Habermasian Resources

Between Naturalism and Religion: Philosophical Essays

2009-05-28T06:26:00.000-07:00

Jürgen Habermas
Between Naturalism and Religion: Philosophical Essays

Jürgen Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion: Philosophical Essays, Ciaran Cronin (trans.), Polity Press, 2008, 361pp., $26.95 (pbk), ISBN 9780745638256.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Flynn, Fordham University

Habermas's central aim in this collection of essays is to articulate the appropriate relation between "postmetaphysical thinking" and science and religion. He takes up issues related to both the philosophical and the public use of reason, and makes interesting proposals regarding their interrelation. Habermas is clearly worried about the spread of naturalistic worldviews ("scientism") and religious fundamentalism, but he dismisses neither naturalism nor religion. Rather, he defends what he calls "soft naturalism," which embraces a non-reductionist account of human language and thought in which normativity and intersubjectivity are central. Regarding religion, Habermas maintains that philosophy has long been enriched by secular "translations" of religious ideas. Moreover, he views at least "modernized" religions as allies in the public sphere in combating the effects of uncontrolled capitalist modernization and the spread of reductionistic thinking.

Postmetaphysical thinking tries to avoid promoting any particular worldview and focuses on procedural rationality and reconstructing the normativity inherent in linguistic practices. Although heavily indebted to Kant, Habermas maintains that postmetaphysical thinking must be detranscendentalized, that is, reason must be properly situated within history and social reality. Habermas thus follows in the traditions of hermeneutics and pragmatism, but attempts to avoid historicism or contextualism by emphasizing immanent idealizing presuppositions made by speakers. Chapter 2, "Communicative Action and the Detranscendentalized 'Use of Reason'," details the genealogical connection between ideas of reason in Kant's transcendental philosophy and their analogues in Habermas's formal pragmatics. The first half of the essay provides not only an excellent overview of Habermas's central ideas but also sets the stage for engaging analytic philosophy of language from Frege up through two paths that diverge according to how they treat the normativity of language: the Carnap-Quine-Davidson branch, which attempts to "defuse" it, and the Wittgenstein-Dummett-Brandom branch, which attempts to reconstruct it.

Chapter 2 ends with a continuation of Habermas's critical engagement with Brandom, while Chapter 3, "On the Architectonics of Discursive Differentiation," extends his longstanding exchange with Karl Otto-Apel. Together these debates form part of a family quarrel among pragmatist conceptions of language: the first goes back to the publication of Brandom's Making It Explicit,[1] while collaboration with Apel goes back much further, to their graduate work in Bonn (97). One dispute with Brandom is whether there are actually universal presuppositions implicit in linguistic practices, while Habermas and Apel agree on this point but disagree on their nature and status. Habermas's position between the two can thus be viewed in terms of getting at the right level of transcendental analysis. He tries to push Brandom up a notch, to take note of the "unavoidable" presuppositions made by participants in argumentation, which he characterizes as "(weak) transcendental presuppositions" (83) in contrast to Apel's more transcendental approach. Chapter 3 is also an important further clarification of Habermas's version of discourse theory with regard to the notions of and relation between legal and moral validity.

Two essays focus directly on the critique of reductionistic naturalism: Chapter 6, "Freedom and Determinism," and Chapter 7, "'I Myself am Part of Nature' -- Adorno on the Intrication of Reason in Nature." Both essays share Kant's aim of doing justice to our intuitive understanding of ourselves as free while satisfying the "need for a coherent picture of the universe that includes humans as part of nature" (153). Habermas wants to explain how we are socialized into an irreducibly normative "space of reasons" in a way that is consistent with our being products of natural evolution, thereby reconciling Kant with Darwin and establishing the "right way to naturalize the mind" (152-3). The challenge is whether we can maintain the "reflexive stability" of our consciousness of freedom in the face of "destabilizing" knowledge of the world as a closed causal system and specific knowledge provided by natural sciences, in particular cognitive science and neurobiology (Ch. 6) and possibilities for manipulating the human genome (Ch. 7).

The main arguments distinguishing "hard" from "soft" naturalism rely heavily on the distinction between participant and observer perspectives, which has long been central to Habermas's methodology in philosophy and social theory. Only from the participant perspective can one reconstruct the norm-laden internal point of view of agents engaged in speech, action, and argumentation. This contrasts with the external, objectifying perspective of an observer on speaking and acting subjects or social institutions. Neither perspective can be reduced to the other and not everything accessible from one can be encompassed by the other (206). Consistent with detranscendentalizing Kant, Habermas maintains this perspectival dualism is methodological, not ontological. Moreover, he is critical of any reductionistic approaches that naturalize language and thought in a way that ignores or eliminates the participant perspective. In Chapter 2, for example, Davidson is criticized for analyzing language from the perspective of an empirical theorist making behavioral observations (56).

In brief, one of the core arguments against hard naturalism in Chapters 6 and 7 is that perspectival dualism is inescapable for us (169-70, 206-8). The observer perspective does not undermine the participant perspective if we can show that the two are complementary but irreducible, and then show how perspectival dualism is itself "part of our nature." Forced to adapt to both natural and social environments, we have evolved into beings capable of dealing with both "observable causes" and "understandable reasons" (165). Habermas supports his position with accounts of the origins of human cognition within the species and in the socialization process of individuals, focusing on our ability to attribute intentionality to fellow human beings (170-3).

It might seem that, based on its considerable capacity for explanation and prediction, scientific knowledge deserves priority over hermeneutic knowledge. But Habermas points out that even knowledge acquired through experimental observation, along with theory choice, must be defended with arguments, which requires the performative stance of understanding. Since the complementary relation between the two epistemic perspectives cannot even be avoided within the activity of research itself, Habermas maintains that strong reductionism is implausible: "We can learn something from the confrontation with reality only to the extent that we are at the same time able to learn from the criticism of others. The ontologization of natural scientific knowledge into a naturalistic worldview reduced to 'hard' facts is not science but bad metaphysics" (207).

The main point here seems right: scientific knowledge acquired through the objectifying attitude, which has the potential to destabilize our sense of freedom, ultimately still has to be defended through arguments with others, a process that presupposes the participant perspective, which is the very perspective from which our sense of ourselves as acting freely and being accountable to others for beliefs and actions is operative. This move undermines the idea of the objectifying perspective as the "unquestioned yardstick against which the reflexive stability of acting subjects' consciousness of freedom must be measured" (200). But once undermined as the unquestioned yardstick, can the problem just arise again at a higher level? If the dualism is ineradicable, is the instability too? Our sense of freedom can still be continually destabilized by arguments based on specific scientific knowledge. Perhaps modern science has permanently destabilized the participant perspective and the most we can hope for is recovering relative stability based on a shift in the default position away from natural science as the sole yardstick for understanding ourselves. Habermas might agree with this, but I am unsure how far his arguments are supposed to go on this point.

Turning to religion, the core idea that comes up in four of the five remaining essays is that of viewing secularization in the modern West as a complementary learning process between the perspectives of reason and religion, which "compels the traditions of the Enlightenment and religious teachings to reflect on each other's limits" (102). This has both philosophical implications for working out the relation between postmetaphysical reason and religious traditions, and political implications for the role of religion within the modern constitutional state. Chapter 4, "Prepolitical Foundations of the Constitutional State?," develops the core idea and embodies it performatively insofar as it was prepared for a discussion with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in January 2004.[2] It also briefly touches on most of the themes more thoroughly developed in the other essays: the relation between philosophy and religion (Ch. 8), the role of religion in the public sphere and the relation between secular and religious citizens (Ch. 5), and the idea of toleration (Ch. 9).

Chapter 8, "The Boundary between Faith and Knowledge: On the Reception and Contemporary Importance of Kant's Philosophy of Religion," engages Kant's philosophy of religion and traces its critical reception up through Hegel, Schleiermacher, and Kierkegaard. Although Habermas accepts many of their criticisms, he still maintains the twin Kantian ideas of (i) appropriating the content of religious ideas on a rational basis, while (ii) maintaining the right boundary between faith and knowledge. Regarding the latter, Habermas situates postmetaphysical philosophy between the two poles of regression (a return to metaphysics) and transgression (attempts to "go beyond" the limits between philosophy and religion, e.g., late Heidegger) (243-7).

Regarding the first Kantian idea, Habermas notes the following successful translations of the "cognitive content" of religious ideas into ideas not dependent on religious revelation for their validity: Kant's translation of the idea of creation in the image of God into that of equal and unconditional dignity (110), Marx's translation of the idea of the kingdom of God on earth into that of an emancipated society (231), and Walter Benjamin's translation of ideas about messianic hope and redemption into "anamnestic solidarity" with those who suffered past injustices (241). "Reflexive appropriation" of religious ideas is still needed because postmetaphysical philosophy simply does not have the resources to respond to some of the most pressing challenges in modern society, such as (i) the spread of "scientistic" self-understandings that encourage instrumentalizing ourselves and (ii) an "uncontrolled process of modernization" (107, 238) in which markets and state bureaucracies displace social solidarity. The result is an "atrophied normative consciousness" (240) and a decline in sensitivity to social suffering. In the face of that, a "sober postmetaphysical philosophy" simply lacks the "creativity of linguistic world-disclosure" needed to "regenerate" a declining normative consciousness (211).

This is partly why it is important, as Habermas argues in Chapter 5, "Religion in the Public Sphere," that religious language be allowed in the informal public sphere. On the ethics of citizenship, Habermas forges a middle path between Rawls and his critics (e.g., Nicholas Wolterstorff and Paul Weithman), agreeing with Rawls that a secular state requires an "institutional filter" that prevents religious reasons from entering into formal justifications of laws and court decisions, but agreeing with Rawls's critics that citizens within the informal public sphere should be allowed to use religious language without restriction. Translating religious arguments into secular terms is still required at some point in order for them to potentially pass through the institutional filter, but this burden does not rest solely on religious citizens. The cooperative task of translation is also to be shared by secular citizens, which is supposed to mitigate to some extent the asymmetrical burdens of citizenship that arise because religious citizens must ultimately have their religious convictions translated into secular variants while secular citizens bear no such burden. But this can only be expected of secular citizens if they are also "expected not to exclude the possibility that [religious] contributions may have cognitive substance" (139). That is, they must take a "postsecular stance" toward religion as opposed to a "secularist stance" (my terms): the former matches up with Habermas's philosophical position of being open to learning from religious traditions, while the latter might say, among other things, that religions are merely "archaic relics" that "will ultimately dissolve in the acid of scientific criticism" (138-9).

There is a nice convergence here between the philosophical task Habermas sets himself in working out the self-critical relation of reason to religion in Chapter 8 and the burden placed on secular citizens in a "postsecular society." This turns the translation project carried out until now monologically by philosophers into a dialogical enterprise to be taken up by citizens themselves. But maybe this fits together too nicely. Cristina Lafont has objected that Habermas strangely places no restrictions on religious citizens' contributions in the informal public sphere while requiring secular citizens to take up the postsecular stance. But what if the latter are deeply committed secularists or atheists?[3] It might be helpful here to more clearly distinguish several claims, as Habermas does at the end of Chapter 4. He maintains that secular citizens (i) should not challenge religious citizens' to use religious language in the informal public sphere, (ii) nor "deny religious worldviews are in principle capable of truth," and (iii) can even be expected to participate in translation efforts (113). Lafont does not contest (i), but I think she is right to challenge (ii) by arguing that taking religious contributions seriously should only require that secular citizens "engage them seriously . . . regardless of what their personal cognitive stance toward the cognitive substance of religion may be."[4] Thus, (ii) should not be required of secular citizens. However, Habermas is probably right that accepting (ii) is a precondition for (iii), that for the most part something like the postsecular stance is the kind of epistemic attitude one must have in order to seriously engage in the demanding project of translation. But surely this project cannot be reasonably expected of all citizens. Most secular citizens lack, as Habermas admits many religious citizens lack, the "knowledge or imagination" for this task (127), especially given that his exemplars are all great philosophers.

Two other chapters make significant contributions to the discussion of toleration and multiculturalism: Chapter 9, "Religious Tolerance as a Pacemaker for Cultural Rights," and Chapter 10, "Equal Treatment of Cultures and the Limits of Postmodern Liberalism." It is worth noting that Habermas's work in political philosophy is often accused of empty proceduralism, but many of the essays here explore normative virtues and epistemic attitudes required of citizens in a way that goes well beyond procedural analysis.

The final chapter, "A Political Constitution for the Pluralist World Society?," is one of the most recent installments in Habermas's articulation of Kantian cosmopolitanism in terms of global constitutionalism.[5] The core idea is that of a multilevel system -- including states, strong "transnational" regimes such as the E.U., and "supranational" organizations like the UN -- that establishes "a politically constituted world society without a world government" (316). The point most relevant to themes in this collection is Habermas's claim that actions at the supranational level -- which are based on the "negative duties of a universalistic morality of justice" -- are legitimated by a thin "worldwide background consensus" that transcends cultural and religious differences. Moreover, "shared moral indignation" in response to "egregious human rights violations and manifest acts of aggression . . . gradually produce[s] traces of cosmopolitan solidarity" (344). Elsewhere I have expressed doubts about whether this account of cosmopolitan solidarity is fully adequate, not because this form of shared moral indignation is not minimal enough but because there are growing de-legitimizing forces arising from moral indignation over the failure of the international community to take seriously the rights of the global poor, rights which are not given the same status in this framework as the "negative duties" Habermas tends to privilege.[6]

I should also mention Chapter 1, "Public Space and Political Public Sphere," which is a rare autobiographical reflection in which Habermas identifies the roots of his scholarly and political "obsession" (13) with certain concepts -- "public space," "discourse," and "reason" -- in various episodes in his life. This collection extends those core concepts into diverse areas and engages such a wide range of interlocutors that the demands on the reader are quite high. But so is the payoff, since Habermas is one of the few contemporary philosophers who successfully cross so many of the standard divisions: between analytic and Continental philosophy, between practical and theoretical philosophy, and between philosophy as a theoretical enterprise and public intellectual life.[7]

[1] On their earlier debate, see Jürgen Habermas, "From Kant to Hegel: On Robert Brandom's Pragmatic Philosophy of Language," and Robert Brandom, "Facts, Norms, and Normative Facts: Reply to Habermas," both in European Journal of Philosophy 8:3 (2000).

[2] Their remarks were published together as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) and Jürgen Habermas, Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason and Religion, edited by Florian Schuller (Ignatius Press, 2006).

[3] See Cristina Lafont, "Religious in the Public Sphere," Constellations 14:2 (2007). Lafont is responding to the original publication of this chapter as Jürgen Habermas, "Religion in the Public Sphere," European Journal of Philosophy 14:1 (2006).

[4] Lafont, 249.

[5] See the fuller account in his, "Does the Constitutionalization of International Law Still Have a Chance?," in The Divided West, trans. by Ciaran Cronin (Polity 2006), and his recent defense against critics: "The Constitutionalization of International Law and the Legitimation Problems of A Constitution for World Society," Constellations, 15:4 (2008).

[6] See Jeffrey Flynn, "Human Rights, Transnational Solidarity, and Duties to the Global Poor," Constellations 16:1 (2009).

[7] I want to thank the Fordham graduate students in my seminar on Habermas this past term for helpful discussion of numerous issues raised in this collection.

Copyright © 2004 Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

Critique and Disclosure: Critical Theory between Past and Future

2009-02-10T19:39:00.001-08:00

Critique and Disclosure: Critical Theory between Past and Future
Nikolas Kompridis, Critique and Disclosure: Critical Theory between Past and Future, MIT Press, 2006, 333pp., $37.50 (hbk), ISBN 9780262112994.

Reviewed by Fred Dallmayr, University of Notre Dame
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The fate of reason today hangs in the balance. This is no small matter. Ever since its historical beginnings, reason or rationality has been the central focus and point of honor of Western modernity -- a focus enshrined in Descartes' cogito, Enlightenment rationalism, and Kantian (and neo-Kantian) critical philosophy. The result of this focus was an asymmetrical dichotomy: separated from the external world of "matter" (or nature), the cogito assumed the role of superior task master and overseer -- a role fueling the enterprise of modern science and technology. During the past century, the edifice of Western modernity has registered a trembling, due to both internal and external contestations. Subverting the modern asymmetry, a host of thinkers – with views ranging from American pragmatism to European life philosophy and phenomenology -- have endeavored to restore pre-cognitive "experience" (including sense perception and affect) to its rightful place. In the context of French "postmodernism," a prominent battle cry has been to dislodge "logocentrism" (the latter term often equated with anthropocentrism). In the ambiance of recent German philosophy, the battle lines have been clearly marked: pitting champions of modern rationalism, represented by Jürgen Habermas, against defenders of experiential "world disclosure," represented by Martin Heidegger. In his book, Nikolas Kompridis endeavors to shed new light on this controversy, with the aim not so much of bringing about a cease fire but of providing resources for arriving at better mutual understanding.

Kompridis does not exactly assume a position above the contestants (he repeatedly rejects the "view from nowhere"). As the book's subtitle indicates, his point of departure is "critical theory" as championed by the Frankfurt School, and his attempt is to nudge that theory beyond a certain rationalist orthodoxy in the direction of possible "future" horizons. While appreciating some of its merits -- such as the "linguistic turn" and the emphasis on "communicative" rationality -- Kompridis finds Habermas's reformulation of the Frankfurt program on the whole unhelpful and debilitating. In his words (p. 17): "For all there is to recommend it, Habermas's reformulation has produced a split between new and old critical theory so deep that the identity and future of critical theory are at risk." The main reason is that the "normative gain" deriving from the linguistic turn remains attached to narrow rationalist premises that have "needlessly devalued" the theory's potential. In Kompridis's view, Habermas's evolving thought exhibits a break or rupture (quite apart from the linguistic turn): namely, a move toward pure "theory" which happened soon after the publication of Knowledge and Human Interests. "That turn to theory," he writes (pp. 232-234), "refashioned the project of critical theory as a strenge Wissenschaft, less bound by or beholden to the historical and existential exigencies of modernity" -- thereby undermining modernity's intrinsic "relation to time." As a result of this refashioning, critical theory was catapulted in the direction of an abstractly rational universalism disdainful of cultural and practical modes of pluralism. The upshot was a growing "insensitivity to particularity," justifying the suspicion that the basic concepts of communicative rationality had from the start been "rigged in favor of the universal." But, the book adds sharply, "a provinciality-destroying reason is a meaning-destroying reason" and the latter is "a history-destroying reason."

Considerations of this kind serve to buttress the book's basic "thesis" (p. 17) that Habermas's reformulation is "in need of urgent reassessment if critical theory is to have a future worthy of its past." In Kompridis's view (pp. 28-29), critical theory's renewal has to rely on alternative resources, including insights "central to the German tradition from Hegel to Heidegger and Adorno" and phenomenological explorations of the "life-world." In this context, a crucial resource is Heidegger's notion of "world disclosure," articulated variously under the labels of "Erschlossenheit," "Lichtung," and "Ereignis." The basic point of the notion of disclosure is that "we operate 'always already' with a pre-reflective, holistically structured, and grammatically regulated understanding of the world" (pp. 32-33) -- which means that our thinking and reasoning is always embedded in a pre-cognitive experiential setting. In Heidegger's own terms: If there is to be any understanding of something "as something," then "our understanding must itself somehow see as disclosed that upon which it projects." The implications of this insight are obviously immense and bound to reverberate through all modes of philosophizing, including critical theory. Kompridis is by no means naïve about the obstacles facing the recuperation of Heideggerian insights. As he writes (p. 32): "The idea that Heidegger's thought can contribute to the renewal of critical theory is more likely to be greeted with disbelief (if not derision) than with curiosity." For, as is well known, "Heidegger's person and his thought have played the role of critical theory's 'other': he is the very antithesis of the critical intellectual as critical theorists imagine 'him'." Not daunted by these obstacles, Kompridis wagers that the benefits of the recuperation outweigh possible drawbacks. "Rather than regarding it as a threat to reason, as Habermas does," he states (p. 38), "I will argue that disclosure presents us with the possibility of a new, practice-altering conception of reason, a conception upon which the basis for an alternative model of critical theory can emerge."

In the book's second Part ("Dependent Freedom"), Kompridis seeks to retrieve crucial aspects of Heidegger's work and rescue them from various misreadings -- especially Habermas's charges of "methodological solipsism" and a relapse into "subjectivity." As Kompridis tries to show (pp. 44-46), the salient difference between Being and Time and Habermas's own project is "not between subject-centeredness and intersubjectivity" but rather between the former's focus on "semantic" criteria -- how something becomes mutually intelligible -- and the latter's stress on "justificatory" and "context-transcending" criteria. The difference can also be articulated in terms of the primacy granted respectively to "meaning" or universal "validity." A central Heideggerian teaching lifted up in this context is his notion of "solicitude" and especially of "anticipatory-liberating solicitude" -- a notion which clearly conflicts with subject-centeredness. For Kompridis (p. 49), the notion accentuates how "our freedom for self-determination . . . is both dependent on and facilitated, not just impeded, by our relation to others" -- which means that "the condition under which the other and I can realize our freedom are conditions that must be cooperatively established, preserved, and enlarged." Another important Heideggerian term is "Entschlossenheit" or "resoluteness." As Kompridis insists (p. 58), contra Habermas, the term is "not synonymous with decision or decisiveness, or a manly readiness to take action"; rather, it resonates "with Erschlossenheit, with disclosure or disclosedness." Hence, a better translation would be "unclosednness" which draws attention to "the receptive [though not purely passive] character" of our activity. Refreshingly unconventional are also Kompridis's comments on "das Man." Countering widespread prejudices, he argues (pp. 71-74) that Heidegger's category "displays no more contempt for 'average everydayness' . . . than is to be found in Rousseau's Second Discourse, Emerson's 'Self-Reliance', Thoreau's Walden, or Mill's On Liberty." Specifically, Heidegger is not advocating "an interpretation of 'authenticity' in terms of radical individuality," but rather is guided by an interest "in recovering the everyday, rescuing its semantic resources from daily degradation."

