•  23
    During recent decades, theories of mutual recognition have been intensively debated in social philosophy. According to one of the main theorists in the field, Axel Honneth, the entire social world may be based on interpersonal recognition. Our aim is to study what it would take that residents in long-term care would become adequately interpersonally recognized. We also examine who could be seen as bearing the responsibility for providing such recognition. In this paper, we distinguish ten aspect…Read more
  •  18
    Philosophy and self-expression
    Philosophy and Social Criticism 44 (7): 764-766. 2018.
  •  16
    In this paper I discuss Hegel's views on the determination of intentions. The main point is that it pays to distinguish sufficiently clearly four perspectives to human action: 1) The agent's "moral" perspective and the understanding and description under which the agent acted; from this perspective we can thematize the operative intention-in-action and distinguish "action" from "deed". 2) The agent's retrospective awareness and appropriation of the action: was what I did really justified and di…Read more
  •  646
    Recognition, Needs and Wrongness
    European Journal of Political Theory 8 (1): 13-30. 2009.
    `Due recognition is a vital human need', argues Charles Taylor. In this article I explore this oft-quoted claim from two complementary and equally appealing perspectives. The bottom—up approach is constructed around Axel Honneth's theory of recognition, and the top—down approach is exemplified by T. M. Scanlon's brief remarks about mutual recognition. The former can be summed up in the slogan `wronging by misrecognizing', the latter in the slogan `misrecognizing by wronging'. Together they provi…Read more
  •  46
    This paper argues that there are cases, which various guise of the good-theses concerning desires, intentions and actions would not allow. In these cases the agent acts for considerations that the agent does not regard as good reasons. The considerations render the actions intelligible but not desirable. These cases are atypical, but nonetheless show that those guise of the good-theses which do not allow them, should be revised. In typical cases the intelligibility of desires, intentions and act…Read more
  •  61
    Kant and Hegel on purposive action
    Philosophical Explorations 21 (1): 90-107. 2018.
    This essay discusses Kant and Hegel’s philosophies of action and the place of action within the general structure of their practical philosophy. We begin by briefly noting a few things that both unite and distinguish the two philosophers. In the sections that follow, we consider these and their corollaries in more detail. In so doing, we map their differences against those suggested by more standard readings that treat their accounts of action as less central to their practical philosophy. Secti…Read more
  •  28
    Dimensions of Personhood
    Imprint Academic. 2007.
    A resale copy of a special issue of Journal of Consciousness Studies (Volume 14, Issue 5-6, 2007). This collection of original articles considers the perennial question ‘What are persons?’ It aims first of all to clarify the nature of the question and its relation to associated questions such as the nature of the human animal; how the concepts of human being, person, subject, and self are related; the persistence and unity of persons; and questions as to the conditions for personhood and persona…Read more
  •  15
    Recognition and democracy – An introduction
    Thesis Eleven 134 (1): 3-12. 2016.
    This is an introduction to a special issue on recognition and democracy. We outline the constitutive and enabling relations between democracy and recognition. We distinguish between pre-political and political forms of identity and recognition, between horizontal and vertical forms of recognition, and between democratic and other ways or arranging the vertical and horizontal aspects of political life. We also distinguish between the roles of a subject and a co-author of law. The intruduction als…Read more
  •  209
    John R. Searle (s. 1932) on tunnetuimpia sosiaalista tai institutionaalista ontologiaa tutkineita nykyfilosofeja. Hän on ehtimiseen korostanut kielen ja puhetekojen keskeistä merkitystä institutionaalisen tai sosiaalisen todellisuuden rakentumisessa. Siihen nähden on yllättävän vaikeaa selvittää, mitä hän tästä kielellisestä perustasta tarkkaan ottaen ajattelee ja miten sosiaalisen maailman pitäisi sen päällä maata. Searlen perusajatus puheteoille rakentuvasta institutionaalisesta todellisuudest…Read more
  •  27
    Practices as ‘actual’ sources of goodness of actions
    Philosophy and Public Issues - Filosofia E Questioni Pubbliche 57-70. 2015.
