| Summary: | This paper attempts to reconstruct the concept of social domination
articulated in the early works of Axel Honneth, a key figure of the ‘third
generation’ of critical theory. The author argues that one of the key
ambitions of the early Honneth, expressed through his critique of Jurgen
Habermas, was to theorize the process of societal reproduction in
contemporary capitalism in ‘action-theoretic’ terms, i.e. as determined by
the inter-group dynamics of social conflict and domination, as opposed to
Habermas’ systems-theoretic approach. The author analyzes Honneth’s criticism
of Habermas developed in ‘The Critique of Power’, and focuses more narrowly
on Honneth’s conceptualization of social domination outlined in the early
article ‘Moral Conscioussness and Class Domination’. The analysis grounds the
author’s subsequent reconstruction of the early Honneth’s conception of
social domination as a two-dimensional phenomenon that encompasses an
‘intentional’ and a ‘structural’ dimension. Turning towards Honneth’s mature
perspective, the author argues that a critique of social domination no longer
occupies a central place in Honneth’s influential theory of recognition.
Finally, the author considers Honneth’s only recent attempt at theorizing
domination presented in the article ‘Recognition as Ideology’, and argues
that Honneth has so far missed the opportunity to integrate the early
social-theoretical perspective on domination into his mature theoretical
system.
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