South African Journal of Philosophy

ISSN: 0258-0136 (Print) 2073-4867 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsph20

Intergenerational transmission of violence: Is

violence a pathology of intersubjective contact?

Ewa Latecka

To cite this article: Ewa Latecka (2019) Intergenerational transmission of violence: Is violence
a pathology of intersubjective contact?, South African Journal of Philosophy, 38:2, 189-202, DOI:
10.1080/02580136.2019.1615671

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02580136.2019.1615671

Published online: 22 Jul 2019.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 13

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rsph20
South African Journal of Philosophy 2019, 38(2): 189–202 Copyright © South African Journal of Philosophy
Printed in South Africa — All rights reserved
S O U T H A F R I C A N J O U R NA L
O F P H I LO S O P H Y
ISSN 0258-0136 EISSN 2073-4867
https://doi.org/10.1080/02580136.2019.1615671

Intergenerational transmission of violence: Is violence a pathology

of intersubjective contact?

Ewa Latecka
Department of Philosophy and Applied Ethics, University of Zululand, KwaDlangezwa, South Africa
LateckaE@unizulu.ac.za

In this article, I look at violence as a pathology of the intersubjective contact. In

particular, I claim that one possible explanation of violence is lack of recognition on a
societal, intersubjective level. I propose an explanation based on Honneth’s concept of
struggle for recognition and Merleau-Ponty’s account of intersubjectivity. The article
takes the following course: I first give a short outline of the concept of intergenerational
transmission of violence, as understood by psychology at the level of an individual,
followed by a brief presentation a summary of sociological research on the concept.
Then, I proceed with a discussion of Honneth’s three modes of recognition, viz. love,
rights, and solidarity, as modes of intersubjective contact, leading to the development
of self-confidence, self-respect, and self-esteem. I claim that the lack of these kinds
of recognition leads to the decrease in confidence and trust and consequently to
abusive behaviour, that it affects social integrity and brings about the destruction
of social functions, and that it results in an individual and a society which have
lost their “honour” and dignity. Finding his account of intersubjectivity lacking in
its philosophical aspect, I complement Honneth’s account of intersubjectivity with
that of Merleau-Ponty, based in his understanding of the intertwining of the subject
and the world and the reversible contact between and among subjects within the
world. Considering the negative effects of misrecognition as described by Honneth,
in the light of Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of intersubjective contacts among
subjects, I conclude that a country where all three modes of recognition have been
disturbed houses a society lacking self-confidence, self-respect, and self-esteem, and
consequently shows all the signs of Honneth’s forms of disrespect, i.e. abuse and
rape, denial of rights and exclusion, as well as denigration and insult, all of which are
forms of intergenerationally transmitted violence.

Introduction
In this article, I look at violence as a pathology1 of the intersubjective contact. I claim that one
possible explanation of violence is the lack of recognition on a societal, intersubjective level. I
propose an explanation based on Honneth’s concept of struggle for recognition and Merleau-Ponty’s
account of intersubjectivity. Moreover, I assert that, considering such an account, violence can be
described as a direct consequence of lack of mutual recognition, i.e. the fact that members of the
society have been deprived of the appreciation, acknowledgement, and emotional support which a
human being within a society both needs and deserves.
This article takes the following course. In order to substantiate the claim, I first briefly present
psychological claims that “violence begets violence” (Widom 1989a, 3), and that a child raised
in an abusive environment is likely to resort to violence. What follows is a short discussion of
1 English Oxford Living Dictionaries defines pathology as “The science of the causes and effects of diseases”, but allows the following
non-medical use of the term “usually with modifier mental, social, or linguistic abnormality or malfunction”. Likewise, Merriam Webster
generally defines pathology as “something abnormal”, but specifically allows for the following definition: “deviation giving rise to
social ills”. I apply these definitions when I speak of pathology and social pathology.

South African Journal of Philosophy is co-published by NISC (Pty) Ltd and Informa UK Limited (trading as Taylor & Francis Group)
190 Latecka

sociological research on the applicability of the theory of intergenerational transmission of violence

to groups and societies rather than just individuals.
Having established such a theoretical connection, I support my claim by introducing Axel
Honneth’s theory of recognition. I proceed with a discussion of Honneth’s three modes of
recognition, viz. love, rights, and solidarity, as modes of intersubjective contact, leading to the
development of self-confidence, self-respect, and self-esteem. In his theory, Honneth juxtaposes
forms of recognition such as love, rights, and solidarity to forms of disrespect, such as abuse,
denial of rights, and denigration and insult. I claim that lack of recognition leads to the decrease in
confidence and trust and consequently to abusive behaviour, that it affects social integrity and brings
about the destruction of social functions, and that it results in an individual and a society which have
lost their “honour” and dignity.
Finding Honneth’s description of intersubjectivity lacking, in that it only considers interpersonal
intersubjective contact as part of a normative theory of self-formation, I complement his
account of intersubjectivity with that of Merleau-Ponty. I introduce Merleau-Ponty’s existential-
phenomenological explanation of embodied intersubjective contact, seeking further clarification of
the apparent societal pathology in his understanding of the intertwining of the subject and the world
and the reciprocal, societal contact among subjects within the world.
Considering the negative effects of misrecognition as described by Honneth and the identity-
forming power of the embodied intersubjective contacts among subjects presented by Merleau-
Ponty, I conclude that a society where all three modes of recognition have been disturbed is a
society lacking self-confidence, self-respect, and self-esteem, and consequently shows all the signs
of Honneth’s forms of disrespect, i.e. abuse and rape, denial of rights and exclusion, as well as
denigration and insult, all of which are forms of generationally transmitted violence. Thus, I claim
violence may indeed be viewed as a pathology of intersubjective contact.

