Abstract

Honneth’s book, Freedom’s Right, is an ambitious attempt to give a critical Hegelian analysis of contemporary Western society. One of the key concepts that the book uses is social pathology. The concept has come under criticism, and this paper is concerned with clarifying the meaning of social pathology and engaging with its criticisms. My thesis is that the concept, as presented in Freedom’s Right, is coherent and valuable, but that it is lacking a robust causal account of how social pathologies arise. I develop such a causal account based on the category of “concept limitations", which is already present in Honneth’s book. I argue for my thesis by first clarifying the concept of social pathology beyond, but consistent with, what Honneth offers. I then develop the concept further in response to two prominent objections in the literature. The result is both a clearer and more defensible account of social pathology.