5 WHERE IS THE CONFLICT IN BRANDOM’S THEORY OF RECOGNITION (AND WHY SHOULD THERE BE ANY)? Georg W. Bertram In what follows, I want to discuss Brandom’s explanation of the concept of recognition in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Like Brandom, I believe that there are at least three key passages in Hegel’s text that are of particular significance for the determination of his concept of recognition, namely the Self-Consciousness chapter, the explanation of immediate ethical life, and the chapter on conscience. As far as Brandom’s interpretation goes, I will mainly focus on two chapters, Chapter 8 and Chapter 16, which means that Brandom’s concept of robust recognition and his interpretation of forgiveness will receive particular attention. I will argue that the most important aspect of an explanation of recognition comes into view when we ask ourselves how someone who recognizes someone else can have the authority to recognize at all. This may sound astonishing. On first sight, recognition is all about the authority of those who are recognized. If Peter recognizes Paul, Paul gains the status of being an authority for Peter. Peter ascribes, for himself, an authoritativeness to Paul, which seems to imply that he hands over authority to Paul. But the ascription or handing over of authority must itself be understood as an authoritative act. It has to be understood as an act which Peter performs out of his own free will. (If this were not the case, we would not say that Peter recognizes Paul but, maybe, that he is forced to do so, or something like that). The act of recognition has to be conceived of as an act of freedom. But how can Peter claim to freely perform such an act if he hands authority over to Paul? Where does Peter’s authority stem from? In my view, the most important task that an explanation of recognition has to meet is to account for the act of recognition as an act of freedom. 1 And I take Hegel to share this view. I will call the explanatory task brought out so far the task of accounting for the authority to recognize. Within Brandom’s account, the authority to recognize plays a decisive role, too. Brandom has often clarified his conception of recognition by relying on common law as a model. According to his common-law model, the practice of judging is