https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8538-3797
![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The article argues that Honneth’s idea of reconstructive critique represents a type of immanent critique. Starting from the objection raised by Rahel Jaeggi, who considers the reconstructive critique to be a genre of internal criticism devoid of any transformative negativity, it seeks to show, on the contrary, that Honneth’s notion of “surplus of validity” plays a role of transcendence within the historical reality, which could explain his understanding of reconstructive critique as immanent one. In the second part, the paper displays how Honneth applies this conception of critique to solve the division within Critical Theory, induced by Habermas’s use of the idea of rational reconstruction, which would have split off the tasks of founding the normative criteria and discovering immanently elements for the social transformation. In the third part, the category of surplus of validity is investigated in its function of enlightening possibilities of transformation following an “universal-particular dialectic”. In its final part, the paper addresses some conceptual difficulties in Honneth’s attempt to clarify the systematic value and philosophical meaning of the surplus of validity within the framework of normative reconstruction.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 See the general views proposed by Strydom, Contemporary Critical Theory and Methodology, and Romero (ed.), Immanente Kritik heute.
2 About the Hegelian origins of immanent critique, see the classical reconstruction by Benhabib, Critique, Norm and Utopia; Boer, “Hegel’s Conception of Immanent Critique”; Houlgate, “Glauben und Wissen”; Finlayson, “Hegel, Adorno and the Origins of Immanent Criticism”; Becker, “On Immanent Critique in Hegel’s Phenomenology”. Regarding the similarities and differences between Marx and Hegel about immanent critique, see Antonio, “Immanent Critique as Core of Critical Theory”; Buchwalter, “Hegel, Marx, and the Concept of Immanent Critique”. Concerning the singularity of Adorno’s model, see Nobre, “Subjectivité et objectivité selon Kant et Hegel”; and Renault, “Théorie critique et critique immanente”.
3 See Pedersen, “Habermas’ Method: Rational Reconstruction”; Peters, “On reconstructive Legal and Political Theory”; and Iser, Empörung und Fortschritt.
4 Renault, “Théorie critique et critique immanente,” 257–8.
5 Jaeggi, Kritik von Lebensformen, 263.
6 Ibid., 295. See also her “Rethinking Ideology”.
7 Jaeggi, Kritik von Lebensformen, 277; in a similar line of criticism, Schaub points to some conservative aspects of the method of normative reconstruction insofar as it seems to exclude normative revolutions. See “Misdevelopments, Pathologies, and Normative Revolutions”.
8 About the variations in Honneth’s critical models, see Teixeira, “The Sociological Roots and Deficits”.
9 See Jaeggi and Wesche (Eds.), Was ist Kritik?
10 In a certain sense, almost whole Critical Theory can be understood as an ongoing interpretation of its “birth certificate”, i.e. Horkheimer’s essay “Traditional and Critical Theory”.
11 See Habermas, “Historical Materialism and the Development of Normative Structures,” 96–7, and his “Further Reflections on the Public Sphere,” 442.
12 See Habermas, “Technology and Science as ‘Ideology’,” 112, and Theory of Communicative Action II, 355.
13 Stahl, “Habermas and the Project of Immanent Critique”. Stahl applies the same interpretation to Honnethian theory of recognition; see also A. Kauppinen, “Reason, Recognition, and Internal Critique,” 483.
14 Habermas’s distinction between reconstruction and critique, proposed in the second edition of Knowledge and Interest, has raised doubts about the unity of both concepts, although he had sought to create one in the final part of his Theory of Communicative Action.
15 Benhabib, Critique, Norm, and Utopia; Forst, Contexts of justice.
16 See the overall view offered by Honneth in the Introduction to Freedom’s Right, 1–12.
17 See Honneth, Struggle for Recognition, 68, 69. Probably, this notion of actualizing reconstruction traces back to Habermasian “theoretical-history reconstruction”: “In the present connection, reconstruction signifies taking a theory apart and putting it back together again in a new form in order to attain more fully the goal it has set for itself. This is the normal way (in my opinion normal for Marxists too) of dealing with a theory that needs revision in many aspects but whose potential of stimulation has still not been exhausted” (Habermas, “Historical Materialism and the Development of Normative Structures,” 95).
18 In his overall view about the development of Honneth’s Critical Theory, Jean-Philippe Deranty stressed the reflectivity of this reconstructive methodology of dealing with the history of theory. Also here, according to him, one can verify how the reconstruction works as an “immanent critique because the criteria used in reconstruction are ones that the theorists studied would, or indeed, have themselves accepted”. Deranty, “Reflective Critical Theory,” 76.
19 Honneth, “Reconstructive Social Criticism with a Genealogical Proviso,” 49.
20 Kauppinen, “Reason, Recognition, and Internal Critique,” 484.
21 Honneth, “Grounding Recognition,” 517.
22 Honneth, “The Point of Recognition,” 240, 242.
23 Ibid., 244.
24 Ibid., 258.
25 Honneth, “Redistribution as Recognition,” 186.
26 Ibid., 174–5.
27 Ibid., 186.
28 Honneth, “The Point of Recognition,” 263.
29 Honneth, “Redistribution as Recognition,” 151.
In this case, one would have to take a step toward the “speculative” dimension that Honneth wants to avoid (see “Grounding Recognition,” 518). More precisely, it would be an attempt to recover and renew the Hegelian conception of “Wirklichkeit” in order to discern several ontological layers and finally determine the nature of those structures that operate (wirken) in the objective configuration of recognition relations. About the category of Wirklichkeit in Hegelian political thought, see Kervégan, L’Effectif et le Rationnel.
30 Gonçalo, “Recognition and Critical Theory Today,” 217.
31 Honneth, “Rejoinder,” 410–11.
32 Honneth, “The Irreducibility of Progress”.
33 That is: as the concept that links the theory to the praxis letting the access to the structures of recognition. See Honneth, “The Social Dynamics of Disrespect”.
34 I leave aside here the experiences of disrespect caused by the denial of recognition, which means not discussing the connection between power and disrespect, one of Honneth’s most problematic points so far.
35 Honneth, Struggle for Recognition, 80.
36 Honneth and Hartmann, “Paradoxes of Capitalism,” 43.
37 If Marx’s conception of productive forces and relations of production was employed as a first assessment, it is now to say that the very model for this reasoning line traces back to Habermas’s reconstructive understanding of fundamental rights as unsaturated principles, whose access are determined by the constitutional interpretations. See Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 125.
38 Honneth, Freedom’s Right, 8.
39 Ibid., 8.
40 See Weber, “The Logic of Cultural Sciences”.
41 Zurn, Axel Honneth. A Critical Theory of Social, chapter 4.
42 Honneth has sought to overcome this impression of moderation by attempting to renew the idea of socialism. However, I have recently tried to show that his concept of socialism as an organically integrated democratic society ends up diminishing the place of conflict in his theory. See Repa, “Socialism as an Organic Democratic Form of Life”.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Luiz Repa
Luiz Repa is Associate Professor in Theory of Human Sciences at the University of São Paulo. He has researched relations between methods and politics in the tradition of Critical Theory, in particular with regards to the questions about the method of reconstruction and the immanent critique. He has published books and articles on Habermas, Honneth, Adorno, and Hegel.