"New Directions for a Critical Theory of Work: Reading Honneth Through Deranty"

by Boston, Timothy (2018)

Abstract

Axel Honneth?s theory of recognition has been criticised for presenting a deficient concept of work and the normative significance of work. In recent years Jean-Philippe Deranty, among others, has suggested that Honneth could overcome this deficiency by reintroducing into his mature theory the critical concept of work that first appeared in his 1977?1985 writings. My paper critically reconstructs and assesses Derantys position. I argue that Deranty has understated the extent to which his research direction diverges from Honneth?s. Rather than simply nuancing Honneth?s existing philosophical system, Deranty?s work exposes some of its conceptual limits and points beyond it.

Key Passage

Deranty draws on 40 years of empirical studies by Christophe Dejours, which have shown across multiple workplaces that regardless how detailed and precise the instructions given by management, or how insignificant the task involved, a worker is continually obliged to overcome abnormalities, breakdowns, glitches and other contingencies of the work process.This, for Dejours, suggests that in every work situation there is an “irreducible and inescapable gap” between the instructions given to a working subject and the actual activity that she or he will need to carry out in order to complete the assigned task. Dejours defines work as the overcoming of this gap, the task of the worker qua worker. Work, defined in this sense, demands the development and exercise of a particular kind of “practical intelligence”, the spontaneous, context-sensitive development of unprecedented strategies for completing a task. For Dejours, if workers automatically followed every rule and regulation imposed by management or by the machines with which they work, “production would grind to a halt”. From this, Deranty derives what he terms a “modest” account of the normative significance of workers’ demands for autonomy in their work. Deranty accepts that the ideal of artisanal work is unrealistic. However, the thesis it encapsulates, interpreted minimally, is that in work qua work, the subject is required to develop a uniquely human kind of context-specific practical intelligence, meaning that working is always to some small degree a kind of self-development. (p.116)

Keywords

Axel Honneth, Deranty, Normative Significance Of Work, Critical Theory Of Work, Frankfurt School Of Social Research

Themes

On Honneth, Critical Theory of Work

Links to Reference

• https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2018.1453287
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2018.1453287
• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14409917.2018.1453287?casa_token=6V5-rH7LCD0AAAAA:p4J5PSfK_q3znsGd9Kw7cj1ciadfy0kVBMhAqVnDgxfOiS6-IvKh-2ih00HjcMfKDIo-kQQM5iv_
• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14409917.2018.1453287?casa_token=W-_gjDnj8VcAAAAA:Wy-OVTKiKDdqCu7YaQu8-188eSr1WBTBq0W2npd4uZy3-sdBIbtHtgfDkeURTMQiJ_aGI6862Cjm

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