Bourgeois illusions

Honneth on the ruling ideas of capitalist societies

David A. Borman

pp. 97-124

in: Volker Schmitz (ed), Axel Honneth and the critical theory of recognition, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019

Abstract

Axel Honneth—and sympathetic critics on his behalf – have argued that his mature work can be understood as "the attempt to provide a consistent theoretical model to extend" the insights of critical historians and sociologists, like E.P. Thompson and Barrington Moore, Jr., whose work formed an important point of departure for Honneth's early research. This chapter attempts to demonstrate the contrary: that Honneth's middle and most recent writings represents an abandonment of the basic convictions of his own earlier work, which was indeed consonant with Thompson, Moore, and others and which, partly for that reason, held considerable promise.

Cited authors

Honneth Axel