Recognition is one of the most significant philosophical concepts overall. It can be argued that there is currently a paradigm shift from the category of justice to the category of recognition. This work examines Hegel's concept of recognition in three texts from his Jena period, namely the System of Ethical Life (1802-03), the Jena Real Philosophy (1805-06) – now known as System Draft III – and the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), particularly in the chapters on consciousness and spirit. Against this backdrop, the critical interpretation and elaboration of this concept in the philosophical-political thought of Axel Honneth is presented, especially in chapters 2 and 3 of his influential work The Struggle for Recognition (1992), as well as in his essay From Desire to Recognition: Hegel's Account of Self-Consciousness (2010).