In the third Part Kompridis discusses some of the main strategies employed by critical theorists to debunk Heideggerian "disclosure," by removing it to a realm outside of reason. He conveniently lists Habermas's main objections (p. 98): that Heideggerian ontology "dictates history", that disclosure "precludes the very possibility of learning", and that it is not prior to but "subordinate" to validity claims. For Kompridis, "all of these criticisms fail, often by their own lights," so that Habermas's meta-critique of disclosure "turns out to be rather incoherent." One strategy used to obviate disclosure is to relegate it to a purely "aesthetic" domain, that is, the "value sphere" of art and literature stipulated by Habermas; in that sphere, rational validity "goes on holiday." The strategy fails for the simple reason that disclosure undercuts the division of value spheres (p. 109): "The very idea of an independent sphere of value organized around the world-disclosing practices of art and literature is incoherent." Similarly misguided is the identification of disclosure with an "extraordinary" event or capacity. In Kompridis's words (pp. 112-123), what is neglected here is that "the success of everyday practice depends on the world-illuminating, problem-solving power of disclosure." Hence, Habermas's misconstrual reflects precisely "an inattentiveness to the presence of the extraordinary in the everyday." Other tactics found in critical theory's arsenal are the "debunking strategy" directed mainly at the notion of "ontological difference" (which silently remains presupposed) and the "annexing strategy" where disclosure is somehow assimilated to validation. What all these strategies miss is what Kompridis calls the "test of disclosure" (p. 142). The latter is tested "not against the world as it is, but as it might be; [hence] any new disclosure of meaning and possibility is underdetermined by the 'world'."

In the fourth Part, Kompridis defends a broad conception of "philosophy" transgressing the boundaries of Habermasian rationalism and proceduralism. From the procedural angle, Kompridis asserts (p. 149), philosophy is restricted to "a definition of argument so narrowly 'professional' as to be unphilosophical"; in fact, a history of philosophy employing the procedural criterion "would be a very short, colorless history." A main target of critique in this context is Habermas's definition of philosophy as a "stand-in" (that is, place-keeper for science) and as interpreter -- a definition which Kompridis considers lopsided and untenable (p. 161):

The more it is scrutinized, the more this whole mixed-up conception of philosophy . . . appears to be the product of an expert-culture mentality, exhibiting that mentality's tendency to think in terms of highly distinct 'specializations' and roles within an insufficiently examined division of labor.

A corollary of proceduralism is the rigid distinction of philosophy from literature. Again, Kompridis's response is pointed (p. 178): "Pace Habermas, what distinguishes philosophy from literature is not that the former is a problem-solving enterprise while the latter is a world-disclosing enterprise" -- a spurious distinction "since there is no way to separate world-disclosure from problem-solving in the relevant instances." Above all, what proceduralism and the focus on rationalist theory occlude is philosophy's integral relation to praxis and the practical disclosure of a possible future. Taking a leaf from American pragmatism, Kompridis states (p. 167) that "philosophy receives its concept of itself from the needs of its time, and it is from the quality of philosophy's response to these needs that it can be in a position to react responsibly as an agency of critical enlightenment."

The exploration of possible horizons occupies the remainder of the book. For Kompridis (pp. 192-193), Habermasian thought is not sufficiently open to these horizons because it tolerates only "change that is both familiar to us and controllable by us." To be sure, openness or Erschlossenheit needs to be distinguished from random plasticity, from "contemporary culture's drunken infatuation with the promise of limitless freedom." At that point, Hannah Arendt's theory of action becomes relevant with its accent on radical, but ongoing and sustainable, transformation. In the same manner, Heideggerian disclosive praxis can fruitfully be invoked. In this domain, the charge of "fatalism" often leveled against him serves as a "distorting lens." In one of his most innovative moves, Kompridis links disclosure and "letting be" not with passivity but with a "receptivity" sustaining non-domineering action. "Both Heidegger's early and later writings," he observes (pp. 202-203), "offer a promising starting point for understanding how cooperative, accountable practices of reflective disclosure can facilitate new cultural beginnings, initiate new practices, and found new institutions." What is required here is a rethinking of "agency," away from the deeds of heroic overmen and pointing in a new and "unfamiliar direction": a direction "not only decentering but also reconfiguring what it means to be an agent." Such rethinking makes it possible to see "human beings as cooperative facilitators rather than heroic creators of new beginnings." As has to be admitted, Heidegger did not always live up to the potential of his thought (as shown in his temporary attachment to an ideology which demanded "closed, not open minds"). Intimately associated with this receptive mode of agency is Heidegger's view of human interaction informed by "solicitude." Going beyond narrow formulations of "recognition," recognizing the other from Heidegger's angle involves "a struggle in which one's own self-understanding . . . [is] at stake. That is why such a struggle for recognition is at once cognitive and affective" (p. 210). By contrast to a purely cerebral or "notional" construal, "genuine experiences of self-decentering involve and challenge all of our cognitive and affective capacities, our whole sensibility" (p. 214).

In the concluding sixth Part, Kompridis's focus is entirely on open possibilities "in times of need." He complains first of all of the prevailing cultural skepticism and the apparent "exhaustion of utopian energies": "Skepticism and despair seem to have outstripped hope" (pp. 245-247). This situation is detrimental to philosophy per se, but especially to an outlook which claims to be "critical" of unexamined conditions. "Critique," he states (p. 252), "is unavoidably 'utopian', not in the sense that it depends on the availability of a fully determinate utopia, but in that it depends on the openness and receptivity of the future to utopian thought." The recovery of this dimension requires the restoration of "trust" and confidence in available possibilities. Returning to the book's central theme, and differentiating between pre-reflective and reflective disclosure, Kompridis at this point defines disclosure as a kind of "intimate" or "immanent" critique and critique as the practice of reflective disclosure. In his words (p. 255): "The goal of critique should aim at the self-decentering disclosure of meaning and possibility. . . . Ultimately the test of any newly disclosed possibilities is the degree to which they can initiate self-decentering learning that makes a cooperative new beginning possible." Again, beginning anew here does not coincide with a rupture entirely forgetful of the past. Invoking both Marcuse and Walter Benjamin, Kompridis stresses the need to "preserve the unclosedness of the past" precisely in order to preserve the openness of the future. (A similar point can be found in Heidegger's notion of "the future of the past.") Such an outlook, he writes (pp. 270-272), protects against both reactionary nostalgia and vanguardist euphoria: "It is absolutely essential to the success of possibility-disclosing critique that it lets itself be permeated with the potential of what could be different," and this means "letting oneself suffer one's time, making oneself vulnerable to it by letting oneself be marked by it." By way of conclusion -- and invoking Heidegger's writings on Hölderlin -- Kompridis asserts the need to revive the legacy of a "suppressed romanticism" (p. 275): "In my view, romanticism is not just some superseded period of cultural history; it is the frequently unacknowledged position from which we engage in a critical, time-sensitive interpretation of the present."

This is an important and timely (or time-sensitive) book, both in philosophical and in practical-political terms. Today its plea for a recovery of trust in the future has gained unexpectedly broad resonance. Philosophically, the book in a way signals the end of a period marked by divergent, even opposite tendencies: on the one hand, the "postmodern" fascination with "extraordinary" rupture (or rapture), and on the other, the streamlining of critical theory in the mold of a rule-governed, rationalist normalcy. The book's basic aim -- one which I heartily endorse -- is to rescue critical thought from these limiting parameters and thus to nurture openness for new possibilities. My sympathy with this aim is in part motivated by my own similar endeavors to open critical theory to Heideggerian insights (see, e.g., my Between Freiburg and Frankfurt: Toward a Critical Ontology, of 1991). Like Kompridis, I had been chagrined by Habermas's abandonment of his earlier practical engaged outlook in favor of abstract theorizing; Kompridis's comments on the flaws of such theorizing are pointed and basically on target. Of late, it is true, Habermasian thought seems to have undergone a certain mellowing, softening the harsh edges of his abstract universalism and moving him closer again to hermeneutics and even to modes of religious thought (although the name of Heidegger remains banished from his discourse). Despite such recent modifications, however, the book performs a valuable function: nudging rank-and-file critical theorists away from certain "orthodox" school positions which Habermas himself seems now ready to abandon.

There are numerous other features of the book -- a veritable cornucopia -- with which I heartily agree. One has to do with the reformulation of praxis in terms of a decentered receptivity and open engagement with others. This reformulation gives a crucial new impulse to conventional "action theory," pushing it beyond the confines of self-centered activism and passive self-erasure. In my own thinking, I have tended to view Heideggerian solicitude and "letting be" as prime examples of (what is often called) the "middle voice." The accent on receptivity or receptive generosity also reveals important dimensions of a Heideggerian "ethics" -- dimensions which are usually sidelined or ignored. This neglect is astonishing in view of such salient Heideggerian terms as "solicitude" and especially "anticipatory-liberating solicitude" -- as Kompridis correctly observes. The topics of receptivity and engaged solicitude have a clear bearing on the traditional notion of inter-human recognition -- a notion which, in the past, has often been confined to a purely cerebral level. The reformulation of this concept in terms of a re-connection of cognition with affect and sensibility can obviously rely on the Heideggerian category of "Stimmung," but beyond that on a longer tradition stretching from Spinoza to Emerson, Merleau-Ponty, and Stanley Cavell. Extremely valuable in this context are also Kompridis's comments on the broader social import of self-decentering. As he writes (p. 213), such self-decentering

is not about overcoming our partial view of things in order to arrive at the single right answer to a moral problem. It is not about a 'transcendence' of our parochial self in order to achieve an impartial or objective view of things; it is about an enlargement of self, opening it up to what was previously closed.

In conformity with these comments, Kompridis's view of "utopia" does not involve a bland universalism or cosmopolitanism. What Heideggerian disclosure brings into view, he states (pp. 219-220), is the need to change a monistic conception of being "into a pluralistic one, such that we acquire an increased sensitivity to the presence and endangered state of plural 'local worlds' -- plural understandings not subsumable under a single notion of being." What this underscores is "the interdependent relationship between intelligibility, plurality, and possibility."

Despite my general agreement with the book's orientation, I cannot refrain from voicing some reservations. Although lucidly written, the presentation is often somewhat rambling and repetitive; a tightening of structure might have further strengthened its argument. More serious are reservations having to do with the portrayal of Heidegger's thought. Despite his initial rejection of the Habermasian charges of solipsism and a relapse into the "philosophy of the subject," Kompridis surprisingly ends up echoing these charges in slightly revised form. The section on "Dependent Freedom" castigates the "conspicuous lack of a normatively robust conception of intersubjective accountability and recognition" (p. 48). In large measure, this lack is blamed on Heidegger's allegedly self-centered conception of Entschlossenheit and the "call of conscience." Despite his own translation of Entschlossenheit as "unclosedness," and in the face of a quoted passage where Heidegger describes the "call of conscience" as a call that comes "from me and yet from outside and beyond me," Kompridis states (p. 51):

Regrettably Heidegger chose to develop the meaning of 'resoluteness' one-sidedly, as an openness or receptivity to a 'call' whose disclosed meaning should be understood independently of our relation to others. Thus he made monophonic and monological a call that is inherently polyphonic and dialogical.

From here it is only a short step to the claim (pp. 52-53), that Heidegger decided to "suppress that half of the 'call' that emanates from outside the self," with the result that Being and Time culminates in "a solipsistic rather than a 'fundamental' ontology" hovering at "the precarious edge of subjectivism." A similar re-vindication concerns Habermas's charge of decisionism. Although strongly asserting that "Entschlossenheit is not synonymous with decision," Kompridis in effect revokes his assertion by stating (p. 65) that "Heidegger undermines the illuminating power of his own analyses by uncoupling Entschlossenheit from Dasein's positive dependence on others and thus from positive solicitude." Painting with a broad brush, even Heidegger's famous "turning" (Kehre) is interpreted (p. 67) as "the successful suppression of dependence on others."

In my view, assertions of this kind could easily be corrected by a closer reading of Heidegger's texts, especially his Beiträge and some lecture courses presented during the 1930's (and only recently made available). Less easily resolvable is the central issue announced in the book's title: the relation between critique and disclosure. As one can gather from the subtitle and numerous other statements, the basic tendency is to subordinate disclosure to critique, that is, to make disclosure serviceable to critical theory. As Kompridis states at one point (pp. 31-32): "What I propose to draw from Heidegger does not require abandonment of Habermas's best critical insights; rather, it means reassessing them and recombining them with Heidegger's in order to re-envision the future of critical theory." Yet, taking into account the sustained criticisms of Habermas throughout the book, how plausible or persuasive is this aim? In his most exacting or developed formulations, Kompridis defines critique as reflective disclosure and disclosure as intimate critique (pp. 238, 255). But what about "pre-reflective disclosure"? Would it not be more plausible and sensible to assign critique to what some writers call "secondary reflection" (and Kompridis "reflective disclosure")? Ever since the time of Kant, modern philosophy has been defined or defined itself preeminently as "critique" -- a primacy the book seems to accept. In my opinion, however, Heidegger's work does not entirely subscribe to this tradition; it is not primarily critical, but rather ontological and phenomenological -- honoring Merleau-Ponty's notion of the primacy of "perceptual faith." Looked at from this angle, the title of the book might perhaps preferably read: Disclosure and Critique.

from here

Who are the citizens of Europe?

2008-08-18T21:35:00.000-07:00

Europe needs a binding moral foundation not a pan-European referendum, argues Alfred Grosser

The Irish referendum raises many questions. Now I don't mean the ones concerning the circumstances of the 'No' vote. Questions such as: Was the economy slowing down instead of thriving on EU assistance as it had been until recently? Or: Was the advertising for the 'No' campaign funded by conservative anti-European Americans of Irish descent? No, the issues I want to discuss are commentaries which say: This is what happens when you disregard the people and submit a treaty which has been drawn up undemocratically and is incomprehensible to boot! Philosopher Jürgen Habermas also recently expressed his doubts about democratic practice in the EU. He suggested combining next year's European elections with a European referendum.

My first counter-question would be: Who are the citizens of the EU? The current phrasing of the treaty says: "Citizenship of the Union is hereby established. Every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall complement and not replace national citizenship. Citizens of the Union shall enjoy the rights conferred by this Treaty and shall be subject to the duties imposed thereby."

A small number of citizens of the union have decided for everybody. This does not mean to say that national referenda are illegitimate. In France, the accession of Ireland, together with Britain and Denmark, was sanctioned on 23 April 1972 by a referendum initiated by President Georges Pompidou. However, it attracted little public interest. Sixty-eight percent said 'Yes', but only 60 percent of citizens actually went to the polling booths.

On 20 September 1992, there was huge commotion when Francois Mitterrand invested enough energy to win 51.04 percent of the votes in favour of the Maastricht Treaty. Then, the French actually answered the question that was being posed. But often 'direct democracy' has the disadvantage of being about other political issues than those listed on the ballot paper. This September, the constitution of the Fifth Republic will turn fifty. Did anyone actually read the tedious text of the constitution (English version) before it was adopted with 79.2 percent approval? But it wasn't about the text. The citizens wanted to express their trust in de Gaulle, with their 'Yes' they wanted to signal their confidence in his ability to solve the Algeria problem.

Has the then President Jacques Chirac said before the May 2005 EU referendum: "Whatever the verdict after the vote, I will step down – if it's 'No' then I will have been disavowed, if it's 'Yes' then I will have fulfilled my European duty", then the 'Yes' would have won hands down. Had he said: "If it's 'Yes' I stay, if it's 'No' I go" then the 'No' would have won by a much greater margin. It was also a referendum which was used to express disapproval of Chirac.

Of course there are good examples of democratic referenda in Switzerland or California. However, important questions remain unanswered - and this should be music to the ears of parliamentary democracies like Germany. Questions like: Who decides which people are entitled to vote in a referendum? Would Catalonia, or Scotland for that matter, be allowed to determine their own independence? What about Kosovo? Why was France allowed to keep hold of Mayotte after the inhabitants of the island rejected independence, against the majority of the population of the Comoros Islands? At which level can a project be voted down if it benefits a community larger than those affected at a local level. A bridge in Dresden and a runway in Frankfurt are only minor examples. The 'people' of a municipality which decides on the construction of a new nursing home for Alzheimer's patients or a new psychiatric hospital will vote according to the 'NIMBY' (not in my backyard) principle which leads to 'BANANA' (build absolutely nothing anywhere nor anytime).

What a relief that not every justifiably complicated law is put up to a referendum. What a shame, that a document which extended the democratic foundations of the European Union and which stood for a unanimously accepted compromise negotiated between 27 states, could be rejected through a referendum by one of the 27 member states!

However, it would be correct to assume that a referendum in Germany, France or maybe even in Britain or Poland would have gone the way it did in Ireland. The main reason being that we lack a feeling of European identity or European citizenship. Why is this? Firstly, the existing institutions are unsatisfactory. Jean Monnet coined this phrase: "Nothing is possible without men; nothing is lasting without institutions." It's pay-back for constant betrayal. We were told there would be "no expansion without institutional consolidation." And then came: "We will expand and consolidate simultaneously." Ultimately, expansion came without any consolidation.

What's more, citizens don't even know what already exists. Try explaining the EU's common laws, rules and organisations to an American from Ohio or a Swiss from Uri or the canton of Basel and you will provoke the following outraged reaction: "If we had that in the USA or Switzerland, it would be the end of our beautiful federalism!" The Union is sui generis. For instance, there is no confederacy at all in common foreign policy and common defence policy, whereas in some areas it is already more than federal. But who knows anything about the constructive role of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg which, among other things, has been creating a common social law for four decades? But Britain complies much more readily and rapidly with the court's decisions than Germany or France. The British are also far more dependable in implementing regulations from Brussels into their national law.

The anti-EU tune is hammered out rigorously by governments, political parties and the media in Germany, and stronger still in France. Angela Merkel's six months presidency made a pleasant exception, because the chancellor did everything in her power to also drum up support for Europe from within civil society. But the tune we generally hear in Berlin, and which is sung with even greater frequency in Paris goes like this: "In the federal council, where the power lies, I vote in favour of a draft, but as soon as it becomes a commission-issue guideline which we have to follow, I protest loudly against those evil commissioners!" Everything that comes from the national capital is good, everything from Brussels is bad.

The European parliament is certainly not the powerless institution it once was. It undoubtedly plays an instrumental role. But which party gives MEPs key roles within the party ranks at national level. A few (mostly German) names might ring a bell. The media shed very little light on Europe. We hear constant niggling. Even intellectuals like Habermas have a mantra of bureaucratic and technocratic accusations which they repeat ad nauseaum. And yet there are fewer bureaucrats in Brussels than in Hamburg – if you don't include the translators. And we forget that the commission is able to entertain thoughts about the future because it doesn't have to worry about elections. The sons of the fishermen who are still too young to vote, should still have a right to fish in the future. This means imposing the sort of constraints which governments in Paris, Madrid and Athens are doing their utmost to prevent.

Euro gloom has two further reasons. First of all in Germany, as in France and Britain, more and more people find themselves peering into the widening gap between those "at the top" and everyone else. Whom can we look to for some degree of protection against global finance capitalism? The state perhaps. No one would even consider Europe.

Secondly, "the new states" are a constant source of resentment. Back in 2004 the words Robert Schuman spoke shortly before his death in 1963 still had a ring of truth to them. "We want the unity of a free Europe not just for ourselves, but for all those who, today, find themselves under the yoke of Communism, and, as soon as they have thrown off that yoke, they will seek accession and our moral support." But anyone who speaks about Yugoslavia's many splinter states today, has to justify their inclusion in the community. This is even more pertinent when it comes to Turkish accession. The question "What will it do for them?" has been replaced by the refusal to allow new arrivals to impede the path of the established members towards European unification.

What remains is the importance of providing a unified Europe with a shared moral foundation. And I don't mean the "with or without God" question. There are enough texts that already exist: from the UN Declaration of Human Rights to the charter referred to by judges at the European Court of Human Rights, right down to the first articles of the German constitution.

What is missing is the conviction that we should be setting an example both internally and externally, that we should be showing how to put our common values into words and deeds. Whether this is voicing criticism of those who "share our values" (Guantanamo, Gaza) or of the behaviour of our own governments and authorities (asylum seekers, detention conditions, police brutality, corruption of high-ranking figures ...) - are we so far away from the Irish 'No' here? Only seemingly. Instead of continuing to break apart the solidarity within the union, we should focus on creating a binding moral foundation.

*

Alfred Grosser was a professor at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris and is the leading political commentator on Franco-German questions.

