this
sense, this transition has the same function as Habermas’s appeal to the counter-factual
ideal speech situation. In no way does Hegel transform substance into a subject only at
the end. The subject already is present all the time in the form of the lord. Therefore,
Habermas is incorrect when he states: “Originally, the media through which the history of
the detranscendentalization of the subject was played out were subject-less subjects—as
yet not manifestations of a higher-order subject,” p. 148.
192 chapter ten

Hegel points out that the contours of this development were already
clear at the end of the conscious chapter.16 This chapter resulted in the
relation of the Ich=Ich, which considered from the observer’s perspective,
was distinguished from nature conceptualized as living nature. In the
relation of the Ich=Ich, the “I” already has become a thing (substance);
in nature which is conceptualized as life, the thing (natural substance)
already has become an “I” (self-realization). The pure “I” and life are uni-
fied in the form of the lord/bondsman relation. In absolute knowledge, the
lord/bondsman relation has been developed into a relation that is in and
by itself.

Evaluation: Hegel’s Paradigm of Recognition in Comparison

a. A Comparison with Habermas and Rawls

Both Habermas and Rawls think it to be important to stress the fact that
human reason is finite. Habermas formulates this by stating that the ideal
speech situation is “counter-factual,” i.e., it is an ideal that for humans is
unreachable.17 Rawls formulates it by stating that the human reason is
“burdened.” The finitude of human reason implies that it is impossible
to give a blueprint of the ideal society, i.e., a society in which the free-
dom and equality of the persons can be fully realized. For Habermas the
question of how human rights and democracy can be best realized under
specific historical conditions must always be answered in a political dis-
course between a contingent manifold of positions. Rawls takes his point
of departure from a contingent manifold of (rational) comprehensive doc-
trines which need to be unified with the help of his concept of political
liberalism.
Hegel too does justice to the finitude of human reason as it is compre-
hended by Habermas and Rawls, however. For Hegel it is impossible to
develop a blueprint for the ideal society. World history is characterized by
a contingent manifold of social organisms, i.e., by a contingent manifold
of states. In my critical reception of Hegel, I transformed the manifold of

16 Hegel, PhS, p. 480: “It is, therefore, in accordance with these three determinations
that consciousness must know the object as itself.”
17 J. Habermas, Wahrheitstheorien (1984), p. 181: “Es gehört zu den Argumentationsvor-
aussetzungen, dass wir im Vollzug der Sprechakte kontrafaktisch so tun, als sei die ideale
Sprechsituation nicht bloss fiktiv, sondern wirklich—eben das nennen wir eine Unter-
stellung.”
 hegel’s concept of the absolute spirit 193

states at the level of world history into the manifold of value communities
at the level of the nation state. I argued that Hegel’s conceptual framework
allows for this transformation. After this transformation, the fundamental
problem of the modern state in Hegel’s conceptual framework can analo-
gously be formulated in terms of the approaches of Habermas and Rawls.
How can a contingent manifold of positions be unified into a reasonable
entirety? Habermas, Rawls and Hegel share the presupposition that those
who are involved must have insight into the contingency of their position.
Precisely on the base of this insight they are prepared to function within
an institutional framework in which the contingent manifold is brought
to the unity of the national state. However, all of these three thinkers have
another conception of this institutional framework (respectively: institu-
tionalized dialogue, political liberalism and the institutionalization of the
three fundamental forms of reciprocal recognition).
The distinct models presented by Habermas, Rawls and Hegel to con-
ceptualize the unity of the contingent manifold of value communities
raises the question of which of these models is adequate. Each of these
approaches can be considered a version of the paradigm of recognition.
Therefore, the question just raised comes down to the question of the nec-
essary foundation of the paradigm of recognition. Habermas and Rawls
do not provide this necessary foundation. Habermas finally makes his
theory dependent on empirical testing. However, the thesis that the truth
of a theory is in the end dependent on empirical testing cannot itself be
empirically tested. A comparable argument can be raised against Rawls.
The thesis that political liberalism will be accepted by rational compre-
hensive doctrines and that each rational comprehensive doctrine has its
own reasons for accepting cannot necessarily be grounded in principle.
After all this would imply that human reason is no longer burdened. We
argued that Hegel did deliver a foundation of the paradigm of recognition.
His concept of absolute spirit does not mean the annihilation but rather
the foundation of the paradigm of recognition.

b. A Comparison with Axel Honneth

We discussed that Honneth formulates his version of the paradigm of
recognition in line with Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action.
However, he extends the paradigm of recognition by means of three fun-
damental forms of reciprocal recognition. Although these three forms are
fundamental, they finally have to be affirmed by experimental testing. We
argued that empirical testing with the help of scientific models can never
lead to the foundation of the three forms of recognition.
194 chapter ten

In the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel also distinguishes three funda-

mental forms of recognition and thinks that the truth of these three forms
can be affirmed through empirical testing. In this case, however, it is about
an empirical testing that has another status than it does for Honneth.
After having deduced (in the Reason chapter) the necessary conditions
under which the individuals can relate to a social organism as a contin-
gent social organism, Hegel argues that these conditions, considered from
the observer’s perspective, can be found again in the Greek polis.
Hegel’s testing of the conditions developed at the level of reason in a
historical society is on a methodological basis essentially distinct from
the scientific testing that Honneth has in mind. After all the conditions
that are developed at the level of reason explicate the necessary condi-
tions under which individuals relate themselves as free individuals to the
social organism. The freedom of the individual cannot be expressed as
such in a scientific model in which the individual has been objectified.
Freedom can only be explicitly expressed if the individual is aware of its
freedom and consequently is aware of the free relation he takes towards
the social organism. To express this, Hegel uses the model of the lord/
bondsman relation. In his recognition of the lord, the individual explic-
itly expresses the fact that he is freely related to the social organism. In
his recognition of the lord, the individual has explicitly distinguished his
free essence from the social organism. Therefore, the reality of the free
individual necessarily has to be expressed as a specific form of the lord/
bondsman relation.
If Hegel states that the conditions that are developed in the Reason
chapter can be found again in the polis, this means that the model that
is made of the polis is not an objectifying (scientific) model, but rather
a form of the lord/bondsman relation. The free individual is part of the
social organism of the polis, and as such, is represented as an individual
who has become self-conscious by explicitly expressing his freedom in
the representation of the lord. In the polis, the lord has the form of the
religion of the work of art.
In the representation of the lord which is expressed historically in the
various forms of religion Hegel has brought to the fore the fact that his
version of the paradigm of recognition is not situated against nature. After
all, the representation of the lord resulted from the experience of the fear
of death. In this experience the power of nature is internalized. Nature
is conceptualized as such and this conceptualization is represented
in the lord. Only through this movement can the paradigm of recogni-
tion be fully grounded. Only if nature principally can be conceptualized
 hegel’s concept of the absolute spirit 195