Psychology on intergenerational transmission of violence

The claim that violence stems from the past experiences of an individual is not new. This section
aims to show how individual-on-individual abuse may result in intergenerational transmission
of violence. To this end, I resort to a brief analysis of psychological research on the topic. First,
I present the early, intuitive references to the possibility of the effect of childhood abuse on the
behaviour of the future adult. Then, I proceed to outline the later, thoroughly researched and
statistically substantiated, claims regarding such a consequence, leading to the introduction of
the terms “intergenerational transmission of violence” and “cycle of violence” used in this paper
interchangeably. I finally show how some authors make a tentative reference to the importance of
intersubjectivity, thus justifying the passage to a multi-personal, sociological understanding of the
cycle of violence.
Psychologists have theorised (see Fagan 2005) that there is a relationship between a violent,
abusive home and the future violence of the adult growing up in such an environment. Curtis (1963,
386) provides the first, tentative mention of such a connection, stating that those abused in childhood
“become tomorrow’s murderers and perpetrators of other crimes of violence, if they survive”.
Further studies (see Widom 1989b; Brezina 1998; Thornberry, Ireland and Smith 2001; Marková
2003; Fagan 2005) corroborate the hypothesis. The “intergenerational transmission of violence” (see
Widom 1989b) is also referred to as the “cycle of violence theory” and it “predicts that maltreated
children are at increased risk for engaging in crime, particularly violent offenses” (Fagan 2005,
279).
Widom (1989b) claims that the scope of use of the terms “cycle of violence” and “intergenerational
transmission of violence” is rather broad, incorporating a variety of situations. She specifically
states that
[s]ome writers refer exclusively to the hypothesized relation between abuse as a child and
abuse as a parent. Others focus on the relations between child abuse and neglect and later
delinquent, adult criminal, or violent behaviours (Widom 1989b, 160).
She further provides statistical data from which it follows that “[i]n comparison to controls, abused
South African Journal of Philosophy 2019, 38(2): 189–202 191

and neglected children overall have more arrests as juvenile (26 versus 17%), and more arrests for
any violent offense (11 versus 8%)” (Widom 1989b, 162). Interestingly, though, those who have
begun criminal activity as juveniles, whether they hail from the abused and neglected group or not,
are more likely to continue the activity in adulthood, regardless of their childhood past (Widom
1989b). Despite this one lack of differentiation between the abused and non-abused groups, she still
finds that
[e]arly childhood victimization has demonstrable long-term consequences for delinquency,
adult criminality, and violent criminal behaviour. The results reported here provide strong
support for the cycle of violence hypothesis. The experience of child abuse and neglect
has a substantial impact even on individuals with otherwise little likelihood of engaging in
officially recorded criminal behaviour (Widom 1989b, 164).
For physical abuse, the correlation was very strong even “when other demographic variables such
as age, sex, and race were held constant”, and similarly, childhood neglect also showed a strong
correlation to future criminal behaviour under the same conditions (Widom 1989b, 164). While she
does admit the correlation between child neglect and abuse and future delinquency or criminality,
she makes it clear that the results of her study do not point to the inevitability of such behaviour in
the future, but merely account for the fact that experiencing abuse and neglect as a child places the
individual at increased risk of future antisocial behaviour (Widom 1989b).
Marková (2003) provides grounds for the possibility of such an effect of societal conditions on
the individual’s development and future behaviour. She draws from psychological theories of James
Mark Baldwin, George Herbert Mead, and Lev Vygotsky. According to Marková, these theories
point to the importance of the intersubjective contact in affecting the subject’s growth. She claims
that
[p]sychological theories of the self and self-consciousness are built on the idea that Ego
and Alter are in a relationship with one another – and that through this mutuality they
co-develop. Baldwin’s, Mead’s and Vygotsky’s concepts of the “dialectic of social growth”,
“conversation of gestures” and “inter- and intra-psychological processes”, respectively, all
express the idea that the mechanism of knowing oneself and the mechanism for knowing
others are one and the same (Marková 2003, 250; emphasis in original).
The selected views, presented above, all consider the influence of familial abuse, violence or neglect
on the individual, and her future possible behaviour. They also, albeit tentatively, point to a broader,
multi-personal (i.e. intersubjective) aspect of their claims. However, the psychological research does
not state whether a similar concept can be found applicable to societies or whether a society can be
traumatised/violated/abused to such an extent that it will become an abusive society itself, similar
to an abused child becoming an abuser. The question of whether intergenerational transmission
of violence is possible in societies or, in other words, whether societies equally can be abused and
neglected and then enter a repeated cycle of violence is answered below.

Sociology on intergenerational transmission of violence

Despite a conclusive statement that abuse at an early age contributes to the future violent acts
committed by the abused individual, it still remains to be seen whether a similar relationship can
be observed in societies. The question which this section answers is whether intergenerational
transmission of violence theories are applicable in a societal context. In order to achieve this
objective, I first look at research on the general aggression model and establish that, while not
stating the relationship between abuse and future violence explicitly, it is suggestive of the role
abuse in a society plays regarding future abusive societal acts. Then, I proceed to discuss the social
learning theory, which refers to family as a source of learning and thus views a violent family as
a source of the learning of violence by individuals within that family. A number of authors argue
that this theory is generalisable to whole societies. I conclude that intergenerational transmission of
violence is indeed a concept which can be applied to societies. However, these sociological theories
fail to show the nature of the relationship that leads to the transmission of violence. In order to
192 Latecka

bridge this gap, I move to further philosophical discussion of intergenerational transmission of

