This chapter introduces the idea of a distinctively moral form of recognition by considering J. M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello, a work of literature that exemplifies the recognitive tensions in which Hegel is interested, showing how moral disagreement can undermine the experience of the integrity of one’s own selfhood. I then turn to presenting a general account of the issue of recognition in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, by situating the role that the idea of the self plays in addressing that issue. I show that recognition addresses a challenge about self-knowledge, so that an adequate conception of what the self is is necessary to secure relations of recognition. After clarifying the interpretive method that I follow in the book by contrasting with my own approach to extant interpretations, I conclude with a chapter-by-chapter outline of the rest of the monograph.

This chapter begins by setting out the central elements of the distinctive idea of “the self” (das Selbst) that we find in Hegel’s Phenomenology. It demonstrates that the self must be understood as a determination of “spirit,” of the reciprocal interaction between self-conscious beings and their shared social world, so that Hegel defends a “social constitution” conception of the self. Conceptions of the self prescribe determinate relations of self-conscious beings to their actions and to one another, and depend on distinctive forms of language. It tracks the first two conceptions of the self that emerge in the text, that of the person, and of absolute freedom, and unpacks the criticisms of these conceptions implicit in Hegel’s account. While personhood can be affirmed universally of everyone, it is alienating since it cannot include individuals’ particularity. While individuals can understand themselves in terms of the norms of absolute freedom, that conception of the self undermines the bases for relations of reciprocity among them. It concludes by considering the implications of Hegel’s critiques for Stephen Darwall’s conception of recognition.