Reification

In the early 20th century, Marxist theory was enriched and rejuvenated by adopting the concept of reification, introduced by the Hungarian theorist Georg Lukacs to identify and denounce the transformation of historical processes into ahistorical entities, human actions into things that seemed part of an immutable "second nature." For a variety of reasons, both theoretical and practical, the hopes placed in de-reification as a tool of revolutionary emancipation proved vain. In these original and imaginative essays, delivered as the Tanner Lectures at the University of California, Berkeley in 2005, the distinguished third-generation Frankfurt School philosopher Axel Honneth attempts to rescue the concept of reification by recasting it in terms of the philosophy of recognition he has been developing over the past two decades. Three distinguished political and social theorists: Judith Butler, Raymond Geuss, and Jonathan Lear, respond with hard questions about the central anthropological premise of his argument, the assumption that prior to cognition there is a fundamental experience of intersubjective recognition that can provide a normative standard by which current social relations can be judged wanted. Honneth listens carefully to their criticism and provides a powerful defense of his position.

作者阿克塞尔•霍耐特（Axel Honneth），德国著名社会理论家，法兰克福学派第三代旗帜性人物，代表作有《为承认而斗争》《自由的权利》《权力的批判》等。

译者罗名珍，法兰克福大学哲学博士，师从霍耐特，现为台湾“中研院”文哲所博士后研究员，主要研究方向为阿多诺哲学、批判理论、精神分析学说等。