(is “reasonable”) is it guaranteed that the relation of recognition can real-

ize itself.
We argued that the first fundamental form of reciprocal recognition is
objectified in the social organism of the polis. However, it appeared that
freedom still is not adequately realized under the conditions of the polis. It
appeared that the pure freedom of the individual could not be reconciled
with the immediate existence of the traditional, social organism. Hegel’s
reconstruction of European history as the process in which the freedom
of the individual is adequately expressed step by step led to the insight
that the French Revolution can be understood as the attempt to objectify
the second fundamental form of reciprocal recognition and that thinking
through Modernity philosophically resulted in the self-awareness of the
third fundamental form of reciprocal recognition. This implies that it is
true that the second and third fundamental form of reciprocal recognition
can be tested to European history, but that the framework of this testing
cannot be borrowed from scientific models. What is tested is actually the
lord/bondsman relation. Departing from the historical realization of the
lord/bondman relation in the polis, the further development of history
is reconstructed with the help of criteria borrowed from the polis. As the
realized lord/bondsman relation the polis is the real substance. However,
it is a substance that contradicts itself. Therefore, the forms of recogni-
tion that follow from the reconstruction of history as a process in which
substance develops its adequate shape can be understood as necessary
forms, i.e., as forms that enable us to conceptualize substance as subject.
The absolute spirit is the lord/bondsman relation that is in and for itself.
When the lord/bondsman relation that is in and for itself has been
reached, it is proved, according to Hegel, that substance can be concep-
tualized without contradiction so that it makes sense to speak about
philosophical knowledge. In this sense, the Phenomenology of Spirit is the
introduction to the philosophical knowledge that Hegel has systemati-
cally elaborated in his philosophical system.18 To this philosophical sys-
tem belongs the objective spirit which Hegel has extensively elaborated
in his Philosophy of Right. We discussed how the three fundamental form

18 Stephen Houlgate states: “In Hegel’s own view, by contrast, the Logic attempts to pro-
vide an a priori derivation of the logical categories of thought that follows a strictly neces-
sary path,” Houlgate, “Hegel and Brandom on Norms, Concepts and Logical Categories,” in
Espen Hammer (ed.), German Idealism: Contemporary Perspectives, Routledge, New York,
2007, p. 144. However, the entire enterprise of the Phenomenology of Spirit contradicts the
suggestion that “a priori derivations” make sense for Hegel.
196 chapter ten

of reciprocal recognition that Hegel has developed in the Phenomenology

of Spirit return as systematic moments of the Philosophy of Right. Only
then has what Honneth seems simply to assume been proven: the three
fundamental forms of reciprocal recognition are necessary conditions for
the realization of the individual’s freedom.19

c. A Comparison with Ludwig Siep

Ludwig Siep argues that the universality of Hegel’s project has to be put
in perspective. For instance, he states:
The deficiencies in the Hegelian solution lie in my view in two areas: Firstly,
in spite of his conception of mutual recognition between individuals and
groups of individuals, Hegel has given the latter, above all the—in the Aris-
totelian tradition—complete and encompassing community, the state, a
normative and ontological predominance. In view of our historical experi-
ences with the modern state this can no longer be justified (1). Secondly, his
philosophy of history, which is in modern terms unequivocally eurocentric
and christocentric, that it is to say aimed at Christianity as the final and
absolute religion, stands in the way of an unambiguously pluralistic accep-
tance of the rights of cultural, ethnic and religious groups (2).20
Although the connectives that are observed by Siep are not contestable,
I nevertheless have the opinion that they do not imply that the universal-
ity of Hegel’s project is under discussion. The central problem that Hegel
tries to solve with the help of the lord/bondsman relation—how to con-
ceptualize the unity between mind and body—is not tied to a specific
culture. The same is true for the conditions that are developed in the Rea-
son chapter which expicates the conditions under which the individual
has insight into the contingent status of the social organism to which he
already belongs throughout. The question as to how these conditions are
historically realized must be answered again and again, by each genera-
tion and by each culture. Hegel has given a response for his culture and
for his time. For those who share with Hegel the background of West-
ern culture, the reconstruction of the realization of freedom remains

19 I think that in the Phenomenology of Spirit Hegel has no other position than that
of the system of the Encyclopedia. Elsewhere (Cobben 1996) I have elaborated how the
logic of this system corresponds with the logic which determines the development in the
Phenomenology of Spirit: Consciousness, Self-consciousness and Reason correspond to
the logic of being, the logic of essence and the logic of concept.
20 Ludwig Siep, “Recognition of individuals and cultures,” in Paul Cobben (ed.), Institu-
tions of Education: Then and Today, Brill, Leiden/Boston 2010, p. 101.
 hegel’s concept of the absolute spirit 197

understandable. It is possible that from another cultural perspective an

alternative reconstruction could be designed. Yet we must be reminded
that in all such reconstructions European history has to be taken into
account because, for better or worse, the contemporary world is to such a
great extent influenced by European tradition. Moreover, each reconstruc-
tion will lead to the acknowledgment of the three fundamental forms of
reciprocal recognition. After all, these forms are connected to the institu-
tionalization of the free relation to the contingent social organism. How-
ever, a reconstruction from another culture can lead to the determination
of ethical institutions in which there is more room for the “individual.”
After all, we discussed how Hegel’s approach is open to specific historical
definitions of the family, the value community and the state.

