THE HUMAN PERSON IN SOCIETY

Jürgen Habermas Axel Honneth

A. Who Am I
1.To ponder about ourselves is to question:
a. our very own identity.
b.our peculiarity as an individual person in
relating with our external Others.
c. our complex response toward various life
circumstances.
2.Self-interrogation
- An attempt not only at knowing ourselves
more but understanding our own Being
better.
3.Charles Taylor (1931- )
- We look for “sources of the self”
4. Identity is historical and social
- George Herbert Mead (1863-1931,
American)
- Anthony Giddens (1938- , British)
- Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002, French)
- Jürgen Habermas (1929- , German)
- Charles Taylor (1931- , Canadian)
- Axel Honneth (1949- , German)
5.Identity is Historical
- Because the incorporation of past
experiences is necessary in coming up with
a clear picture of oneself.
6.Identity is Social
- Because a human individual’s peculiar
traits are found to have traces from the
immediate environment where she is
exposed.
B. The Crucial Role of the Socialization
Process in the Formation of Identity
1.Habermas
- Views the evolution of human species from
the lens of “developmental psychology”
- In the stages of moral development, the
child or adolescent learns not only how to
apprehend or form scanty details about
one’s behaviour by imitating the
semblances of the external world of Others
but also to articulate her peculiarities,
desires, and wants through her constant
adaptation of language-mediated
communication.
- Expanding identity via constant
internalization of the perspectives of the
generalized Others in communicative
action.
- Decentered understanding of the world.
- Adult and child interaction.
- The indispensable relationship between the
individual and his environment is what
obviously constitutes personal identity.
 - Communication molds personal identity.
- Personal identity is transmitted into
linguistic relations.
2.Honneth
- Over time, the child undergoes the
“maturing process” which does not imply
the abrupt or complete absence of the
“mother.”
- As the child enters into the bigger
socialization scene, her perception about
herself expands.
- The expanded self acquires a conscious
awareness which makes her realize of the
altered network of expectations about right
and wrong.
- Maturing individuals gradually become
aware of their obligations towards “the
generalized Other”
- The collective will controls one’s actions as
an internalized norm.
- The “recognition” of the mutual
expectation of exercising the internalized
 norms is the crowning glory of identity
formation.
- Recognition relation comes in three forms:
love, rights, and solidarity.
- It is in the moment of conflict that the
individual realizes that she is an “I” in the
“We”.
C. The Self as Practical Host for Social
Solidarity
- Our identity is something that we can only
extract from our experiences with other
people.
- Only the “I” and the external Other
formally constitute the necessary number to
form a solidarity relation.
- The “I in We” connotes the
interdependence between persons who may
in the beginning be foreign to one another
but in time eventually share the same
“value horizon.”
- What it requires is not the number of
participant a group can accommodate but
 whether or not a shared ideal among the
members of the group exists.
D. Conclusion
- The communicative-recognition relation is
very much relevant to the individual
person’s struggle to develop and maintain
an affirmative relation towards the self and
others.
- We live it open to the individual which
identity she wants to nurture along the path
of her moral development.