violence in terms of Honneth’s theory of recognition understood as intersubjective contact.
DeWall, Anderson, and Bushman (2011, 247) assert that intergroup violence is common, in that
“[i]n the 40 years after the end of World War II, there were roughly 150 wars and only 26 days of
world peace (defined as the absence of international war)”. In their analysis of the general aggression
model (GAM), these authors provide for a connection between the experience of violence by an
individual and violent interactions between groups of individuals. They state that
[f]rom a socio-ecological perspective, understanding intergroup violence begins with
understanding the individual within the group, then understanding that individual’s
relationships with others inside and outside the group, and finally understanding the group’s
relationship within society (DeWall, Anderson, and Bushman 2011, 249).
Further, they engage in a discussion of a number of theories, finally pointing to the advantage of the
GAM over many others. For example, they state that
[a]ccording to social learning theory, intergroup violence occurs in large part because
members of a group are exposed to violence that taught them to solve group conflict through
behaving violently. Unlike GAM, social learning theory does not emphasize the importance
of personal factors that enhance or diminish the effect of exposure to violence on subsequent
group violent behaviour. (ibid.).
Finally, the authors analyse the GAM and conclude that, while most theories explaining aggression
focus on individual-on-individual violent behaviour, they do not provide, however, a reasonable
elucidation of group-on-group aggression nor do they clarify why such aggression continues
(DeWall, Anderson, and Bushman 2011). On the other hand, the GAM
incorporates the best perspectives of these theoretical models, addresses their limitations,
and as a result provides researchers with a strong theoretical framework from which to
understand intergroup violence…GAM’s feedback loop also explains why aggressive
retaliations between groups persist. Once conflict between two groups begins, the violence
escalation is triggered (DeWall, Anderson, and Bushman 2011, 248, 249).
In this way, the GAM also draws attention to retaliation among groups as the factor leading to a
social cycle of violence (DeWall, Anderson, and Bushman 2011).
Similarly, Lawson (2012, 573; emphasis in original) draws on a number of theories and indicates
that
[t]he unique perspective of sociology is the treatment of violence as a function of social
structures as opposed to individual pathology…[A] few overarching theories are used by
sociologists to understand violence, each of which seeks to explain violence as a function
of social structures and systems. These broad sociological theories include strain theory,
which suggests that social structures and relationships produce frustrations that cause some
people to react with violence; social disorganization theory, which posits that physical
factors in the neighbourhood environment cause social conditions that create criminal
behaviour, including violence; and benefit theory, which proposes that violence occurs
when social costs are low and, therefore, the benefits of violence outweigh the costs…As
these fundamental theories demonstrate, the sociological perspective looks at social, not
individual, causes of violence.
While the theories do not directly refer to abused or neglected societies, they mention ‘social
conditions’, ‘strain’, etc. suggestive of societal abuse and, similarly, societal cycles of violence.
Likewise, Mihalic and Elliott (1997, 21, 26) invoke the social learning theory of Bandura (1973;
1976) to account for social violence in relationships, appreciating how the theory can apply to
individuals. The authors state that
South African Journal of Philosophy 2019, 38(2): 189–202 193

[s]ocial learning theory is one of the most popular explanatory perspectives in the marital
violence literature. When applied to the family, social learning theory states that we model
behaviour that we have been exposed to as children. Violence is learned, through role
models provided by the family (parents, siblings, relatives, and boyfriends/girlfriends),
either directly or indirectly, and reinforced in childhood and continued in adulthood as a
coping response to stress or a method of conflict resolution (Mihalic and Elliott 1997, 21;
emphasis added).

The authors further emphasise the generalisability of this theory in that it also caters for the
explanation of how modelling behaviour may result in a repetition of violent patterns in societies
too. They point out that
[a] key element of social learning theory concerns its generalizability. Is the learning of
aggressive behaviours restricted to particular contexts and targets?…Kalmuss…found
evidence to support both generalizability and role-specificity. Others have investigated this
issue and found that learning and modelling violence is generalizable across settings and
targets (Mihalic and Elliott 1997, 26).
Considering the short discussion above, I can state that sociological research indicates that, on
the one hand, violence is socially learned and that, on the other, intergenerational transmission of
violence pertains both to individuals and societies. However, it is still unclear what the nature of
the connection among members of society is such that it generates the transmission of violence. I
thus resort to a philosophical discussion of intergenerational transmission of violence in terms of
Honneth’s theory of recognition, understood as intersubjective contact between individuals forming
societies.

Honneth – intersubjectivity, recognition, self-formation, and misrecognition

As pointed out in the sections above, both on individual and societal level it is impossible to engage
in research related to violence without not only acknowledging, but also taking into account the
social nature of human beings. However, psychological and sociological research does not account
for the nature of the violence-producing relationship. It is with clarifying this issue that my
philosophical discussion of intergenerational transmission of violence will make use of Honneth’s
theory of recognition, thus bringing to the fore the social intersubjective contact.
In the discussion of Honneth’s theory of recognition below, I shall clarify how intersubjectivity is
understood in his writing. I shall then present Honneth’s understanding of recognition as a conditio
sine qua non for self-formation, finally moving to the role of misrecognition in creating a state of
“intersubjective vulnerability” (Deranty 2009, 386) responsible for intergenerational transmission
of violence. However, I shall also point out the shortcomings of Honneth’s theory, in that he focuses
on the interpersonal intersubjective contact, without attending to its embodied nature. The discovery
of this deficiency requires a further step, viz. the complementing of Honneth’s theory with Merleau-
Ponty’s theory of intersubjectivity.
Joel Anderson, in the introduction to The Struggle for Recognition, gives the following definition
of intersubjectivity in relation to the self,
one’s relationship to oneself…is not a matter of a solitary ego appraising itself, but an
intersubjective process, in which one’s attitude towards oneself emerges in one’s encounter
with an other’s attitude toward oneself (Anderson 1995, xii).
Munroe (2007) adds to this definition of intersubjectivity as a relationship with another human
being,
[i]ntersubjectivity refers to a shared perception of reality between or among two or more
individuals. The term has been important in many aspects of sociology, from positivist
and post positivist research methods to studies of the lived experiences of individuals…
(Munroe 2007, 2400).
194 Latecka

