The Mediation: Taylor and the Politics of Recognition
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
Charles Taylor — whom we came to know as a defender of modernity against postmodernism — became the mediator between the two camps. His essay “The Politics of Recognition” (1992) showed how the communitarianism debate flows into a new question: the question of recognition.
Rawls’ liberalism is “difference-blind” — it treats all citizens equally, regardless of their cultural identity. But this, Taylor argues, is itself a particular cultural position — the position of those who can afford to abstract from their identity. For minorities whose identity is under threat, difference-blindness is a form of oppression.
The alternative: a politics of recognition. The liberal state must not only guarantee equal rights but also recognize cultural identities. This is not relativism — universal rights still exist. But these rights are realized concretely in different ways, depending on cultural context.
The connection to Hegel is obvious: recognition is the key concept. But Taylor historicizes Hegel: the demand for recognition has a history, it arose with modern democracy, and it takes on new forms today. Hegel described the structure — but not the end of the development.