This article originally appeared in German in the Rheinischer Merkur on 10.07.2008.

Translation Nick Treuherz and lp

from here

Ohne Muslime kein Europa

2008-06-30T06:18:00.000-07:00

Am 23. Juni 2008 um 15.05 Uhr ist es zu einer denkwürdigen Begegnung gekommen. Tariq Ramadan, einer der umstrittensten Kämpfer für die europäischen Muslime, begrüßte mit einem Handschlag Jürgen Habermas, den Cheftheoretiker der Neuen Unübersichtlichkeit. Danach kam es nicht etwa zu einem Streitgespräch oder zu einem Dialog. Das hatte die Regie der auch sonst höchst prominent besetzten Tagung "Muslims and Jews in Christian Europe" nicht vorgesehen. Ramadan hielt einen etwa zwanzigminütigen Vortrag, und Habermas stellte ihm im Anschluss daran ein paar Fragen. Habermas sprach von einer nicht gerade gleichwertigen Verteilung der Rollen. Es war dennoch eine sehr eindrückliche Veranstaltung.

Tariq Ramadan ging aus von Umfragen, die ergeben, dass 80 Prozent der in Europa lebenden Einwanderer aus muslimischen Ländern keine praktizierenden Moslems sind. Für sie stellen sich also die meisten der so gern als Integrationsprobleme ins Feld geführten religiösen Fragen nicht. Sie werden dennoch argwöhnisch beobachtet und einem Klima des Verdachts ausgesetzt. Es genügt nicht, Steuern, Kranken- und Sozialversicherung zu bezahlen, seine Pflichten als Staatsbürger zu erfüllen, gesetzestreu zu sein. Hat man eine andere Hautfarbe, trägt man einen fremden Namen, tut man sich gar schwer mit der Landessprache, werden immer neue Loyalitätsbeweise verlangt.

In den Niederlanden wird darüber diskutiert, dass man ja nicht wisse, was die Einwandererkinder zuhause erzählt bekommen und in welcher Sprache? Tariq Ramadan lächelt ironisch: "Wo bleibt die Trennung von privat und öffentlich? Wo bleibt der Schutz der Privatsphäre?" Er weist auch darauf hin, dass es gerade die Aufgabe der liberalen Öffentlichkeit sein müsste, diese wesentlichen Elemente einer Zivilgesellschaft zu schützen. Es geht ihm darum, dass alle Bürger dieselben Rechte haben.

Die Realität sieht anders aus: Die Einwanderer sind Bürger zweiter Klasse. Für sie gelten nicht die Regeln, die für die Eingeborenen gelten. Das ist nicht, so betont Ramadan mit hochgezogener Augenbraue, was die Europäer als europäischen Wert bezeichnen. Europa braucht die Einwanderer. Es kann sich seinen Lebensstandard ohne sie nicht leisten. Also muss es mit ihnen leben. Europa muss begreifen, dass die Integration der Muslime kein Projekt mehr ist, sondern Realität. Die europäische Identität, so Ramadan, hat sich in den letzten Jahrzehnten radikal verändert. Die Muslime und der Islam gehören inzwischen dazu. Es ist kurios, dass man angesichts der Möglichkeit der Aufnahme der Türkei in die europäische Union eine Debatte darüber führt, ob Europa ein islamisches Land - zudem noch ein säkularer Staat - verkraften könne, während längst Millionen Muslime gute Europäer geworden sind. Sie sind jedenfalls bessere, tolerantere, offenere Europäer als die Europäer selbst es während eines Großteils ihrer Geschichte waren: "Man verlangt von uns bessere Europäer zu sein, als die Europäer selbst es sind."

Europa muss sich ein neues Bild von sich machen. Wer heute in Europa von "wir" und "denen" spricht, der muss begreifen, dass "die" längst zum "wir" gehören. Ein Europa ohne Muslime ist unmöglich geworden.

Jürgen Habermas antwortete sichtlich beeindruckt. Man müsse verstehen, dass Europa sich schwer tue mit den Muslimen. Die christlich-säkulare Mehrheitskultur wisse - gerade in Deutschland -, wie lange der Weg zu den europäischen Werten sei, wie viele Rückschläge es gegeben habe. Wie sehr man immer wieder auch auf Druck von Außen angewiesen gewesen sei, um Toleranz lernen zu können. Das Misstrauen gegenüber den Neuankömmlingen habe seine Wurzel auch im Misstrauen gegenüber sich selbst. Es rühre auch her aus der Erfahrung, die man mit sich selbst gemacht habe. Dann stellt Jürgen Habermas Tariq Ramadan die Frage: "Was halten Sie von den Überlegungen des Erzbischofs von Canterbury, den britischen Muslimen zu erlauben, in bestimmten Fragen sich der Scharia und nicht den britischen Gerichten stellen zu können?"

Ramadans Antwort: "Der Erzbischof hat sich nicht für eine Parallelgerichtsbarkeit ausgesprochen. Also nicht für die Idee, dass muslimische Briten nach muslimischem Gesetz gerichtet werden und die anderen nach dem common law. Es geht vielmehr darum, ob innerhalb des common law nicht spezifische Gerichtshöfe eingerichtet werden für spezifische Gruppen. Das gibt es für bestimmte Fragen in Großbritannien schon. Zum Beispiel für jüdische Gemeinden. Der Erzbischof meinte nur, dass das auch für Muslime möglich sein müsste. Ich finde, er hat damit recht. Es ist also, das ist meine Antwort, legal. Aber ich halte es für überflüssig. Wir brauchen keine eigenen Gerichtshöfe. Abgesehen davon glaube ich, dass mir die Rechtssprüche solcher muslimischer Gelehrten oft nicht gerade recht sein werden."

Im Publikum war auch Ian Buruma, der aus Holland stammende Schriftsteller. Er fragte Tariq Ramadan, warum er sich für ein Moratorium von Steinigungen in muslimischen Ländern ausgesprochen habe, statt sie zu verurteilen. "Ich bin gegen Steinigungen. Ich bin auch gegen die Todesstrafe und gegen Folter und körperliche Züchtigung. Das habe ich immer wieder deutlich gesagt. Kein Staat der Welt wird sie aber, weil ich, weil wir es fordern, abschaffen. Also habe ich, damit niemand weiter zu Schaden kommt, wenigstens ein Moratorium gefordert. Der Mufti von Ägypten hat das für eine vernünftige Überlegung erklärt, andere wichtige islamische Stimmen haben sich dem angeschlossen. Ich halte Steinigung, Todesstrafe, körperliche Züchtigung für unislamisch. Es gibt eine Reihe von bekannten Muslimen, die das genauso sehen. Wenn Sie sich die Debatte in den USA um die Todesstrafe ansehen, werden Sie merken, dass da Moratorien immer wieder eine wichtige Rolle gespielt haben." Tariq Ramadan ist sehr erregt. Er hebt seine Stimme. Nur wenige wissen, dass hier auch ein privater Konflikt berührt wird.

Sein Bruder Hani Ramadan hat die Steinigung von Ehebrecherinnen öffentlich verteidigt und musste daraufhin Anfang dieses Jahres aus den Diensten des Kantons Genf austreten. Tariq Ramadans Großvater war Hassan al-Banna, einer der Begründer der ägyptischen Moslembrüderschaft, einer der wichtigsten islamischen Reformbewegungen der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Er wurde 1949 von den ägyptischen Behörden ermordet. Tariqs Vater Said Ramadan musste 1954 nach Europa fliehen. Er wurde in Köln promoviert und war einer der bekanntesten islamischen Propagandisten in Europa. Die Ramadans sind heute in dritter Generation mit der Frage nach dem Verhältnis von Europa-Moderne-Islam befasst. Wenn demnächst vielleicht eine europäische Geschichte geschrieben wird, deren Ausgangspunkt das heutige Europa und nicht die Idee eines vergangenen christlichen Europas ist, werden die Ramadans darin eine zentrale Rolle spielen.

Es hat lange gedauert, bis man in Deutschland begriff, dass es die deutschen Juden waren, die zuerst Deutsche waren. Die meisten Deutschen fühlten sich als Hessen, Frankfurter, Bayern, Pfälzer, bevor sie sich als Deutsche begriffen. Die Juden hatte keine Chance, sich als Bayern zu begreifen. Sie wollten Deutsche sein. Vielleicht befindet sich Europa heute in einer ähnlichen Situation. Die Iren sind zuallererst Iren, die Dänen Dänen, die Deutschen Deutsche, die Belgier zuerst Flamen oder Wallonen; den Einwanderern, denen es verwehrt wird, Iren, Dänen, Deutsche zu werden, von denen aber verlangt wird, europäischer zu sein, als die Europäer es jemals waren, bleibt nichts anderes übrig, als Europäer zu werden. Sie werden die ersten wirklichen Europäer sein. Ohne Muslime kein Europa.

from here

Ein Lob den Iren

2008-06-17T19:53:00.000-07:00

Nach dem irischen Nein zum Vertrag von Lissabon sind die Regierungen mit ihrem Latein am Ende: Sie müssen die Bevölkerung über Europa entscheiden lassen.

Von Jürgen Habermas

Europa muss eigenständig werden – für die "Wiedergeburt" des Kontinents warb der Philosoph und Soziologe Jürgen Habermas 2003, nach dem Irak-Krieg, mit dem französischen Philosophen Jacques Derrida. Nach dem Nein der Iren zum Lissabon-Vertrag redet der 78-jährige Intellektuelle den Regierungen und Parteien ins Gewissen: Sie müssen Europa zu einem lebenswichtigen Thema auf den Marktplätzen machen.

. . . und alle Räder stehen still.

Die Bauern ärgern sich über sinkende Weltmarktpreise und immer neue Vorschriften aus Brüssel. "Die unten" ärgern sich über die wachsende Kluft zwischen Arm und Reich, erst recht in einem Land, wo die Leute nachbarschaftlich zusammenlebten. Die Bürger verachten die eigenen Politiker, die vieles versprechen, aber ohne Perspektive sind und nichts mehr bewegen (können).

Und dann dieses Referendum über einen Vertrag, der zu kompliziert ist, um ihn verstehen zu können. Von der EU-Mitgliedschaft hat man mehr oder weniger profitiert. Warum soll sich dann etwas ändern? Bedeutet nicht jede Stärkung der europäischen Institutionen die Schwächung von demokratischen Stimmen, die doch nur im nationalstaatlichen Raum gehört werden?

Die Bürger spüren den Paternalismus. Sie sollen wieder einmal etwas ratifizieren, woran sie nicht beteiligt waren. Freilich hat die Regierung in Aussicht gestellt, dieses Mal das Referendum nicht wiederholen zu lassen, bis das Volk endlich akklamiert. Und sind die Iren, dieses kleine Volk von Widerständlern, nicht die einzigen im weiten Europa, die überhaupt nach ihrer Meinung gefragt werden?

Sie wollen nicht wie Stimmvieh behandelt werden, das zur Urne getrieben wird. Mit Ausnahme von drei "Nein" sagenden Parlamentsabgeordneten steht ihnen die ganze politische Klasse geschlossen gegenüber. Damit stellt sich gewissermaßen die Politik als solche zur Wahl. Umso größer die Versuchung, "der" Politik einen Denkzettel zu verpassen. Heute ist diese Versuchung überall groß.

Über die Motive des irischen Neins lässt sich nur spekulieren. Dagegen sind die ersten Reaktionen von offizieller Seite eindeutig. Die aufgescheuchten Regierungen wollen nicht ratlos erscheinen, sie suchen nach einer technischen Lösung. Diese läuft auf eine Wiederholung des irischen Referendums hinaus.

Bürokratisch verabredete Notlösung
Das ist der pure Zynismus der Macher gegenüber dem verbal bezeugten Respekt vor dem Wähler - und Wasser auf die Mühlen derer, die munter darüber diskutieren, ob nicht die halbautoritären Formen der andernorts praktizierten Fassadendemokratien besser funktionieren.

Der Vertrag von Lissabon sollte endlich die Organisationsreform nachholen, die der Europa-Gipfel in Nizza, also vor der Erweiterung von 15 auf 27 Mitgliedstaaten, zwar gewollt, aber nicht zustande gebracht hat. Die Osterweiterung hat inzwischen mit dem krasseren Wohlstandsgefälle und der gesteigerten Interessenvielfalt einen entsprechend gewachsenen Integrationsbedarf erzeugt.

Mit den neuen Konflikten und Spannungen können die europäischen Gremien im bisherigen Stil schlecht zurechtkommen. Nach dem Scheitern einer europäischen Verfassung stellte der Lissabonner Vertrag die bürokratisch verabredete Notlösung dar, die verhohlen an den Bevölkerungen vorbei durchgepaukt werden sollte. Mit diesem letzten Kraftakt haben die Regierungen kaltschnäuzig vorgeführt, dass sie allein über das Schicksal Europas entscheiden. Leider mit der lästigen, von der irischen Verfassung vorgeschriebenen Ausnahme.

Auf der nächsten Seite sind ungelöste Probleme ernster zu nehmen als beeinflussbare Stimmungslagen.

Die Dialektik der Säkularisierung

2008-04-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

Von Jürgen Habermas

Der Bischof von Canterbury empfiehlt dem britischen Gesetzgeber, für die einheimischen Muslime Teile des Familienrechts der Scharia zu übernehmen; Präsident
Sarkozy schickt 4000 zusätzliche Polizisten in die berüchtigten, von Krawallen algerischer Jugendlicher heimgesuchten Banlieues von Paris; ein Brand in Ludwigshafen, bei dem neun Türken, darunter vier Kinder, umkommen, weckt in den türkischen Medien trotz der ungeklärten Brandursache tiefen Argwohn und wüste Empörung; das veranlasst den türkischen Ministerpräsidenten bei seiner Visite in Deutschland zu einem Besuch der Brandstelle, wobei sein anschließender wenig hilfreicher Auftritt in Köln1 wiederum in der deutschen Presse ein schrilles Echo auslöst. Alle diese Nachrichten stammen von nur einem Wochenende dieses Jahres. Sie dokumentieren, wie sehr der Zusammenhalt innerhalb vermeintlich säkularer Gesellschaften gefährdet ist – und wie drängend sich die Frage stellt, ob und in welchem Sinne wir es inzwischen mit einer postsäkularen Gesellschaft zu tun haben.

Um von einer „postsäkularen“ Gesellschaft sprechen zu können, muss diese sich zuvor in einem „säkularen“ Zustand befunden haben. Der umstrittene Ausdruck kann sich also nur auf die europäischen Wohlstandsgesellschaften oder auf Länder wie Kanada, Australien und Neuseeland beziehen, wo sich die religiösen Bindungen der Bürger kontinuierlich, seit dem Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges sogar drastisch gelockert haben. In diesen Regionen hatte sich das Bewusstsein, in einer säkularisierten Gesellschaft zu leben, mehr oder weniger allgemein verbreitet. Gemessen an den üblichen religionssoziologischen Indikatoren haben sich die religiösen Verhaltensweisen und Überzeugungen der einheimischen Bevölkerungen inzwischen keineswegs so verändert, dass sich daraus eine Beschreibung dieser Gesellschaften als „postsäkular“ rechtfertigen ließe. Bei uns können auch die Trends zur Entkirchlichung und zu neuen spirituellen Formen der Religiösität die greifbaren Einbußen der großen Religionsgemeinschaften nicht kompensieren.2

Dennoch wecken globale Veränderungen und die weithin sichtbaren Konflikte, die sich heute an religiösen Fragen entzünden, Zweifel am angeblichen Relevanzverlust der Religion. Die lange Zeit unbestrittene These, dass zwischen der Modernisierung der Gesellschaft und der Säkularisierung der Bevölkerung ein enger Zusammenhang besteht, findet unter Soziologen immer weniger Anhänger.3 Diese These stützte sich auf drei zunächst einleuchtende Überlegungen.

Der wissenschaftlich-technische Fortschritt fördert erstens ein anthropozentrisches Verständnis der „entzauberten“, weil kausal erklärbaren Weltzusammenhänge; und ein wissenschaftlich aufgeklärtes Bewusstsein lässt sich nicht ohne weiteres mit theozentrischen oder metaphysischen Weltbildern vereinbaren. Zweitens verlieren die Kirchen und Religionsgemeinschaften im Zuge der funktionalen Ausdifferenzierung gesellschaftlicher Subsysteme den Zugriff auf Recht, Politik und öffentliche Wohlfahrt, Kultur, Erziehung und Wissenschaft; sie beschränken sich auf ihre genuine Funktion der Verwaltung von Heilsgütern, machen die Religionsausübung mehr oder weniger zur Privatsache und büßen generell an öffentlicher Bedeutung ein. Schließlich hat die Entwicklung von agrarischen zu industriellen und postindustriellen Gesellschaften allgemein ein höheres Wohlstandsniveau und zunehmende soziale Sicherheit zur Folge; mit der Entlastung von Lebensrisiken und wachsender existenzieller Sicherheit schwindet für den Einzelnen das Bedürfnis nach einer Praxis, die unbeherrschte Kontingenzen durch die Kommunikation mit einer „jenseitigen“ bzw. kosmischen Macht zu bewältigen verspricht/p>

Die Säkularisierungsthese ist, obwohl sie von den Entwicklungen in den europäischen Wohlstandsgesellschaften bestätigt zu werden scheint, in der soziologischen Fachöffentlichkeit seit mehr als zwei Jahrzehnten umstritten.4 Im Fahrwasser der nicht ganz unbegründeten Kritik an einem eurozentrisch verengten Blickwinkel ist nun sogar vom „Ende der Säkularisierungstheorie“ die Rede.5 Die USA, die ja mit unverändert vitalen Glaubensgemeinschaften und gleichbleibenden Anteilen von religiös gebundenen und aktiven Bürgern gleichwohl die Speerspitze der Modernisierung bilden, galten für lange Zeit als die große Ausnahme vom Säkularisierungstrend. Belehrt durch den global erweiterten Blick auf andere Kulturen und Weltreligionen, erscheinen sie heute eher als der Normalfall. Aus dieser revisionistischen Sicht stellt sich die europäische Entwicklung, die mit ihrem okzidentalen Rationalismus für den Rest der Welt das Modell sein sollte, als der eigentliche Sonderweg dar.6

Die Vitalität des Religiösen
Es sind vor allem drei, einander überlappende Phänomene, die sich zum Eindruck einer weltweiten „resurgence of religion“ verdichten – die missionarische Ausbreitung der großen Weltregionen (a), deren fundamentalistische Zuspitzung (b) und die politische Instrumentalisierung ihrer Gewaltpotentiale (c).

(a) Ein Zeichen von Vitalität ist zunächst der Umstand, dass im Rahmen der bestehenden Religionsgemeinschaften und Kirchen orthodoxe oder jedenfalls konservative Gruppen überall auf dem Vormarsch sind. Das gilt für Hinduismus und Buddhismus ebenso wie für die drei monotheistischen Religionen. Auffällig ist vor allem die regionale Ausbreitung dieser etablierten Religionen in Afrika und in den Ländern Ost- und Südostasiens. Der Missionserfolg hängt offenbar auch von der Beweglichkeit der Organisationsformen ab. Die multikulturelle Weltkirche des römischen Katholizismus passt sich den Globalisierungstrends besser an als die nationalstaatlich verfassten protestantischen Kirchen, die die großen Verlierer sind. Am dynamischsten entfalten sich die dezentralisierten Netzwerke des Islam (vor allem in Afrika unterhalb der Sahara) und der Evangelikalen (vor allem in Lateinamerika). Sie zeichnen sich durch eine ekstatische, von einzelnen charismatischen Figuren entfachte Religiösität aus.

(b) Die am schnellsten wachsenden religiösen Bewegungen wie die Pfingstler und die radikalen Muslime lassen sich am ehesten als „fundamentalistisch“ beschreiben. Sie bekämpfen die moderne Welt oder ziehen sich von ihr zurück. In ihrem Kultus verbinden sich Spiritualismus und Naherwartung mit rigiden Moralvorstellungen und wörtlichem Bibelglauben. Demgegenüber sind die seit den 70er Jahren sprunghaft entstehenden „Neuen religiösen Bewegungen“ eher durch einen „kalifornischen“ Synkretismus geprägt. Mit den Evangelikalen teilen sie allerdings die entinstitutionalisierte Form der religiösen Praxis. In Japan sind ungefähr 400 solcher Sekten entstanden, die Elemente aus Buddhismus und Volksreligion mit pseudowissenschaftlichen und esoterischen Lehren mischen. In der Volksrepublik China haben die staatlichen Repressalien gegen die Falun-Gong-Sekte die Aufmerksamkeit auf die große Zahl von „neuen Religionen“ gelenkt, deren Anhängerschaft dort auf insgesamt 80 Millionen geschätzt wird.7

(c) Das Regime der Mullahs im Iran und der islamische Terrorismus sind nur die spektakulärsten Beispiele für eine politische Entbindung religiöser Gewaltpotentiale. Oft entfacht erst die religiöse Kodierung die Glut von Konflikten, die einen anderen, profanen Ursprung haben. Das gilt für die „Entsäkularisierung“ des Nahostkonflikts ebenso wie für die Politik des Hindunationalismus und den anhaltenden Konflikt zwischen Indien und Pakistan8 oder für die Mobilmachung der religiösen Rechten in den USA vor und während der Invasion des Iraks.