But Honneth is critical of academic sociology in that, while it does acknowledge the social context
in the rise of violence in societies, it does not give due credit to the existence of “moral disrespect”
and its role in raising social anger. He says,
within academic sociology, the internal connection that often holds between the emergence
of social movements and the moral experience of disrespect has, to a large extent, been
theoretically severed at the start. The motives for rebellion, protest, and resistance have
generally been transformed into categories of “interest”, and these interests are supposed to
emerge from the objective inequalities in the distribution of material opportunities without
ever being linked, in any way, to the everyday web of moral feelings (Honneth 1995, 161).
Honneth further argues for a philosophy of “ethical bonds” among subjects, and states that
[e]very philosophical theory of society must proceed not from the acts of isolated subjects,
but rather from the framework of ethical bonds, within which subjects always already move.
Thus, contrary to atomistic theories of society, one is to assume, as a kind of natural basis for
human socialisation, a situation in which elementary forms of intersubjective coexistence
are always present (Honneth 1995, 14).
These statements clarify Honneth’s further approach where he perceives social struggle as struggle
for recognition and not just struggle for the fulfilment of group interests, viewed in purely material
terms.
Honneth (1992; 1995) provides a theory of recognition in which he argues that the need for
mutual recognition is that which necessarily underpins the development of a subject’s identity.
Thus, by extrapolation, the need for recognition can equally be considered a conditio sine qua non
for the existence of societies and, in this sense, it also initialises the struggle by humans for such
recognition. Importantly for the claim of this paper regarding the intergenerational transmission of
violence, for Honneth (2007, 72), such a theory has to focus not only on recognition itself, but also
on “the distortion of social relations of recognition”, thus giving grounds for the consideration of
misrecognition as a founding factor for societal anger.
In The Struggle for Recognition, Honneth (1995) outlines an interrelation between the modes of
recognition, the dimension of personality which they affect, the forms which they take, the potential
which they create for the development of the self, the aspect of the practical relation-to-self, then
moves to forms of disrespect and the component of personality which they threaten.
For Honneth (1992; 1995; 2007), love is a primary parent-child relationship, which entails mutual
trust and, through a process of differentiation between the two subjects, recognition. By extrapolation,
Honneth applies this concept of relationships to friendship and trust among adult subjects. In terms
of basic relation-to-self, recognition of this kind gives rise to basic self-confidence. However, lack
of this kind of recognition, as we shall see later, leads to a decrease in confidence and trust, and,
consequently, to abusive behaviour. Rights, on the other hand, stem from recognition of the subject
as capable of making legal claims based in moral responsibility, leading to the development of
self-respect. Since exclusion and denial of rights result in lack of self-respect, they therefore affect
social integrity and may result in the destruction of social functions. Finally, solidarity (or, in other
words, recognition of a subject as a member of a community of value) accounts for the subject’s
self-esteem. When this is taken away through insult and denigration, the result is an individual
and a society which has lost its “honour” and dignity, the core of the individual and societal moral
compass (see also Varga and Gallagher 2012).
All these aspects are important factors in the development of the self. As Honneth (1995, 163)
puts it,
[t]aken together, the three forms of recognition – love, rights, and esteem – constitute the
social conditions under which human subjects can develop a positive attitude towards
themselves. For it is only due to the cumulative acquisition of basic self-confidence, of
self-respect, and of self-esteem – provided, one after another, by the experience of those
three forms of recognition – that a person can come to see himself or herself, unconditionally,
South African Journal of Philosophy 2019, 38(2): 189–202 195

as both an autonomous and an individual being and to identify with his or her goals and
desires.

One is a real self only if all the modes of recognition take place, through their respective forms of
recognition (Honneth 1995, also see Deranty 2009; Varga and Gallagher 2012).
The formation of the self in its subjectivity, for Honneth, depends solely on the attitudes directed
towards the emerging subject by others. As Deranty (2009, 357) puts it, “the subject can learn to
relate to herself only by integrating the normative expectations and attitudes that others direct at
her”.
However, such dependence has its disadvantage in that, as Deranty (2009, 357) claims, “the
subject…is formed in conditions of extreme vulnerability”. Since the conditions under which the
formation of self takes place determine the type of self that is formed, then such vulnerability makes
the nascent self easily affected by negative influences through forms of disrespect (Honneth 1995),
i.e. abuse, exclusion through denial of rights, as well as insult and denigration.
Further following Deranty’s thoughts on “intersubjective vulnerability” (Deranty 2009, 386),
we see “[t]the notion of intersubjective angst, by highlighting the subject’s vulnerability to the
social context” as “the key to a new social-psychological diagnosis aiming to explain political
deformations”. While Deranty points here to “political deformations” only, he makes it clear that
resulting from the “intersubjective vulnerability” (Deranty 2009) is the struggle for recognition
which “erupts over denials of recognition that potentially touch all dimensions of subjectivity and
can be expressed in any number of ways (through verbal, but also direct physical, or other, more
symbolic or hidden forms of aggression)” (Deranty 2009, 205).
In a similar vein, Sandberg and Kubiak (2013, 353) state that “[i]ndividuals are also at risk of
misrecognition, disrespect or non-recognition”, in extreme cases taking the form of violence, denial
of rights, and the destruction of “processes of mutuality”, leading to the collapse of the identity of
the subject.
Honneth (1995, 165) argues that “personal integrity” and, following from it, behaviour in
accordance with social norms is impossible unless the subject receives recognition, indispensable
for the development of self-confidence, self-respect, and self-esteem (see also Pilapil 2011; 2012).
According to Honneth (1995, 133–134), misrecognition leads to the subjects’ “psychological
death” and “social death”. In Honneth’s own words,
as their consciouness of their individuality grows, they come to depend to an ever-increasing
extent on the conditions of recognition they are afforded by the life-world of their social
environment. That particular human vulnerability signified by the concept of “disrespect”
arises from this interlocking of individuation and recognition. Since…every individual
is dependent on the possibility of constant reassurance by the Other, the experience of
disrespect poses the risk of an injury that can cause the identity of the entire person to
collapse (Honneth 1992, 189).
If this is the case, such a collapse of identity resulting from disrespect may lead to acts of violence
and thus the perpetuation of misrecognition. Further, bearing in mind Honneth’s claim that social
movements must be viewed in terms of recognition and not interests, acts of violence perpetrated
by individuals or even social groups whose interests have seemingly been met are obviously in a
botched form a continuing struggle for recognition on both individual and group level, and thus
stem from a pathology of intersubjective contact.
However, Honneth’s theory has its deficiencies. It is a normative theory, whose intersubjectivity
is of a down-to-earth, practical, sociopolitical type, without recourse to its embodied nature. His
“exclusive focus on interpersonal exchange” (Deranty 2009, 464) leaves no place for the bodily
aspect of the intersubjective contact and thus of identity formation. In this respect, the combination
of Honneth’s theory of recognition with Merleau-Ponty’s account of intersubjectivity, as presented
below, can be extremely fruitful.
A combination of the philosophies of Merleau-Ponty and Honneth for the philosophical explication
of a particular phenomenon, violence in our case, is not common. The choice of such a merger
196 Latecka

