CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS article
Front. Sociol.
Sec. Sociological Theory
This article is part of the Research TopicRecognition and Critical Social ResearchView all 7 articles
Struggling over Recognition: Honneth, Political Resistance, and Violence
Provisionally accepted
- Ateneo de Davao University, Davao, Philippines
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This paper explores the extent to which recognition struggles can be considered as legitimate by looking into both their ends and means. It probes into the conditions why such political resistance is waged and whether or not violence is warranted as a necessary means to achieve legitimate political objectives. The paper argues that to make struggles for recognition legitimate, they should be motivated by a just cause such as experiences of oppression as is the case of misrecognition. To prevent accusations that such experiences of injustice are subjective, they have to pass the test of the publicity criterion. Meanwhile, although recognition struggles can become violent particularly in the context of political resistance, they need not be. Violence can be resorted to as a last resort but it has to be regulated by the principle of proportionality, meaning, the use of violence does not lead to more injustices. In the final analysis, violence has to be kept at the minimum because what defines a social protest or political resistance is not the use of violence but restraint and control.
Keywords: Just cause, Misrecognition, proportionlity, social conflict, Violence
Received: 27 Aug 2025; Accepted: 11 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Pilapil. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Renante Pilapil
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.