Die postsäkulare Gesellschaft – religiöse Gemeinschaften in säkularer Umgebung
Auf den Streit der Soziologen über den angeblichen Sonderweg der säkularisierten Gesellschaften Europas inmitten einer religiös mobilisierten Weltgesellschaft kann ich nicht im Detail eingehen. Nach meinem Eindruck geben die global erhobenen Vergleichsdaten den Verteidigern der Säkularisierungsthese immer noch eine erstaunlich robuste Rückendeckung.9 Die Schwäche der Säkularisierungstheorie besteht eher in undifferenzierten Schlussfolgerungen, die eine unscharfe Verwendung der Begriffe „Säkularisierung“ und „Modernisierung“ verraten. Richtig bleibt die Aussage, dass sich Kirchen und Religionsgemeinschaften im Zuge der Ausdifferenzierung gesellschaftlicher Funktionssysteme zunehmend auf die Kernfunktion der seelsorgerischen Praxis beschränkt haben und ihre umfassenden Kompetenzen in anderen gesellschaftlichen Bereichen aufgeben mussten. Gleichzeitig hat sich die Religionsausübung in individuellere Formen zurückgezogen. Der funktionalen Spezifizierung des Religionssystems entspricht eine Individualisierung der Religionspraxis.

Aber José Casanova hat zu Recht geltend gemacht, dass Funktionsverlust und Individualisierung keinen Bedeutungsverlust der Religion zur Folge haben müssen – weder in der politischen Öffentlichkeit und der Kultur einer Gesellschaft, noch in der persönlichen Lebensführung.10 Unabhängig von ihrem quantitativen Gewicht können Religionsgemeinschaften einen „Sitz“ auch im Leben weithin säkularisierter Gesellschaften behaupten. Auf das öffentliche Bewusstsein in Europa trifft heute insofern die Beschreibung einer „postsäkularen Gesellschaft“ zu, als diese sich einstweilen „auf das Fortbestehen religiöser Gemeinschaften in einer sich fortwährend säkularisierenden Umgebung einstellt“.11 Die veränderte Lesart der Säkularisierungsthese betrifft weniger deren Substanz als vielmehr die Voraussagen über die künftige Rolle „der“ Religion. Die neue Beschreibung moderner Gesellschaften als „postsäkular“ bezieht sich auf einen Bewusstseinswandel, den ich vor allem auf drei Phänomene zurückführe.

Erstens verändert die medial vermittelte Wahrnehmung jener weltweiten Konflikte, die oft als religiöse Gegensätze präsentiert werden, das öffentliche Bewusstsein. Es bedarf nicht einmal der Aufdringlichkeit fundamentalistischer Bewegungen und der Furcht vor dem religiös verbrämten Terrorismus, um der Mehrheit der europäischen Bürger die Relativität der eigenen säkularen Bewusstseinslage im Weltmaßstab vor Augen zu führen. Das verunsichert die säkularistische Überzeugung vom absehbaren Verschwinden der Religion und treibt dem säkularen Weltverständnis jeden Triumphalismus aus. Das Bewusstsein, in einer säkularen Gesellschaft zu leben, verbindet sich nicht länger mit der Gewissheit, dass sich die fortschreitende kulturelle und gesellschaftliche Modernisierung auf Kosten der öffentlichen und personalen Bedeutung von Religion vollziehen wird.

Zweitens gewinnt die Religion auch innerhalb der nationalen Öffentlichkeiten an Bedeutung. Dabei denke ich nicht in erster Linie an die medienwirksame Selbstdarstellung der Kirchen, sondern an den Umstand, dass Religionsgemeinschaften im politischen Leben säkularer Gesellschaften zunehmend die Rolle von Interpretationsgemeinschaften übernehmen.12 Sie können mit relevanten, ob nun überzeugenden oder anstößigen Beiträgen zu einschlägigen Themen auf die öffentliche Meinungs- und Willensbildung Einfluss nehmen. Unsere weltanschaulich pluralistischen Gesellschaften bilden für solche Interventionen einen empfindlichen Resonanzboden, weil sie in politisch regelungsbedürftigen Wertkonflikten immer häufiger gespalten sind. Im Streit über die Legalisierung von Abtreibung oder Sterbehilfe, über bioethische Fragen der Reproduktionsmedizin, über Fragen des Tierschutzes und des Klimawandels – in diesen und ähnlichen Fragen ist die Argumentationslage so unübersichtlich, dass keineswegs von vornherein ausgemacht ist, welche Partei sich auf die richtigen moralischen Intuitionen berufen kann.

Die einheimischen Konfessionen gewinnen übrigens durch das Auftreten und die Vitalität fremder Religionsgemeinschaften auch selber an Resonanz. Die Muslime von nebenan, wenn ich mich auf das für die Niederlande wie für Deutschland relevante Beispiel beziehen darf, drängen den christlichen Bürgern die Begegnung mit einer konkurrierenden Glaubenspraxis auf. Auch den säkularen Bürgern bringen sie das Phänomen einer öffentlich in Erscheinung tretenden Religion deutlicher zu Bewusstsein.

Die Arbeits- und Flüchtlingsimmigration, vor allem aus Ländern mit traditional geprägten Kulturen, ist der dritte Stimulus eines Bewusstseinswandels der Bevölkerungen. Seit dem 16. Jahrhundert musste Europa lernen, mit den konfessionellen Spaltungen innerhalb der eigenen Kultur und Gesellschaft umzugehen. Im Gefolge der Immigration verbinden sich die schrilleren Dissonanzen zwischen verschiedenen Religionen mit der Herausforderung eines Pluralismus von Lebensformen, die für Einwanderungsgesellschaften typisch ist. Sie reicht über die Herausforderung eines Pluralismus von Glaubensrichtungen hinaus. In den europäischen Gesellschaften, die sich selbst noch im schmerzhaften Prozess der Umwandlung zu postkolonialen Einwanderungsgesellschaften befinden, wird die Frage des toleranten Zusammenlebens verschiedener Religionsgemeinschaften durch das schwierige Problem der gesellschaftlichen Integration von Einwandererkulturen verschärft. Unter Bedingungen globalisierter Arbeitsmärkte muss diese Integration auch noch unter den demütigenden Bedingungen wachsender sozialer Ungleichheit gelingen. Das steht freilich auf einem anderen Blatt.

Was kennzeichnet den Bürger in der postsäkularen Gesellschaft?
Bisher habe ich aus der Sicht des soziologischen Beobachters die Frage zu beantworten versucht, warum wir weithin säkularisierte Gesellschaften gleichwohl „postsäkular“ nennen können. In diesen Gesellschaften behauptet die Religion eine öffentliche Bedeutung, während die säkularistische Gewissheit, dass die Religion im Zuge einer beschleunigten Modernisierung weltweit verschwinden wird, an Boden verliert. Eine ganz andere, nämlich normative Frage drängt sich uns aus der Perspektive von Beteiligten auf: Wie sollen wir uns als Mitglieder einer postsäkularen Gesellschaft verstehen und was müssen wir reziprok voneinander erwarten, damit in unseren historisch fest gefügten Nationalstaaten ein ziviler Umgang der Bürger miteinander auch unter den Bedingungen des kulturellen und weltanschaulichen Pluralismus gewahrt bleibt?

Diese Selbstverständigungsdebatten haben seit dem Schock über die Terroranschläge vom 11. September 2001 eine schärfere Tonart angenommen. Die Diskussion, die in den Niederlanden am 2. November 2004 über den Mord an Theo van Gogh, über Mohammed Bouyeri, den Täter, und über Ayaan Hirsi Ali, das eigentliche Objekt des Hasses, ausgebrochen ist, hatte eine besondere Qualität,13 so dass die Wogen über die nationalen Grenzen hinaus geschwappt sind und eine europaweite Debatte ausgelöst haben.14 Ich habe ein Interesse an den Hintergrundannahmen, die dieser Auseinandersetzung über den „Islam in Europa“ ihre Sprengkraft verleihen. Aber bevor ich auf den philosophischen Kern der reziproken Vorwürfe eingehen kann, muss ich den gemeinsamen Ausgangspunkt der streitenden Parteien – das Bekenntnis zur Trennung von Staat und Kirche – genauer skizzieren.

Die Trennung von Staat und Kirche
Die Säkularisierung der Staatsgewalt war die angemessene Antwort auf die Konfessionskriege der frühen Neuzeit. Das Prinzip der „Trennung von Staat und Kirche“ ist schrittweise und in den verschiedenen nationalen Rechtsordnungen auf jeweils andere Weise realisiert worden. In dem Maße, wie die Staatsgewalt einen säkularen Charakter annahm, erhielten die zunächst nur geduldeten religiösen Minderheiten immer weiter gehende Rechte – nach der Glaubensfreiheit die Bekenntnisfreiheit und schließlich das gleiche Recht auf freie und gleiche Religionsausübung. Der historische Blick auf diesen langwierigen, bis ins 20. Jahrhundert hinein reichenden Prozess kann uns über die Voraussetzungen der kostspieligen Errungenschaft einer inklusiven, für alle Bürger gleichermaßen gültigen Religionsfreiheit belehren.

Nach der Reformation stand der Staat zunächst vor der elementaren Aufgabe, eine konfessionell gespaltene Gesellschaft zu befrieden, also Ruhe und Ordnung herzustellen. Im Kontext der gegenwärtigen Debatte erinnert die niederländische Autorin Margriet de Moor ihre Landsleute an diese Anfänge: „Toleranz wird oft im selben Atemzug mit Respekt genannt, doch unserer Toleranz, die ihre Wurzeln im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert hat, liegt kein Respekt zugrunde, im Gegenteil. Wir haben die Religion des anderen gehasst, Katholiken und Calvinisten hatten keinen Funken Respekt vor den Anschauungen der anderen Seite, und unser achtzigjähriger Krieg war nicht nur ein Aufstand gegen Spanien, sondern auch ein blutiger Dschihad der orthodoxen Calvinisten gegen den Katholizismus“.15 Wir werden sehen, welche Art von Respekt Margriet de Moor im Sinn hat.

Im Hinblick auf Ruhe und Ordnung war die Staatsgewalt, auch wenn sie mit der im Lande herrschenden Religion noch verflochten blieb, zu weltanschaulich neutralem Handeln genötigt. Sie musste die streitenden Parteien entwaffnen, Arrangements für ein friedlich-schiedliches Zusammenleben der verfeindeten Konfessionen erfinden und deren prekäres Nebeneinander überwachen. In der Gesellschaft konnten sich die gegnerischen Subkulturen dann so einnisten, dass sie füreinander Fremde blieben. Genau dieser Modus Vivendi – und darauf kommt es mir an – erwies sich als unzureichend, als aus den Verfassungsrevolutionen des späten 18. Jahrhunderts eine neue politische Ordnung hervorging, welche eine vollständig säkularisierte Staatsgewalt gleichzeitig der Herrschaft der Gesetze und dem demokratischen Willen des Volkes unterwarf.

Staatsbürger und Gesellschaftsbürger
Dieser Verfassungsstaat kann den Bürgern gleiche Religionsfreiheit nur unter der Auflage garantieren, dass sie sich nicht länger in den integralen Lebenswelten ihrer Religionsgemeinschaften verschanzen und gegeneinander abschotten. Die Subkulturen müssen ihre individuellen Mitglieder aus der Umklammerung entlassen, damit diese sich in der Zivilgesellschaft gegenseitig als Staatsbürger, das heißt als die Träger und Mitglieder desselben politischen Gemeinwesens anerkennen können. Als demokratische Staatsbürger geben sie sich selbst die Gesetze, unter denen sie als private Gesellschaftsbürger ihre kulturelle und weltanschauliche Identität bewahren und gegenseitig respektieren können. Dieses neue Verhältnis von demokratischem Staat, Zivilgesellschaft und subkultureller Eigenständigkeit ist der Schlüssel zum richtigen Verständnis der beiden Motive, die heute miteinander konkurrieren, obwohl sie sich ergänzen sollten. Das universalistische Anliegen der politischen Aufklärung widerspricht nämlich keineswegs den partikularistischen Sensibilitäten eines richtig verstandenen Multikulturalismus.

Bereits der liberale Staat gewährleistet die Religionsfreiheit als Grundrecht, so dass religiöse Minderheiten nicht mehr nur geduldet und vom Wohlwollen einer mehr oder weniger toleranten Staatsmacht abhängig sind. Aber erst der demokratische Staat ermöglicht die unparteiliche Anwendung dieses Prinzips.16 Im Einzelfall, wenn die türkischen Gemeinden in Berlin, Köln oder Frankfurt ihre Gebetshäuser aus den Hinterhöfen herausholen möchten, um weithin sichtbare Moscheen zu errichten, geht es nicht mehr um das Prinzip als solches, sondern um dessen faire Anwendung. Einleuchtende Gründe für die Definition dessen, was toleriert werden soll oder nicht mehr toleriert werden kann, lassen sich aber nur mit Hilfe des deliberativen und inklusiven Verfahrens einer demokratischen Willensbildung herausfinden. Das Toleranzprinzip wird vom Verdacht einer hochfahrenden Duldung erst befreit, wenn die Konfliktparteien auf gleicher Augenhöhe zu einer Verständigung miteinander gelangen.17 Wie die Grenze zwischen der positiven Religionsfreiheit, also dem Recht, den eigenen Glauben auszuüben, und dem negativen Freiheitsrecht, von den religiösen Praktiken Andersgläubiger verschont zu bleiben, im konkreten Fall gezogen werden soll, ist immer umstritten. Aber in einer Demokratie sind die Betroffenen – wie indirekt auch immer – selbst am Entscheidungsprozess beteiligt.

„Toleranz“ ist freilich nicht nur eine Frage von Rechtsetzung und Rechtsanwendung; sie muss im Alltag praktiziert werden. Toleranz heißt, dass sich Gläubige, Andersgläubige und Ungläubige gegenseitig Überzeugungen, Praktiken und Lebensformen zugestehen, die sie selbst ablehnen. Dieses Zugeständnis muss sich auf eine gemeinsame Basis gegenseitiger Anerkennung stützen, auf der sich abstoßende Dissonanzen überbrücken lassen. Diese Anerkennung darf nicht mit der Wertschätzung der fremden Kultur und Lebensart, der abgelehnten Überzeugungen und Praktiken verwechselt werden.18 Toleranz brauchen wir nur gegenüber Weltanschauungen zu üben, die wir für falsch halten, und gegenüber Lebensgewohnheiten, die wir nicht goutieren. Anerkennungsbasis ist nicht die Wertschätzung dieser oder jener Eigenschaften und Leistungen, sondern das Bewusstsein, einer inklusiven Gemeinschaft gleichberechtigter Bürger anzugehören, in der einer dem anderen für seine politischen Äußerungen und Handlungen Rechenschaft schuldet.19

Das ist leichter gesagt als getan. Die gleichmäßige zivilgesellschaftliche Inklusion aller Bürger erfordert ja nicht nur eine politische Kultur, die davor bewahrt, Liberalität mit Indifferenz zu verwechseln. Sie kann nur gelingen, wenn auch bestimmte materielle Voraussetzungen erfüllt sind – unter anderem eine Integration in Kindergarten, Schule und Hochschule, die soziale Nachteile ausgleicht, und ein chancengleicher Zugang zum Arbeitsmarkt. Aber in unserem Zusammenhang kommt es mir vor allem auf das Bild einer inklusiven Bürgergesellschaft an, in der sich staatsbürgerliche Gleichheit und kulturelle Differenz auf die richtige Weise ergänzen.

Solange beispielsweise ein erheblicher Teil der deutschen Staatsbürger türkischer Herkunft und muslimischen Glaubens politisch stärker in der alten als in der neuen Heimat lebt, fehlen in der Öffentlichkeit und an der Wahlurne die korrigierenden Stimmen, die nötig wären, um die herrschende politische Kultur zu erweitern. Ohne eine zivilgesellschaftliche Inklusion der Minderheiten können sich die beiden komplementären Prozesse nicht im gleichen Schritt entfalten – die differenzempfindliche Öffnung des politischen Gemeinwesens für die gleichberechtigte Einbeziehung fremder Subkulturen auf der einen Seite und die liberale Öffnung dieser Subkulturen für die gleichberechtigte individuelle Teilnahme ihrer Mitglieder am demokratischen Prozess auf der anderen Seite.

„Aufklärungsfundamentalismus“ versus „Multikulturalismus“: der neue Kulturkampf und seine Parolen
Für die Beantwortung der Frage, wie wir uns als Mitglieder einer postsäkularen Gesellschaft verstehen sollen, kann das Bild dieser ineinandergreifenden Prozesse als ein Wegweiser dienen. Aber die ideologischen Parteien, die sich heute in der öffentlichen Debatte gegenüberstehen, nehmen davon kaum Notiz. Die eine Partei betont den Schutz kollektiver Identitäten und macht der Gegenseite einen „Aufklärungsfundamentalismus“ zum Vorwurf, während diese Partei wiederum auf einer kompromisslosen Einbeziehung der Minderheiten in die bestehende politische Kultur beharrt und der Gegenseite einen aufklärungsfeindlichen „Multikulturalismus“ vorwirft.

Die sogenannten Multikulturalisten kämpfen für eine differenzempfindliche Anpassung des Rechtssystems an den Anspruch kultureller Minderheiten auf Gleichbehandlung. Sie warnen vor erzwungener Assimilation und Entwurzelung. Der säkulare Staat darf die Eingliederung der Minderheiten in die egalitäre Gemeinschaft der Staatsbürger nicht so robust betreiben, dass sie die Einzelnen aus ihren identitätsprägenden Kontexten herausreißt. Aus dieser kommunitaristischen Sicht steht die Politik im Verdacht, die Minderheiten den Imperativen der Mehrheitskultur zu unterwerfen. Inzwischen weht allerdings den Multikulturalisten der Wind ins Gesicht: „Nicht nur Akademiker, sondern auch Politiker und Zeitungskolumnisten sehen die Aufklärung als Festung, die gegen den islamischen Extremismus verteidigt werden muss.“20 Das wiederum ruft die Kritik am „Aufklärungsfundamentalismus“ auf den Plan. So gibt etwa Timothy Garton Ash in der „New York Review of Books“ (vom 5. Oktober 2006) zu bedenken, dass „auch muslimische Frauen der Art und Weise widersprechen, mit der Hirsi Ali ihre Unterdrückung dem Islam ankreidet anstatt der jeweiligen nationalen, regionalen oder Stammeskultur.“21 Tatsächlich können die muslimischen Einwanderer nicht gegen ihre Religion, sondern nur mit dieser in eine westliche Gesellschaft integriert werden.

Auf der anderen Seite kämpfen die Säkularisten für eine farbenblinde politische Inklusion aller Bürger, ohne Rücksicht auf deren kulturelle Herkunft und religiöse Zugehörigkeit. Diese Seite warnt vor den Folgen einer Identitätspolitik, die das Rechtssystem für die Bewahrung der Eigenart kultureller Minderheiten zu weit öffnen. Aus dieser laizistischen Sicht muss Religion ausschließlich Privatsache bleiben. So lehnt Pascal Bruckner kulturelle Rechte ab, weil diese angeblich Parallelgesellschaften erzeugen – „kleine, abgeschottete Gesellschaftsgruppen, die jede für sich eine andere Norm befolgen.“22 Indem Bruckner den Multikulturalismus in Bausch und Bogen als einen „Rassismus des Antirassismus“ verurteilt, trifft er allerdings nur jene Ultras, die für die Einführung kollektiver Schutzrechte plädieren. Ein solcher Artenschutz für ganze kulturelle Gruppen würde tatsächlich den individuellen Mitgliedern das Recht auf eine eigene Lebensgestaltung beschneiden.23

Beide Parteien wollen ein zivilisiertes Zusammenleben autonomer Bürger im Rahmen einer liberalen Gesellschaft, und doch tragen sie miteinander einen Kulturkampf aus, der sich bei jedem politischen Anlass von neuem aufschaukelt. Obgleich die Zusammengehörigkeit beider Aspekte klar ist, streiten sie darüber, ob die Bewahrung der kulturellen Identität oder die staatsbürgerliche Integration Vorrang haben soll. Polemische Schärfe gewinnt die Auseinandersetzung aus philosophischen Prämissen, die sich die Gegner zu Recht oder zu Unrecht reziprok zuschreiben. Ian Buruma hat die interessante Beobachtung gemacht, dass nach dem 11. September 2001 ein bis dahin akademisch geführter Streit über Aufklärung und Gegenaufklärung aus den Universitäten heraus auf die Marktplätze gelangt ist.24 Erst die problematischen Überzeugungen im Hintergrund – ein vernunftkritisch aufgemöbelter Kulturrelativismus auf der einen, ein religionskritisch erstarrter Säkularismus auf der anderen Seite – heizen die Debatte an.

