PHI 295-03 - Special Topic: Intersubjectivity and Recognition

4 credits (Fall)

Hegel developed an idea of intersubjective recognition in a famous chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit. Since then the idea has been taken up by many theorists, including philosophers and psychoanalysts. In this class we will begin with the idea of recognition in Hegel and then consider how it is developed in the work of Critical Theorists, Jurgen Habermas and Axel Honneth. We will then turn to the work of Jessica Benjamin, a feminist psychoanalytic critic, and to the Objects Relations literature she draws upon, for her account of the ontogenesis of recognition and the personal and political obstacles to its achievement. The final readings in the class will consider the impact of trauma and its effect on the possibilities of recognition at the political level; we will read about Benjamin’s work with an Israeli/Palestinian group in Israel and her assessment of the possibilities of the work of the South African Peace and Reconciliation Commission.

Prerequisite: Second-year standing.
Instructor: Meehan