Reflexionen über die sozialen Bedingungen geglückten Lebens: Axel Honneths Sozialphilosophie der Anerkennung und K.P.Moritz' Anerkennungsroman Anton Reiser

In this article I firstly shall point to some conceptual problems in Honneth’s theory of recognition that are related to the level of generalization of the concept. Secondly I shall focus on how recognition theory helps us to unfold and therefore understand intersubjective relations and identity building. In this context I take recognition as a practical notion, something that is done, expressed, showed or withhold. In the last part I shall then show how using recognition theory for understanding human relations and identity building gets us to understand that individual’s self-respect can have different sources. I will use the German 18th century novel “Anton Reiser” (1785/1790) by Karl Phillip Moritz, which is a kind of negative ‘Bildungsroman’, to come closer to an understanding of the dimensions of recognition.