This research article investigates Axel Honneth’s social theory project that attempts to locate normative idea and practice on the basis of “struggle for recognition.” To do so, the research unfolds three issues. First, as shown by his The Critique of Power, the research reveals Honneth’s intellectual journey, which is a result of the reconsideration and revaluation of the idea of “the social” in the tradition of critical theory of the Frankfurt school and contemporary social theory of Michel Foucault and Jürgen Habermas. Second, the research describes that Honneth then proposes in The Struggle for Recognition his own social theory on idea and practice of recognition influenced by of Hegel’s early Jena writings. Third, the research illustrates that Honneth’s social theory leads to the explanation of the normative contents of recognition that contains its architectonics and patterns, including pathological side-effects that make recognition impossible.

Surat Khompot