Abstract

CARRASQUILLA-OSPINA, Jesús. The Struggles for Recognition Energize Law and Politics in Constitutional Democratic States: About Habermas and Honneth. Franciscanum [online]. 2017, vol.59, n.168, pp.115-143. ISSN 0120-1468.

The struggles for recognition energize law and politics, and they are almost undeniable. Habermas and Honneth are two intelectual referents on this subject, and each in their own way is heir to Critical Theory. The first postulates that the principles set out in the Theory of Communicative Action acquire a greater sense of application in his work Facticity and validity insofar as it allows one to approach the conflicts of the constitutional democracies in their multiple nuances. This is explained by understanding how democracy itself works, and what this implies in recognizing the communicative power of the word in the area of furthering participation, public discussion, and empowering citizens towards a binding praxis, whose purpose is to guide political action to achieve a more favorable coexistence. The second, without denying its relationship with Habermas, Honneth attempts to go beyond his work to declare social freedom, which is built on interaction with others, and is more focused on understanding the moral grammar of social conflict. His perspective privileges is more favorable towards the social struggle of those who have an awareness of injustice, and who generally value actions and institutions understood in the context of recognition, and this integral recognition can be understood as justice. According to Habermas, the law constructs social struggle, but does not exhaust the struggle since injustice continues; the struggle for freedom cannot be stopped because this struggle for recognition is finally the ultimate foundation of democracy.

Keywords : Politics; right; recognition; democracy; freedom.

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