Individual Autonomy as Normative Promise and Outcome of Higher Education
Individual Autonomy as Normative Promise and Outcome of Higher Education

Summary/Abstract: This article suggests an explorative approach to the character and meaning of individual autonomy in higher education through a particular conception of social relations. Following Axel Honneth, a theoretical framework is outlined in which subjectivity and autonomy are results of underlying institutionalised relations of recognition in the forms of love, legal respect, and social esteem. It is argued that when higher education is seen as self-formation and as a field of relations of recognition due to its collegial, legal, and evaluative features, it is possible to conceive of its institutional environment as supportive or obstructive to recognition and, consequently, to the advancement of individual autonomy. Such a theoretical tool, based on Honneth’s recognition theory, could then translate into a critical instrument able to extend the understanding of what constitutes matters of individual autonomy in and across specific institutionalised contexts, including higher education.

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