Recognizability and recognition as human—Learning from Butler and Manne

Judith Butler and Kate Manne shed, in different ways, doubt on the capacity of the recognition-paradigm to comprehend phenomena of crucial ethical and political importance: whereas Butler argues that deeper than recognition are “frames” in light of which individuals and groups appear as recognizable human beings at all, Manne argues that too much has been made of the capacity of the idea of being recognized as human or person to explain interhuman cruelty and violence. In short, for Butler there is something even more important than recognition that precedes it, whereas for Manne matters of vital (or lethal) importance happen after, or on top of, recognition. In my view both are pointing at crucially important issues, but I am more optimistic of the capacity of the notion of recognition to deal with them. I present an account of recognition as personification, which can both meet the challenges and unite the seemingly disparate views of the two authors as complementary perspectives to, and focussed on dialectically related aspects of, a whole. This whole is recognition, or lack thereof, of particular individuals and groups as full-fledged persons.