Hegel's “No” and “Yes” on the Question: Is Hegelian Recognition Second-Personal?

Abstract

This paper discusses a thesis put forward by Robert Stern. The thesis is that Hegel's conception of forgiveness should not be read as something in which the ethics of the second person is expressed. The paper develops an alternative reading of forgiveness that takes Stern's objections to a direct second personal approach of forgiveness seriously. Forgiveness is second-personal and we have the authority to forgive if we at the same time deny our individual standpoint as absolute. We thus get a concept of second-personal action which implies that the authority is grounded in society or the community and not in the person as an individual.