does nevertheless find some confirmation in Jean-Paul Deranty’s commentaries on Honneth’s

work. Deranty states that, while Honneth is interested primarily in a normative theory, he does not
perceive his subject as separate from other subjects and brings in “more consequent intersubjectivist
approaches to subjectivation” (Deranty 2009, 73), evidenced by Honneth grounding his approach to
subjectivity in the theories of self-formation of Mead and Winnicott. This approach is significant in
Honneth’s perception of the development of the self, “showing the dependency of the formation of
subjectivity upon intersubjective relations” (Deranty 2009, 194, see also 275ff.).
Deranty further points out that for Honneth the creation of the self is not only completely
reliant on the recognition which it receives from the society, but in fact is entailed in the notion
of self-realisation which for Honneth “refers first of all to the ontological possibility of subjective
identity before the ethical notion of good life” (Deranty 2009, 275). Thus, such socially based
self-realisation does not originate in a psychological need alone. Importantly, it follows from an
ontological one (see Sandberg and Kubiak 2013).
Deranty (2009, 449) claims that for Honneth
[i]ntersubjective dependency is not just the genetic condition of identity formation and
individual autonomy; it does not just undergird the process of individual needs-formation…
intersubjective dependency is more fundamentally the quasi-metaphysical condition of any
access to the world at all (Deranty 2009, 449).
Honneth himself states that
contrary to atomistic theories of society, one is to assume, as a kind of natural basis for
human socialisation, a situation in which elementary forms of intersubjective coexistence
are always present (Honneth 1995, 14).
While Honneth’s theory of recognition achieves the explanation of intersubjectivity through
presenting the intersubjective interpersonal contact, Merleau-Ponty provides for this at the level
of embodied, reciprocal participation in the world. I therefore complement Honneth’s theory by
applying Merleau-Ponty’s theory of intersubjectivity in order to achieve a complete philosophical
model, capable of explaining intergenerational transmission of violence.

Merleau-Ponty and intersubjectivity

With the aim of complementing Honneth’s account of the intersubjective contact in order to better
explain the cycle of violence, I shall present Merleau-Ponty’s approach to intersubjectivity. Starting
with situated subjectivity, I shall then move to Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of Being, the body,
bodily comprehension or “the perceiving body”, and finally, the relationship of the body to the
world and through it to the Other, thus providing the final element of the new philosophical model
for the explanation of intergenerational transmission of violence.
In this paper, intersubjectivity is understood as a relationship with the Other, in its
socio-philosophical and not psychoanalytic meaning. Without establishing explicitly not only that
a human being is in an intersubjective relationship with the Other, but also how she is in such a
relationship, it is impossible to address the issue at hand, i.e. the question of violence. Merleau-
Pontian existential phenomenology suits this dual purpose in that on the one hand it establishes
the relationship of the individual with the Other and the world, while on the other it elucidates the
manner in which this happens.
Relations of the subject with the world and relations among subjects are, explicitly and implicitly,
the core of Merleau-Ponty’s work.2 Merleau-Ponty departs from the philosophical notion of
subjectivity understood as a reflective awareness of the content of consciousness. He argues for
a self which is an embodied subject, i.e. a subjectivity through the perceiving and perceived body
(Merleau-Ponty 1962; see also Schertz 2007). As we shall see later in this section, this reciprocal,

2 It is prudent to note here that contrary to early comments by for example Kwant (1964, cited in Kwant 1989) considering Merleau-Ponty’s
later work as a complete break from his early work, I tread Merleau-Ponty’s oeuvre as a whole, a position supported by for example Barral
(1969), Dillon (1983), Matthews (2002), or Moran (2013).
South African Journal of Philosophy 2019, 38(2): 189–202 197

