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In the early 20th century, Marxist theory was enriched and rejuvenated by adopting the concept of reification, introduced by the Hungarian theorist Georg Lukács to identify and denounce the transformation of historical processes into ahistorical entities, human actions into things that seemed part of an immutable "second nature." For a variety of reasons, both theoretical and practical, the hopes placed in de-reification as a tool of revolutionary
emancipation proved vain. In these original and imaginative essays, delivered as the Tanner Lectures at the University of California, Berkeley in 2005, the distinguished third-generation Frankfurt School philosopher
Axel Honneth attempts to rescue the concept of reification by recasting it in terms of the philosophy of recognition he has been developing over the past two decades. Three distinguished political and social theorists: Judith Butler, Raymond Geuss, and Jonathan Lear, respond with hard questions about the central anthropological premise of his argument, the assumption that prior to cognition there is a fundamental experience of intersubjective recognition that can provide a normative standard by
which current social relations can be judged wanted. Honneth listens carefully to their criticism and provides a powerful defense of his position.
In the early 20th century, Marxist theory was enriched and rejuvenated by adopting the concept of reification, introduced by the Hungarian theorist Georg Lukács to identify and denounce the transformation of historical processes into ahistorical entities, human actions into things that seemed part of an immutable "second nature." For a variety of reasons, both theoretical and practical, the hopes placed in de-reification as a tool of revolutionary
emancipation proved vain. In these original and imaginative essays, delivered as the Tanner Lectures at the University of California, Berkeley in 2005, the distinguished third-generation Frankfurt School philosopher
Axel Honneth attempts to rescue the concept of reification by recasting it in terms of the philosophy of recognition he has been developing over the past two decades. Three distinguished political and social theorists: Judith Butler, Raymond Geuss, and Jonathan Lear, respond with hard questions about the central anthropological premise of his argument, the assumption that prior to cognition there is a fundamental experience of intersubjective recognition that can provide a normative standard by
which current social relations can be judged wanted. Honneth listens carefully to their criticism and provides a powerful defense of his position.
Introduction, Martin Jay
Reification and Recognition: A New Look at an Old Idea, Axel
Honneth
Comments:
Judith Butler
Raymond Geuss
Jonathan Lear
Rejoinder
Axel Honneth
Index
Axel Honneth is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Institut für Sozialforschung, University of Frankfurt, Germany
"[These lectures] are continually engaging, thought provoking, and
- rare blessing - a pleasure to read. Without doubt they will
stimulate lively discussion of these important issues." - Sean
Sayers, Mind
"Honneth has confirmed in this work what he has established in
those previous to it; that his work is of the highest order, at
once rigorous, serious, and constructive, pushing the edges of
critical theory, and his focus on the concept of recognition offers
exacting critique, penetrating analysis, and hopeful transformation
of our contemporary social and political order. Reification is a
must-read for those both within and outside of social theory
circles, who,
by having a new look at an old idea, will be presented at once with
a creative proposal to reform political and social institutions
with the persistence of recognition and yet will remain troubles
by
then with the persistence of reification." - Michael Sohn,
Political Theology
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