Corporate Recognition: The Precarious Line Between Alienation and Flourishing

There is a forgotten conception of the corporation as a biological entity; a living creature; an organism. This talk will outline the articulation of this conception by philosophers such as Aristotle and Hegel for the purpose of discussing the recognition of corporations by the state. Recognition by the state, for example through incorporation, it will be shown, is continually held in a tension. Recognition facilitates a community's ability to retain a stable identity; but it can also act as arbitrary imposition, the state’s gaze forming the corporate forms it desires, so transforming social relations according to the state's own dispositions. This is the text of a talk given at the Melbourne Doctoral Forum on Legal Theory 2019 conference.