intersubjective relation among the body subjects in the world is the factor which allows for the
complete explanation of intergenerational transmission of violence.
Merleau-Ponty’s project, like those of Sartre, Heidegger, and other philosophers of the existential
and existential-phenomenological leaning, is thus not to grapple with the structures of consciousness,
but with the very nature of Being. He defines it as follows in The Visible and the Invisible (Merleau-
Ponty 1968, 253),
[w]hat I want to do is restore the world as a meaning of Being absolutely different from the
“represented”, that is, as the vertical Being which none of the “representations” exhaust and
which all “reach” the wild Being.
Further, he clarifies his notion of Being as that in which a conflation of the objective and
the subjective takes place in an unending act of dispersal and convergence in the medium of
uncontrollable freedom. In his own words,
[b]eing is the “place” where the “modes of consciousness” are inscribed as structurations
of Being (a way of thinking oneself within a society is implied in its social structure),
and where the structurations of Being are modes of consciousness. The in itself-for-itself
integration takes place not in the absolute consciousness, but in the Being in promiscuity.
The perception of the world is formed in the world, the test for truth takes place in Being
(Merleau-Ponty 1968, 253).
The core of Being is the state of flux, the “wild Being” (Merleau-Ponty 1968). The players in the
state of flux which is Being are bodily subjects-in-the-world, enacting the perception of the world,
in the world, through the body, in an activity which is not in time but of and about time.
Merleau-Ponty rejects the concept of the body and consciousness as separate entities, with the
body presented as a mere machine. He says that
[t]he body’s animation is not the assemblage or juxtaposition of its parts. Nor is it a question
of a mind or spirit coming down from somewhere else into an automaton; this would still
suppose that the body itself is without an inside and without a “self”. There is a human body
when, between the seeing and the seen, between touching and the touched, between one eye
and the other, between hand and hand, a blending of some sort takes place – when the spark
is lit between sensing and sensible, lighting the fire that will not stop burning until some
accident of the body will undo what no accident would have sufficed to do… (Merleau-
Ponty 1964a, 163–164).
This “blending” occurs in a place where
[i]n every focusing movement my body unites present, past and future, it secretes time, or
rather it becomes that location in nature where, for the first time, events, instead of pushing
each other into the realm of being, project round the present a double horizon of past and
future and acquire a historical orientation. There is here indeed the summoning, but not
the experience, of an eternal natura naturans. My body takes possession of time; it brings
into existence a past and a future for a present; it is not a thing, but creates time instead of
submitting to it…The person who, in sensory exploration, gives a past to the present and
directs it towards a future, is not myself as an autonomous subject, but myself in so far as I
have a body and am able to “look” (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 239–240).
It is through this time-possessing, time-creating, and onto-the-world-looking body, that the seeming
chaos of the unification of the past, present, and future is brought to order in the body’s perception,
comprehension, and expression.
For Merleau-Ponty, the body is a “perceiving thing”.
My body is the…the very actuality of the phenomenon of expression…My body is the fabric
into which all objects are woven, and it is, at least in relation to the perceived world, the
general instrument of my “comprehension” (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 235).
198 Latecka

The “comprehension” results from the body’s ontological sense which is the reversibility of the
“touching oneself” and “the touching” or, as Merleau-Ponty (1968, 255) puts it, the “negativity that
inhabits the touch”, a negativity understood as opposing otherness. If this were not to happen, the
embodied contact with the world would cease. In other words,
[t]o touch is to touch oneself. To be understood as, the things are the prolongation of my
body and my body is the prolongation of the world, through it the world surrounds me – If I
cannot touch my own movement, this movement is entirely woven out of contacts with me
– The touching oneself and the touching have to be understood as each the reverse of the
other – The negativity that inhabits the touch (and which I must not minimize, it is because
of it that the body is not an empirical fact, that it has an ontological signification) (Merleau-
Ponty 1968, 255).
This thought is further developed into the concept of the body as a “perceiving thing”, a “subject-
object” where consciousness and body are one, and “[t]he perceiving mind is an incarnated mind”
(Merleau-Ponty 1964a, 3–4). He states this contra philosophies which view perception as the
consequence of physical, external action on the body or those which view consciousness as purely
internal (Merleau-Ponty 1964a). In this way, he also establishes the grounds for the understanding
of the contact with the Other, in that
[t]hus I touch myself touching; my body accomplishes “a sort of reflection”. In it, through
it, there is not just the unidirectional relationship of the one who perceives to what he
perceives. The relationship is reversed, the touched hand becomes the touching hand, and I
am obliged to say that the sense of touch here is diffused into the body – that the body is a
“perceiving thing”, a “subject-object” (Merleau-Ponty 1964b, 166).
The reversible contact with the world is the key to Merleau-Ponty’s explanation of our perception
and comprehension of the Other. As such, it is also the key to the understanding of the cycle of
violence and thus also the understanding of violence as a pathology of intersubjective contact.
The certainty of the other person’s existence and the intersubjective contact are confirmed
through intercorporeality, through the “compresence” (a relationship of togetherness among and
between subjects-in-the-world rather than the Platonic simultaneous co-existence of opposites in
concrete things) of the other person alike to the “compresence” of my own two hands. “The other
person appears through an extension of that compresence; he and I are like organs of one single
intercorporeality” (Merleau-Ponty 1964b, 168).
The world, with my body in it and as part of it, is always present. From this presence, it follows
that we are not only in a constant entanglement with the world, but ,as part of it, also with the Other.
In other words, it is from this intertwining condition that my understanding of the other arises. In
the words of Merleau-Ponty, “[we] are caught up in the world and we do not succeed in extricating
ourselves from it in order to achieve consciousness of the world” (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 5).
The interrelation between my body as a “perceiving thing” and the world is thus a conditio
sine qua non of the intersubjective relation. The Other, like I, is enmeshed in the world. Since we
are both in and of the world, we are both the “perceiver” and the “perceived” without losing our
subjectivity. We both perceive bodily through our mutual immersion in the world. Our experience
is a relationship to the world such that through it we can perceive the consciousness of the other.
As long as it adheres to my body like the tunic of Nessus, the world exists not only for
me but for everyone in it who makes gestures toward it…I perceive behaviour immersed
in the same world as I because the world I perceive still trails with it my corporeality.
My perception is…from the world to me, an impact, and from me to the world, a catch
(Merleau-Ponty 1973, 137).
This “tunic of Nessus” closeness and inseparability of the world from me and me from the world
allows for my perception of the Other, equally situated in-the-world as I am.
South African Journal of Philosophy 2019, 38(2): 189–202 199

[T]here would not be others or other minds for me, if I did not have a body and if they had
no body through which they slip into my field, multiplying it from within, and seeming to
me prey to the same world, oriented to the same world as I (Merleau-Ponty 1973, 138).

