The status of recognition and ideological recognition in Axel Honneth's critical theo
Ideological recognition. Critical Theory. Recognition Theory. Axel Honneth.
This study sought to analyze the issue of "ideological recognition" in the version of Critical Theory on which Axel Honneth's Theory of Recognition is anchored, both in relation to the criticisms that he, when founding his conception, directed towards his predecessors and the criticisms that it receives from its contemporary interlocutors. The reflections carried out focused on the specificities of one of the distortions of recognition –ideological recognition –which, instead of expanding the subjects' horizons, contributes to strengthening the process of their submission and domination. The work resulted from a systematic research of diachronic nature, interested in the apprehension of social changes and processes underlying the different temporalities ofthe critique of ideology within the scope of Critical Theory. As an approach, we favored the use of a “descriptive reconstruction”, which made it possible to highlight aspects present at the very heart of the analyzed theory, evidence (at theoretical and methodological levels) of potential responses to the criticism it receives. Although the critique of ideology has a central place in the theoretical production of first and second generation Frankfurt scholars, in Axel Honneth's work this issue does not seem to gain greater prominence than tangential spaces as responses to the direct criticisms that his first theoretical version receives. A situation that changes considerably in a second moment of Honnethian production, where it is possible to see signs that there is an effort by the author to address issues in which the theme of ideology is transversalized. In the search for understanding how Axel Honneth considers the contradictions, tensions, challenges and dilemmas implicit in the horizons of his theoretical project, it was found that the connection of the theme of ideology in his work arises from his more recent interests in analyzing the pathologies social, reification and social paradoxes, in connection with specific moments of contemporary societies.