Der Relativismus der radikalen Multikulturalisten
Die radikale Lesart des Multikulturalismus stützt sich oft auf die falsche Vorstellung einer „Inkommensurabilität“ von Weltbildern, Diskursen oder Begriffsschemata. Aus dieser kontextualistischen Sicht erscheinen auch kulturelle Lebensformen als semantisch geschlossene Universen, die ihre jeweils eigenen, unvergleichbaren Rationalitätsmaßstäbe und Wahrheiten im Griff behalten. Deshalb soll jede Kultur als ein für sich seiendes, semantisch versiegeltes Ganzes von einer diskursiven Verständigung mit anderen Kulturen abgeschnitten sein. Außer wackligen Kompromissen soll in Auseinandersetzungen nur die Alternative zwischen Unterwerfung und Konversion bestehen. Unter dieser Prämisse können sich auch in universalistischen Geltungsansprüchen – so etwa in den Argumenten für die allgemeine Geltung von Demokratie und Menschenrechten – nur die imperialistischen Machtansprüche einer herrschenden Kultur verbergen.

Ironischerweise beraubt sich diese relativistische Lesart ungewollt der Maßstäbe für eine Kritik an der Ungleichbehandlung von kulturellen Minderheiten. In unseren postkolonialen Einwanderungsgesellschaften geht die Diskriminierung von Minderheiten für gewöhnlich auf vorherrschende kulturelle Selbstverständlichkeiten zurück, die zu einer selektiven Anwendung der etablierten Verfassungsprinzipien führen. Wenn man dann aber den universalistischen Sinn dieser Prinzipien gar nicht erst ernst nimmt, fehlen die Gesichtspunkte, unter denen sich eine illegitime Verfilzung der Verfassungsinterpretation mit Vorurteilen der Mehrheitskultur überhaupt erst entdecken lässt.

Auf die philosophische Unhaltbarkeit der kulturrelativistischen Vernunftkritik brauche ich hier nicht weiter einzugehen.25 Aber diese Position ist noch aus einem anderen Grunde interessant; sie erklärt einen merkwürdigen politischen Seitenwechsel. Im Anblick des islamistischen Terrors haben sich manche linke „Multikulturalisten“ in kriegsbegeisterte liberale Falken verwandelt und sind sogar mit neokonservativen „Aufklärungsfundamentalisten“ ein unerwartetes Bündnis eingegangen.26 Offenbar konnten sich diese Konvertiten im Kampf gegen die Islamisten die einst bekämpfte Aufklärungskultur (ähnlich wie die Konservativen) umso leichter als „westliche Kultur“ zu eigen machen, weil sie deren universalistischen Anspruch schon immer abgelehnt hatten: „Die Aufklärung ist besonders deswegen attraktiv [geworden], weil deren Werte nicht bloß universal sind, sondern weil es ‚unsere‘, das heißt europäische, westliche Werte sind.“27

Diese Kritik bezieht sich natürlich nicht auf jene laizistischen Intellektuellen französischer Herkunft, auf die der Vorwurf des „Aufklärungsfundamentalismus“ ursprünglich gemünzt war. Auch bei diesen Hütern einer universalistisch begriffenen Aufklärungstradition erklärt sich freilich die gewisse Militanz aus einer fragwürdigen philosophischen Hintergrundannahme. Die Religion muss sich – gemäß dieser religionskritischen Lesart – aus der politischen Öffentlichkeit in den Privatbereich zurückziehen, weil sie, kognitiv betrachtet, eine historisch überwundene „Gestalt des Geistes“ ist. Unter normativen Gesichtspunkten einer liberalen Ordnung muss sie zwar geduldet werden, aber sie kann nicht den Anspruch erheben, als kulturelle Ressource für das Selbstverständnis moderner Zeitgenossen ernst genommen zu werden.

Diese philosophische Aussage ist unabhängig davon, wie man die deskriptive Feststellung beurteilt, dass die Religionsgemeinschaften auch in weitgehend säkularisierten Gesellschaften relevante Beiträge zur politischen Meinungs- und Willensbildung leisten. Auch wenn man die Beschreibung „postsäkular“ für westeuropäische Gesellschaften empirisch für richtig hält, kann man aus philosophischen Gründen davon überzeugt sein, dass Religionsgemeinschaften ihren bleibenden Einfluss nur dem zähen – soziologisch erklärbaren – Überleben vormoderner Denkweisen verdanken. Religiöse Glaubensinhalte sind aus der Sicht der Säkularisten so oder so wissenschaftlich diskreditiert. Dieser Charakter des wissenschaftlich Nichtdiskutablen reizt sie zur Polemik in der Auseinandersetzung mit religiösen Überlieferungen und mit religiösen Zeitgenossen, die noch eine öffentliche Bedeutung beanspruchen.

Säkular oder säkularistisch
Terminologisch unterscheide ich zwischen „säkular“ und „säkularistisch“. Im Unterschied zur indifferenten Einstellung einer säkularen oder ungläubigen Person, die sich gegenüber religiösen Geltungsansprüchen agnostisch verhält, nehmen Säkularisten gegenüber religiösen Lehren, die trotz ihrer wissenschaftlich nicht begründbaren Ansprüche öffentliche Bedeutung genießen, eine polemische Einstellung ein. Heute stützt sich der Säkularismus oft auf einen harten, das heißt szientistisch begründeten Naturalismus. Anders als beim Kulturrelativismus brauche ich in diesem Falle zum philosophischen Hintergrund nicht Stellung zu nehmen.28 Denn in unserem Zusammenhang interessiert mich die Frage, ob sich eine säkularistische Abwertung der Religion, wenn sie eines Tages von der großen Mehrheit der säkularen Bürger geteilt würde, mit dem skizzierten Verhältnis von staatsbürgerlicher Gleichheit und kultureller Differenz überhaupt vereinbar ist. Oder wäre die säkularistische Bewusstseinslage eines relevanten Teils der Bürger für das normativ ausgezeichnete Selbstverständnis einer postsäkularen Gesellschaft ebenso wenig bekömmlich wie die fundamentalistische Neigung einer Masse religiöser Bürger? Diese Frage rührt an tiefere Quellen des Unbehagens als jedes „multikulturalistische Drama“.

Die Säkularisten haben das Verdienst, energisch auf der Unverzichtbarkeit der gleichmäßigen zivilgesellschaftlichen Inklusion aller Bürger zu bestehen. Weil eine demokratische Ordnung ihren Trägern nicht einfach auferlegt werden kann, konfrontiert der Verfassungsstaat seine Bürger mit Erwartungen eines Staatsbürgerethos, das über bloßen Gesetzesgehorsam hinauszielt. Auch religiöse Bürger und Religionsgemeinschaften dürfen sich nicht nur äußerlich anpassen. Sie müssen sich die säkulare Legitimation des Gemeinwesens unter den Prämissen ihres eigenen Glaubens zu eigen machen.29 Die katholische Kirche hat sich bekanntlich erst mit dem zweiten Vaticanum im Jahre 1965 zu Liberalismus und Demokratie bekannt. Und in Deutschland haben es die protestantischen Kirchen auch nicht viel anders gehalten. Dieser schmerzhafte Lernprozess steht dem Islam noch bevor. Auch in der islamischen Welt wächst die Einsicht, dass heute ein historisch-hermeneutischer Zugang zu den Lehren des Koran nötig ist. Die Diskussion über einen erwünschten Euro-Islam bringt uns jedoch erneut zu Bewusstsein, dass es letztlich die religiösen Gemeinden sind, die selbst darüber entscheiden werden, ob sie in einem reformierten Glauben den „wahren Glauben“ wiedererkennen können.30

Wir stellen uns das Reflexivwerden des religiösen Bewusstseins nach dem Vorbild jenes Wandels epistemischer Einstellungen vor, wie er sich seit der Reformation in den christlichen Kirchen des Westens vollzogen hat. Eine solche Mentalitätsänderung lässt sich nicht verordnen, nicht politisch steuern oder rechtlich erzwingen, sie ist bestenfalls das Ergebnis eines Lernprozesses. Und als „Lernprozess“ erscheint er auch nur aus der Sicht eines säkularen Selbstverständnisses der Moderne. Bei solchen kognitiven Voraussetzungen für ein demokratisches Staatsbürgerethos stoßen wir an die Grenzen einer normativen politischen Theorie, die Pflichten und Rechte begründet. Lernprozesse können gefördert, nicht moralisch oder rechtlich gefordert werden.31

Dialektik der Aufklärung: Säkularisierung als komplementärer Lernprozess
Aber müssen wir nicht den Spieß auch umdrehen? Ist ein Lernprozess nur auf der Seite des religiösen Traditionalismus und nicht auch auf der des Säkularismus nötig? Verbieten nicht dieselben normativen Erwartungen, die wir an eine inklusive Bürgergesellschaft richten, eine säkularistische Abwertung der Religion ebenso wie beispielsweise die religiöse Ablehnung der Gleichstellung von Mann und Frau? Ein komplementärer Lernprozess ist auf der säkularen Seite jedenfalls dann nötig, wenn wir die Neutralisierung der Staatsgewalt nicht mit dem Ausschluss religiöser Äußerungen aus der politischen Öffentlichkeit verwechseln. Gewiss, die Domäne des Staates, der über die Mittel legitimer Zwangsmaßnahmen verfügt, darf sich nicht für den Streit unter diversen Glaubensgemeinschaften öffnen, sonst könnte die Regierung zum Vollzugsorgan einer religiösen Mehrheit werden, die der Opposition ihren Willen aufzwingt. Im Verfassungsstaat müssen alle legal durchsetzbaren Normen in einer Sprache formuliert und öffentlich gerechtfertigt werden können, die alle Bürger verstehen. Die weltanschauliche Neutralität des Staates spricht freilich nicht gegen die Zulassung religiöser Äußerungen zur politischen Öffentlichkeit, wenn die institutionalisierten Beratungs- und Entscheidungsprozesse auf der Ebene der Parlamente, Gerichte, Ministerien und Verwaltungsbehörden deutlich von der informellen Teilnahme der Bürger an öffentlicher Kommunikation und Meinungsbildung geschieden bleibt. Die „Trennung von Staat und Kirche“ verlangt zwischen diesen beiden Sphären einen Filter, der nur „übersetzte“, also säkulare Beiträge aus dem babylonischen Stimmengewirr der Öffentlichkeit zu den Agenden der staatlichen Institutionen durchlässt.

Zwei Gründe sprechen für eine solche liberale Öffnung. Zum einen müssen sich Personen, die weder willens noch fähig sind, ihre moralischen Überzeugungen und ihren Wortschatz in profane und sakrale Anteile aufzuspalten, auch in religiöser Sprache an der politischen Meinungsbildung beteiligen dürfen. Zum anderen sollte der demokratische Staat die polyphone Komplexität der öffentlichen Stimmenvielfalt nicht vorschnell reduzieren, weil er nicht wissen kann, ob er die Gesellschaft sonst nicht von knappen Ressourcen der Sinnund Identitätsstiftung abschneidet. Besonders im Hinblick auf verwundbare Bereiche des sozialen Zusammenlebens verfügen religiöse Traditionen über die Kraft, moralische Intuitionen überzeugend zu artikulieren. Was den Säkularismus in Bedrängnis bringt, ist dann aber die Erwartung, dass die säkularen Bürger in Zivilgesellschaft und politischer Öffentlichkeit ihren religiösen Mitbürgern als religiösen Bürgern auf gleicher Augenhöhe begegnen sollen.

Säkulare Bürger, die ihren Mitbürgern mit dem Vorbehalt begegnen würden, dass diese aufgrund ihrer religiösen Geisteshaltung nicht als moderne Zeitgenossen ernst genommen werden können, fielen auf die Ebene eines bloßen Modus Vivendi zurück und verließen damit die Anerkennungsbasis der gemeinsamen Staatsbürgerschaft. Sie dürfen nicht a fortiori ausschließen, auch in religiösen Äußerungen semantische Gehalte, vielleicht sogar verschwiegene eigene Intuitionen zu entdecken, die sich übersetzen und in eine öffentliche Argumentation einbringen lassen. Wenn alles gut gehen soll, müssen sich also beide Seiten, jeweils aus ihrer Sicht, auf eine Interpretation des Verhältnisses von Glauben und Wissen einlassen, die ihnen ein selbstreflexiv aufgeklärtes Miteinander möglich macht.

* Dieser Text lag einem Vortrag zugrunde, den der Verfasser am 15. März 2007 im Rahmen der Veranstaltungen des Nexus Instituts an der Universität Tilburg, Niederlande, gehalten hat.
1 Dokumentiert in: „Blätter“, 3/2007, S. 122-124.
2 Detlef Pollack, Säkularisierung – ein moderner Mythos? Tübingen 2003.
3 Hans Joas, Gesellschaft, Staat und Religion, in: ders. (Hg.), Säkularisierung und die Weltreligionen, Frankfurt a. M. 2007, S. 9-43; vgl. auch ders., Die Zukunft des Christentums, in: „Blätter“, 8/2007, S. 976-984.
4. Jeffrey K. Hadden, Towards desacralizing secularization theory, in: „Social Force“, 65 (1987), S. 587-611.
5 Joas, Gesellschaft, Staat und Religion, a.a.O.
6 Peter L. Berger, in: ders. (Hg.), The Desecularization of the World: A Global Overview, Grand Rapids/ MI 2005, S. 1-18.
7 Joachim Gentz, Die religiöse Lage in Ostasien, in: Joas (Hg.), a.a.O., S. 358-375.
8 Vgl. die Beiträge von Hans G. Kippenberg und Heinrich v. Stietencron in: Joas (Hg.), a.a.O., S. 465-507 und S. 194-223.
9 Pippa Norris und Ronald Ingelhart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide, Cambridge 2004.
10 Jose Casanova, Public religions in the Modern World, Chicago 1994.
11 Jürgen Habermas, Glauben und Wissen, Frankfurt a. M. 2001, S. 13.
12 So Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, The Church as a Community of Interpretation, in: Don S. Browning und Francis Schüssler Fiorenza (Hg.), Habermas, Modernity and Public Theology, New York 1992, S. 66-91.
13 Geert Mak, Der Mord an Theo van Gogh. Geschichte einer moralischen Panik, Frankfurt a. M. 2005.
14 Thierry Chervel und Anja Seeliger (Hg.), Islam in Europa, Frankfurt a. M. 2007.
15 Margriet de Moor, Alarmglocken, die am Herzen hängen, in: ebd., S. 211.
16 Zur Geschichte und systematischen Analyse vgl. die umfassende Arbeit von Rainer Forst, Toleranz im Konflikt, Frankfurt a. M. 2003.
17 Jürgen Habermas, Religiöse Toleranz als Schrittmacher kultureller Rechte, in: ders., Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion, Frankfurt a. M. 2005, S. 258-278.
18 Vgl. meine Auseinandersetzung mit Charles Taylors, Multikulturalismus und die Politik der Anerkennung, Frankfurt a. M. 1993, in: Jürgen Habermas, Kampf um Anerkennung im demokratischen Rechtsstaat, in: ders., Die Einbeziehung des Anderen, Frankfurt a. M. 1996, S. 237-276.
19 Zum öffentlichen Gebrauch der Vernunft vgl. John Rawls, Politischer Liberalismus, Frankfurt a. M. 1998, S. 312-366.
20 Ian Buruma, Die Grenzen der Toleranz, München 2006, S. 34.
21 Timothy Garton Ash, zit. nach Chervel und Seeliger (Hg.), a.a.O., S. 45 f.
22 Pascal Bruckner, in: ebd., S. 67.
23 Ebd., S. 62: „Der Multikulturalismus gewährt allen Gemeinschaften die gleiche Behandlung, nicht aber den Menschen, aus denen sie sich zusammensetzen, denn er verweigert ihnen die Freiheit, sich von ihren eigenen Traditionen loszusagen.“ Dazu: Brian Barry, Culture and Equality (Polity), Cambridge 2001 und Jürgen Habermas, Kulturelle Gleichbehandlung und die Grenzen des Postmodernen Liberalismus, in: ders., Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion, Frankfurt a. M. 2005, S. 279-323.
24 Ian Buruma, a.a.O., S. 34.
25 Die entscheidende Kritik an der Inkommensurabilitätsthese geht schon zurück auf die berühmte Presidential Address von Donald Davidson aus dem Jahre 1973 „On the very Idea of a Conceputal Scheme“ [Deutsch: Was ist eigentlich ein Begriffsschema? In: Donald Davidson und Richard Rorty, Wozu Wahrheit? Frankfurt a. M. 2005, S. 7-26].
26 Vgl. hierzu Anatol Lieven, Liberal Hawk Down – Wider die linken Falken, in: „Blätter“, 12/2004, S. 1447-1457.
27 Ian Buruma, a.a.O., S. 34. Buruma beschreibt auf S. 123 f. die Motive der linken Konvertiten einleuchtend so: „Die Muslime sind die Spielverderber, die uneingeladen auf der Party auftauchen. […] Die Toleranz hat also sogar für Hollands Progressive Grenzen. Es ist leicht, gegenüber denjenigen tolerant zu sein, bei denen wir instinktiv das Gefühl haben, ihnen trauen zu können, deren Witze wir verstehen, die unsere Auffassung von Ironie teilen. [...] Es ist viel schwieriger, dieses Prinzip auf Menschen in unserer Mitte anzuwenden, die unsere Lebensweise so verstörend finden wie wir die ihre.“
28 Vgl. die Kritik in meinen Beiträgen zu Hans Peter Krüger (Hg.), Hirn als Subjekt? Philosophische Grenzfragen der Neurobiologie, Berlin 2007, S. 101-120 und 263-304.
29 Darum geht es John Rawls, wenn er für die normative Substanz der Verfassungsordnung einen overlapping consensus zwischen den Weltanschauungsgruppen verlangt (Rawls, a.a.O., S. 219-264).
30 Ian Buruma, Wer ist Tariq Ramadan, in: Chervel und Seeliger (Hg.), a.a.O., S. 88-110; Bassam Tibi, Der Euro-Islam als Brücke zwischen Islam und Europa, in: ebd., S. 183-199; vgl. auch Tariq Ramadan, „Ihr bekommt die Muslime, die Ihr verdient“. Euro-Islam und muslimische Renaissance, in: „Blätter“, 6/2006, S. 673-685.
31 Zum Folgenden vgl. Jürgen Habermas, Religion in der Öffentlichkeit, in: ders., Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion, Frankfurt a. M. 2005, S. 119-154.

form here

A new book by Jürgen Habermas

2008-03-22T20:48:00.000-07:00

Ach Europa. Kleine politische Schriften XI
(Suhrkamp Verlag, 2008). 191 pages (Euro 9.-)

Contents
Vorwort des Autors

(I) Porträts

1. Der Hermann Heller der frühen Bundesrepublik Wolfgang Abendroth zum 100. Geburtstag

2. Richard Rorty und das Entzücken am Schock der Deflationierung – »... and to define America, her athletic democracy«; Im Andenken an Richard Rorty

3. Wie die ethische Frage zu beantworten ist; Derrida und die Religion

4. Derridas klärende Wirkung; Ein letzter Gruß

5. Ronald Dworkin; Ein Solitär im Kreise der Rechtsgelehrten

(II) Ach, Europa

6. Ein avantgardistischer Spürsinn für Relevanzen; Die Rolle des Intellektuellen und die Sache Europas

7. Europa und seine Immigranten

8. Europapolitik in der Sackgasse; Plädoyer für eine Politik der abgestuften Integration

(III) Zur Vernunft der Öffentlichkeit

9. Medie, Märkte und Konsumenten; Die seriöse Presse als Rückgrat der politischen Öffentlichkeit

10. Hat die Demokratie noch eine epistemische Dimension? Empirische Forschung und normative Theorie

Preface by Jürgen Habermas:

”Von Enzensbergers Lobgesang auf die europäische Vielfalt – Ach Europa! – bleibt heute nur noch der seufzende Ton. Eine Diskussion mit Außenminister Frank-Walter Steinmeier gab erneut Anlass, über die Zukunft Europas nachzudenken und der Selbsttäuschung entgegenzutreten, als sei nach dem Gipfel von Lissabon der drohende Rückfall der Europäischen Union in die nur zu bekannten Machtspiele der nationalen Regierungen gebannt. Diese haben bisher den Kurs der europäischen Einigung bestimmt, scheinen aber nun mit ihrem Latein am Ende zu sein. Vielleicht sollten sie das weitere Schicksal Europas in die Hände ihrer Bevölkerungen legen. Im übrigen plädiere ich für eine »bipolare« Gemeinsamkeit des Westens.

Das Hauptthema ergänze ich auf der einen Seite um gelegentlich entstandene »philosophisch-politische Profile«, auf der anderen Seite um zwei Texte zur Rolle der politischen Öffentlichkeit. Insbesondere der letzte Beitrag liegt mir am Herzen. Darin geht es um den strukturierenden Einfluss, den eine normative Theorie der Öffentlichkeit auf die Anlage empirischer Forschungen haben kann. Fachzeitschriften tun sich mit diesem Thema schwer, weil sich Sozialwissenschaften und Philosophie inzwischen weiter voneinander entfernt haben, als es sich die Väter der kritischen Theorie hätten vorstellen können.”