    This is a contribution to a special issue of "Philosophy and Public Issues" focussing on Michael Thompson's Life and Action. I first discuss the nature of actuality, then the distinction between acting on a first-order consideration and a second-order consideration, and the possibly related distinction between expressing a practice and merely simulating it. Then I turn to the topic of varieties of goodness.
  •  7
    In this chapter I discuss Taylor’s claim that strong evaluation is inevitable for human agency: without a framework of strong evaluations human agents would be in a crisis which Taylor calls, perhaps misleadingly, “an identity crisis”. With a broad brush I introduce some of the essential background in first three sections, and scrutinize the inevitability of strong evaluation more closely in the last three sections. I introduce first the distinction between the engaged perspective, which in Tayl…Read more
  •  31
    Group Minds and the Problem of the First Belief
    Balkan Journal of Philosophy 2014 (1): 43-48. 2014.
    ABSTRACT. This article presents theories of group belief with a problem. It is conceptually and psychologically impossible for there to be a believer with just one belief. For conceptual reasons, a single belief could not have any content without the background of other beliefs. Or even if it could, it would for psychological reasons be impossible for the believer to know or understand the content of its sole belief. With certain plausible assumptions, however, groups would at some point of ti…Read more
  •  462
    Charles Taylor, a secular age (review)
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 13 (3): 353-355. 2010.
    Charles Taylor has written three big books on the self-understandings of modern age andmodern individuals. Hegel (1975) focused on one towering figure, and held that Hegel ’ saspirations to overcome modern dualisms are still ours, but Hegelian philosophicalspeculation is not the way to do it. Sources of the Self (1989) ran the intellectual historyfrom peak to peak, stressing the continuous presence of modern tensions and cross- pressures between Enlightenment and Romanticism. A Secular Age (2…Read more
  •  109
    Recognition and Social Ontology (edited book)
    with Heikki Ikaheimo and Arto Laitinen
    Brill. 2011.
    This unique collection examines the connections between two complementary approaches to philosophical social theory: Hegel-inspired theories of recognition, and analytical social ontology.
  •  2
    The Just (review)
    Radical Philosophy 30 105. 2001.
  •  39
    Social Pathologies, Reflexive Pathologies, and the Idea of Higher-Order Disorders
    Studies in Social and Political Thought 25 44-65. 2015.
    This paper critically examines Christopher Zurn’s suggestion mentioned above that various social pathologies (pathologies of ideological recognition, maldistribution, invisibilization, rationality distortions, reification and institutionally forced self-realization) share the structure of being ‘second-order disorders’: that is, that they each entail ‘constitutive disconnects between first-order contents and secondorder reflexive comprehension of those contents, where those disconnects are perva…Read more
  •  507
    Paul Ricoeur's Surprising Take on Recognition
    Études Ricoeuriennes / Ricoeur Studies 2 (1): 35-50. 2011.
    This essay examines Paul Ricœur’s views on recognition in his book The Course of Recognition . It highlights those aspects that are in some sense surprising, in relation to his previous publications and the general debates on Hegelian Anerkennung and the politics of recognition. After an overview of Ricœur’s book, the paper examines the meaning of “recognition” in Ricœur’s own proposal, in the dictionaries Ricœur uses, and in the contemporary debates. Then it takes a closer look at the ideas of …Read more
  •  338
    Review of Axel Honneth, Freedom's Right (review)
    Review of Politics 77 (2): 327-330. 2015.
    Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose? Not for Axel Honneth,whose Hegelian reconstruction sees freedom as the central, even sole, driving force of Western modernity. Other apparently central values are mere modifications of freedom. Nothin’ don’t mean nothin’ if it ain’t free. In his deliberately grand narrative, Honneth follows Hegel's Philosophy of Right in developing an account of social justice by means of an analysis of society. The end result is an outline of society in term…Read more
  •  12
  •  30
    MacIntyre and Taylor: Traditions, Rationality and Modernity
    In Jeff Malpas & Hans-Helmuth Gander (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Hermeneutics, Routledge. pp. 204-215. 2014.
