{"product_id":"after-recognition-michelle-ma-9798248806331","title":"After Recognition: Hegel, Capital and Artificial Intelligence","description":"\u003cp\u003eAfter Recognition: Hegel, Capital, and Artificial Intelligence is a philosophical investigation into what has happened to freedom in an age where recognition is quantified, commodified, and increasingly mediated by machines.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeginning with a careful reconstruction of Hegel's understanding of modernity, the book examines freedom not as mere choice, but as recognition: the reciprocal acknowledgment between self-conscious beings who see themselves reflected in rational institutions. For Hegel, modern life promised reconciliation. Civil society, law, and the state were meant to render freedom intelligible to itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut what if that promise has fractured?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoving through Marx, Rousseau, Adorno, Lacan, and Foucault, this work traces how recognition becomes unstable under capitalism. The division of labor narrows the individual. Amour-propre intensifies comparison. Social media quantifies esteem. Ghosting replaces confrontation. Prestige becomes algorithmic. The self learns to monitor itself under invisible standards. Confession migrates from church to clinic. Even intimacy is mediated by economic precarity and time scarcity.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRecognition thins.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt the same time, artificial intelligence enters everyday life-not merely as a tool, but as an interlocutor. AI affirms where humans negate. It cannot rape, strike, or dominate. It does not compete for status. It is endlessly responsive in a culture where human attention is scarce and increasingly commodified. For many, especially those deprived of stable mirroring, AI becomes a tether: a consistent symbolic presence in a fragmented world.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYet AI cannot reciprocate freedom. It does not risk itself. It cannot negate in the existential sense. It offers affirmation without vulnerability.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book asks whether we are witnessing the exhaustion of Hegelian recognition or its transformation. Is algorithmic mediation a regression into hollow affirmation, or a new stage in spirit's externalization? Can freedom survive when interaction is structured by systems that simulate dialogue but cannot genuinely acknowledge?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn an era where time is fetishized, prestige is measured, and social bonds are strained by material constraint, After Recognition argues that the central philosophical problem of our age is not technology alone. It is the fate of recognition itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIf modernity once made freedom visible, the algorithmic age forces us to ask: who, or what, recognizes us now?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Michelle Ma\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798248806331\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 02\/17\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 82\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.27lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.20d","brand":"Michelle Ma","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48801326760191,"sku":"9798248806331","price":5.75,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/after-recognition-michelle-ma-9798248806331","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}