This info was kindly provided by Thomas Gregersen

Maeve Cooke on Law and Violence

2008-02-22T18:17:00.000-08:00

LSE Law Department and Forum for European Philosophy

Lecture Series
Law, Reason, Violence

Monday 25 February, 6.00-7.30pm
Room D702, Clement House, LSE

Law and Violence

Maeve Cooke, Professor at University College Dublin, School of Philosophy

BEYOND REIFICATION: CRITICAL THEORY AND THE CHALLENGE OF PRAXIS

2007-11-22T04:56:00.000-08:00

CALL FOR PAPERS
BEYOND REIFICATION: CRITICAL THEORY AND THE CHALLENGE OF PRAXIS
John Cabot University
May 21-23, 2008

John Cabot University of Rome is hosting the second international conference on Critical Theory, which will be held at its campus in Rome,Italy - Via della Lungara 233. The conference will examine the importance and the developments of the
Frankfurt School by addressing both the philosophical tradition of the early stages of Critical Theory - and in particular the works of Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse - as well as the application of their theories to our contemporary society. In order to reflect the wide range of topics addressed by Critical Theory, the conference will cover different aspects of philosophical reflection on politics, aesthetics, sociology, technology, literature
and any other relevant field of study. The conference will be held at John Cabot University on May 21-23, 2008. It will begin on Wednesday morning and end by Friday afternoon. During the sessions, each speaker will have one hour, with 30-40 minutes for presentation, followed by 20-30 minutes of discussion. All presentations
will be made in English.

Keynote speakers:
Andrew Cutrofello, Loyola University Chicago
Andrew Feenberg, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver
Alessandro Ferrara, University of Rome, Tor Vergata
David Ingram, Loyola University Chicago
Martin Matustik, Purdue University
Hugh Miller, Loyola University Chicago
Stefano Petrucciani, University of Rome, La Sapienza
Francesco Saverio Trincia, University of Rome, La Sapienza

If you are interested in presenting a paper, please submit a 1-2 page abstract by January 15, 2008 (including name, eventual institutional affiliation and mailing address). Abstracts should be submitted by email. Decisions regarding the program will be made by February 2008. Presented papers will be printed in a book dedicated to the conference. To submit an abstract, or for more information, contact:
Stefano Giacchetti - sgiacchetti@johncabot.edu
Tel: (+39) 06-81905467

more here

Critical theory and the traps of conspiracy thinking

2007-11-12T06:29:00.000-08:00

Volker Heins
McGill University, Montreal, Canada Institute for Social Research, Frankfurt, Germany

Historically, blatantly untrue and defamatory conspiracy theories had disastrous consequences for those who were portrayed in them as evil-doers. At the same time, conspiratorial agreements at the expense of the common good between powerful groups in society do exist and have occasionally been uncovered. Against this background, the article describes different ways in which critical theory has looked at conspiracies. First, an attempt is made to show that Max Horkheimer's notes on `rackets' are an ambitious but flawed attempt to theorize conspiracy. It is argued that Horkheimer's theory is imbued by the very conspiracy thinking that he proposed to criticize. Second, the author suggests recovering Franz Neumann's concept of `political alienation' as a more appropriate starting point to think critically about the ethical and epistemological questions raised by conspiracy theories.

Key Words: Theodor Adorno • alienation • conspiracy • critical theory • Max Horkheimer • Franz Neumann • rackets

from here

". . . And to define America, her athletic democracy."

2007-11-04T16:17:00.000-08:00

Dear Mary, dear Friends and Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Given the highly personal occasion that brings us together here today, please allow me to start with a private memory.

I first met Richard Rorty in 1974 at a conference on Heidegger in San Diego. At the beginning of the convention, a video was screened of an interview with the absent Herbert Marcuse, who in it described his relationship to Heidegger in the early 1930s more mildly than the sharp post-War correspondence between the two men would have suggested. Much to my annoyance, this set the tone for the entire conference, where an unpolitical veneration of Heidegger prevailed. Only Marjorie Green, who had likewise studied in Freiburg prior to 1933, passed critical comment, saying that back then at best the closer circle of Heidegger students, and Marcuse belonged to it, could have been deceived as to the real political outlook of their mentor.

In this ambivalent mood I then heard a professor from Princeton, known to me until then only as the editor of a famed collection of essays on the Linguistic Turn, put forward a provocative comparison. He tried to strike harmony between the dissonant voices of three world-famous soloists in the frame of a strange concert: Dewey, the radical democrat and the most political of the pragmatists, performed in this orchestra alongside Heidegger, that embodiment of the arrogant German mandarin par excellence. And the third in this unlikely league was Wittgenstein, whose Philosophical Investigations had taught me so much; but he, too, was not completely free of the prejudices of the German ideology, with its fetishization of spirit, and cut a strange figure as a comrade of Dewey. [1]

Certainly, from the perspective of Humboldt and philosophical hermeneutics, a look at the world-disclosing function of language reveals an affinity between Heidegger and Wittgenstein. And that discovery must have fascinated Rorty, given that Thomas Kuhn had convinced him to read the history of science from a contextualist vantage point. But how did Dewey fit in this constellation—the embodiment of that democratic wing of the Young Hegelians that we had so sorely lacked in Europe? After all, Dewey's way of thinking stood in strident contrast to the Greco-German pretension, the high tone and elitist gesture of the Few who claim a privileged access to truth against the many.

At that time, I found the association so obscene that I quite lost my cool in the discussion. Surprisingly, however, the important colleague from Princeton was by no means irritated by the resilient protest from the backwoods of Germany and instead was so kind as to invite me into his seminar. For me, my visit to Princeton marked the beginning of a friendship as happy and rewarding as instructive. On the bedrock of shared political convictions, we were easily able to discuss and endure our philosophical differences. Thus, the kind of "priority of politics over philosophy" that Dick defended as a topic tacitly served as a source of our continuing relation. As regards Heidegger, incidentally, my initial agitation was unfounded. Dick likewise felt a greater affinty to the pragmatic Heidegger of the early parts of Being and Time than to the esoteric thinker who devoutly listened to the voice of Being. [2]

After the first meeting, Dick sent me an offprint of his essay "The World Well Lost"; at the time, the title's ironic allusion could itself have drawn my attention to the intellectual and the writer behind the philosopher Richard Rorty. However, I read the essay, with its stringent analytical argumentation, the way one tends to read articles from the Journal of Philosophy. Only with hindsight did I realize that it was a preliminary piece for that critique of the modern paradigm of epistemology that he was to publish a few years later as Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), a book that was to have such an impact. What was revolutionary in the study was less the careful explication and critical reconstruction of the linguistic turn performed in different ways by both Heidegger and Wittgenstein, but more the insistence on one crucial consequence of the shift from "consciousness" to "language." Step by step, Rorty deconstructs the spectator model of "representative" or "fact-copying" thought. And this critique went to the heart of a discipline that since Russell and Carnap was concerned with achieving scientific respectability by a logical and semantic treatment of fundamental epistemological issues first raised in the 17th century.

Allow me to briefly remind you of the key issue here. If facts cannot be construed independently of the propositional structure of our language and if the truth of opinions or statements can only be corrected by other opinions or statements, then any idea of truth as a correspondence between sentences and facts "out there" is misleading. We cannot describe nature in a language we assume to be nature's own language. According to the pragmatist interpretation, the "copying" of reality is replaced by a problem-solving "coping" with the challenges of an overcomplex world. In other words, we acquire our knowledge of facts in the course of a constructive approach to a surprising environment. Nature only provides indirect answers as all its answers refer to the grammar of our questions. What we call the "world" therefore does not consist of the totality of facts. For us, it is the sum total of the cognitively relevant constraints imposed on our attempts to learn from and achieve control over contingent natural processes through reliable predictions.

Rorty's painstaking analysis of the assumed representative function of the knowing mind deserves the respect also of those colleagues who are not willing to follow the ambitious thrust of the author's conclusions. This ambition was revealed back then by the way the English title was expanded on for the German translation: Here, The Mirror of Nature was subtitled A Critique of Philosophy—meaning philosophy as such. I myself first grasped the entire range of Rorty's project, and thus the meaning behind that strange constellation of Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Dewey, when I read the introduction to his essay collection Consequences of Pragmatism (1982). If one knew the author in persona, it was not easy to match the extraordinary claims of this philosopher, writer, and political intellectual with the modest, shy, and sensitive habit of the person of the same name. His public appearances were characterized by rhetorical brilliance, controlled passion, the charm of a youthful, at times polemically acute mind, indeed by a certain pathos. Deflation and understatement can have a pathos of their own. But behind the aura of the impressive speaker and writer and the passionate teacher lay concealed that honest and soft, nobly restrained and infinitely loveable man who hated nothing more than any pretense of profundity. Yet, for all our reverence for the character of a friend, we must not fail to mention the pretensions of the philosophical claims he championed.

Richard Rorty had in mind nothing less than to foster a culture that liberated itself from what he saw as the conceptual obsessions of Greek philosophy—and a fetishism of science that sprouted from the furrows of that metaphysics. What he understood "metaphysics" to mean and what he criticized about it can be best seen if we bear in mind what this critique was borne of: "Philosophers became preoccupied with images of the future only after they gave up the hope of gaining knowledge of the eternal." [3] Platonism keeps its gaze fixed on the immutable ideas of the good and the true and spawns a web of categorical distinctions in which the creative energies of a self-generating human species ossify. Rorty does not construe the priority of essence over appearance, of the universal over the particular, of necessity over contingency or of nature over history as a purely theoretical matter. Because this is a matter of structuring ways of life, he seeks to train his contemporaries in a vocabulary that articulates a different view of the world and of ourselves.

A second, radical boost of the Enlightenment, so Rorty's hope, would rejuvenate the authentic motifs of a shattered Modernity. Modernity must scoop all normativity from within itself. There is no longer any authority or foundation beyond the opaque ebb and flow of contingencies. No one is able to exit from her local context without finding herself in a different one. At the same time, the human condition is characterized by the fact that the sober recognition of the finitude and corruptibility of human beings—the recognition of the fallibility of the mind, the vulnerability of the body, and the fragility of social bonds—can and should become the motor driving the creativity of a restless self-transformation of society and culture. Against this backdrop, we must, so Rorty, learn to see ourselves as the sons and daughters of a self-confident Modernity, if in our politically, economically, and socially torn global society Walt Whitman's belief in a better future is to have a chance at all. The democratic voice of hope for a brotherly and inclusive form of social life must not fall silent.

The moving songs of the public intellectual Richard Rorty—his interviews and lectures, his exoteric doctrines of "contingency, irony, and solidarity," the treatises that were disseminated worldwide—they are all infused with the peculiarly romantic and very personal triple voice of meta-philosophy, neo-pragmatism, and leftist patriotism. For this life and work, I can think of no more fitting an epitaph than an inscription by Walt Whitman dating from 1871. Under the heading of To Foreign Lands, these are words that Dick might have also directed to his European friends:

I heard that you ask'd for something to prove this puzzle
in the New World,
And to define America, her athletic Democracy,
Therefore I send you my poems that you behold in them
what you wanted.

Notes

1. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Vermischte Bemerkungen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1977).

2. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and Social Hope (New York: Penguin Books, 1999), pp. 190f.

3. Richard Rorty, "Philosophy and the Future," in Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr., ed., Rorty and Pragmatism: The Philosopher Responds to His Critics (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1995), p. 199.
--

Ladies and Gentlemen, for this hour you invited a philosophical colleague to speak and can thus expect that I will attempt to explain how Richard Rorty proceeded from that "metacritique of knowledge" [4] that I drew to your attention, to a critique of metaphysics, and from there to the cosmopolitan patriotism of a very American democrat.

The pragmatist conception of knowledge that Rorty develops in The Mirror of Nature should be seen in the context of a Hegelian naturalism. In this view, the basic conditions for a culture created by man are the result of natural evolution. All cultural achievements in the past can be construed functionally as "tools" that have proved their worth in practical as well as instrumental interaction with risky environments. This way of looking at anthropology and history leads only to a "soft" naturalism, as the Darwinist language does not undermine the everyday self-understanding of socialized individuals as autonomous, creative, and learning actors. By contrast, the line between soft and hard naturalism is crossed by those reductionist explanations that in a speculative manner combine insights from biogenetics and neurology in the framework of a neo-Darwinist theory of evolution. They cross the boundary of a naturalist self-objectification of man, beyond which we can no longer grasp ourselves as the authors of our actions, discoveries, and inventions. Under the sway of such objectivistic self-descriptions, if they purport to be the only true ones, it is the awareness of a "self" that disappears. They treat exactly that as an illusion which neopragmatism—a kind of Lebensphilosophie—so celebrates in man, namely, the consciousness of freedom, creativity, and learning.

Rorty quite simply had to protest this move toward scientism. Because he fully elaborates his own concept of man in a Darwinist language, he had now to introduce a stop rule into this kind of soft naturalism. In order to be able to reject the hard naturalism of a Daniel Dennett as "scientism," he has to offer an explanation of the uncautious inflation of objectifying research approaches to the status of a pseudo-scientific objectivism. He hoped to find such an explanation by embedding the spectator model of knowledge in a sweeping deconstruction of the history of metaphysics. In this broader context he established scientism's affinity to Platonism. Both share the bad habit of conceiving of human knowledge as a vision from nowhere, thus moving all of our constructive research practices beyond the limits of our or of any world: "The last line of defense for essentialist philosophers is the belief that physical science gets us outside ourselves, outside our language and our purposes to something splendidly nonhuman and nonrelational." [5] With the help of Heidegger's and Wittgenstein's critique of the ontological implications of the language of physicalism, Rorty claims to uncover even in the reductionist strategies of cognitive scientists and biologists the Platonic heritage of the assumption of world-less objectivity that supposedly allows for a view from nowhere.

Rorty's critique of metaphysics pays the price of an anti-realism that Dewey had not paid in his key anti-Platonist text, The Reconstruction in Philosophy. Rorty felt he had to combine soft naturalism with radical historicism if he wanted to keep it from sliding into scientism. He felt that a modern culture, exclusively standing on feet of its own, would only avoid an appealing scientistic self-reification if it foregoes both traps: first, the assumption of an objective world that exists independently of our descriptions and, secondly, the innerworldly transcendence of universalist claims to validity. Also our standards of rationality to which we performatively lay claim bow down to the ups and downs of cultural practices.

Rorty may have found it easy to take this rather controversial step, because he obviously found Heidegger's deconstruction appealing for another reason, too. There is a streak of nostalgia about claiming to offer a philosophy that cleans up with all extant philosophy, a sentiment resulting from deep disappointment with metaphysic's unredeemed promises. The melancholy in this gesture of breaking away and surpassing reveals a Platonist motivation behind Rorty's anti-Platonism, as in Heidegger's. Rorty bemoans the state of a discipline that retains the name philosophy but has forfeited any public relevance. In particular, the analytical orthodoxy whence Rorty himself originated has eased an accelerated philosophy's transformation into a highly specialized and departmentalized discipline. Here, only those questions are considered serious as are raised by the profession, and not longer by "life." Rorty was troubled by this development as early as 1967, and it pained him. At that time, his doubts in the state of the art led him to taunt the profession by denying even the basic presupposition of our business "that there are philosophical truths to be discovered and demonstrated by argument." [6] A quite different perspective arises from the question as to what can or should remain of philosophy after the end of metaphysics.

In Rorty's view, the critique of Platonism can give rise only to a philosophy that has an historical consciousness of itself and captures its own time in thought, in other words, that continues the discourse of Modernity once initiated by Hegel. At this point, the paths of Heidegger and Rorty part, however. Rorty was never tempted to pursue the arrogant self-celebration of a train of thought that felt it could dispense with all argumentation. Like Dewey, he conducted two discourses simultaneously, one with his fellow philosophers on technical questions, and the other with the general public on issues relating to how Modernity understands itself. He conducted this exoteric discourse in Wittgenstein's therapeutic vein. Once the human mind becomes ensnared in the conceptual network of Platonism, it is not theory that helps to cure this diseasing self-misunderstanding, but only the deflation of unnecessary theoretical claims. This accounts for a typical trait in Rorty's public appearances, his rhetoric of debunking, of forget it, of shrugging off or filing away, his recommendation that an issue be "dropped" because it "has become uninteresting."

The anti-Platonist thrust is directed against a grand self-image that because of an imagined participation in the ideal, i.e., supra-human world in fact degrades us to being slaves of these idols. Rorty fought against the Platonist compulsion to deceive ourselves about the merely conventional and contingent aspects of daily life; in this respect, he always shared the pragmatists' attitudes. Wittgenstein's style of therapy had to step back behind Dewey's democratic commitment, because Rorty's therapeutic practice is meant to have a transforming and liberating effect and not the quietist and thus conservative sense of restoring an undistorted status quo ante. The double front line taken against metaphysics and scientism follows objectives for which Rorty coins effective slogans. He defends the "priority of democracy over philosophy" and the "priority of technology over theory." Philosophy and the sciences must make themselves useful, now that their success can no longer be measured in terms of whether statements correspond with a reality untouched by language and culture.

What counts is the contribution that philosophical and scientific practice can make as well to an ever more expanding consensus on shared interests and an improved mutual understanding on competing human needs as to the development of the means to satisfy them. Just as theory formation in the natural sciences serves its possible technical success, so philosophy serves democracy and freedom: "if we take care of political freedom, we get truth as a bonus." Be that as it may, philosophy can play a public role if it reflects sensitively on the pressing problems of the day and offers a diagnosis of his time. In this country, Richard Rorty like almost no other did indeed restore philosophy's public importance. It is a moot point whether his colleagues will thank him for that.

However, a philosopher who dons the role of a public intellectual can have recourse neither to the expert knowledge of the natural and social sciences nor even to the historical and aesthetic knowledge accumulated by the humanities. In his public interventions, Rorty makes a virtue of these shortcomings by turning the task of philosophy itself into a topic. He opts for metaphilosophical considerations, confronts the "scientific" philosophers with those who take their cue from literature. Like Nietzsche, he ponders the benefits and disadvantages of classical education, if in his own way: "All of these wonderful books are only rungs on a ladder that, with a bit of luck, one day we may be able to do without. If we stopped reading canonical philosophy books, we would be less aware of the forces that make us think and talk as we do. We would be less aware to grasp our contingency, less capable of being 'ironists'." [7]

So that is the one task of philosophy: to exercise its addresses in an awareness of the contingencies of life on earth, in particular the contingencies that impact on the presumed foundations, on what we take to be our "final" vocabularies. In this way, Rorty practiced something of what the ancients called "wisdom." And he used a word for this practice that is not by chance of religious origin, namely "edification." Private edification is of course only half of the business of philosophical communication. Public commitment is the other, even more important task of philosophy. As a pragmatist, Rorty can prompt citizens and elites in the world's leading power to remember their own tradition. He recommends this cultural resource as the key to interpreting the current situation.

Pragmatism is expressed by the spirit of great writers and great philosophers alike—Rorty repeatedly cites Emerson and Whitman, James and Dewey. And because this spirit is aware of its American origins, and also sees itself as a driving force of progressivism, all the pragmatist writers and philosophers more or less shared the profile of a leftist patriotism, that is one associated with cosmopolitanism. Rorty has the fortunate combination of his three rare talents to thank for the fact that he could draw on this heritage undividedly, for he was equally an important philosopher, a marvelous writer, and a successful political intellectual.

Notes

4. Thus, the title of Theodor W. Adorno's materialist critique of Husserl's epistemology.

5. Rorty, Philosophy and Social Hope, p. 59.

6. Richard Rorty, ed., The Linguistic Turn: Essays in Philosophical Method (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), p. 36.

7. Eduardo Mendieta, ed., Take Care of Freedom and Truth Will Take Care of Itself: Interviews with Richard Rorty (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), p. 79.

=
Let me conclude our commemoration of Richard Rorty with one word each on the roles he so gloriously mastered, that of the philosopher, the writer, and the left cosmopolitan patriot.

First, the philosopher. In his profession, Richard Rorty exchanged the most sophisticated arguments with the most prominent of his colleagues. He debated the concept of truth with Donald Davidson, he argued about realism and rationality with Hilary Putnam, about the concept of the mental with Daniel Dennet, on intersubjectivity and objectivity with John McDowell, and with his master student Robert Brandom on the status of facts. [8] On the European continent, his work is as strongly in evidence as it is in the English-speaking world, if not possibly more influential than it is here. Rorty mastered the philosophical idioms of both worlds. Two of his three philosophical heroes were, after all, Europeans. With his interpretive skills he did great service for Foucault and Derrida, not only in the United States, but also in Germany. And it was also he via whom we in Europe indirectly communicated with one another when we found it hard to reach an understanding between the parties to the East and West of the river Rhine.

As to the writer, we have to acknowledge the fact that among those rare philosophers who can write flawless scholarly prose, Richard Rorty came closest to the spirit of poetry. His strategy of an eye-opening renovation of philosophical jargon laid the foundations for the affinity between what he achieved with his texts and the world-disclosing power of literature. Down through the decades, no other colleague surprised me with new ideas and exciting formulations the way he did. Rorty overwhelms his readers with mind-boggling rearrangements of conceptual constellations, he shocks them with thrilling binary oppositions. He often transforms complex chains of thoughts into seemingly barbaric simplifications, but at second glance such dense formulas prove to contain innovative interpretations. Rorty plays with his readers' conventional expectations. With unusual series of names, he asks them to rethink connections. Sometimes it is only a matter of emphasis. If he names Donald Davidson, Daniel Dennett, Annette Baier, and Robert Brandom in a single breath, then the subliminal discrepancy that disconcerts the reader is the real message—in this case, the reference to Annette Baier's great reconstruction of Hume's moral philosophy, which Rorty wishes to emphasize as an "intellectual advance."

