Paul Ric ur and the Utopia of Mutual Recognition

This article situates The Course of Recognition in the context of Ric urian philosophy and contemporary debates on mutual recognition. This article reconstructs the debate between Ric ur and mainstream recognition scholars, as well as with the other figures, such as Boltanski, Thévenot and Hénaff, who had a direct influence in the way Ric ur fleshed out his alternative conception of recognition. By connecting recognition with Ric ur’s notions of ideology and utopia, we are able to uncover a major blind spot in the standard model of recognition,and to undo ideological and reified forms of recognition. Honneth and Ric ur both aim at societies whose members are duly recognized, but they do so in radically different manners. Whereas Honneth’s model must be politicized in order to become relevant to social change, Ric ur evisages social change in a pure ethics of recognition.