ACTA SOCIOLOGICA 2004

Interview
From Struggles for Recognition to a Plural
Concept of Justice
An Interview with Axel Honneth

Interviewed by Gwynn Markle

Introduction
Axel Honneth argues for a formal conception of ethical life as the core of a social theory with
normative content which postulates three types of recognition as the preconditions for any
autonomous agent: intersubjective relations of emotional recognition, legal recognition and
solidarity (or recognition of accomplishments) namely, that promote and maintain the
development of self-confidence, self-respect and self-esteem in individuals. This orientation
toward dimensions of everyday interaction, which allows Honneth to construe injustices as
violations of social expectations regarding recognition, distinguishes his approach from those
of both Jrgen Habermass own version of critical theory and John Rawlss political liberal-
ism. He has recently proposed that this formal conception of the good life be used as the basis
for a plural concept of justice. In this interview, we discuss his manner of deriving a theory of
justice from social theory which, on the one hand, continues a Hegelian method that recon-
structs a normative standpoint immanent within social practices but which, on the other hand,
goes beyond Hegel by incorporating within this standpoint the potential for transforming and
transcending existing social roles within contemporary society. The purview of the interview
was established by our agreement to focus on Honneths newly developed plural conception
of justice, its implications with respect to contemporary social issues such as feminism, his
conceptualization of social pathologies, and the differences of his own theory from other
theories of justice.
The interview focuses on his methodology of connecting a theory of justice with the
diagnosis of social pathologies and how such a method differs from, for example, contem-
porary Kantian methods such as Rawlss own strictly political approach to a theory of justice
and even Habermass recent work. We discuss what state legislation he would defend on the
basis of his newly formulated theory of justice in order to protect different recognition relation-
ships and how such legislation can become more inclusive or emancipatory. In this respect,
Honneth answers how his theory would address injustice to women on certain issues and how
it differs in this respect from Rawlss political liberalism. In addition, Honneth explains the
differences between his own theory of recognition and those of Nancy Fraser and Judith
Butler, as well as the extent to which his own formal conception of the good life accords with
the fact of reasonable pluralism. Finally, he briefly explains how he conceives of the relation
between the social and the normative within his theory of recognition.1

Acta Sociologica
December 2004
Vol 47(4): 383391
DOI: 10.1177/0001699304048674

Copyright 2004 Scandinavian Sociological Association and SAGE (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
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Acta Sociologica 47(4)

Zeitdiagnose and justice

GM: Gwynn Markle
AH: Axel Honneth

GM: In your Leiden an Unbestimmtheit (Honneth, 2001), you interpret Hegels Philosophy of
Right as proceeding via a methodology which necessarily connects a theory of justice with a
time diagnosis (Zeitdiagnose), and argue that this necessary connection between the two
results from his attribution of a rational structure to our social practices which, when one
violates this structure by acting upon too false or one-sided self-conceptions of freedom,
produces pathologies. In your recent work, you utilize a method which links a theory of justice
with the diagnosis of social pathologies. Since this methodological connection differs from, for
example, a contemporary Kantian method such as John Rawlss own strictly political approach
to a theory of justice and even Habermass recent work, can you clarify why you see the two
tasks as necessarily linked?2 In your own postmetaphysical development of a theory of justice,
how do you see the necessity of the methodological connection to a Zeitdiagnose? And how far
in the direction of empirical filling-out of a comprehensive diagnosis are you planning to go?
AH: I must say that Im not totally sure to what degree one should say that there is a necessary
methodological link between a diagnosis of our time and a theory of justice. In the case of
Hegel, it was clear to me. It jumped before my eyes that there is this kind of connection, and
probably this connection is established by the importance of the idea of individual freedom
so that the bridge between the diagnosis of time and a theory of justice is produced by the
notion of freedom. I think his idea is that, because a certain understanding of freedom is
dominant, people are not really aware of the real, social meaning of freedom, and therefore
they dont have a clear cut understanding of what justice means because justice is about how
to enable everyone to enjoy freedom. And as long as you dont have an exact understanding
of what freedom is, there will be no clear understanding of what justice is. So that is the link
in the case of Hegel.
The question is whether this is a necessary link. And I would say in the case in which your
own concept of justice is about enabling everyone to enjoy freedom, individual freedom, a
necessary first step in such an enterprise is a diagnosis which informs us whether or not the
understandings of freedom are somewhat justified, and in that sense I see a clear link between
the two kinds of enterprise. And that would be true even for our present time. As long as the
understanding of freedom is to some degree an incorrect one, a one-sided one, then the concept
of justice, which is in a sense an expression of our search for freedom would not be sufficient;
it would also be somewhat diminished. And only if we can get a clearer understanding of
freedom, only then would our understanding of justice be sufficient. So in order to prove
whether or not our understanding of freedom is correct, one has to undertake something like
a time diagnosis. I would also say that this holds true for our present time. And in that sense
I would think there needs to be the same kind of methodological linkage we find in Hegels
Philosophy of Right. Regarding the question now as to how I myself would fill out that necessary
endeavour of a diagnosis, I would probably go in a direction similar to the one Hegel offered
which means that I would look for a diagnosis that tries to show that there are somewhat
diminished or somewhat reduced understandings of what freedom means. I think the
direction that such a diagnosis should take today would be to make clear that there are narrow
understandings of what individual freedom means. There is, on the one side, a kind of legal
understanding of freedom. There is, on the other side, a kind of romantic understanding of
freedom in the sense of self-realization (Selbstverwicklichung), authenticity, and those under-
standings of freedom taken separately and only one-sidedly would lead to social pathologies.
In that respect, I would go along with Charles Taylor, for example, who offers something
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 Markle: An Interview with Axel Honneth

