The idea that we are mutually dependent on the recognition of our peers is at least as old as modernity. Across Europe, this idea has been understood in different ways from the very beginning, according to each country's different cultural and political conditions. This stimulating study explores the complex history and multiple associations of the idea of 'Recognition' in Britain, France and Germany. Demonstrating the role of 'recognition' in the production of important political ideas, Axel Honneth explores how our dependence on the recognition of others is sometimes viewed as the source of all modern, egalitarian morality, sometimes as a means for fostering socially beneficial behavior, and sometimes as a threat to 'true' individuality. By exploring this fundamental concept in our modern political and social self-understanding, Honneth thus offers an alternative view of the philosophical discourse of modernity.

Axel Honneth is the Jack C. Weinstein Professor of the Humanities in the Philosophy Department at Columbia University. He was previously Director of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, between 2001 and 2018, founded by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno. He is the author of works in German and English, including The Struggle for Recognition (1994) and Freedom's Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life (2014).