Recognition and Remembering
Start Date
12-1-2012 10:30 AM
End Date
12-1-2012 12:00 PM
Description
My paper draws on the resources of German critical theory to discuss the politics of memory and the obligations of remembrance. In particular, I examine to what extent we can draw on Honneth’s theory of recognition as a basis for the obligations of a country recovering, from a trauma, to remember the traumatic past. In so doing, I draw on Honneth’s work in The Struggle for Recognition, as well as on subsequent work.
I begin by examining the tri-partite model of recognition proposed by Honneth. Starting with Hegel, the need for recognition games prominence in philosophy thought; the requirement for recognition manifests itself through family, civil society, and the state. In Honneth, on the other hand, who draws on psychoanalytic literature to arrive at the concept, recognition manifests itself socially (for example, in the family, the obligation of recognition manifests as the obligation to love and nurture).
Next, I examine the demands for recognition that exist in societies emerging from genocide and other traumas (and the demands of the so-called politics of memory, as thinkers like Aguilar call it), and ask if Honneth’s theory can provide a theoretical basis for the obligations of memory. I argue that the only part of the tri-partite model of recognition which Honneth offers us in his work that is relevant in such cases is the type of recognition that occurs through the relationship between the individual and the community (what Hegel called the state). The community’s obligation to remember becomes part of the obligation of society to offer the individual access to complete citizenship that takes account of the histories of groups. I conclude that Honneth’s, admittedly meager, comments on the issue can be expanded to include the obligation to remember traumatic pasts in countries such as Rwanda.
Recognition and Remembering
My paper draws on the resources of German critical theory to discuss the politics of memory and the obligations of remembrance. In particular, I examine to what extent we can draw on Honneth’s theory of recognition as a basis for the obligations of a country recovering, from a trauma, to remember the traumatic past. In so doing, I draw on Honneth’s work in The Struggle for Recognition, as well as on subsequent work.
I begin by examining the tri-partite model of recognition proposed by Honneth. Starting with Hegel, the need for recognition games prominence in philosophy thought; the requirement for recognition manifests itself through family, civil society, and the state. In Honneth, on the other hand, who draws on psychoanalytic literature to arrive at the concept, recognition manifests itself socially (for example, in the family, the obligation of recognition manifests as the obligation to love and nurture).
Next, I examine the demands for recognition that exist in societies emerging from genocide and other traumas (and the demands of the so-called politics of memory, as thinkers like Aguilar call it), and ask if Honneth’s theory can provide a theoretical basis for the obligations of memory. I argue that the only part of the tri-partite model of recognition which Honneth offers us in his work that is relevant in such cases is the type of recognition that occurs through the relationship between the individual and the community (what Hegel called the state). The community’s obligation to remember becomes part of the obligation of society to offer the individual access to complete citizenship that takes account of the histories of groups. I conclude that Honneth’s, admittedly meager, comments on the issue can be expanded to include the obligation to remember traumatic pasts in countries such as Rwanda.