similar (Taylor, 1979). And only after we have shown that and, by means of that kind of
diagnosis, have indirectly presented a thicker notion of freedom, namely a communicative
one, could we do the job of establishing a concept of justice which proceeds from the right
notion of freedom. In that sense, I would defend the necessity of the link between the two
enterprises.
GM: So it is only under particular historical conditions or in particular societies that you
would defend the link between the two? The link is contingent on the condition of society?
AH: Yes, thats right. On the other side, there is definitely a certain pressure in our kind of
society toward an incorrect understanding of freedom, and therefore, I guess, in the modern
era there is always the danger of capitalism in which there is often too narrow an under-
standing of freedom. Therefore, it is almost true for the whole of modernity that it needs that
kind of necessary link.
GM: To continue with your views on Hegel, would it be fair to say that the difference between
yours and Hegels manner of linking a theory of justice with a Zeitdiagnose is that his relies on
a speculative metaphysics, whereas yours continues critical theorys tradition of subsuming
philosophy under empirical research into the moral potential of social conflicts? I am thinking
of the fact that you do make remarks in Leiden an Unbestimmtheit about dropping the meta-
physical premises of Hegels system but retaining the idea that agents can offend against the
rational structure of the social world by acting on a one-sided conception of freedom. Said
directly, would you argue that any re-actualization of Hegels project would need to drop the
metaphysical premises and reliance on the logic and replace them with empirical research into
the normative content of social struggles?
AH: Empirical research can definitely not do all the work which is necessary in order to speak
in a critical way about such things as pathologies, especially when you believe that a pathology
is somewhat an offence against a rational structure or is the symptom of an offence against a
rational structure. What we need there is a theory of society that is probably not metaphysical
but which operates with a concept of the rationality of those structures in the sense that, in
our everyday practices and institutions, there is already incorporated a certain normativity
against which we act when we have too narrow a concept of freedom. So that the empirical
research would be dependent on that kind of premise, the empirical research would have to
show that what is a pathology and seen as an offence against these embedded normative struc-
tures leads to certain symptoms which are indications of that pathology. This is the job of
empirical research. It should be able to show that operating with too narrow a concept of
freedom leads to certain pathologies in the sense of not being able to participate fully in social
life.
GM: But in that sense isnt it not so much an agents acting or offending against the rational
structure of institutions but perhaps following them? If the rational structure of institutions
itself has this one-sided conception of freedom as its embedded norm, then the agents
following this norm in certain contexts would itself produce a pathology.
AH: Yes, I see your point. But this is all independent from how Hegel characterizes it, but
the point then is about how to understand a pathology. Is a pathology already embedded in
institutions? Or is a pathology incorporated by agents which, lets say, act against the
institutionalized reason of society? These are the questions. And in Hegels case I think it is
clear, as I just said, namely, that agents act against the institutionalized rationality of society.
The question is how to understand this for today. And here I think one would have to operate
with the idea that there are probably conflicting rationalities embedded in society. So that one
should understand agents as operating within a certain institutionalized rationality of society
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Acta Sociologica 47(4)

