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15Multiculturalism and RecognitionIn Ludwig Siep, Heikki Ikaheimo & Michael Quante (eds.), Handbuch Anerkennung, Springer. 2018.
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320Work as a Realm of Social FreedomIn K. Breen and J.-P. Deranty (ed.), The Politics and Ethics of Contemporary Work. pp. 16-31. 2022.
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1105Hermeneutics and Critical TheoryIn Jeff Malpas Hans-Helmuth Gander (ed.), Routledge Companion to Philosophical Hermeneutics, Routledge. pp. 600-611. 2015.
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9Recognition Theory as Social Research: Investigating the Dynamics of Social Conflict (edited book)Palgrave MacMillan. 2012.This edited collection presents the case for a research program (in Lakatos's sense) in the social sciences based on the theory of recognition developed by Axel Honneth and others in recent years. The cumulative argument of the book is that recognition theory provides both a plausible framework for explaining social conflict and a normative compass for reaching just resolutions.
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633Arendt's anti-humanism of labourEuropean Journal of Social Theory 2 (22): 175-190. 2019.The aim of this article is to situate Arendt’s account of labour as a critical response to humanisms of labour, or put otherwise, to situate it as an anti-humanism of labour. It compares Arendt’s account of labour with that of the most prominent humanist theorist of labour at the time of the composition of The Human Condition: Georges Friedmann. Arendt’s and Friedmann’s accounts of labour are compared specifically with respect to the range of capacities, social relations, and possibilities of fu…Read more
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375Introduction : a recognition-theoretical research programme in the social sciencesIn Shane O'Neill & Nicholas H. Smith (eds.), Recognition Theory as Social Research: Investigating the Dynamics of Social Conflict, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 1-18. 2012.A summary of the main features of a 'recognition-theoretic' research program in the social sciences and a brief account of how it promises to advance on rival research programs in the social sciences.
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201Three normative models of workIn Nicholas Smith & Jean-Philippe Dr Deranty (eds.), New Philosophies of Labour: Work and the Social Bond, Brill. pp. 181-206. 2011.I suggest that the post-Hegelian tradition presents us with three contrasting normative models of work. According to the first model, the core norms of work are those of means-ends rationality. In this model, the modern world of work is constitutively a matter of deploying the most effective means to bring about given ends. The rational kernel of modern work, the core norm that has shaped its development, is on this view instrumental reason, and this very same normative core, in the shape of adv…Read more
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Between Philosophical Anthropology and Phenomenology: on Paul Ricoeur’s Philosophy of WorkRevue Internationale de Philosophie 2 (278): 513-534. 2016.The paper is a critical analysis of Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy of work as it is formulated in a number of essays from the 1950s and 60s. It begins with a reconstruction of the central theses advanced in ‘Travail et parole’ (1953) and related texts, where Ricoeur sought to outline a philosophical anthropology in which work is given its due. To give work its due, from an anthropological standpoint, is to see it as limited by counter-concept of language, according to Ricoeur. The paper then argues t…Read more
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Review of William Outhwaite, Habermas: A Critical Introduction (review)Radical Philosophy 76 53. 1996.
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577Recognition, culture and economy : Honneth’s debate with FraserIn Danielle Petherbridge (ed.), Axel Honneth: Critical Essays: With a Reply by Axel Honneth, Brill Academic. pp. 321-344. 2011.Although the contrast between ‘economy’ and culture’ that structures the Fraser-Honneth debate derives ultimately from Weber, it has a more proximate ancestry in Habermas’ work. I begin by glancing back at Habermas’ formulation, not just because its background role in shaping the current debate has not been properly acknowledged (though I believe that is the case), but because Fraser and Honneth’s original responses to it provide a nice segue into their current positions. After briefly reviewing…Read more
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317Expressivism in Brandom and TaylorIn James Williams, Edwin Mares, James Chase & Jack Reynolds (eds.), Postanalytic and Metacontinental: Crossing Philosophical Divides, Continuum. pp. 145--156. 2010.I begin by picking up on Brandom’s suggestion that expressivism follows American pragmatism in seeking to advance the cause of the Enlightenment. This provides us with a first point of contrast with Taylor’s understanding of expressivism, since Taylor takes expressivism to be inseparably bound up with the Romantic critique of the Enlightenment and as fundamentally opposed to Enlightenment naturalism. I then distinguish two features of what we ordinarily mean by the term ‘expression’, one of whic…Read more
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188Work as a sphere of norms, paradoxes, and ideologies of recognitionIn Shane O'Neill & Nicholas H. Smith (eds.), Recognition Theory as Social Research: Investigating the Dynamics of Social Conflict, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 87-108. 2012.An analysis of how the sphere of work can be considered to instantiate norms of recognition, even when those norms give rise to paradoxes and ideologies surrounding how work ought to be done and the goods at stake in it.
