La non-réception du concept hégélien de reconnaissance chez les Jeunes hégéliens

This essay underscores the relevance of young Hegelianism by analyzing the reception of the Hegelian system by its contemporaries. Starting from the example of the concept of recognition, it seeks to explain why this concept, which is held today for one of Hegel’s foremost theoretical contributions, went unnoticed or was not deemed worthy of interest among authors who yet knew that system well. The article first surveys the meanings of the term Anerkennung in Hegel’s and the young Hegelians’ time with reference to Adelung’s and to the Grimm brothers’ dictionaries. In two further developments, it explores the uses of the term Anerkennung in Feurbach’s and Bruno Bauer’s works.