d. A Comparison with Immanuel Kant

The crucial Hegelian criticism of Kant’s project concerns his separation
between the noumenal and the phenomenal world, between freedom
and nature. Finally, Kant is not able to conceive of the human being as
the unity of mind and body. Hegel’s elementary model to conceptualize
the unity between mind and body, the lord/bondsman relation, already
contains all the elements that Hegel brings into action to overcome the
Kantian position. In the relation between lord and bondsman, the pure,
“noumenal” freedom is related to real, “phenomenal” freedom. The law
that the bondsman realizes in his action (so to speak, the social shared
maxims) is a specific historical appearance of the categorical impera-
tive: the bondsman who is related to the lord, finally has to observe the
demand to realize pure freedom. In the lord/bondsman relation the
Kantian dichotomy between morality and law is overcome.
Crucial for Hegel’s Kant criticism is his concept of the fear of death. In
the fear of death the internal unity between nature and freedom is expli-
cated. The fear of death results in the representation of the lord in which
the pure freedom is expressed as the essence of nature. Historically the
lord appears in various religion forms. In the revealed religion, the lord is
represented finally as the pure freedom which is realized in and through
the actions of the religious community. In Hegel’s conception of absolute
spirit the adequate unity between lord and bondsman (between pure and
real freedom) is expressed.
In the Phenomenology of Spirit, in the section regarding Dissemblance
and duplicity, Hegel discusses how Kant struggles with the relation
between pure and real freedom. The categorical imperative demands that
198 chapter ten

we realize pure freedom. But real action is not pure such that each real
action violates the categorical imperative. Kant thinks that this contra-
diction can only be overcome through his postulates: god, freedom and
the immortality of the soul. We have no knowledge of these postulates.
Nevertheless we have to assume their existence, because otherwise the
contradiction between pure and real freedom cannot be overcome. For
Hegel the doctrine of the postulates is only a play with words21 which
comes down to the thesis that the separation between pure and real free-
dom has at the same time to be understood as non-existent.
The consequence of the sublation of the separation between pure and
real freedom in Hegel seems to be that the ideas god, freedom and the
immortality of the soul lose their transcendent status. God is transformed
into the absolute spirit that appears in world history. Freedom and immor-
tality have become moments of this appearing god. Although this conclu-
sion is probably in accordance with Hegel’s opinion, god, freedom and
immortality of the soul remain ideas that are in a specific sense unknow-
able. It is true that absolute spirit manifests itself in world history, but this
does not mean that world history can fully be understood. At the level of
absolute knowledge we conceive the status of the claim that world history
can be reconstructed meaningfully as the realization of moral freedom
(the pure self ) in legal freedom.22 In other words, we comprehend the fact
that our reality is standardized through human rights and democracy.23 In

21 Hegel, PhS, p. 374: “It is, to employ here a Kantian expression where it is most appro-
priate, a ‘whole nest’ of thoughtless contradictions.”
22 Habermas denies that Hegel offers room for this reconstruction: “On the other hand,
the only thing which has made Hegel’s problem more tractable is the fact that the proce-
duralistic mechanisms of the constitutional state have turned the process of the realization
of civil rights, through institutionalized democratic practice of self-determination, into a
long-term task. This is a task which, according to Hegel himself, should not even exist,”
Habermas (1999), p. 152. Kenneth Baynes is right in stating: “On the other hand, Hegel’s
model of Sittlichkeit (and the form of perfectionism associated with it) is not, I think,
strongly ‘perfectionist’ in the sense that it is committed to a single, comprehensive and
collectively shared vision of the good life—an overarching telos—that the government
or ‘strictly political state’ seeks to promote. On the contrary, I have attempted to show
that it is a modern or ‘postmetaphysical’ conception structured by an indissoluble tension
between the subjective and the objective aspects of freedom. It is an attempt to show
how individuals can be free in the sense of ‘at home with oneself in another,’ in a manner
that must remain open to the possibility of moral/social learning and new forms of what
Heidegger called world-disclosure,” Kenneth Baynes, “Freedom and Recognition in Hegel
and Habermas,” Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 28, No. 1 pp. 1–17; p. 14.
23 Since the lord is the first representation of the pure self (the moral self), Saul Tobias
argues that the image of the master (the “lord”) already anticipates human rights: “On
the one hand, the servant is conscious in the master of an image of absolute autonomy,
the image that has its equivalent in the democratic public discourse as the universal self-
 hegel’s concept of the absolute spirit 199

this sense, reality is reasonable and can be reconstructed as a dialectical

unity. We can refer to the dialectical entirety as the concept of god. Then
god has the meaning of the finite, human reality conceptualized as such.
Reality that is conceptualized as such is the reality in which we already
live all the time and that is already given all the time. This concept of god
does not concern god as creator of all finite reality; it does not provide
the possibility that the finite reality could be non-existent. We have no
knowledge of god as creator. Such a god is thematized by religion, not by
philosophy. However, this kind of god does not contradict Hegel’s philo-
sophical project. As with Kant, in this sense Hegel’s project leaves room
for religion (therefore, Hegel’s claim is untenable that his philosophy is
the conceptual version of Christian religion).
At the level of absolute knowledge, we have insight into our individual
freedom. We can understand how we realize our freedom in the insti-
tutions of the state. But we do not have insight into the ground of our
existence. Our existence as free individuals is given. We can try to recon-
struct the meaning of our specific life history (in dialogue with our life
partner, with our friends and with members of value communities), but
our knowledge of our identity is not absolute. Also at the level of personal
freedom, as in Kant, Hegel leaves room for religion: namely, for a god who
is the ground of my existence, for a god to which I have a personal rela-
tion, and who gives me certitude with regard to my deepest essence. This
religious dimension that, for instance, is part of the Christian tradition
transcends Hegel’s philosophical concept.
Also the immortality of the soul is not a theme in Hegelian thinking.
Hegel names the desire for immortality a “childish image”: “Der Mensch
als einzelnes lebendiges, seine einzelne Lebendigkeit, Natürlichkeit muss
sterben”24 (VPR b11, p. 260). The “immortality” of the human being is
rather interpreted by Hegel as his absolute value as a free being: “. . . es
existiert in ihm der Punkt unendlicher Subjektivität: es ist zwar abstrakt,
aber abstrakt an und für sich Sein” (ibidem). Once again there is no room
in Hegel for god as creator, in this case as creator of the particular indi-
vidual. This type of god remains outside philosophical conceptions, but
does not contradict them.