Finally, in Rorty we encounter an old-fashioned sort of leftist intellectual who believes in education and social reform. What he finds most important about a democratic constitution is that it provides the oppressed and encumbered with instruments with which they "can defend themselves against the wealthy and the powerful." The focus is on abolishing institutions that continue exploitation and degradation. And it is on promoting a tolerant society that keeps people together in solidarity despite growing diversity and recognizes no authority as binding that cannot be derived from deliberation and revisable agreements of all involved. Rorty terms himself a red diaper-anticommunist baby and a teenage Cold War liberal. But that past did not leave the slightest trace of resentment in him. He was completely free of the scars so typical of former radicals as well as of many of the older and some of the younger liberal hawks. If he gave a somewhat trenchant political response, then it was the one he directed against a cultural Left which he felt had bid farewell to the efforts of the arena: "Insofar as a Left becomes spectatorial and retrospective, it ceases to be a Left."

With Achieving our Country, his most personal and moving book, Richard Rorty pinned his colors to the mast of an American patriotism that the world need not fear. In the melody of this text we find a combination of the exceptional status of the world's oldest democracy—one that can be proud of the normative substance of its principles—and the sensitivity for the new and now global diversity of cultural perspectives and voices. What is new about this global pluralism compared with the charged pluralism of a national society is the fact that within the inclusive frame of an encompassing international community, the dangers of disintegration can no longer be diverted smartly onto some enemy on the outside. Today, evolutionary anthropology with its comparative research into children and chimpanzees of the same age catches up with an old pragmatist insight when it rediscovers a "perspective-taking" ability to be something on which we humans have a monopoly. Bertolt Brecht suggested reciprocal perspective-taking is the essential condition of true patriotism:

And because we improve this country,
We love it and shield it.
And it may appear most dearest to us
As other people's find their own.

Dick knew those lines from the famous children's hymn and knew that even for a super-power cosmopolitanism is not the same thing as the global export of its own way of life. He knew that a democracy only preserves its robust and "athletic" character by self-criticism. In an interview conducted on September 11, 2001, he warned against Bush's "arrogant anti-internationalism." He reminded us instead of the very idea that had, in the wake of the horrors of the Second World War, prompted an American president to envisage a new design for a future world order and to push the establishment of the United Nations. Yet, Rorty was not unrealistic in how he saw things: "That scenario now sounds less plausible. But it is the only one I can envisage that might actually have good results." And he then added a sentence that expresses the spirit of this person and also the spirit of the best tradition this country has brought forth: "There is, to be sure, plenty of reason for pessimism, but it would be better to do what one can to get people to follow an improbable scenario than to simply throw up one's hands." [9]

That spirit is to be found throughout Richard Rorty's oeuvre and will continue to live with and through it.

Click here for part 1 of this address, and here for part 2.

Notes

8. Robert B. Brandom, ed., Rorty and his Critics (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000).

9. Mendieta, ed., Take Care of Freedom, p. 101.

from here

Romantik. Eine deutsche Affäre

2007-10-26T07:51:00.000-07:00

"When Rüdiger Safranski had completed his doctorate at the Freie Unversität, Berlin, he wished to write a habilitation thesis on the topic of the German Romantic E.T.A. Hoffman. The editor at Hanser to whom he offered the idea replied: ‘If you write a readable book about E.T.A. Hoffman we shall print it, and if you write a habilitation thesis for the university, we shan’t’. Safranski chose the former course, wrote a literary biography at a time when academia was withdrawing more and more into its ivory tower, scored a tremendous popular success with later monographs on Schopenhauer, Heidegger, Nietzsche and Schiller, and now appears frequently on philosophical talk-shows, evoking no little envy and resentment from fellow academics.

His latest book is divided into two sections, the first on the German Romantic Movement of the early nineteenth century, the second on its ideological tendencies and after-effects. He offers as a basic definition of German Romanticism Novalis’s famous formulation: ‘By lending the commonplace a lofty meaning, the customary an aura of mystery…, the finite a semblance of the infinite, I romanticise it’ – adding, to emphasise the rediscovery of the numinous, his own adaptation of Clauswitz’s definition of war: ‘Romanticism is a continuation of religion by other means’.

He is of the opinion that Romanticism ‘is not just a German phenomenon but has assumed a special impress in Germany, leading to a flight from reality into the Self and the distant past and to what György Lukács called ‘the German malaise’ and Helmuth Plessner ‘the belated nation’; and from this follows an important debate on whether Romanticism contributed to preparing the ground for Nazism. He finds that Romanticism contained no traces of the biologism and racism of the Nazi Movement, but sees to what extent a romantic mentality can fall prey to political extremism, so that even the students’ revolt of 1968 is to some extent a manifestation of it. He concludes that the Romantic Movement as an epoch is past, but romanticism as a mindset has remained – adding as a warning that whenever it flows into politics, it should contain a strong admixture of realism. A warning to be heeded, and perhaps not by Germans alone, on a theme with still topical and unsettling ramifications."

from here

Challenging Habermas' response to the European Union democratic deficit

2007-10-06T11:28:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Bowman

Jürgen Habermas' response to the European Union democratic deficit calls for a minimal threshold of democratic legislation through an explicit constitutional founding. He defends a model of freedom as autonomous self-determination by proposing to tie basic rights in the EU to a univocal form of European-wide popular sovereignty. Instead of constructing a common European political identity, I appeal to the novel democratic potential of institutions in the EU such as the Open Method of Coordination for mediating overlapping sovereignties in accord with freedom as non-domination. The concluding example of basic rights to effective participation for immigrants and permanent minorities illustrates the strengths of Iris Young's and James Bohman's republican views of non-domination over Habermas' call for a European-wide collective willing.

from here

Read key continental philosophy articles in EJP

2007-09-28T07:20:00.000-07:00

"We are pleased to offer free access to selected key articles published over in
European Journal of Philosophy on continental philosophy. To access these
articles, please click on the article titles below!"

Outside ethics

by Raymond Geuss

Religion in the public sphere

by Jürgen Habermas

Hegel's critique of pure mechanism and the philosophical appeal of the 'logic'
project

by James Kreines

Kant and non-conceptual content

by Robert Hanna

History and Freedom: Lectures 1964-1965

2007-09-26T07:28:00.000-07:00

Theodor W. Adorno, History and Freedom: Lectures 1964-1965, Polity Press, 2006, 272pp., $29.95 (pbk), ISBN 9780745630137.

Reviewed by David Ingram, Loyola University Chicago

"As a student-activist during the Vietnam War my first introduction to Adorno and Critical Theory came by way of my philosophical apprenticeship under Herbert Marcuse, whose work I studied assiduously, despite his own modest advice directing me to read classical figures in the philosophy of history, notably Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel, with an occasional nod to contemporary figures, including Sartre (who was still much in vogue) and several of his own former colleagues, uppermost being Adorno. At the time this advice was given I was too ignorant of Adorno's life and thought to appreciate fully the irony of Marcuse's gesture. Marcuse had been embraced as the guru of the very student movement that had scorned Adorno for allegedly being a mere academic pedant who was afraid to commit himself wholeheartedly to the revolutionary task of building a new emancipated society. As is well known, Adorno's last course on dialectical thinking, which he began in the summer semester of 1969, never progressed beyond a few lectures to its central theme due to frequent interruptions by students in attendance. That's a shame, because the theme in question -- the classical Marxian theme concerning the relationship between theory and practice and specifically the relationship between history (and philosophy of history) and revolutionary practice -- was obviously pertinent to their concerns. Yet one need go no further than the lecture series on history and freedom delivered in 1964-1965 to discern the core of Adorno's argument on this topic -- a topic that emerged with considerable urgency in Adornos' thought as early as 1932, when he taught a course on Lessing's Education of the Human Race with Paul Tillich, who also directed his second dissertation, and continued up until his last writings, 'On Subject and Object' and 'Marginalia to Theory and Practice,' both of which contain material that doubtless would have been included in that last lecture series."

full here

Download the top 5 articles

2007-09-03T09:07:00.000-07:00

Download the top 5 articles from Volume 13 of International Journal of Philosophical Studies

The International Journal of Philosophical Studies publishes academic articles of the highest quality in all areas of philosophy. Routledge are pleased to give you the opportunity to download the top 5 downloads from Volume 13 of the journal for free. The top 5 downloads from Volume 13 of IJPS were:

The Nature of Transcendental Arguments
Mark Sacks

Suffering Injustice: Misrecognition as Moral Injury in Critical Theory
J. M. Bernstein

We, Heirs of Enlightenment: Critical Theory, Democracy and Social
Science
James Bohman

When conscience calls, will Dasein answer? Heideggerian authenticity and
the possibility of ethical life
Mariana Ortega

Husserl's concept of the 'transcendental person': Another look at the
Husserl-Heidegger relationship
Sebastian Luft

To take advantage of this offer, please visit:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/riph_top5

For more information about the journal, visit the journal homepage at
www.informaworld.com/riph or contact the editor.

Staying Alive: Adorno and Habermas on Self-Preservation under Late Capitalism

2007-07-31T10:06:00.000-07:00

Abstract

I explore the points of contention between Theodor Adorno and Jürgen Habermas that account for their divergent claims about self-preservation, and maintain that Adorno has the more defensible view. Although both thinkers agree that the task of material self-preservation has largely been assumed by the welfare state and the capitalist economy, Adorno views this development as destructive and self-destructive while Habermas thinks it has benefited the lifeworld by relieving it of the burden of materially reproducing itself. Unlike Habermas, who rejects the idea of a collective subject, Adorno believes that only such a subject, conscious of its instinctual impulses and directing them toward the preservation of humanity and the environing world on which it depends for its survival, would make self-preservation rational.

Rethinking Marxism, Volume 18, Issue 3 July 2006 , pages 433 - 447

Habermas and Foucault: Deliberative Democracy and Strategic State Analysis

2007-07-31T01:18:00.001-07:00

Contemporary Political Theory, Volume 6, Number 2, May 2007 , pp. 218-245(28)

Abstract:

The paper explores ways to bring the approaches of J. Habermas and M. Foucault into a productive dialogue. In particular, it argues that Habermas's concept of deliberative democracy can and should be complemented by a strategic analysis of the state as it is found in Foucault's studies of governmentality. While deliberative democracy is a critical theory of democracy that provides normative knowledge about the legitimacy of a given system, it is not well equipped to generate knowledge that could inform the choice of strategies employed by (collective) actors from civil society — especially deliberative democrats — vis-à-vis the state to pursue their goals. This kind of strategic knowledge about strengths and vulnerabilities of a given state is provided by Foucault's reading of the state as driven by varying governing rationalities. Since, particularly in his later works, Habermas finds strategic action normatively acceptable under certain circumstances, I argue that societal actors could profit from an integrated approach that incorporates Foucault's strategic analysis into the framework of deliberative democracy. This approach would yield critical knowledge of both a normative and strategic, action-guiding nature

Deliberating Groups vs. Prediction Markets (or Hayek's Challenge to Habermas)

2007-06-21T00:33:00.000-07:00

Subject Headings:
Group decision making.
Forecasting.
Habermas, Jürgen.
Hayek, Friedrich A. von (Friedrich August), 1899-1992.
Social epistemology.

Abstract:
For multiple reasons, deliberating groups often converge on falsehood rather than truth. Individual errors may be amplified rather than cured. Group members may fall victim to a bad cascade, either informational or reputational. Deliberators may emphasize shared information at the expense of uniquely held information. Finally, group polarization may lead even rational people to unjustified extremism. By contrast, prediction markets often produce accurate results, because they create strong incentives for revelation of privately held knowledge and succeed in aggregating widely dispersed information. The success of prediction markets offers a set of lessons for increasing the likelihood that groups can obtain the information that their members have.

from here

Philosopher, poet and friend

2007-06-15T20:46:00.000-07:00

Jürgen Habermas writes an obiturary for American philosopher Richard Rorty
I received the news in an email almost exactly a year ago. As so often in recent years, Rorty voiced his resignation at the "war president" Bush, whose policies deeply aggrieved him, the patriot who had always sought to "achieve" his country. After three or four paragraphs of sarcastic analysis came the unexpected sentence: " Alas, I have come down with the same disease that killed Derrida." As if to attenuate the reader's shock, he added in jest that his daughter felt this kind of cancer must come from "reading too much Heidegger."

Three and a half decades ago, Richard Rorty loosened himself from the corset of a profession whose conventions had become too narrow - not to elude the discipline of analytic thinking, but to take philosophy along untrodden paths. Rorty had a masterful command of the handicraft of our profession. In duels with the best among his peers, with Donald Davidson, Hillary Putnam or Daniel Dennett, he was a constant source of the subtlest, most sophisticated arguments. But he never forgot that philosophy - above and beyond objections by colleagues - mustn't ignore the problems posed by life as we live it.

Among contemporary philosophers, I know of none who equalled Rorty in confronting his colleagues - and not only them - over the decades with new perspectives, new insights and new formulations. This awe-inspiring creativity owes much to the Romantic spirit of the poet who no longer concealed himself behind the academic philosopher. And it owes much to the unforgettable rhetorical skill and flawless prose of a writer who was always ready to shock readers with unaccustomed strategies of representation, unexpected oppositional concepts and new vocabularies - one of Rorty's favourite terms. Rorty's talent as an essayist spanned the range from Friedrich Schlegel to Surrealism.

The irony and passion, the playful and polemical tone of an intellectual who revolutionised our modes of thinking and influenced people throughout the world point to a robust temperament. But this impression doesn't do justice to the gentle nature of a man who was often shy and withdrawn - and always sensitive to others.

One small autobiographical piece by Rorty bears the title 'Wild Orchids and Trotsky.' In it, Rorty describes how as a youth he ambled around the blooming hillside in north-west New Jersey, and breathed in the stunning odour of the orchids. Around the same time he discovered a fascinating book at the home of his leftist parents, defending Leon Trotsky against Stalin. This was the origin of the vision that the young Rorty took with him to college: philosophy is there to reconcile the celestial beauty of orchids with Trotsky's dream of justice on earth. Nothing is sacred to Rorty the ironist. Asked at the end of his life about the "holy", the strict atheist answered with words reminiscent of the young Hegel: "My sense of the holy is bound up with the hope that some day my remote descendants will live in a global civilization in which love is pretty much the only law."

from here

Zum Tod von Richard Rorty

2007-06-14T20:40:00.000-07:00

Immer wieder schockiert
Richard Rorty ist gestorben. Ein Nachruf von Jürgen Habermas auf den Philosophen, Poeten, Bush-Kritiker und Freund.

Von Jürgen Habermas

Vor ziemlich genau einem Jahr trifft die Nachricht per e-mail ein. Wie so oft in den letzten Jahren äußert sich Rorty resigniert über den "Kriegspräsidenten" Bush, dessen Politik ihn, den Patrioten, der Zeit seines Lebens sein Land hatte verbessern wollen, tief bedrückt. Erst nach drei, nach vier Absätzen der sarkastischen Analyse kommt der unerwartete Satz: "Alas, I have come down with the same disease that killed Derrida." Wie um den Schreck des Lesers aufzufangen, fügt er scherzend hinzu, seine Tochter habe die Hypothese, dass diese Art des Krebses von "zuviel Heidegger-Lektüre" herrühre.

Richard Rorty hat sich vor dreieinhalb Jahrzehnten aus dem Korsett eines Faches, dessen Konventionen ihm zu eng geworden waren, gelöst - nicht um sich von der Disziplin des analytischen Denkens zu befreien, sondern um fortan auf unausgetretenen Pfaden philosophieren zu können.

Das Handwerk der Profession beherrschte er perfekt. Im Duell mit den Besten unter seinen peers, mit Davidson oder Putnam, oder Dennett, war er stets auf der Höhe der subtilsten und scharfsinnigsten Argumente. Aber er hatte nicht vergessen, dass die Philosophie über den Einwänden der Fachgenossen nicht die Probleme vergessen darf, die aus dem Leben auf uns zukommen.

Unter den zeitgenössischen Philosophen kenne ich niemanden, der wie Rorty seine Kollegen - und nicht nur sie - über die Jahrzehnte mit neuen Perspektiven, neuen Einsichten, neuen Formulierungen überfallen und in Atem gehalten hat. Diese großartige Kreativität verdankt sich auch dem romantischen Geist des Poeten, der sich hinter dem wissenschaftlichen Philosophen nicht mehr länger versteckte.

Dem Ironiker ist nichts heilig

Sie verdankt sich der unvergleichlichen rhetorischen Fertigkeit und makellosen Prosa eines Schriftstellers, der seine Leser mit ungewohnten Darstellungsstrategien, unerwarteten Oppositionsbegriffen, neuen Vokabularen - eine von Rortys Lieblingsformeln - immer wieder schockiert hat. Rortys essayistische Kunst bewegt sich zwischen Friedrich Schlegel und dem Surrealismus.

Die Ironie und die Leidenschaft, der spielerische und der polemische Ton eines Intellektuellen, der weltweit Denkweisen revolutioniert und Einfluss ausgeübt hat, erwecken den Eindruck eines robusten Temperaments. Dieser Eindruck täuscht über die zarte und verletzbare Natur einer Person, die oft schüchtern und zurückgezogen - und immer einfühlsam war.

Eine kleine autobiographische Notiz trägt den Titel "Wilde Orchideen und Trotzki". Rorty beschreibt, wie er als Junge in der blühenden Hügellandschaft im Nordwesten von New Jersey herumstreift und den betäubenden Duft der Orchideen einsaugt. Zur selben Zeit findet er in seinem linken Elternhaus ein faszinierendes Buch, das Trotzki gegen Stalin verteidigt. Damals entsteht die Vision, mit der der junge Rorty aufs College geht: die Philosophie ist dazu da, die überirdische Schönheit der Orchideen mit Trotzkis Traum von der Gerechtigkeit auf Erden zu versöhnen.

Dem Ironiker Rorty ist nichts heilig. Nach etwas "Heiligem" gefragt, antwortet der strikte Atheist am Ende seines Lebens mit Sätzen, die an den jungen Hegel erinnern: "Der Sinn für Heiliges hat mit meiner Hoffnung zu tun, dass meine entfernten Nachkommen in einer globalen Zivilisation leben werden, worin Liebe so ziemlich das einzige Gesetz ist."

from here

Habermas scholars with online papers

2007-06-03T14:42:00.000-07:00

Joseph Heath

Habermas links

2007-06-03T14:37:00.000-07:00

A new address

Salvaging and secularizing the semantic contents of religion: the limitations of Habermas's postmetaphysical proposal

2007-05-27T02:42:00.000-07:00

Author: Cooke, Maeve

Abstract:

The article considers Jürgen Habermas's views on the relationship between postmetaphysical philosophy and religion. It outlines Habermas's shift from his earlier, apparently dismissive attitude towards religion to his presently more receptive stance. This more receptive stance is evident in his recent emphasis on critical engagement with the semantic contents of religion and may be characterized by two interrelated theses: (a) the view that religious contributions should be included in political deliberations in the informally organized public spheres of contemporary democracies, though translated into a secular language for the purposes of legislation and formal decision making and (b) the view that postmetaphysical philosophy should seek to salvage the semantic contents of religious traditions in order to supply the evocative images, exemplary figures, and inspirational narratives it needs for its social and political projects. With regard to (a), it argues that the translation requirement impairs the political autonomy of religious believers and other metaphysically inclined citizens, suggesting that this difficulty could be alleviated by making a distinction between epistemologically authoritarian and non-authoritarian religious beliefs. With regard to (b), it argues that the salvaging operation is not as straightforward as Habermas seems to suppose and that social and political philosophy may not be able to tap the semantic power of religious traditions without relying on metaphysical assumptions; it concludes that, here, too, a distinction between authoritarian and non-authoritarian approaches to knowledge and validity may be useful.

CFP Society for European Philosophy

2007-05-15T06:39:00.000-07:00

Call for Papers:

Society for European Philosophy &
Forum for European Philosophy
3rd Annual Joint Conference

The University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, UK
September 8th, 9th,10th 2007

Plenary Speakers:
Frederick Neuhouser (Columbia)
Cristina Lafont (Northwestern)
Alex Düttmann (Goldsmiths)
Rüdiger Bittner (Bielefeld)

Abstracts of no more than 300 words to be submitted by June 1st 2007
either
in electronic form to J.Cardinale@lse.ac.uk or by mail to:

Forum for European Philosophy
Room J5, Cowdray House
Portugal Street
London School of Economics, London, WC2A 2AE

For more information see

The Language Game of Responsible Agency and the Problem of Free Will: How can epistemic dualism be reconciled with ontological monism?

2007-04-26T22:04:00.000-07:00

Abstract

In this essay, I address the question of whether the indisputable progress being made by the neurosciences poses a genuine threat to the language game of responsible agency. I begin by situating free will as an ineliminable component of our practices of attributing responsibility and holding one another accountable, illustrating this via a discussion of legal discourse regarding the attribution of responsibility for criminal acts. I then turn to the practical limits on agents' scientific self-objectivation, limits that turn out to be mirrored philosophically in the conceptual problems that plague reductionist strategies. Having shown that free will is rooted in unavoidable performative presuppositions belonging to agents' participant perspective, I then take up the difficult issue of how to reconcile an epistemic dualism of participant and observer perspectives with the assumption of ontological monism. I critically review a range of proposed physicalist solutions, including non-reductionist and (standard) compatibilist approaches. An underlying problem with scientistic, physicalist approaches is the methodological fiction of an exclusive 'view from nowhere' which relies on the problematic move of disengaging the objectivating perspective of the scientific observer from the investigators' participant perspective of those engaged in scientific practice. Since there is no way of getting around the requisite complementarity of both the observer's encounter with the objective world and the participant's involvement in shared lifeworld practices, the remaining option is to take an epistemological turn. But even the recognition that science is ultimately constituted from within the lifeworld still leaves us with the question as to how the human mind can understand itself as the product of natural evolution. I conclude with some tentative suggestions as to how this difficult question might be addressed.

