1 Recognition, identity and subjectivity Heikki Ikäheimo UNSW Australia h.ikaheimo@unsw.edu.au Forthcoming in Michael Thompson (ed.): The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Theory Contents 1 Conceptual clarifications ....................................................................................................................... 1 2. The importance of recognition ............................................................................................................. 6 3. Darker visions of ‘recognition’............................................................................................................ 11 4. Recognition and social ontology ......................................................................................................... 15 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................... 17 Anyone reading this, whether or not he or she has reflected on it, will have had experiences of how good it can feel to receive, and how painful to be left without adequate recognition from others. We expect that others ‘recognize’ our presence in the shared social space, we expect ‘recognition’ for our work or contributions to the good of others, and we expect that others duly ‘recognize’ our rights. In the political sphere, ethnic, religious, sexual and other minority groups demand or are understood to be demanding ‘recognition’ for their existence, particular characteristics and needs, or rights. Furthermore, social philosophers point out that social norms and institutions depend on their very existence on their being somehow accepted or ‘recognized’ by the collective whose life they organize. But what exactly is recognition and what makes it so important? The term ‘recognition’ has in the last two or three decades become the centre point of an extraordinary amount of theoretical activity among critical theorists and social and political philosophers. It is also at the centre of great deal of conceptual ambivalence and often theoretical confusion as not all authors mean the same thing with the term and as there is often inadequate attention to the different concepts at stake. In this article I will map central parts of the conceptual and theoretical landscape around the term ‘recognition’ relevant for critical theory, and discuss some of the main contemporary authors on the theme: Axel Honneth, Charles Taylor, Nancy Fraser and Judith Butler. 1 Conceptual clarifications The origin of the discourses on recognition is in classical German philosophy, especially G.W.F. Hegel, who conceived of something he called ‘Anerkennung’ between subjects as