Repository | Journal | Volume | Articles

My aim in this paper is to explore the Fichtean theory of recognition and to assess the consequences it has, if any, for the liberal conception of individuality. In order to become an individual agent, according to J. G. Fichte, a human being must be recognized as such by another individual agent, what in turn cannot be possible unless the first one recognizes the latter as such an individual too. I take this mutual-recognition-relationship to be potentially troublesome to both liberalism, as a political doctrine, and contractarianism, then both presupposes a free individual agent, self-interested and morally responsible, as the basic element of the normative reconstruction of the institutions of modern social life. But if the theory of mutual recognition holds true, then that elementary presupposition would not. And if it were so, what consequences would follow for methodologically individualistic social sciences and political theories? Here I will consider, first, in what sense a recognition theory of a Fichtean sort may be a problem for liberalism and contractarianism; second, I will try to rebuild the original Fichtean argument in order to assess its strength; and, finally, I will try to draw some preliminary conclusions of Fichte’s theory for social and political theory.

Full citation: