Social Change And Moral Perspective

As a leader of the third generation of the Frankfurt School, Axel Honneth proposes the well-known theory of recognition. In his view, the historical process and the developmental direction of social change and conflict can be explained from the perspective of moral, based on the continuously extending intersubjective relations of recognition which contains normative appeal. Reviewing and analyzing Honneth's theory of recognition has great significance of impelling the research of the Frankfurt School, expanding Marxist theory, understanding many currently complex phenomena and so on. With the sufficient possessing of relevant achievements at home and abroad, promoting the research of Honneth's recognition theory to a new stage depends on the more in-depth interpretation in the aspects of historical background and discourse context, the basic theoretic thread, the role of the times, the content characteristics, the dimension of struggle, the application and limitation, etc.Through a macroscopical study on history, two distinct elements and themes of modern social change can be sumed up, namely, instrumental rationality and social struggle, which constitute the common historical topics that modern thinkers must face. Under the influence of various factors, the explaination paradigm of historical and social vicissitude in the main stream of critical social theory tradition from Marx to Frankfurt School presents continuous conversion from material to culture and then to moral. It is just in thus historical background and discourse context that Honneth begins to actively construct the recognition theory. Hegel, Mead, Marx and others have played a vital role on the elementary forming of the theory.The ideaistic orbit of Honneth's recognition theory can be described as three stages and eight steps. Its"classical framework"has been shaped in The struggle for recognition: (I) intersubjects has three recognition forms of love, rights and solidarity; (II) accordingly, the development process of individual identity assumes three disrespect forms: violation of body, denial of rights and insult (denigration and degradation of one's way of life); (III) the historical process of social conflict and change can be explained in terms of inner moral logic of the mutual recognition relations. Since then, the recognition theory is enriched and developed in praxis philosophy, growing up into recognition moral theory, diagnostic pathologies of the social, and recognition political philosophy, so that a more systematic link is formed between moral, recognition, social paradox, and social change.Frankfurt School, poststructuralism, and the tradition of phenomenology and existentialism are the three main thoughts trends of philosophy in contemporary European continent where Honneth is located. In the process of criticism, succession, and transformation to the three major trends, the ideaistic foundation and the role of the times of Honneth's recognition theory is fully highlighted. First of all, as the third generation captain of Frankfurt School, Honneth inherits and exceeds the ideaistic theory of the two previous generations in the two key aspects——theoretical basis integration and the normative content resetting. Secondly, Honneth concerns about and study on poststructuralism represented by Michel Foucault, and carries on the poststructuralism context.Finally, the process of self-realization of Honneth's recognition theory has been unfolded between subjects all the time, which is largely due to the intersubjectivity theory of the tradition of phenomenology and existentialism.The ideaistic and content character of Honneth's recognition theory can be assumed by analyzing the difference of contemprary thinkers. Firstly,"reconition"has more theoretical advantages than"identity"in the light of etymology, semantics and pragmatics. Secondly, the theory of recognition has been studied from multiple perspectives, such as the thoery of self-moral development, the theory of normative origin, the theory of the end of history and the doctrine of validity of political differences and so on, by the comparison of which the character of Honneth's recognition theory gets more prominent. Finally, Honneth involves in the major debates in the field of contemporary political philosophy: on the one hand, a conception of plural theory of justice based on monistic moral is developed through the debates with Fraser on the relation between"redistribution"and"recognition"in the inner part of critical social thoery system; on the other hand, Honneth, by a proposal of post-traditional communities, tries to unify the argument between liberalism and communitarian.Honneth has been at the forefront of current thought territory owing to the theory of recognition. At the same time, the recognition theory also has the important dimension of struggle. These make Honneth vs Marx inevitable. On the one hand, Honneth's recognition theory can be fully expatiated from the perspective of"struggle"; on the other hand, Honneth describes the main content and change process of the Marx's ideological system from the perspective of"recognition"as well. Research shows that Honneth's recognition theory has many positive impacts on the development of contemporary Maxism. But significant differences exist in the two explanation paradigms of social change in the aspects of conflict motivation, evolution of social form and prospect.As a unique social change theory, the recognition theory provides a fruitful interpretation on history and reality in terms of both diachronic and synchronic states. However, the recognition theory also has its inherent limitation. Specifically, the inner plight of the explanation paradigm in the recognition theory includes that Mead's experience foundation is questioned, that the struggle theory has latent danger, and that the validity of formal conception of ethical life is censured. While the outer criticism of the recognition theory is mainly reflected in three aspects: firstly, the theory of recognition represses the field of"materiality"; secondly, it fails to ease the antagonism and tension between individual care and nomative system; finally, the theory of recognition based on monistic moral covers the promise of pluralistic justice.Honneth's recognition theory is of great help for us to reflect on the internal relations between moral and social change. And it is no doubt that the rich content of self-realization of subject contained in"recognition"ought to be added to the theory of human comprehensive development of Marxism.