Hegel on Recognition: Self-Consciousness, Individuality and Intersubjectivity

Hegel criticized all philosophies that begin with an I as their founding principle. But exactly what is his presumed overcoming of an egological perspective? In this paper I would like to show the role of recognition in intersubjectivity in Hegel’s philosophy. My thesis is twofold: first, intersubjectivity, self-consciousness and recognition are quite distinct notions; second, self-consciousness is not the result of recognition, so that all attempts at grounding a universal self-consciousness on the Chapter on the struggle between lord and bondsman in the Phenomenology of Spirit cannot make good on their promise.