5 - A Historical Comparison of Recognition

Summary

This final chapter not only compares the different approaches in terms of conceptual strategies and theoretical premises but also evaluates their advantages and disadvantages. In particular, it shows that the German tradition provides the most general account of recognition but also lacks the critical observations made by the two other accounts. In the French tradition the emphasis on the potential for domination helps to overcome the “power-blindness” of the German notion of "recognition”; in the British tradition the emphasis on the importance of education and socialization helps to overcome the “educational blindness” of the German tradition. In this spirit the final chapter offers a systematic integration of all three notions of “recognition” that were reconstructed in the earlier chapters.