Michelle Kosch - Recognition after Fichte

  • 14 Jul 2021
  • 10:00 AM - 11:25 AM

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AAP Keynote Michelle Kosch - Recognition after Fichte

In this paper, I describe a conception of recognition introduced by Fichte and related, by Fichte, to an account of rights on the one hand and to an account of the social genesis of reflective agency on the other hand. I describe some of the history of uptake of Fichte’s picture in 19th and 20th century social and political philosophy. Historians have misrepresented some of the details both of the ideas themselves and of the influence story, and one result of that is that some 20th century accounts of recognition have become hard to understand in a sufficiently precise way. (I am especially interested in Beauvoir's account, but the ideas I describe are important for understanding some other figures too.) I conclude with some thoughts on why a Fichtean account of the mechanisms of social stratification and social change might be more useful, for philosophers theorizing oppression, than competing Kantian and Hegelian accounts.

Michelle Kosch received her PhD from Columbia University in 1999, has held positions at the Søren Kierkegaard Research Center, the University of Michigan, and Johns Hopkins, and is currently Professor of Philosophy at Cornell. She has published two monographs (Freedom and Reason in Kant, Schelling and Kierkegaard, OUP 2006, and Fichte’s Ethics, OUP 2018) and articles on many topics and figures in post-Kantian European philosophy. Current projects include work on Simone de Beauvoir’s ethical thought and Fichte’s political philosophy.

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ACN 152 892 272 ABN 29 152 892 272
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