The actions of the Other are as much in-the-world as mine. They are comprehensible to me as
those of a towards-the-world, embodied, communicating consciousness and not through an “act
of intellectual interpretation” (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 185–186). Further exploring the notion of
co-perceiving and thus co-being, Merleau-Ponty says that
[b]etween my consciousness and my body as I experience it, between this phenomenal body
of mine and that of another as I see it from the outside, there exists an internal relation which
causes the other to appear as the completion of a system…In reality, the other is not shut up
in my perception of the world, because this perception itself has no definite limits, because it
slips spontaneously into the other’s and because both are brought together in the one single
world in which we all participate as anonymous objects of perception (Merleau-Ponty 1962,
352–353),
adding further that we are “collaborators with each other in consummate reciprocity” (Merleau-
Ponty 1962, 354).
The account of Merleau-Ponty’s approach to intersubjectivity, culminating in the relationship
of one “perceiving body” to another, allows for what Merleau-Ponty (1962, 354) describes as the
“consummate reciprocity” of the intersubjective and intercorporeal relationship with the Other. It is
this “consummate reciprocity” that first allows for what Honneth sees as the recognition of the Other
as a fellow human being. It is the same reciprocal relation that when resulting in misrecognition may
lead to violence rather than gentility and collaboration.

The “hybrid model” and the cycle of violence

Having provided the final element of the new philosophical model, the hybrid of Honneth’s and
Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of intersubjective contact and its role in identity formation, I
move to the final task of demonstrating how this model elucidates the issue of intergenerational
transmission of violence.
Merleau-Ponty generally avoids direct “practical” examples of the effect which a person’s lived
world and the relations to others in the lived world have on the subject. A rare instance is the
situation described in “The child’s relations with others”, an essay in the Primacy of Perception
(Merleau-Ponty 1964b). In brief, Merleau-Ponty describes the result of a disruption of a child’s
lived world by the arrival of two new children in the family, a somewhat older cousin and a younger
sibling. The effect of this is observable in the child’s behaviour, in particular its ability to situate
itself in time. In Merleau-Ponty’s (1964b, 109) words, a “phenomenon of identification” has taken
place. There is constant interaction between the person and her lived world, including the contact
with the Other as part of this world (society), and thus the person’s being-in-the-world determines
her identity.
This brief example allows us to notice how the two philosophers’ descriptions of identity
formation through intersubjective contact complement each other. Honneth, following Mead and
Winnicott, sees the core of self-formation in recognition, achieved through the modes of love,
rights, and solidarity, in an interpersonal intersubjective contact. Merleau-Ponty, on the other hand,
views the process of identity formation as that which happens between/among embodied subjects,
engaged in a reciprocal interplay in the world.
Consequently, for Honneth misrecognition in the form of abuse, denial of rights as well as insult
leads to the formation of a socially maladapted self, the “social death” of the subject (Honneth
1995), or to quote Charles Taylor (1994, 26), misrecognition “inflict[s] a grievous wound, saddling
its victims with a crippling self-hatred”. Since the formation of a self, entering into ethical relations
with others rests, according to Honneth, upon mutual recognition; equally, lack of recognition brings
about the collapse of identity and possible violent relations with others. For Merleau-Ponty, our
embodied relation to the world and thus to the Other is “our first insertion…into truth” (1973, 139).
200 Latecka

It is, therefore, also our first insertion to “untruth”, in other words, to the viciousness, contempt and
debasement in our world, through the intersubjective contact with the Other.
By providing for both the interpersonal and the embodied aspects of intersubjectivity, the hybrid
model is better suited to handling the claim that, like interpersonal violence, violent acts in society
may have as their foundation a repeated, intergenerational cycle of violence.

Conclusion
This article proposes that an explanation of societal violence may be found in understanding it
as a pathology of intersubjective contact. On the one hand, violence may result from the lack of
recognition on an interpersonal intersubjective level, following Honneth’s model of recognition. On
the other, it may be accounted for by being understood as a pathology of the reciprocal relationship
of subjects-in-the-world, in light of Merleau-Ponty’s account of embodied intersubjectivity.
Psychology made first claims regarding the cycle of violence, also referred to as intergenerational
transmission of violence, as early as in 1963 (Curtis 1963), with further research corroborating the
initial hypothesis that abuse at an early stage of human development may result in future proneness
to violence. Similar claims have been made in sociological research, concerning whole societies
rather than individuals.
Both psychology and sociology present a picture of intergenerational transmission of violence. If
this is the case, then an intersubjective contact must have taken place for the transmission to occur.
Honneth’s theory of recognition provides for a useful tool for the analysis of the role of such contact
in the cycle of violence. In particular, it is important to note the role of the modes of recognition, viz.
love, rights, and solidarity, in self-formation based on self-confidence, self-respect, and self-esteem.
If misrecognition occurs in the form of abuse, lack of rights, or malice on a societal level, such
a negative interpersonal intersubjective contact may, as a consequence of the collapse of social
functions, generate a whole society of aggressive, violent people.
But societies of people, apart from being in an interpersonal intersubjective contact are in contact
on an embodied level, too. While Honneth’s theory does not cover this aspect of intersubjectivity, it
finds its counterpart in Merleau-Ponty’s existential-phenomenological account of intersubjectivity,
understood as embodied intersubjective contact. Such a contact has a particular identity-forming
power on subjects-in-the-world through the constant mutual effect of the subject on the world and
on other subjects in it. As shown above, this contact is, in Merleau-Ponty’s (1973, 139) words,
“our first insertion…into truth”, but by extrapolation, also our first insertion into the “untruth” of a
violent intersubjective contact.
The two approaches to intersubjective contact complement each other, forming a capable tool
for the analysis of the phenomenon of the cycle of violence. When the negative consequences of
misrecognition resulting from a negative interpersonal intersubjective contact are at play together
with the reciprocity of the embodied intersubjective contact, we can expect societies deprived of
confidence, respect, and esteem, exhibiting the various symptoms of Honneth’s forms of disrespect,
such as abuse, exclusion from rights, and denigration, all indicative of the intergenerational
transmission of violence. I therefore conclude that violence may indeed be regarded as a pathology
of intersubjective contact.