against another. So what one has to show is exactly that, namely, that they are conflicting
institutionalized rationalities. Lets say there is also in play a certain more or less descriptive
understanding of what families are, and there is, on the other side, still working a thicker,
communicative understanding of what families are. Both are somewhat institutionalized, and
there is a conflict between the two understandings. Maybe it is a more complicated picture
than the one Hegel offered.
GM: In this respect, do you see Hegels speculative metaphysics as being connected with the
overly institutional character and thereby committing a kind of abstract fallacy? To move to
a more complicated picture than Hegel offered, do you think your substitution of metaphysical
premises with empirical research can avoid the overly institutional character of laws and
customs (Sittlichkeit) of which you accuse Hegel?
AH: Yes, I see a clear link between Hegels metaphysics and, lets say, his over-institutionalized
conception of Sittlichkeit. I dont believe that this can be corrected by empirical research. I think
this can only be corrected by a kind of conceptual work. I mean it is clear why it works like
that in Hegel because he wants to understand Sittlichkeit as the incarnation of Absolute Spirit,
and that means for him that they are the institutions in which this Spirit is incorporated. When
you decouple the idea of Sittlichkeit from this heavy load of Absolute Spirit, you probably have
a much more flexible and even formal concept of Sittlichkeit, and this would be my hope. I
think the main work has to be done by conceptual work and not by empirical research. I think
the only thing that empirical research can do is to prepare empirical indications about patho-
logical effects, and empirical research can definitely show in what direction the concrete insti-
tutionalization of Sittlichkeit always would have to go. At the moment in which Sittlichkeit is
no longer seen as an already institutionalized fact, then one needs some indication as to how
to institutionalize Sittlichkeit always again, and there empirical research can help.

A plural concept of justice

GM: You have recently argued that, as the basis of a normative concept of modern societies,
a plural concept of justice should be determined by the three principles of love, equality and
accomplishment, and you view such communicative relations as basic good but, presumably,
ones which cannot be directly distributed but only preserved within collective practices them-
selves (Honneth, 2003). Would you advocate some kinds of state legislation to preserve the
integrity of such communicative relations? If so, then what kind?
AH: Yes, I would advocate state legislation for preserving the integrity of such communicative
relations. And I think such measures are always in play, but normally they are in play without
really being articulated. So, for example, in Germany we have a long tradition of measures
especially for preserving the bourgeois family in a specific sense which belong to the
traditional structure of our society. At the moment we become aware of these state measures,
we can discuss them more fully and maybe even change them. So, for example, the measures
which are taken by the new government to allow homosexual marriages are measures
which allow communicative relationships of another type. Another example is the legal
measures taken to allow both parents to work without, lets say, harming the interests of their
children. So I think there are thousands of measures normally in play with respect to
communicative relationships such as families. My main idea here would be to become more
aware of these implicit measures, lets say, to make them explicit, and then to think of them
as guaranteeing certain communicative relationships. So what I mean is it is only a question
of making aware that the state is already, in fact, producing a special kind of Sittlichkeit. So we
have to become aware of these measures and, in the interest of new, broader, more inclusive,
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 Markle: An Interview with Axel Honneth

