The social conflict in Axel Honneth: a study on critique of power

• Grant number: 15/11172-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2015
• End date: August 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - History of Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Luiz Sérgio Repa
• Grantee: Priscila Hidaka Fávaro
• Host Institution: Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento (CEBRAP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 14/11611-3 - Public sphere and reconstruction: on the constitution of a reconstructive paradigm within Critical Theory, AP.TEM

Abstract

This project seeks, through the reading of Critique of Power, the doctoral thesis of Axel Honneth, with assistance from other writings of the philosopher, to understand the central role played by social conflict on this author's thinking in that time. While Struggle for Recognition is considered Honneth's main book - since from it the paradigm of recognition came to compose much of the research of Critical Theory - we would like to focus on earlier works, especially in Critique of Power, as it seems to have a lot of tensions because it finds itself in a moment of transition between the Honneth's early writings and what will be developed in his best known work. In his thesis, the philosopher begins to sketch and just to suggest the theoretical model that will be exposed in a systematic way only later. We intend to do a reading of Critique of Power "in his time" checking which contained elements related to social conflict there were already found in previous works of the philosopher and, likewise, which formulations in the book on the same subject already pointed to what will be presented later in Struggle for Recognition. The choice of this approach is motivated by the impression that is fundamental to understand, first, why the social conflict takes such a central role in Honneth's work. In other words, the question we wish to answer is: to Honneth, what is properly critical in a social theory of conflict? (AU)