Marx, Honneth and the Tasks of a Contemporary Critical Theory Jean-Philippe Deranty Accepted: 10 January 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Abstract In this paper, I consider succinctly the main Marxist objections to Honneth’ s model of critical social theory, and Honneth’ s key objections to Marx-inspired models. I then seek to outline a rapprochement between the two positions, by showing how Honneth’ s normative concept of recognition is not antithetical to functionalist arguments, but in fact contains a social-theoretical dimension, the idea that social reproduction and social evolution revolve around struggles around the interpretation of core societal norms. By highlighting the social theoretical side of recognition, one can outline a model of critical social theory that in fact corresponds to the descriptive and normative features outlined by Marx himself. However, the price of this rapprochement for Honnethian critical theory is a greater emphasis on the division of labour as the central mechanism of social reproduction. Keywords Marx . Honneth . Critical theory . Recognition . Functionalism . Social labour . Division of labour There are a number of projects underway in contemporary social and political thought, which, as one of their most interesting results, associate positive references to Marxian arguments with a positive use of the recognition concept. In these projects, recognition is interpreted as a structural condition of freedom defined in a Hegelian way: that is, as a collective achievement in which individuals can recognise themselves in the actions of others and in the institutions of the social world. This Hegelian concept of recognition is related to Marx mainly through two references: first to his early concept of “species-being”, as one particularly vivid way of articulating mutuality, interdependency and universality as key features of freedom; and second to his early concept of work in which concern for the other is a determining feature. This paper explores the relationship between Marx and recognition from a different perspective, namely that of the Critical Theory tradition. In this paper recognition is understood in the sense Axel Honneth has given it in his rich body of work, as the concept Ethic Theory Moral Prac DOI 10.1007/s10677-013-9407-6 J.-P. Deranty (*) Philosophy Department, Faculty of Arts, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia e-mail: jp.deranty@mq.edu.au