ORCID
Ewa Latecka http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0524-5774

References
Anderson, J. 1995. “Translator’s Introduction.” In The struggle for recognition, the moral
grammar of social conflicts, by A. Honneth, x–xxi. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Bandura, A. 1973. Aggression, A social learning analysis. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Bandura, A. 1976. Social Learning Theory. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Barral, M. R. 1969. “Merleau-Ponty on the body.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 7 (2): 171–179.
doi:10.1111/j.2041-6962.1969.tb02051.x
South African Journal of Philosophy 2019, 38(2): 189–202 201

Brezina, T. 1998. “Adolescent maltreatment and delinquency, The question of

intervening processes.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 35 (1): 71–99.
doi:10.1177/0022427898035001003
Curtis, G. C. 1963. “Violence breeds violence – perhaps?” American Journal of Psychiatry 120
(4): 386–387. doi:10.1176/ajp.120.4.386
Deranty, J.-P. 2009. Beyond communication, A critical study of Axel Honneth’s social philosophy.
Leiden: Brill Academic Publishing. doi:10.1163/ej.9789004175778.i-502
DeWall, C. N., C. A. Anderson, and B. J. Bushman. 2011. “The general aggression model,
theoretical extensions to violence.” Psychology of Violence 1 (3): 245–258.
Dillon, M. C. 1983. “Merleau-Ponty and the reversibility thesis.” Man and World 16 (4): 365–388.
English Oxford Living Dictionaries. (n.d.). https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/
Fagan, A. A. 2005. “The relationship between adolescent physical abuse and criminal offending,
support for an enduring and generalized cycle of violence.” Journal of Family Violence 20 (5):
279–290. doi:10.1007/s10896-005-6604-7
Honneth, A. 1992. “Integrity and disrespect.” Political Theory 20 (2): 187–201.
doi:10.1177/0090591792020002001
Honneth, A. 1995. The Struggle for Recognition, The moral grammar of social conflicts.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Honneth, A. 2007. Disrespect. The normative foundations of Critical Theory. Cambridge: Polity
Press.
Kwant, R. C. 1989. “Merleau-Ponty’s nieuwe filosofie van de perceptie, de natuur en de logos.”
Tijdschrift voor Filosofie 4 (51): 669–695.
Lawson, J. 2012. “Sociological theories of intimate partner violence.” Journal of Human Behavior
in the Social Environment 22 (5): 572–590. doi:10.1080/10911359.2011.598748
Marková, I. 2003. “Constitution of the Self, Intersubjectivity and dialogicality.” Culture and
Psychology 9 (3): 249–259. doi:10.1177/1354067X030093006
Matthews, E. 2002. The philosophy of Merleau-Ponty. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University
Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. 1962. Phenomenology of perception, Trans. C. Smith. London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul.
Merleau-Ponty, M. 1964a. Primacy of perception. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. 1964b. Signs, Trans. R. C. McCleary. Evanston: Northwestern University
Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. 1968. The visible and the invisible, Trans. A. Lingis. Evanston: Northwestern
University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. 1973. The prose of the world. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Merriam Webster. (n.d.). https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/
Mihalic, S. W. and D. Elliott. 1997. “A social learning theory model of marital violence.” Journal
of Family Violence 12 (1): 21–47. doi:10.1023/A:1021941816102
Moran, D. 2013. “‘There is no brute world, only an elaborated world’: Merleau-Ponty on the
intersubjective constitution of the world.” South African Journal of Philosophy 32 (4): 355–71.
doi:10.1080/02580136.2013.867396
Munroe, P. T. 2007. “Intersubjectivity.” In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, edited by
G. Ritzer, 2400–2401. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. doi:10.1002/9781405165518
Pilapil, R. D. 2011. “Psychologization or injustice? On Axel Honneth’s Theory of Recognitive
Justice.” Ethical Perspectives 18 (1): 79–106.
Pilapil, R. D. 2012. “From psychologism to personhood, Honneth, recognition, and the making of
persons.” Res Publica (Liverpool, England) 18 (1): 39–51. doi:10.1007/s11158-012-9184-4
Sandberg, F., and C. Kubiak. 2013. “Recognition of prior learning, self-realisation and identity
within Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition.” Studies in Continuing Education 35 (3): 351–365.
doi:10.1080/0158037X.2013.768230
Schertz, M. V. 2007. “Empathy as intersubjectivity, resolving Hume and Smith’s divide.” Studies
in Philosophy and Education 26 (2): 165–178. doi:10.1007/s11217-006-9022-2
202 Latecka

Taylor, C. 1994. “Politics of recognition.” In Multiculturalism and the politics of recognition,

edited by A. Gutmann, 25–74. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Thornberry, T. P., T. O. Ireland, and C. A. Smith. 2001. “The importance of timing, The varying
impact of childhood and adolescent maltreatment on multiple problem outcomes.” Development
and Psychopathology 13: 957–979.
Varga, S., and S. Gallagher. 2012. “Critical social philosophy, Honneth and the role
of primary intersubjectivity.” European Journal of Social Theory 15 (2): 243–260.
doi:10.1177/1368431011423606
Widom, C. S. 1989a. “Does violence beget violence. A critical examination of literature.”
Psychological Bulletin 106 (1): 3–28. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.106.1.3
Widom, C. S. 1989b. “The cycle of violence.” Science 244 (4901): 160–166. doi:10.1126/
science.2704995

Received 27 February 2019, revised 1 May 2019, accepted 2 May 2019