101 Hegel and the Politics of Recognition Saul Tobias Temple University Abstract: While political philosophers have turned to Hegel’s notion of recogni- tion in their development of a theory of identity politics, a careful reading of the Phenomenology of Spirit, and of the master-servant dialectic in particular, reveals the limits of this approach. For Hegel, recognition cannot be separated from a process of self-determination, which is as essential to the development of genuine autonomy as the affirmation of claims to recognition. This article examines the role of self-determination in the Phenomenology of Spirit and considers its implications for the theorization of contemporary politics. I Endlessly adaptable to the changing demands of the political zeitgeist, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit has been read as the philosophical vindication of political standpoints ranging from democratic liberalism to existentialist Marxism. 1 At the present moment, the Phenomenology, and particularly the dialectic of master and servant, has come to be associated with discussions of identity politics. Emerging out of the “new social movements” of the late 1960s and 1970s, the term “identity politics” refers to forms of political engagement organized around values other than those of socio-economics and class. 2 Insisting that justice requires more than the redistribution of economic goods and opportunities, defenders of identity politics have argued that the political and institutional acknowledgement and defense of cultural, sexual, and ethnic difference is essential to the full and free development of individuals and groups within a society. Since the decline of socialism as a viable political strategy and the emergence of cultural difference as a central