legislating citizen, the abstract subject of full civil and human rights,” Tobias, “Hegel and
the Politics of Recognition,” The Owl of Minerva 38: 1–2 (2006–07), p. 114.
24 “Human as particular living being, his particularly being-alive, naturalness must die.”
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 Index

absolute knowledge 21, 41, 72, 191–192, 105, 110, 117, 121, 156, 169–170, 178–179, 181,
198–199 184–186, 190–191, 197, 202
absolute spirit 7, 10, 40, 54, 74, 87, 91, bone 10, 109
124, 127, 135, 171, 173–174, 177, 179–183,
189–191, 193, 195, 197–198 capital 3, 5, 159
abstract cult 118 capitalist 159, 161–164
active reason 109–110, 118, 125, 185 Cartesian 10, 18, 38, 51–52, 70, 93
activity 2–3, 48, 69, 76, 93, 99–101, 103, categorical imperative 71, 122, 170,
109, 117, 159 197–198
actual cult 118 categorical scheme 7–8, 45, 50–51, 53,
administration of justice 149, 153 67
Adorno 13, 77 category 15, 46, 49, 51, 64, 69–70, 116
almightiness 3, 99 causal relation 49–50
ancient Greece 16 cause 25, 27, 32, 49–50, 69, 106
animal kingdom 11–112, 126, 134 Ceres 118
animal rationale 61 child 130–133, 136–139, 141–145
antiquity 135–136 citizens 62–63, 116–119, 121–122, 126–127,
appearance 3, 11, 18, 25, 29–31, 35, 50, 52, 134–136, 142, 146–147, 150, 152, 156, 169,
74, 85, 98, 103, 106, 139, 160, 180, 189, 197 172–174, 176–180, 185–186, 190–191, 201
architecture 87 civil society 128–129, 139, 146, 151, 153–156,
argumentation 6, 20, 34, 91, 95, 141, 178, 158, 164–165, 171–173, 175–176, 178–180
182, 189 classical mechanics 47, 49
Aristotle 12, 21, 61–62 cognition 8, 12, 18, 23–25, 29, 31–32,
artist 117 34–37, 40–42, 51, 67, 75, 112, 182, 184
association principle 25–33, 44–45, comedy 119
49–52, 69 commodity 3, 5, 154, 156, 159–160, 163
assumption 1, 28, 38, 48, 55, 89, 95, 125, community of value 146, 155–158, 160,
133, 152, 155, 159, 163–164 163–165, 167–168, 172–173, 175
astronomical 86 complex idea 25–26, 28, 31–32, 44, 51
a-symmetry 180 comprehensive doctrine 155–157, 176,
Auch 45–46, 49, 58, 60, 62–69, 80–83, 192–193
93, 95 concept 1–2, 6–7, 9, 12–13, 16–17, 24, 26,
Ausdifferenzierung 14, 188–189 35, 39–41, 44, 46, 48–51, 54–55, 61, 65, 67,
autonomous 5, 12–13, 61–62, 76, 104, 74–75, 77, 80–81, 83–84, 86, 91, 95, 104,
122–123, 148, 151, 162, 190 106–107, 111, 115, 123, 127, 129–130, 132,
autonomous self 62 138–139, 171, 173–174, 176, 182, 192–193,
autonomy 10, 12, 76, 106–107, 122–123, 195–197, 199, 202
147, 153, 198 condition 13, 15, 34, 38, 51–52, 61, 63,
68–70, 72–73, 75, 77, 79, 84, 88–89,
Bacchus 118 91–92, 98, 100–101, 103–104, 106, 108–113,
beautiful soul 187–190 120, 123–125, 131, 133–135, 138, 140–141,
bestimmte Negation 98–99 143, 147–150, 152, 154–155, 158–159,
body 2, 9, 12, 36–40, 42–43, 49, 55–60, 162–164, 169–171, 174–178, 180, 184, 187,
65–68, 73, 75–76, 78, 87, 94, 96, 101–103, 189, 192, 194–196
118, 137, 170, 178, 184, 196–197 conscience 115, 123–124, 127, 135–136, 141,
bondsman 2–3, 39–40, 58, 64, 66–67, 153, 156–166, 169–174, 177, 181, 187, 189,
79–71, 73–74, 76–78, 84, 87–88, 102–103, 190
206 index

