Countering the Pathologies of Recognition Towards an Inferentialist-Expressivist Strategy for Social Critique

This paper explores the ambivalence of recognition within contemporary critical theory, moving beyond Althusser's conception of recognition as a purely ideological mechanism. Building on Honneth's analysis, it argues that recognition both reinforces social reproduction and enables self-realization, often in ways that are difficult to disentangle. The first section of the paper examines the claim that recognition, like any social practice, is structured by a system of norms that govern the reciprocal attribution of practical and moral attitudes, along with the commitments they entail. In the second section, I argue that inferential practices offer a powerful methodological framework for analyzing recognition claims, as they reveal tacit forms of knowledge and challenge the presumed immediacy of prevailing social categories. The third section explores the role of social struggles in articulating and advancing recognition demands, emphasizing the value of an inferentialist-expressivist perspective rooted in Robert Brandom's philosophy. I contend that inferentialism's foundations in Hegelian logic, phenomenology, and pragmatism provide critical resources for understanding the epistemic break with immediacy that underlies emancipatory forms of recognition, as well as for clarifying the logical structures of critique and normative transformation.