Subjective dispossession and objet a

Mutual Recognition

Prior to the scene of mutual recognition, the original self-consciousness is caught in a loop of continually having to negate the object, and yet, with each object negated, consciousness must go out and seek another thus seriously qualifying any stable sense of consciousness. Thus with this process repeating ad nauseum, self-consciousness quickly becomes “weary of its own vanishing act” and thereby seeks a more “permanent sense of self” (Butler 1987, 40). It then discovers another self-consciousness ‘over there’. The key passage in this regard is the following from Hegel’s Phenomenology:

Self-consciousness is faced by another self-consciousness; it has come out of itself. This has a twofold significance: first it has lost itself, for it finds itself as an other being; secondly, in doing so it has superseded the other, for it does not see the other as an essential being, but in the other sees its own self. (second emphasis mine, para 179)

Critically, for Houlgate, self-consciousness suffers a debilitating deficiency if it gives itself over to the other and sees “nothing but its own self” there. Houlgate makes clear that the cogito may negate, but it must never relinquish itself to the other. To the extent that self-consciousness finds itself in the other, it suffers, according to Houlgate, a self-loss, for its identity is now reflected in the not-I or the other.

Equally, however, self-consciousness lacks any real sense that the other is genuinely other than it, since it sees in the other nothing but its own self. Insofar as self-consciousness does no more than find itself recognized by another, therefore, its consciousness of both itself and the other actually remains deficient. (Houlgate 2003a, 18)

Self-consciousness cannot bear this state of self-loss in the other and similarly the other, according to Houlgate, it is not a true other, since it is merely the reflection of itself. To remedy this unbearable state of subjective ambiguity, Houlgate argues that self-consciousness proceeds to supersede or aufheben the other independent being “in order to be certain of itself as the essential being” (2003a, 18). Self-consciousness thus withdraws itself from the other and retreats into itself. It attains self-certainty by removing any vestige of itself in the other, recovering the certainty that “it is what it is in itself” and simultaneously sets the other free.

To begin with, self-consciousness did not “see the other as an essential being,” because in the other it saw only itself. Yet it did not enjoy an unalloyed sense of self either, since it found itself “over there” in another (that it did not properly recognize). Now, by contrast, self-consciousness has a clear sense of its own identity and recognizes that the other is something wholly other than and independent of itself. Consequently, it can at last fulfill the condition required for concrete self-consciousness: for it can find itself recognized by and reflected in another that is known to be truly other. (2003a, 19)

Seeking to consolidate the identity of each self-consciousness, Houlgate’s first step is to strictly delimit their respective boundaries. Therefore Houlgate is quick to render as a temporary state of affairs the first sign of self-loss in the other. Houlgate understands mutual recognition to result in two circumscribed, contained, equal and identifiably separate self-consciousnesses. The other is aufheben, superseded, in order for the original self-consciousness to recover from its self-loss in the other. This withdrawal from and aufheben of the other is seen as a necessary consolidation of the identities of self and other. The subject goes beyond itself, only to return to itself, more mature and self-sustaining no doubt. But for Houlgate, in order to recognize another self-consciousness, it must return to itself and leave the other as other. This final consolidation into separate identities is a prerequisite for the construction of Houlgate’s liberal political order that stands for the mutual recognition of equals.

In HasdfHegel’s Ethics of Recognition, Robert R. Williams argues that what initially happens to the original self consciousness in this scene of mutual recognition is that it is rudely awakened from its naive certitude and solipsistic solitude when it sees the other self-consciousness.

The self achieves its identity by excluding the other. The other constitutes a shock to this naive parochial identity, which works an immediate change. The self now finds itself as other, or as “othered.” The presence of the other signifies a loss of the original naive certitude, and this may be experienced as a loss of self. (Williams 1997, 53)

The dilemma strictly relates to being in an 'othered' state which is a shock to consciousness. Upon seeing an other ‘over there’ means that for the first time it must recognize a consciousness like itself who views another consciousness as other, it has been 'othered' by the other, and this sense of self-loss turns into an absolutely unbearable state of anxiety. It must return to itself out of its 'othered' state either through killing the Other, or accommodating the Other. It is the latter which Williams opts for as it is only by accommodating the other, by renouncing coercion, can the other be affirmed "not simply in its identity but also its difference" (56). Williams states:

The self’s return to itself out of self-othering is not simply a restoration of the original parochial and abstract self-identity. It is ... decentered and relativized by its relation to the other, while being enlarged and legitimated by the other’s recognition. (56)

Williams uses the language, "decentered and relativized" but stops short of musing on a permanent state of self-loss or, as Butler insists, on an ek-static relation to alterity.

As we will subsequently see, the biggest difference between Butler and Williams is that the latter is still with Houlgate in insisting on the necessary return of the self in its otherness, of a return from the sense of being ‘othered’. It is enough for both Houlgate and Williams to affirm that authentic mutual recognition recognizes that "coercion and mastery be given up" but the renunciation of violence leaves still too many questions unanswered for Butler, for whom mutual recognition means more than a renunciation of coercion. For Butler mutual recognition is the sign of a relational ontological bearing that takes place within a framework of recognizability, against a backdrop in which subjects emerge as recognizable and intelligible forms.