consciousness 1, 4, 6, 9, 12, 14, 16, 20–26, domination 4–5, 16, 157, 202
29, 35–36, 38, 42, 45–61, 63, 66–67, dualism 18, 38–39, 51–52, 101
70–84, 88–99, 101–103, 105–111, 115–121, duplicity 123, 197
124, 127, 133, 142, 148, 151, 174–175,
182–184, 190–192, 196 earth 49, 65–66, 190
constitution 85, 94, 100, 132, 136, 157, 178, education 78, 87, 119, 121–122, 126, 128,
180, 191, 198, 202 132–133, 135–138, 140–142, 145–146,
contiguity 25–26, 32, 70 150–154, 161, 164–165, 171, 179, 186, 196,
contingent 8–9, 41, 46, 48, 51, 62–64, 203
67, 71, 84–85, 106–107, 110, 112, 114, 119, effect 9, 25, 27–28, 32, 49–50, 69, 156, 160
121–127, 132–137, 141, 144–145, 150, Egyptian realm 85, 86, 88
153–154, 168–174, 178–180, 185–194, eins 45–46, 49, 58, 60, 62–67, 69, 80–83,
196–197 93, 95
contradiction 4, 36, 39–40, 45, 48–49, emotions 130
55–59, 63, 67, 76, 79–83, 85, 88–92, 98, empirical research 8, 10, 12–13, 18, 129,
101, 108–109, 112, 119–129, 134, 150–162, 132, 137, 141–145, 147–150, 156–157
168–169, 184, 189, 191, 195, 198 empirical science 13, 92, 104, 145
copernican turn 11, 47, 52–53, 59, 70, 93, empiricism 11, 20, 51
101, 109 Enlightenment 5, 13, 77
copula 31, 33 entirety 32, 34, 41, 57, 72, 78–79, 84, 111,
corporation 146, 149, 152, 155–156, 158, 115–116, 133, 139, 142, 154, 171, 193, 199
162–164, 172–173, 175 epistemological 93
corporeal 4–5, 9, 40, 45–47, 58–59, 61, 67, epos 119
75, 81–82, 88–89, 95, 103, 108, 123, 129 esteem 130, 146, 148, 166–169, 177
creator 199 eternal peace 71, 190
critique of judgment 34, 64 ethical life 111, 119, 144, 150, 166, 171, 173,
critique of practical reason 34, 68, 70 178–180, 185
critique of pure reason 6, 11, 29, 34, 68, european 16–17, 74, 127–128, 134–135,
70, 73, 93 149–150, 172, 174, 179, 195, 197
crown 172 exchange value 158–160
customs 49–50 executive 172–173
exist 24–26, 30, 34–35, 39, 48–49, 57,
darkness 80, 88 60–62, 67, 69, 78, 82, 84, 89, 91–93,
death 16, 39–40, 54, 57–61, 64–68, 72–73, 97–98, 101, 103, 110, 115–117, 119, 122,
75–76, 78–79, 81, 83–85, 91, 98–104, 110, 125–126, 130, 136, 158, 172, 176, 180, 198
114–115, 119, 121–122, 126–127, 143, 156, 177, experience 26, 35, 37–38, 40, 52, 56, 58,
189, 194, 197 66, 73, 76, 78–81, 84, 94, 97–99, 102–104,
decay 107, 119–120, 122, 126, 135–136, 150, 107, 109, 120, 130, 150, 163, 166, 194
173
division of labor 2–6, 154 family 26, 114–116, 119–122, 128–129,
Descartes 11, 18–21, 38, 49, 52, 54–55, 75, 131–133, 135–145, 153, 159, 171–172, 175,
101, 182, 184 178–180, 186, 197, 203
desire 56–59, 68, 72, 80–82, 93, 95–96, fear of death 16, 39, 54, 58, 64–68, 73,
98–99, 110 75–76, 79, 84–85, 100, 102–104, 189, 194,
determinedness 8, 21–22, 27, 36, 45, 55, 197
85, 87, 108 fichte 94, 203
dichotomy 197 finite 71, 124, 156–157, 173, 176–177, 180,
differentiation 15 185, 190, 192, 199
disappointment 98 finitude 66, 173, 176–177, 192
dissemblance 123, 197 foundation 9, 20,34, 54, 104, 106, 108, 112,
dissemblance and duplicity 197 114, 117, 127, 167, 180–181, 183, 193, 202
divine law 114–117, 121–122, 126, 134, 142, framework 47, 61, 69, 72, 74, 100–101,
150, 185 120, 136–137, 141, 153, 157, 164, 166–167,
divorce 140 170–172, 181, 193, 195
 index 207

Frankfurt School 4 Hume 8, 11, 18–36, 41, 44, 49, 50–52, 55,
freedom 4–16, 18, 40, 54, 61–52, 64–68, 69–70, 202
71, 73–75, 77–78, 88–90, 92, 105–107, husband 131
109, 111–115, 117, 119–124, 126–127, 129,
133, 135–141, 145, 148–149, 153–154, 156, ich=ich 49, 63–65, 70, 72–73, 84, 88, 95,
158, 161, 163, 165, 169, 170–174, 177–181, 184, 192
185–192, 194–199 ideal speech situation 73, 188–189,
French Revolution 11–13, 62, 121–122, 127, 191–192
135, 146, 150–152, 164, 169, 177, 186–187, identification 16, 42, 44, 48, 68, 75–76, 81,
190–191, 195 95, 109, 153, 173
friend 25, 143 identity 57, 64, 69, 75, 107, 109, 111–112,
friendship 129, 131, 143, 144 137–138, 141, 143, 168–169, 199
ideology 5, 17, 163
gender 139–140 image 26, 29–32, 35, 44–45, 67–68, 79,
generalized other 147 80, 82–83, 86–87, 121, 198–199
god as light 79–82 imagination 29
godhead 2–3, 79–83, 103, 117, 190 immortality 198–199
good life 149, 154–155, 166, 168, 171–173, impressions 18, 20–33, 35–36, 41–42, 44,
177, 180, 198 50–52, 55
gravitation 47–49, 51 independence 38–40, 52, 55, 58, 63,
Greek world 87–88, 114, 119, 121–122, 126, 68–69, 81–82, 97–99, 102, 106–107, 110,
136, 150 122, 158–160, 179
individual 10, 13, 20, 29, 60, 71–72, 78–79,
Habermas 1–2, 4–15, 18–19, 52–55, 73–74, 97, 111–116, 118–121, 123, 128–129, 133, 136,
77, 106, 114, 123–125, 127, 146, 158–162, 138, 141–142, 147–148, 150–151, 154–155,
164, 175, 182–183, 188–189, 191–193, 198, 158, 166, 168, 170, 172–173, 176–178, 189,
201 194–197, 199, 202
Hegel 1–4, 7–19, 34–42, 44–49, 51–52, individuality 110–112, 115–116, 118, 123–124,
54–55, 57–62, 64–80, 82–89, 91–102, 127, 143, 171, 189
104–109, 111–116, 118–130, 132, 134–135, instinctual laws 61, 153
137–146, 149, 151–158, 160, 162–166, interaction 6–11, 70, 77, 120, 129, 168
169–175, 178–199, 201–203 international law 174–175, 177–178, 180
Heidegger 5, 13, 77, 198 interplay of forces 47–48, 62–63, 65–55,
heterosexual 140 69, 93
hierarchical 127, 167 interpretation 2, 7–8, 14, 16, 74, 90–91,
hieroglyphics 87 98–99, 102, 106, 125, 130, 135, 139, 146,
history 2, 7, 14, 16–17, 40, 67, 71, 85, 148, 151, 158–161, 163–164, 166, 170–171,
115, 124–128, 134–135, 141, 149–150, 157, 174–175, 178, 180
167, 172–174, 177, 179, 191–193, 195–199, intersubjectivity 1, 12, 54, 77, 100, 102–103
201–202 intuition 6, 23, 29, 30, 34–35, 41–42, 45,
Hobbes 23 50–52, 70
homosexual 140 investigation 20, 48, 55, 90
Honneth 1–2, 13–17, 74, 90–103, 106,
11–114, 123–125, 127–130, 132–133, 135, judgment 19, 20, 25, 31–35, 41, 45, 64, 94,
137, 141–152, 155, 161–164, 166–169, 173, 156, 190
177–178, 180–183, 193–194, 196, 202 justice 7, 14, 18, 68, 85, 89, 92, 149, 153,
Horkheimer 4, 13, 77, 202 156, 160, 164, 174, 178, 192, 201
hubris 101
human law 9–13, 15–17, 62–64, 71–72, Kant 5–9, 11–12, 18–19, 22–23, 25, 29–37,
76–78, 88–90, 92, 105–127, 133–136, 41–42, 44–46, 50–52, 64, 69–71, 74,
141–142, 150, 152, 154–155, 175–179, 93–94, 122–123, 151, 183, 197–198, 201–202
185–187 knowledge 3, 6, 8, 13–15, 19–22, 24–28,
human species 61–62, 99, 101 30–31, 34–36, 38, 41, 50, 52, 55, 61, 63,
humanity 5 65, 70–73, 75, 77, 83, 86, 93, 95, 102, 111,
208 index

