What is it about?
In his last book, The Idea of Socialism, Honneth proposes a theorerical and practical re-actualization of socialism. Its main authors of reference, in this enterprise, are the proto-socialists (Owen, Blanc, Fourier, Proudhon); from them he derives the principle of fraternity that, together with the idea of social freedom, is central in his socialist proposal. In this paper I criticize Honneth's fraternity-based idea of socialism as excessively substantive, ethically-charged and antipluralistic, and propose an alternative to it: "socialism through convergence", STC.
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Why is it important?
The STC model I propose is immune to the excess of substantiality of Honneth's perspective, internally diverse and capable of accommodating difference; it, therefore, can be argued as more suitable to our modern, pluralistic societies.
Perspectives
The objections I present in my article are not aimed at denying the validity of Honneth's project, but, rather, are to be understood as possible contributions to the "experimental research" on the forms of a renewed socialism for which Honneth calls upon citizens and scholars.
Eleonora Piromalli
Universita degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza
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This page is a summary of: Does socialism need fraternity? On Axel Honneth’s The Idea of Socialism, European Journal of Political Theory, July 2017, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1474885117718431.
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