Tragic Recognition: Revisiting Hegel’s Conception of Ethical Life

Mario Wenning

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PDF(279 KB)
Front. Philos. China ›› 2018, Vol. 13 ›› Issue (4) : 483-504. DOI: 10.3868/s030-007-018-0039-9
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Tragic Recognition: Revisiting Hegel’s Conception of Ethical Life

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Abstract

This paper interprets Hegel’s engagement with tragedy and especially tragic action as an interpretive model for understanding ethical life in complex societies in which independent value spheres collide. Tragic recognition, in contrast to the kind of recognition introduced in the master and slave dialectic, is not based on desire, but arises from the suffering deriving from clashing value spheres. As a coming to terms with one’s finitude, tragic recognition presents an important corrective to the account of mutual recognition that has been the reference point of contemporary interpretations of Hegel’s social and political philosophy. The paper concludes by pointing to some of the limits of tragedy as a universal interpretive framework for modern societies.

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Hegel / tragedy / recognition / ethical life / death

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Mario Wenning. Tragic Recognition: Revisiting Hegel’s Conception of Ethical Life. Front. Philos. China, 2018, 13(4): 483‒504 https://doi.org/10.3868/s030-007-018-0039-9

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2019 Higher Education Press and Brill
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