    This chapter discusses five closely intertwined aspects of the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor that are relevant to the traditions of hermeneutics: (i) their fundamental philosophical anthropology, (ii) their views on explanation and understanding in the human sciences, (iii) their analysis of modernity and the nature of contemporary late modern Western cultures, (iv) ethics, and (v) the question of rationally comparing and assessing rival traditions or cultures.
  •  14
    What is the relationship of “strong evaluation” and self-identity? What exactly is personal identity? Does identity consist of interpretations or facts? Do strong evaluations have a constitutive role in identity-formation? If there is no given individual essence or true self waiting to be found, but identity is dialogically construed in self-interpretation, then can identities be criticized at all, when there is no pre-given true self, which would serve as the basis of criticism? I follow Charle…Read more
  •  634
    Broader contexts of non-domination: Pettit and Hegel on freedom and recognition
    Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 18 (4): 390-406. 2015.
    This study compares Philip Pettit’s account of freedom to Hegelian accounts. Both share the key insight that characterizes the tradition of republicanism from the Ancients to Rousseau: to be subordinated to the will of particular others is to be unfree. They both also hold that relations to others, relations of recognition, are in various ways directly constitutive of freedom, and in different ways enabling conditions of freedom. The republican ideal of non-domination can thus be fruitfully unde…Read more
  •  30
    Social Ontology encompasses a wide variety of inquiries into the nature, structure and perhaps essence of social phenomena, and their role and place in our world. Topics of research in Social Ontology range from small-scale interactions to large-scale institutions, from spontaneous teamwork to the functioning of formal organizations, and from unintended consequences to institutional design. Social Ontology brings together theoretical work from a large number of disciplines. This rapidly evolving…Read more
  •  1130
    There is today a wide consensus that ‘recognition’ is something that we need a clear grasp of in order to understand the dynamics of political struggles, and, perhaps the constitution and dynamics of social reality more generally. Yet, the discussions on ‘recognition’ have so far often been conceptually rather inexplicit, in the sense that the very key concepts have remained largely unexplicated or undefined. Since the English word ‘recognition’ is far from unambiguous, it is possible, and to ou…Read more
  •  27
    Zum Bedeutungsspektrum des Begriffs „Anerkennung“: die Rolle von adäquater Würdigung und Gegenseitigkeit
    In Christopher F. Zurn & Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch (eds.), Anerkennung, Akademie Verlag. pp. 301-324. 2009.
  •  2991
    Sorting Out Aspects of Personhood
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 14 (5-6): 248-270. 2007.
    This paper examines how three central aspects of personhood — the capacities of individuals, their normative status, and the social aspect of being recognized — are related, and how personhood depends on them. The paper defends first of all a ‘basic view’that while actual recognition is among the constitutive elements of full personhood, it is the individual capacities (and not full personhood) which ground the basic moral and normative demands concerning treatment of persons. Actual recognition…Read more
  •  69
    Social bases of self-esteem: Rawls, Honneth and beyond
    Nordicum-Mediterraneum 7 (2). 2012.
    This paper discusses Rawls’s thesis that the social basis of self-respect is one of the primarysocial goods. While the central element of the social basis consists in the attitudes of others(e.g. respect or esteem) the social basis may include also possession of various goods. Further,one may distinguish, following Honneth, universalistic basic respect from differential esteem andfrom loving care. This paper focuses on esteem, and further distinguishes three importantvarieties thereof (anti-stig…Read more
  •  238
    Practices as ‘actual’ sources of goodness of actions
    Philosophy and Public Issues - Filosofia E Questioni Pubbliche (Supplementary Volume): 55-68. 2015.
    Chapters Ten and Eleven in Michael Thompson’s Life and Action discuss practices and dispositions as sources of individual actions, and as sources of the goodness of the individual actions. In the essay, I will first discuss the nature of actuality, then the distinction between acting on a first-order consideration and a second-order consideration, and the possibly related distinction between expressing a practice and merely simulating it, and then I turn to varieties of goodness.