more emancipatory forms of Sittlichkeit, we have to change these measures. But it would be
untrue to say that we have to invent these measures because they are already there. It is a
question of changing the measures, not a question of establishing some measures.
GM: But if in this respect it is just a matter of making measures explicit and discussing
whether or not they need to be changed, then couldnt one still say communicative relations
are in some sense being distributed?
AH: But distribution would be the wrong word, you know, because these measures would be
wrongly understood if we say they distribute them. They secure them, or they can be seen
either as guarantees or sometimes as destructive to certain communicative relationships. For
example, some legal regulations, if those measures allow, for example, a certain kind of night
work, they have the impact of probably destroying relationships. So my main idea is to become
aware of the fact that many legal measures are either fruitful or destructive with respect to
certain communicative relationships of different kinds. But I think the language of distribution
is somewhat wrong.
GM: So then you dont think that a theory of recognition could be subsumed under a theory
of distributive justice?
AH: No.
GM: Second, what objections do you have, if any, to a different delineation of the political
domain in Rawlss work which asks about how such principles of political justice apply
directly to the basic structure of society and thus would indirectly set limits on non-political
institutions without determining their internal life? For example, an institution such as the
family, for example, as in Rawlss theory (Rawls, 1999), is limited by principles of political
justice insofar as they cannot violate rights and liberties, freedoms and opportunities guaran-
teed to all citizens. Or is it the case that you are developing other principles of justice beyond
this delineation of the political? For instance, in the historic injustice to women who continue
to carry an unjust share of the raising and caring for children, Rawls argues that political
liberalism way of coping with this injustice and minimizing gendered division of labour is by
attempting to achieve a social condition in which the remaining division of labour is
voluntary in the sense of not being coerced by unfair economic pressures or other forms of
discrimination in society. How would your plural concept of justice deal with the same
injustice to women?
AH: Yes, on the one side, I would agree with Rawlss proposal. On the other side, I would
say it is not sufficient. What would be sufficient from the side of a plural concept of justice
would be to make explicit what kind of idea of justice is embedded in family relationships of
that kind and to show what that internal concept of justice embedded in our understanding
of loving relationships in families . . . requires from the participants. So in that sense a theory
of justice would have to stress the fact that justice in families makes internally necessary
another, more just, division of labour in families. So the main thing I want to say is that I take
Rawls as being not sufficient in that respect. I think there should be a certain pressure from
our concept of justice in the direction of enabling people to see what is required by their own
understanding of what families are. So its not only the negative task of minimizing social
conditions which supports a certain unjust division of labour, all that kind of institutional
pressure which works on women, but also, on a second level, to enforce an understanding of
the normative infrastructure of families so that, by the participants themselves, it can be seen
that a fair distribution of labour in families is what they should accept. In this case, the concept
of the family is not independent of a specific concept of justice, the link between the normative
implications which are subscribed to at the moment in which I establish a family.
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GM: Then what is it that determines the fairness of the division of labour?
AH: That dimension of justice which prevails in families, and that part of justice I would
call love. And there I see a clear difference with Rawls. Rawls, I think, simply defends the
idea that we shouldnt have a normative understanding of families but that it is our shared
concept of the one justice which is probably sufficient to guarantee social conditions under
which the division of labour in families is organized voluntarily, and this wouldnt be
sufficient for me.

Debate with Nancy Fraser

GM: To turn to your debate with Nancy Fraser (Fraser and Honneth, 2003). She characterizes
injustices with respect to gender and race as falling between questions of material
distribution and questions of recognition, and according to her this leads initially to a
redistributionrecognition dilemma. She seeks to outline a response to this dilemma by differ-
entiating, (1) remedies which redistribute outcomes but produce a kind of recognition
backlash in a form of cultural misrecognition and, (2) remedies which address underlying
structural problems and so avoid certain counter-effects of the social welfare state in the form
of bureaucratic labelling of group characteristics. Do you still see an emancipatory side to
recognition which is free of this negative counter effect? Or do you think recognition in certain
cases has the potential of leading to the danger of a kind of double bind, offering liberation
from misrecognition on the one hand but institutional and bureaucratic categorial confinement
on the other?
AH: I must say that the whole picture that Nancy Fraser is offering by using the idea of a
recognition backlash is a form of misunderstanding because I would call the bureaucratic
labelling of group characteristics not a kind of recognition but a kind of false recognition, a
kind of misrecognition. So any form of social recognition which fixes people into certain
categories is somewhat an unjustified form of recognition. Here we have the big problem of
differentiating between what I would call recognition and misrecognition. But definitely this
kind of labelling of groups is something which is in my own view a type of misrecognition.
Therefore, I try to prevent myself from allowing those forms of labelling to be called recog-
nition by using this idea of three principles of recognition against which groups and peoples
can always revolt and should revolt as soon as they see themselves misunderstood and
misrecognized under the concrete application of this paradigm of recognition. In that sense I
would say the fights against the effects of bureaucratic labelling are already fights for recog-
nition, namely, a better form of recognition. I mean the point of this question is that I dont
share the language Fraser is using. On the other side, what I can see is that I was not always
aware enough of the fact of institutional forms of recognition, ideological forms of recognition.
This for me is a difficult problem which I still have to resolve. I became aware of this problem
in the context of reading Althusser again and, for example, Judith Butlers reading of Althusser
because there you have the problem already articulated (Butler, 1997). Althusser calls
ideologies forms of addressing people. In that sense ideologies are forms of false recognition
of groups, and what I have to do is to preserve the conceptual means to make a distinction
between these false forms of recognition which are definitely there and forms of justified
recognition, in that sense correct recognition.
GM: But in responding to other critiques, you have used Marcuses idea of ideology to talk
about certain types of extremist groups and their own self-conception (Honneth, 1999). So if
you incorporate this idea of ideology from Althusser, then wouldnt you be operating with
two different senses of ideology?