119, 124, 148, 151, 154, 158, 171, 182, 184, modernity 122, 127, 135, 148, 167, 177, 178,
188–189, 191–192, 195, 198–199 187, 195
monarch 172–174, 176–178, 189
labor 2–8, 10–11, 14, 18, 53, 69, 73–74, money 159–160
76–78, 84, 86–87, 103, 105–106, 117, monks 108, 122
154–156, 159, 161–163, 175, 184 monogamous 137–138
labor force 3, 159, 163 monological 7, 10, 54, 74, 91, 123, 127, 173,
legal respect 146, 169 181, 183
legislature 172 moral world 122–123, 127
legitimacy 15, 119, 122, 126, 162, 173, mother 130–132, 127, 141–143, 145
176–177, 180, 186 multicultural 157, 175
liberalism 156, 176, 192–193, 203 multiculturality 165
life 15–16, 19–21, 24, 26–27, 34, 54, 56–61, mummy 86, 87
63–64, 66–67, 72, 75–76, 78, 81, 83–85,
87, 91, 95–104, 106, 110–111, 113, 116, neediness 39, 56–57, 81, 97, 130
118–119, 121–122, 126–127, 129, 131, 136–141, need 99, 161, 192
144, 149–150, 154–156, 166–168, 171–173, Newton 47
177–180, 184–185, 192, 198–199 non-contradictory 46, 112, 125, 133–134
lifeworld 6, 11, 14, 125, 146, 160–162, 164, noumenal 6, 9, 12, 41, 50, 63, 170, 122–123,
188–189 127, 151, 197
literature 97, 201 noumenal world 41, 50, 122–123, 127, 151
liveliness 96–97 numerical 22, 29, 58
living work of art 118, 121, 126
Locke 23 obelisk 85–87
lord 2–3, 39, 40, 58, 64, 66–79, 84, 86–88, objection 19–21, 37, 141
102–103, 105, 107, 117, 121, 124, 126, 133, objective spirit 40, 74, 114, 191, 195
135, 153, 169, 170, 172, 177–181, 184–187, objectivity 6–9, 18–19, 42, 54, 108, 110, 119,
189, 191, 194–197, 198, 202 121–122, 124, 127, 154, 161, 165
lord/bondsman relation 2–4, 9, 12, 40, 58, observation 8, 28, 33, 37, 48–49, 104–105,
68–79, 84–89, 91, 101–103, 105, 109–110, 116, 129
116, 124, 133–135, 152, 154, 156, 169, 170, observing reason 109, 118, 190
178–181, 184, 185, 187, 192, 194–197 offspring 60–61
love 21, 113, 129–132, 136, 137, 139, 141, olympic games 118
143–145, 147–148 opinion 7, 13, 16, 20, 24, 31, 38, 50, 77, 98,
lover 130, 144 112, 125, 182, 191, 196, 198

manifold 8, 18, 22–23, 29–32, 35–27, paradigm of recognition 1, 11, 13, 17,
41–45, 51–52, 55, 57–58, 69, 76, 79–80, 105–106, 108–113, 123–124, 127, 145,
82, 94, 107, 119, 120, 124, 134–136, 143, 181–183, 191–194
155–157, 172–173, 176, 179, 186, 192–193 paradigm of the philosophy of
marriage 137–140, 144–145, 179 consciousness 1, 4, 6, 14, 16, 54, 74, 77,
Marx 1–10, 12, 18–19, 158–160, 163, 202 89–90
mathematics 25, 86 parent 130, 140, 144
matter of fact 25, 49 parliament 158, 172, 176
maxim 28, 112 particularity 24, 26, 46, 49, 62, 82–83, 87,
medieval 108, 119, 121–122, 126, 135, 150, 99, 158
155, 186 patriotism 172, 174, 176
Medieval World 119, 121–122, 126, 135, 150 perceiver 21
memory 21, 24, 44, 115, 121 perception 21–24, 29–30, 39, 43–47, 49,
metaphor 40, 84, 91, 99, 102, 105, 184 51, 57–59, 72, 81–83, 93, 95–96
metaphysical 13, 15, 127, 135, 147, 167, 198 person 115, 120, 125, 136, 138–140, 143,
methodological 57, 91, 98, 112, 132, 194 146–148, 150–151, 153–154, 158–162,
modality 33–34, 72 164–165, 168–169, 173, 186
 index 209

