Recognition

On one reading, a master is master only through a slave's acknowledgment, yet only subjects can recognize, and he has made the slave a thing; hence his permanent dissatisfaction.

Put simply One reading of Hegel's master and slave: a master is a master only if a slave acknowledges him. But only a person can truly acknowledge anyone, and he has made the slave a thing. So he is never satisfied.

On one reading, through real labor, by reshaping the world with his own work, the slave makes himself into a subject; the one reduced to a thing acquires subjectivity.

Put simply One reading of Hegel's master and slave: by working on the world and reshaping it, the slave makes himself a person with a self of his own. The one treated as a thing becomes a subject.

Bernstein reads Hegel's master-slave dialectic as showing identity is never self-contained but always mediated by another's recognition; these dependencies are one of the things we find unbearable.

Put simply Bernstein's reading of Hegel's master and slave: no one's identity is self-contained; it always comes through being acknowledged by someone else. Depending on others like this is one of the things we find unbearable.

Nobody in the Phenomenology gets to be simply identical with themselves: identity is always mediated, handed to you through another's gaze, so no self stands on its own.

Put simply Hegel's Phenomenology: nobody can be who they are all by themselves. Your identity always reaches you through someone else, through how another person sees you, so no self stands on its own.

Kojève's Heidegger-steeped reading of Hegel, centered on master and slave, was, in Shore's view, a main conduit for Hegel into French existentialism, and into The Second Sex especially.

Put simply Shore: Kojève read Hegel through Heidegger, centering on Hegel's story of master and slave. In her view, that reading was a main route by which Hegel reached French existentialism, and The Second Sex above all.

Otherness, for Beauvoir, is built into thought, "as primordial as consciousness itself": no subject simply is who it is; each finds itself only against an Other.

Put simply Beauvoir: the idea of an "Other" is as basic as consciousness itself. Nobody simply is who they are on their own; each of us finds ourselves only by setting ourselves against someone else.

Kojève, reading Hegel, holds that a person counts as genuinely human, to himself as much as to others, only through recognition by others, ultimately by all of them.

Put simply Kojève, reading Hegel: you count as fully human, even in your own eyes, only when others acknowledge you, ultimately all of them. Hegel's word for this is "recognition."

The Second Sex, Shore observes, ends not in Hegelian reconciliation but in hope: reciprocal freedom is possible, never guaranteed, and only if people seize their own subjectivity.

Put simply Shore: The Second Sex ends not with Hegel's final reconciliation but with hope. Freedom on both sides is possible, never guaranteed, and only if people take charge of their own selves.

Conflict between the sexes can be overcome, Beauvoir thinks, if people take hold of their subjectivity: free, autonomous subjects could then recognize one another reciprocally, and with desire.

Put simply Beauvoir thinks conflict between the sexes can be overcome if people take charge of their own selves. Then free, independent people could acknowledge each other as equals, and with desire.

Sartre holds that genuine self-knowledge depends on being recognized by another subject; absent that acknowledgment, I cannot really know who I am.