The subject of this paper is the position of Thomas Hobbes within the history of the problem of social recognition and the theoretical legacy of his argument. My discussion will address the subject in four parts: (I) An introduction, designed to specify what I mean by “recognition” and how I distinguish a specific modern approach to this problem, beginning with Hobbes. (II) An attempt at a definition and analysis of the ground-breaking “Hobbesian model,” which formulated the question of recognition as a universal struggle for social prestige. (III). An overview of the afterlife of the Hobbesian model and the persistence of its anthropological presuppositions and assertions in a particular tradition of social thought, as exemplified by Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of “distinction” and his “economy of symbolic goods”. (IV) By way of conclusion, I will offer a balanced appraisal which highlights both the advantages as well as the limits of Hobbes’s model from a theoretical perspective.

Barbara Carnevali (EHESS, Paris)