Teoria crítica e luta por reconhecimento : contribuições de Axel Honneth ao debate da justiça e da cidadania

Abstract

In this dissertation, we intend to study the contribution of Axel Honneth, current director of the Institute of Social Research at the University of Frankfurt, and one of the main thinkers of our days in the field known as critical theory, in its relation to the idea of broadening the notions of recognition in a society that sees itself as democratic. Thus, we take as the object of analysis the elaborations in Struggle for Recognition, its theoretical influences, with emphasis on the category of ethicity, an inheritance from the first works by Hegel, which dialogue with Aristotle. Honneth tries to improve such category in order to elaborate a normative social theory model, once Hegel saw society as an ethic totality in opposition to the atomistic presuppositions. The ethicity, a concept which was highlighted by Honneth, refers to a set of elementary forms of intersubjective relationship which, from the beginning, made the subjects move together in a "natural basis of the human socialization". According to Honneth, the link between the subject's experience of recognition and identity construction (individual or collective) is vital and occurs in three dimensions: love, official recognition, and solidarity which, if well succeeded, potentialize the chances for the development of selfconfidence, self-respect, and self-esteem. Therefore, the mutual recognition can only improve in the interaction between individuals, and the possibility of change in the moral grammar.