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 Markle: An Interview with Axel Honneth

AH: I dont know how that works with respect to the notion of ideology. I think it could be
an understanding of ideology as I said, a kind of false institutional recognition. And it is clear
that social recognition, if it is justified, always has to respect the self-understanding of those
involved. So what I believe is that maybe this is the understanding of ideology which is
meaningful, whereas other understandings of ideology are somewhat irritating and probably
wrong.

Deontological versus teleological justification

GM: Regarding the question of how to justify a conception of a good or just society, you
propose a teleological justification of your tripolar, plural concept of justice instead of a
deontological one. How would you respond to the standard deontological liberal who objects
to teleological justification of public principles of justice as being incompatible with deep
disagreement and reasonable pluralism about what constitutes a good life?
AH: Yes, probably this is the most challenging question. I would answer that there is no way
to avoid substantializing a little bit what we understand under a good life, and on the other
side, it is clear that these understandings of the good life should be formal enough, maybe
thin enough, that they are in agreement with reasonable pluralism. And I think its a thin line
between a thin notion of the good life and a thick notion of the good life. With respect to Rawls,
for example, I would say there is already a certain pre-understanding of what the good life
incorporates, namely, a quite individualistic one as some other critiques such as Thomas
Nagels have made clear (1989). So I would say the task would probably have to be to give a
more communicative understanding of the good life without violating the requirements of
pluralism. Violating the requirements of pluralism is almost the definition for the concept of
the good life becoming too substantive. So I think it is a question which you cant decide
beforehand whether, lets say, an altered concept of the good life is already too substantial. It
needs to be proven whether it really violates the requirements of reasonable pluralism. My
own understanding is that as long as we share a certain understanding of the principles of
modernity, the pluralist concept of justice I am offering is working with a concept of the good
life which is in accordance with the requirements of pluralism, but, as I said, thats a thin line
on which nothing is predecided, lets say. What I dont see is that we have already a clear
picture of how to understand the good life in accordance with pluralism. I think there is a
certain ideology today that the concept Rawls is offering is the only concept of the good life
we have which accords with pluralism. That I think is wrong. I think there can be a more
demanding concept of the good life which is still in accordance with pluralism, and thats
something Im striving for. In the case of Nancy Fraser, I think it is easy to show that her
concept of participatory democracy is quite a thick concept of the good life, either an Aris-
totelian one or a republican one, and however you try to understand it, it is a quite thick
concept of the good life. So this is not a question of not having a concept of the good life and
having a concept of the good life, but rather of how to decide about a concept of the good life
which is, on the one side, formal enough about probable pathologies and which, on the other
side, is not too substantive to violate the requirements of pluralism.
GM: Then you would agree with Nancy Frasers categorization of your own idea of self-
realization as a conception of the good life or working within the field of ethics, but you would
not agree with her understanding of her own project as deontological?
AH: Yes. The way I understand the conditions of self-realization is that they may be already
working in the field of defining the good life. Yes, I agree with that. I dont see that her concept
of participatory democracy, equal participation, or participatory parity is beyond questions of