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Charles Taylor, Strong Hermeneutics and the Politics of DifferenceRadical Philosophy 68 19-27. 1994.
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78Work and the Struggle for RecognitionEuropean Journal of Political Theory 8 (1): 46-60. 2009.This article examines a neglected but crucial feature of Honneth's critical theory: its use of a concept of recognition to articulate the norms that are apposite for the contemporary world of work. The article shows that from his first writings on the structure of critical social theory in the early 1980s to the recent exchange with Nancy Fraser on recognition and redistribution, the problem of grounding a substantive critique of work under capitalism has been central to Honneth's enterprise. Th…Read more
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99Work and the Politics of MisrecognitionRes Publica 18 (1): 53-64. 2012.In this article we examine the idea of a politics of misrecognition of working activity. We begin by introducing a distinction between the kind of recognition and misrecognition that attaches to one’s identity, and the kind of recognition and misrecognition that attaches to one’s activity. We then consider the political significance of the latter kind of recognition and misrecognition in the context of work. Drawing first on empirical research undertaken by sociologists at the Institut für Sozia…Read more
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84Taylor on SolidarityThesis Eleven 99 (1): 48-70. 2009.After characterizing Taylor’s general approach to the problems of solidarity, we distinguish and reconstruct three contexts of solidarity in which this approach is developed: the civic, the socio-economic, and the moral. We argue that Taylor’s distinctive move in each of these contexts of solidarity is to claim that the relationship at stake poses normatively justified demands, which are motivationally demanding, but insufficiently motivating on their own. On Taylor’s conception, we need some un…Read more
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48Strong hermeneutics: contingency and moral identityRoutledge. 1997.How should an acknowledgement of contingency affect our understanding of moral identity? The book considers various ways of thinking about this question in contemporary moral and political theory. Drawing on the work of Gadamer, Ricoeur, Taylor and others, it defends a realist but pluralist 'strong hermeneutic' view.
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151Rorty on religion and hopeInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 48 (1). 2005.The article considers how Richard Rorty's writings on religion dovetail with his views on the philosophical significance of hope. It begins with a reconstruction of the central features of Rorty's philosophy of religion, including its critique of theism and its attempt to rehabilitate religion within a pragmatist philosophical framework. It then presents some criticisms of Rorty's proposal. It is argued first that Rorty's "redescription" of the fulfilment of the religious impulse is so radical t…Read more
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57Rationality and Engagement: McDowell, Dreyfus and ZidaneHegel Bulletin 34 (2): 159-180. 2013.The article examines John McDowell's attempt to rehabilitate the classical idea of the rational animal and Hubert Dreyfus's criticisms of that attempt. After outlining the 'engaged' conception of rationality which, in McDowell's view, enables the idea of the rational animal to shake off its intellectualist appearance, the objections posed by Dreyfus are presented that such a conception of rationality is inconsistent with the phenomena of everyday coping, characterised by non-conceptual 'involvem…Read more
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13Ordinary lifePhilosophy and Social Criticism 44 (7): 751-753. 2018.A short reflective piece on the occasion of Charles Taylor's 85th birthday.
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103Levinas, Habermas and modernityPhilosophy and Social Criticism 34 (6): 643-664. 2008.This article examines Levinas as if he were a participant in what Habermas has called `the philosophical discourse of modernity'. It begins by comparing Levinas' and Habermas' articulations of the philosophical problems of modernity. It then turns to how certain key motifs in Levinas' later work give philosophical expression to the needs of the times as Levinas diagnoses them. In particular it examines how Levinas interweaves a modern, post-ontological conception of `the religious' or `the sacre…Read more
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37The chapter begins by contrasting two approaches to the analysis of hope, one which takes its departure from a view broadly shared by Hobbes, Locke and Hume, another which fits better with Aquinas's definition of hope. The former relies heavily on a sharp distinction between the cognitive and conative aspects of hope. It is argued that while this approach provides a valuable source of insights, its focus is too narrow and it rests on a problematic rationalist psychology. The chapter then discuss…Read more
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74Charles Taylor: meaning, morals, and modernityPolity Press. 2002.A clearly written, authoritative introduction to Taylor's work.
Storrs, Connecticut, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Social and Political Philosophy |
Critical Theory |
Hermeneutics |
Richard Rorty |