pharaoh 86–87 reason as lawgiver 111–112, 127, 186

phenomenal 6, 41, 50, 122–123, 127, 197 reason as testing laws 112–123, 127, 169,
philosophy of consciousness 1, 4, 6, 14, 187
16, 54, 74, 77, 89–90, 175 reciprocal 115, 124, 130–131, 144, 149,
physicist 58 151–153, 155, 164, 166, 168, 171, 175,
pleasure 110, 116, 118–119 178–180, 189, 193, 195–197
pleasure and necessity 110, 118 redemption 159
point mass 47 reflection 21–22, 27, 42, 52, 56, 96, 184,
police 149, 153, 161–162, 173 187, 190
polis 114–119, 121–122, 126, 134, 136, 142, relation of reciprocity 70
185–186, 194–195 relations of ideas 25
polygamy 139 relative contradiction 48, 67
post-revolutionary 9, 10 religion 12–14, 19, 68, 72,75, 77–86, 88–89,
power 2–5, 8–10, 14, 40, 66–68, 73, 77–78, 106, 112, 115–117, 120, 124, 126, 134, 142,
82, 94, 107–108, 110, 119–120, 156, 161, 163–164, 183, 186, 189, 191, 194, 196–197,
173–174, 178, 188–189, 194 199, 201
practical reason 11–12, 34, 63, 68, 70, religion of nature 12–13, 68, 75, 77–79, 81,
114–115, 127, 203 83–85, 87–89, 106, 116
pre-modern 167, 177 religion of plant and animal 81
presupposition 12, 31, 37, 42–43, 45, 48, religion of the animal 83, 85
63, 94–95, 107–108, 117, 120, 126, 141, 145, religion of the artificer 85–86
159, 161, 170, 179, 193 religion of the work of art 88, 117, 126,
progress 5, 7, 77 142, 194
proletariat 3, 5 religious community 186, 191, 197
promise 159–160 representation 2, 24, 26, 29–30, 33,
property 3, 21, 30, 32, 39, 43–46, 58, 62, 67–68, 73, 77–81, 83–89, 108, 115,
81–82, 153, 159 117–199, 121–123, 134, 156, 159–160,
psycho-analytical 130–131 170, 173, 176, 184, 186, 190–191, 194,
punishment 19, 174 197–198
pure self 49, 51, 55, 57–58, 62–28, 71, 73, reproduction 14, 29, 60–62, 73, 96, 129,
75–78, 83–84, 86–87, 94, 97, 107–109, 115, 138–140, 179, 188–189
117–118, 120–124, 126, 133–135, 142, 150, reproduction process 60–61, 73, 96
152–154, 161, 170, 174–175, 177–178, 180, res cogitans 11, 18, 38, 51–52, 54–55, 70,
185–187, 189–191, 198 75, 184
pyramid 75, 87 res extensa 11, 18, 38, 51–52
resemblance 25–26, 31–32, 44, 69
quality 23–24, 27, 33–34, 36, 43–44, 46, revolution 3, 5, 9, 11–12, 62, 121–122, 127,
70, 72, 143, 147–148, 163 135, 146, 150–152, 164, 169, 177, 186–187,
quantity 31, 33–34, 43, 46–47, 49, 70, 72 190–191, 195
quantum 46, 159 revolutionary 9, 10, 121, 169
riddle 87–88, 96
rabble 162 Roman 119–120, 134–136, 146, 150, 152–153,
rational reconstructions 15, 92 160, 164, 169, 186
Rationalisierung 14, 188–189 Roman empire 119–120, 134–135, 150,
rationalism 11 152–153, 164, 186
rationalization 14–15, 163, 165 Roman world 119, 135, 169
realm of education 119, 121–122, 126, 135, romantic 130
146, 150–152, 164, 186
realm of morality 135 satisfaction 20, 58, 60–61, 65, 81, 98–99,
reason 4–6, 11–12, 15, 17–18, 20, 25–26, 29, 116, 159, 162
34–35, 54, 63, 68, 70, 72–73, 89, 93, 102, scheme 6–7, 11, 15, 25, 28, 43, 45, 50–51,
107–116, 118, 121–127, 133–135, 139, 142, 69, 161
145, 149, 152, 154, 156–158, 169, 178–179, second nature 40, 61, 88–90, 109
185–187, 189–194, 196, 202–203 self-conceit 110, 118
210 index