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the good life. I think its clearly operating within the same kind of field. In that sense for me,
we are both debating how best to understand a concept of the good life without violating
pluralism. So I would say it is a misunderstanding of her own project.
GM: In many of your arguments in which you make a transition from social theory to a
normative theory, for example, a theory of justice. Are you utilizing an ordering of theories?
How are we to understand the relation between the social and the normative, between the
descriptive and the normative, in your theory?
AH: This would be something to talk much longer about. You see my own understanding of
this frequent problem is that of a kind of hermeneutical circle. That is, we cant start the
endeavour of a normative theory without having, lets say, already certain intuitions of
the state of our society which are somewhat descriptive, and then once we take the step into the
normative field by establishing certain principles of justice, we have again to correct these
principles by certain intuitions which again are of a descriptive type. So here I would use the
kind of idea which I always understood as a kind of hermeneutical idea which Rawls offers
when he speaks of a reflective equilibrium. On the one side are our, lets say, descriptive
pictures of the state of society, and on the other our normative intuitions. And there is a kind
of process of circular correction between the two sides. Definitely, the idea of starting either
only from the one side or from the other would sound to me a little bit strange. It would be
as if you could establish a normative concept of justice without already having certain
empirical observations in mind about what is wrong with society, and the other way around,
to start with certain simple descriptive observations about what is wrong without already
having an idea of justice. So I think this immediately leads into a kind of productive hermeneu-
tical circle which probably could be spelled out in terms of the idea of reflective equilibrium.
I dont know whether that satisfies you, but this is as I see it.
GM: I see. But if you are conceiving of the relation between the descriptive and the normative
in terms of a hermeneutical circle or as type of reflective equilibrium, wouldnt this procedure
still be much more in contrast with a stronger deontological approach to justice which some
argue Rawls is offering?
AH: Yes, it may be. I mean on my side that would mean to be able to criticize the self-under-
standing of the strong deontological programme because one would have to show that there
is a kind of misunderstanding involved.
GM: But then given both this characterization of reflective equilibrium and the fact that your
theory is not strongly deontological, wouldnt your theory be unable to arrive at a norma-
tively universal concept of justice? Some would object that you could at best arrive at prin-
ciples of justice which hold generally.
AH: Yes, but that depends a little bit on the state of affairs in society. I think that, at least today,
there is no longer any room for this kind of normative universal concept of justice if we start
already with a descriptive picture which, lets say, incorporates normative ideas of society. So
one probably would say, what was already Hegels self-understanding at the wrong time, that,
because of processes of globalization, the one side of reflective equilibrium entails already
empirical intuitions about the state of world society, not only about our society. The whole
distinction between our society and their society is somewhat false.
GM: Thank you for this illuminating discussion.
AH: Youre welcome.

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 Markle: An Interview with Axel Honneth

Notes
This interview was conducted in Frankfurt am Main on 11 July 2002.

1. I thank Axel Honneth for consenting to this interview and for previous discussions concerning some
of the issues covered in the interview.
2. I am grateful to Rasmus Willig for discussion about and help in formulating this question.

References
Butler, Judith (1997) The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection. Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press.
Fraser, Nancy and Honneth, Axel (2003) Recognition or Redistribution? A PoliticalPhilosophical Debate.
London: Verso Press.
Fraser, Nancy and Honneth, Axel (2003) Umverteilung oder Anerkennung? Eine politisch-philosophische
Kontrovers. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.
Honneth, Axel (1995) The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts. Cambridge. Polity
Press.
Honneth, Axel (1999) Reply to Andreas Kalyvas Critical Theory at the Crossroads. Comments on Axel
Honneths Theory of Recognition. European Journal of Social Theory 2(2): 24952.
Honneth, Axel (2001) Leiden an Unbestimmtheit. Stuttgart. Reclam.
Nagel, Thomas (1989) Rawls on Justice, in Norman Daniels (ed.) Reading Rawls: Critical Studies on Rawls
A Theory of Justice , pp. 116. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Rawls, John (1999) The Idea of Public Reason Revisited, in The Law of Peoples, pp. 13180. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Taylor, Charles (1979) Hegel and Modern Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Biographical Note: Axel Honneth is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt and Director
of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main. His works include The Critique of Power (MIT
Press, 1991), The Struggle for Recognition (Polity, 1995) and The Fragmented World of the Social (SUNY
Press, 1995).
Address: Institut fr Sozialforschung, Senkenberganlage 26, D-60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
[email: honneth@em.uni-frankfurt.de]

Biographical Note: Gwynn Markle, PhD, is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the
Stetson University in Florida and works in the fields of social and political philosophy (especially
recognition theory) and German Idealism.
Address: Stetson University, Department of Philosophy, 421 N. Woodland Blvd., Unit 8250, DeLand,
FL 32723, USA. [email: gakmarkle@yahoo.com]

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