Labor as Assumption of Reality: Milestones toward a Theory of Legitimation
Labor as Assumption of Reality: Milestones toward a Theory of Legitimation

Summary/Abstract: The present article presents a critical examination of Hobbes’ theory of social contract and of Hegel’s theory of recognition qua theories of legitimation of power. The analysis unfolds along four steps: from an examination of the premises of those theories, premises which consist in providing the foundations of the political power those theories aim to legitimize (section I), labor intended as an assumption of one’s own abilities as they are revealed in a trial which sets a division of labor emerges as the principle of economic and social organization (section II), which principle, in order to be politically legitimized, will have to be explained (section III) and represented (section IV).

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