self-consciousness 2–4, 12, 16, 38–41, 49, stoicism 9–10, 12–13, 70, 76–77, 84–85,
51–81, 83–110, 116, 118, 122, 126, 133, 182, 88–89, 103, 106
184, 187–191 structure 28, 30–32, 34, 40–41, 48–50, 55,
self-deception 98 57, 67, 69, 70–73, 114, 127, 132, 136, 147,
self-determination 38, 50, 64, 78, 96, 106, 152, 157, 159, 181, 201
198 struggle 15, 58–59, 83–84, 90–91, 100, 104,
self-distinction 94 106, 110, 119, 135, 148, 150, 156, 167–168,
self-realization 3, 62–63, 76–78, 104, 107, 171, 177
111, 122, 124, 127, 133, 167, 178, 185–186, 192 struggle for life and death 16, 57–61, 72,
self-relation 7, 10, 32, 38–40, 49, 51–52, 78, 81, 83–85, 91, 98–102, 110, 119, 121–122,
54–57, 67, 73–76, 91, 93–94, 184 126–127, 156, 177
self-sufficient 39 struggle for recognition 13, 15–17, 58, 90,
sense certainty 35, 39, 41–43, 49, 56–57, 91, 104, 128–129, 131, 133–136, 143, 145, 148,
59, 72, 79–81, 93, 96 150, 171, 202
shade 115, 118, 120–121 substance 38–40, 43, 55, 69, 75, 79,
simple idea 23–26, 28, 30–31, 36, 44, 51 101, 166–117, 119–120, 179, 182, 184, 187,
skepticism 19, 20, 24, 26, 28, 76, 107 190–192, 195
social esteem 146, 148, 166–167, 169, 177 sun 80, 86
social organism 3, 9, 12, 16, 40, 59, 61–64, survival 78, 82
69–73, 77–78, 83, 88–92, 101, 103–107, symbiosis 131, 141, 145
109–111, 116, 118, 125–126, 131, 133–134, symmetrical 57–58, 98–99, 102, 105,
136–142, 144–145, 154, 156–157, 168–173, 137–139, 144, 147, 149, 167, 170, 177, 180,
175–180, 184–191, 194–197 187, 189
social-existence 3, 4 synthesis 6, 11, 18, 23, 29–31, 34–35, 37,
society 2, 6, 9, 82–86, 88, 100, 111, 114–115, 44–46, 51–52, 94, 122, 149
124–125, 128–129, 131, 136, 139, 143, 146, system 2–4, 11, 14, 75, 86, 125, 146, 149,
149, 151, 153–158, 164–168, 171–173, 152–156, 158–165, 167, 172–173, 175, 177,
175–180, 189, 192, 194, 202 179–180, 183, 189, 195–196, 201
solidarity 113, 129, 163, 166–169, 171, system of needs 146, 149, 152–155,
176–177, 180 158–161, 163–165, 172, 173, 175, 179
soul 87, 187–190, 198–199
space 22–23, 28, 30, 32, 34–35, 41–44, tabula rasa 35–39, 42–43, 48–49, 56, 75,
47–48, 51–52, 70, 86 79–80, 93–94
species 2, 20, 59–62, 64, 73, 78, 81–82, terror 121, 135, 151, 177, 186
96–99, 101 testing 15, 19, 65, 112–114, 116, 123–125,
speech community 7–8, 10–11, 14, 18, 73, 127–128, 130, 132–134, 150, 169, 187,
188 193–195
Sphinx 87–88 theoretical 11–12, 35, 54, 56–57, 63, 71–73,
Spinoza 38–39, 55, 203 101, 112, 118–119, 154, 169
spirit 1–2, 5, 7, 9–10, 12–13, 15–17, 35, theoretical discourse 73
37–38, 40, 52, 54, 57–58, 64, 68–69, theory of communicative action 1–2, 7,
71–72, 74, 79, 83–88, 90–92, 104, 106, 109, 10–16, 18, 54, 73–74, 90, 92, 104–106, 123,
112, 114–116, 118–119, 121, 124–125, 127, 130, 171, 193
133, 135, 141, 146, 149, 151, 164, 166, 168, thing of many properties 46, 58, 62,
171–174, 177–183, 185, 187–191, 193–198, 81–82
201–203 thing-in-itself 7–8
spiritual animal kingdom 111–112, 126, 134 time 4, 16, 20, 22–23, 25, 28, 30, 32,
state 12, 27, 30, 33, 55, 59, 61–62, 94, 34–36, 38, 40–49, 51–52, 56, 58–59,
102, 114–115, 121, 128–129, 139–140, 149, 62–63, 66–67, 70, 72–73, 78, 80, 82, 86,
152–155, 164–166, 168–169, 171–181, 187, 88, 92, 98, 100–101, 104, 106, 109–110,
191, 193, 196–199, 202 115–118, 120, 123, 128, 136, 138–140, 143,
state of nature 59, 174, 177 152, 154–155, 157, 164, 167, 170–171,
statue 117–118 174–175, 179, 185, 187, 190–191
Steuerungsmedium 159–161 totality 78, 85, 89, 95, 116–117
 index 211

tradition 4, 11, 15, 18–19, 68, 76, 111, 136, 139, 151, 156–157, 161, 170–172, 178,
113–114, 119, 121, 126–128, 130, 135–136, 138, 180–181, 184, 193, 196–197, 199
158, 172, 175, 196–197, 199 universality 83, 111, 158, 196
traditional 62, 111, 127, 136, 140, 167, 172, use value 158–160
195
tragedy 119 virtue 110, 116, 118, 125, 203
transcendental 7–8, 12, 16, 18, 30, 35, 37,
41, 51–52, 63–64, 67, 70, 76–79, 92–94, wealth 120, 158
100–101 wisdom 88
transcendental subject 7–8, 12, 30, 35, 41, work 1, 2, 6, 28, 76, 88, 91, 116–119, 121,
51–52, 63–64, 67, 70, 93, 94 123, 126, 142, 146, 149, 161–164, 194,
truth 6–9, 15, 18–19, 26, 33, 54, 67, 93, 202
97–98, 103, 112, 122, 125, 182–184, 189, 191, work of art 88, 117–119, 121, 123, 126, 142,
193–194, 202 194
world 3, 7, 11, 14, 24, 30, 33, 36–38, 41,
unchangeable 108 50, 56, 64, 67, 71, 77–78, 80, 84, 87–88,
understanding 4, 15, 23, 29–31, 34–35, 37, 95–97, 99–100, 106–107, 110, 114–124,
40–41, 44, 46–48, 50, 59, 63–65, 84–87, 126–128, 131, 134–136, 149, 141–142,
93, 95, 101, 107, 114, 119, 166, 202 150–151, 154, 157–158, 169, 173–175, 177,
unity 4, 8–16, 18, 28–29, 32, 34, 36–41, 179, 182, 189, 192–193, 197–198
44–49, 51, 56, 58–60, 62–70, 73, 79–85, world history 7, 71, 124, 127, 135, 157,
87, 93–95, 97, 101, 103–105, 108, 125, 128, 173–174, 177, 192–193, 198