Keywords: free will; compatibilism; physicalism; scientism; participant perspective; performative presuppositions

Free access

A Philosophy of the First-Person Singular: Vincent Descombes

2007-03-11T20:37:00.000-07:00

Abstract

According to Emile Benveniste, there are only 2 grammatical persons (the first and the second) because being a grammatical person is a matter of taking part actively in a dialogical act of speech. The so-called third person should rather be called the nonperson, the ‘‘absent’’ of the dialogue. Paul Ricoeur has questioned this interpretation of the third person in so far as it meets a philosophical dogma once maintained by Jean-Paul Sartre in his theory of the novel. Sartre claimed that the author of a novel when introducing a character into the narrative should choose between the first-person point of view and the third-person one. Ricoeur has rightly argued that this was not the case, as it is obviously possible to use the grammatical third person in order to present the personal thoughts and feelings of somebody else. If one could not do that, it would not be possible to consider ‘‘oneself as another.’’

Download the article for free

Habermas and/against the Internet

2007-03-11T17:54:00.000-07:00

Some interesting comments here

Political Communication in Media Society

2007-03-11T17:49:00.000-07:00

Political Communication in Media Society: Does Democracy Still Enjoy an Epistemic Dimension? The Impact of Normative Theory on Empirical Research1

Jürgen Habermas
Philosophy Department, Johann-Wolfgang Goethe Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt, GermanyJürgen Habermas1 Philosophy Department, Johann-Wolfgang Goethe Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany

Abstract:

I first compare the deliberative to the liberal and the republican models of democracy, and consider possible references to empirical research and then examine what empirical evidence there is for the assumption that political deliberation develops a truth-tracking potential. The main parts of the paper serve to dispel prima facie doubts about the empirical content and the applicability of the communication model of deliberative politics. It moreover highlights 2 critical conditions: mediated political communication in the public sphere can facilitate deliberative legitimation processes in complex societies only if a self-regulating media system gains independence from its social environments and if anonymous audiences grant a feedback between an informed elite discourse and a responsive civil society.

Communication Theory
Volume 16 Issue 4 Page 411 - November 2006

Habermas and Violence

2007-03-05T18:34:00.000-08:00

Panel "Habermas and Violence" - during the Political Theory Workshops, Fourth Annual Conference, Manchester Metropolitan University, 3 - 5 September 2007

We are currently looking for contributions to the panel on "Habermas and Violence" to be held at the Fourth Annual conference of the Political Theory Workshops (see http://www.hlss.mmu.ac.uk/polphil/news/event.php?id=82). We are specifically looking at the writings of Jurgen Habermas not only because he is one of the most prominent political thinkers and public intellectuals of our era, but also because he has continuously attempted to bring critical theory to bear on contemporary political affairs. The aim of this panel is thererefore precisely to investigate what problems we encounter when applying his normative models of discourse ethics and communicative action to concrete situations. Do the idealising structures have a totalising and repressive effect on the concrete content? What kind of relationship exists beteen the real and the ideal? We are, therefore, particularly interested in exploring the application of Habermas in a variety of contexts relating to violence, including but not limited to: feminist critiques of his discursive model, conflict and International Relations, issues of civil disobedience, and questions of Otherness. Our definition of violence in this panel is necessarily quite broad. We are interested in the application of Habermas's framework to external affairs as a form of conflict resolution as well in the potential problems of 'violence' that permeate Habermas's own work.

Should you be interested in submitting a short abstract and presenting a paper during the conference, then please contact us. Or should you wish to discuss an idea, then please also feel free to contact either Vivienne Boon, University of Liverpool (vivienne DOT boon AT liverpool DOT ac DOT uk) or Naomi Head, University of Leeds (naomi DOT head AT talk21 DOT com).

The Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason and Religion

2007-02-22T18:18:00.000-08:00

Book Description

"Two of the worlds great contemporary thinkers--theologian and churchman Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, and Jurgen Habermas, philosopher and Neo-Marxist social critic--discuss and debate aspects of secularization, and the role of reason and religion in a free society. These insightful essays are the result of a remarkable dialogue between the two men, sponsored by the Catholic Academy of Bavaria, a little over a year before Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope.

Jurgen Habermas has surprised many observers with his call for "the secular society to acquire a new understanding of religious convictions", as Florian Schuller, director of the Catholic Academy of Bavaria, describes it his foreword. Habermas discusses whether secular reason provides sufficient grounds for a democratic constitutional state. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI argues for the necessity of certain moral principles for maintaining a free state, and for the importance of genuine reason and authentic religion, rather than what he calls "pathologies of reason and religion", in order to uphold the states moral foundations. Both men insist that proponents of secular reason and religious conviction should learn from each other, even as they differ over the particular ways that mutual learning should occur."

from here

Fundamentalism and republican citizenship

2007-02-16T10:24:00.000-08:00

Fundamentalism and republican citizenship
In a remarkable reformulation of his original concept of communicative action, Habermas’s writing on multiculturalism makes the inclusion of the cultural ‘other’ central to the project of democratic society.4 Given the globalizing tendencies inherent in modern society, he argues, contemporary democracies can no longer define criteria of belonging in terms of ethnicity or cultural homogeneity.5 In these inevitably plural societies, criteria for citizenship must be tied to the acceptance of a political framework, defined by the constitution, rather than by the prerogatives of majority culture. In this reorientation from the culturally defined nation-state to a ‘republican’ state, Habermas argues, ‘the majority culture must detach itself from its fusion with the general political culture in which all citizens share equally; otherwise it dictates the parameters of political discourses from the outset’.6 The emergence of the Federal Republic of Germany after World War II, he suggests, is an example of such a democratic framework. Habermas argues that in the postwar period a patriotic commitment to Germany’s democratic constitution has replaced notions of nationality based on shared ethnic origins or a set of norms and values. In this perspective of constitutional patriotism, the inclusion of other cultural traditions in the national framework is both imperative and possible. Imperative because, in the context of Habermasian discourse ethics, any truth claim that does not open itself to the challenge of all competing claims within a discursive community automatically loses its legitimacy. Possible because once the identity of a political community is detached from a particular cultural tradition, the bond of a shared political culture is strong enough to hold society together. By differentiating the realm of ‘general political culture’ from that of the various cultural traditions from which individual citizens draw their norms and values, Habermas gains a dynamic model of a political community in which the basic rules that govern the community can change over time. This community is shaped not so much in direct negotiations between different cultural traditions but as the result of partially shared, if differently interpreted and discursively mediated, experiences.

Despite the persistent social marginalization that continues to plague many Muslim communities across Europe, and despite occasional acts of violence in the name of Islam, there are clear signs of such a process. José Casanova has called this development that has made Muslim communities and organizations increasingly active players in Europe’s civil society a Muslim aggiornamento.7 On the whole, mature multiculturalist democracy theories, such as Habermas’s or Seyla Benhabib’s,8 are well suited to describe the trajectory of many sections of Europe’s new Muslim minority. There is, however, an important ambivalence in the Habermasian model when applied to the relationship of European majority society to religious Muslims. Even though his model is in principle open to the inclusion of other cultural traditions, Habermas leaves no doubt that there are definitive limits to their inclusion in the European (or any other democratic) framework: ‘integration’, Habermas writes, ‘does not extend to fundamentalist immigrant cultures’ (my emphasis).9 In so far as this simply means that no democratic society can work if some of its members refuse to participate in a dialogue over crucial controversial issues, it may be a necessary and uncontroversial caveat.

The concept of fundamentalism, however, does more work in this context than is initially apparent. A closer look at Habermas’s historical reconstruction of modern society shows that it is central to his dramatic historical narrative of modernization. Philosophically, of course, Habermas’s critique of fundamentalism derives from Kant’s critique of religious orthodoxy, understood as the rationally unjustifiable foreclosure of critical inquiry and debate. But Habermas explicitly ties this philosophical critique to the Durkheimian model of the historical transition from traditional to modern society. In Postmetaphysical Thinking, for instance, he argues that the totalizing metaphysical world-views of traditional society (where religious orthodoxies apparently held sway) disintegrated in the complexities of modern society and gave way to ‘decentralized’ modern world-views.10 These decentralized world-views became, in turn, the precondition for the emergence of civil society and, eventually, democracy and republican citizenship. It is obvious, then, that in this scheme the charge of fundamentalism carries a political denunciation that could hardly be more serious. It marks the addressee as categorically incompatible with membership in democratic society. And yet, fundamentalism remains here largely an abstraction. In not only the Habermasian œuvre but also in much public commentary, it does not (or does only superficially) derive from the critical analysis of actual Muslim concerns and social projects, but emerges as the theoretical backdrop against which the ‘unfinished project of modernity’ and its emancipatory potential can be elaborated.

This problematic conception of fundamentalism is tied to another ambivalence in Habermas’s republican model of democratic citizenship: the distinction between the ‘cultural’ and the ‘political’. Habermas is arguably over-sanguine about the ease with which a shared political culture can be shorn of particular cultural traditions, given that this includes a whole legacy of political values and historical narratives that have shaped the understanding of democracy and indeed politics itself. His own genealogy of democratic society is a case in point. For many religious Muslims in Europe and elsewhere, the reconstruction of their ‘arrival’ in modern (and now increasingly liberal democratic) society differs from mainstream European narratives. Crucially, their narratives hinge not on the rejection of revealed religion and orthodoxy but on a continuing reinterpretation of their place in society. In my own work on contemporary Turkish Islam and its transformation since the 1960s, I am continually struck by the growing openness and attraction to democratic and pluralist notions of society in many Muslim cemaats, and at the same time by their continuing commitment to an orthodox (in the eyes of their secularist critics: fundamentalist) understanding of Islam.11 What we have here is an apparent paradox. There seems to be an increasing convergence between many religious Muslims’ attitude toward democracy and civil society and those dominant in European publics. And yet this does not mean that religious Muslims in fact understand this Muslim aggiornamento in terms easily reconcilable with the historical narrative so central to Habermas’s conception of republican citizenship. This is not to dismiss the model of republican citizenship as such, but simply to point out that new cultural traditions may not quite as easily be incorporated into European political culture(s) as Habermas seems to suggest.

It is no doubt legitimate when Habermas and others ‘draw a line’ between what they see as admissible and what for them is beyond the pale of democratic society. To make ‘fundamentalism’ the dominant term in the public debate, however, is unhelpful. It suggests that we know in principle all that needs to be known about religious Muslims in Europe, in the absence of any real engagement with the concerns and aspirations of communities that have often come to embrace democratic society along different historical trajectories. It becomes crassly tendentious when, as for instance in André Glucksmann’s commentary on the cartoon affair, the apparent modernity–tradition hiatus between the ‘West’ and ‘Islam’ is the excuse for a verbosely self-satisfied secularism caught up as much in dubious metaphysical certainties as the discourse of any Muslim ‘fundamentalist’.12

Undoubtedly, the encounter of European societies with their increasingly self-confident Muslim minorities is beset with serious conflicts and hard processes of adjustment. As the controversy over the Danish cartoons highlights, what makes this process of integration particularly difficult and unwieldy is that it takes place amidst two powerful and often converging claims that the Islamic tradition and liberal democratic society are mutually exclusive. The wholesale condemnation of Denmark or the West by sections of the Muslim movement shows that Islam can provide powerful ammunition in polarizing the debate. But so do European discourses that use distorted representations of Islam as the foil against a bogus ‘European culture’. For those on the Left, the challenge is not to be drawn into these false oppositions.

Amid the current excitement it should be remembered that the frictions that today accompany the process of integrating religious Muslims into European society are by no means without precedent. What is European history other than a long and arduous process of integrating diverse ethnic groups, countless waves of migrants, political projects and religious traditions? It is a history as ripe with successes as with ongoing tensions and, let us not forget, with ugly and sometimes genocidal policies against demonized minorities. Much would be won if rather than seeing in the encounter of Europe with Muslim communities a clash of civilizations or a confrontation with Europe’s own less enlightened past, we could see it simply as a new chapter in the European history of integrating new social projects. Raymond Williams developed the model of a society in which different social projects – most importantly those of the bourgeoisie and the working class, but also a number of residual and emerging projects – competed with one another for hegemony. The cast in the current drama may have changed. Perhaps it is now Habermas’s republican notion of society that is solidly entrenched as the dominant social project in Europe, while Christianity, socialism, neoliberalism and, of course, numerous nationalist movements compete as secondary, perhaps residual, projects partially incorporated into the overall republican framework. Muslim movements are not yet part of this hegemonic configuration, and what is currently at stake is whether they will be in the future.

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Habermas and Theology

2007-02-09T21:00:00.000-08:00

Nicholas Adams, Habermas and Theology, Cambridge University Press, 2006, 278pp., $29.99 (pbk), ISBN 0521681146.

Reviewed by Eduardo Mendieta, Stony Brook University

"Adjoining two nouns in the title of a book is like writing a blank check to "cash." One better know who is receiving the check and one better make sure to have sufficient funds when it gets cashed. This book promises too much, and thus delivers too little, but what it delivers is still worth the trouble. The author manages to say some interesting things that may be of use to both philosophers and theologians, notwithstanding the author's avowed claims and disclaimers. The book is vituperative, contrarian, combative, and irreverent. In many ways and on many occasions, the very assumptions of the book are refuted in its execution. The book is a large performative self-contradiction: the form of the enunciated speech act is contradicted by its enactment."

Read the full review

Habermas's Critical Theory : Rationality, Reflexivity and Its Limits

2007-01-17T22:42:00.000-08:00

Jürgen Habermas, one of the forerunners of critical theory in the second generation of the Frankfurt School, criticizes his seniors, Adorno and Horkheimer that their critique of modernity leads to a cultural pessimism, which blind the "unfulfilled potential of Western Modernity" because of their attachment to the philosophy of consciousness that fails to distinguish between two types of rationalization: instrumental rationality and communicative rationality. (Ray, 1993: 11-12) Habermas believes that modernization and rationalization involves not only purposive rationality but also communicative rationality which is oriented towards consensus that can be the basis of critique and progress.
However, to my impression, it is questionable if Habermas's critical theory is fully critical. To be sure, Habermas's theory has been criticized by many theorists including post-colonial theorists and feminists (interestingly, one of their critical article was titled "What is Critical about Critical Theory?" (Fraser, 1985)). Indeed Habermas's theory tends to attach to western notion of rationality, and neglect so-called "politics of difference" which draws attention to the categories of "the other." This is because Habermas's theory is based on the notion of rationality, which presuppose an agreement or consensus, and rule-following. It looks like a significant departure from the conventional Marxism which emphasizes conflicts between different social factions [classes] to a kind of socio-pathological approach which originated from the Durkheimian tradition and has developed through Parsonsian functionalism. As a result, whereas Habermas's theory has an implicit theory of "communicative reflexivity," he also lacks a significant portion of the notion of reflexivity which is struggling against others or, more importantly, which is both critical and hermeneutic in that while in the given context, it thinks beyond the given contexts. The problem of Habermas's theory of communicative rationality is not only that it neglects the context, but also that it fails to show how to transcend the context in spite of his effort because he fails to see the coexisting another contexts of action; actors does not fully share their contexts. The purpose of this paper is to clarify and reconstruct a Habermasian theory of communicative reflexivity and then to point to its limits.

full here

Habermas and Critical Thinking

2007-01-17T22:37:00.000-08:00

Ben Endres
Columbia University

"In this paper, I propose to examine some of the implications of Jürgen Habermas's discourse ethics for critical thinking. Since the argument that Habermas presents is complex and multi-dimensional, I will not be able to confront its entirety. Instead, I will briefly summarize the argument and then examine the implications of his standards for reason and communication for education and critical thinking. Critical thinking is also a broad topic with conflicting interpretations. Therefore, I will ground my use of critical thinking in a conception similar to that of Richard Paul's account, which I will also summarize briefly. Given this background, I will argue that Habermas's theory directly confronts the central problem in characterizing critical thinking. The problematic tension in his theory - between the acceptance of profound social differences, and the attempt to ground moral reasoning in universal principles - is also a challenge for critical thinking. Critical thought must be characterized in a way that allows for different subject matter and different methods without sacrificing its usefulness for particular disciplines and diverse learners. I argue that although the requirements that Habermas places on reasoning may need to be broadened to incorporate different kinds of thought, his theory demonstrates the epistemological and ethical need for a general commitment on the part of the thinker to reflect critically on personal and social beliefs."

full here

Community of difference: Habermas and the problems of pluralism (Juergen Habermas)

2007-01-17T22:35:00.000-08:00

Mark Green Thames, The University of Texas at Dallas

Abstract

Jürgen Habermas is a German philosopher and sociologist whose thought has moved steadily over the decades to theorize just and moral societies in democratic, constitutional states within a cosmopolitan world order. He attempts to ground all social relations in the human universals of communications. I examine his works in order to show how his theory could be strengthened by jettisoning unnecessary and unhelpful commitments to antimetaphysical and impersonal concepts. I argue that he cannot effectively provide moral-ethical guidance in a situation of worldview pluralism without metaphysical resources. In particular, I argue, first, that his discourse morality in fact implies a universal communicative ethics. Second, his theory of communicative action and his discourse morality together presuppose a certain sort of person as a communicative actor. I compare this with John Searle's conscious self. Third, I think that Habermas inadequately addresses worldview pluralism as a result of these problems and of his commitment to political approaches. This last calls for more comment. The specifics of Habermas's difficulties with pluralism flow from these self-imposed constraints; thus, he fails to find a legitimation for existing metaphysical and religious worldviews, despite his avowed need for them, and so cannot properly welcome their differences; similarly, he fails to acknowledge his own system's implied worldview, and its implied ethical standards for evaluating worldviews, and so struggles to set appropriate boundaries to civil society; moreover, his resulting political-legal approach to developing solidarity and managing difference is unlikely to produce even the broadest sort of cosmopolitan community. I offer John Hick's philosophy of religious pluralism as an example of an alternative approach to problems of worldview pluralism. I hope that a philosophy of communicative action which follows these recommendations will better be able to explain human commonality, ground human community, acknowledge differences, issue needed basic moral-ethical judgments, and affirm personhood and humanity unequivocally. This dissertation is an effort to modify Habermas's philosophy of communicative action accordingly.

Reading Guide to: Habermas

2006-12-28T20:14:00.000-08:00

Reading Guide to: Habermas J (1972) 'A Postscript to Knowledge and Human Interests', Philosophy of the Social Sciences, September 1972, and also in Knowledge and Human Interests (second edition)

This a response to the criticisms that have been identified with the arguments in Knowledge and Human Interests (K&HI).

The status of historiography with a systematic intent

Habermas's aim was to criticise scientism. Briefly, operating with a notion of objects upon which one is not allowed to reflect, leads to an abstract focus on methodology. It is important to understand the history of scientism in order to deploy the tactic of 'remembrance', especially to rediscover things that have been banished by this methodological focus, and to recapture the self-reflection that led to it originally. There is a danger here of circularity, of using self-reflection in order to show there is no self-reflection in science.

Any criticism of science needs to be able to stand on its own feet, and here the tactic of 'immanent critique' is useful, and is being developed by Apel and Wellmer. [Immanent critique involves testing the claims of science that it makes for itself, without using any 'outside' sources -- it is a demonstration of the sort of self criticism that science needs to do]. Another tactic, more suitable in Anglo-Saxon circles is to confront science with its own history, as in Kuhn or Lakatos. This demonstrates that even logic has a history! In Apel's hands, it also shows that there is some universal pragmatic logic which predates scientific logic. Scientism is still dominant, but perhaps the need to criticise it is less urgent these days. Nevertheless, the critique of scientism is still needed when considering social theory -- we badly need some sort of cognitive anthropology to explain achievement and progress here, and to expose the connection between theory and its relation to action.

Self-objectification and self-reflection

Reflection in science is limited -- for example it is not common to think about the dynamics of the scientific community. This community and science itself tends to be objectivated. Discussions of method attempts to end whatever reflection takes place. This is achieved by:

(a) Reductionism, of intentions or motives and into subjective relations, and of social relations themselves. Behaviourism and cybernetics accomplished this reduction (page 356). However, the study of 'paradigms'show how even the categories of these approaches depend on the subjective.

(b) Displacement of the subjective by a 'theory language' (Feyerabend and Rorty are among the advocates of this). Perhaps a linguistic tradition rather than a behaviourist approach is better able to reconstruct the history of science and to be critical rather than objectivating, but, in Feyerabend at least, relativism and the proliferation of languages results. This leaves him unable to explain scientific progress, or indeed, unable to demarcate science from witchcraft.

(c) The reduction of everything to physics, which claims to offer universal categories: in this sense, physics is both a theoretical and a metatheoretical discipline. [In other words, physics is claiming to be the proper and more fundamental theory of objects that are also studied by other theories or academic subjects. This kind of imperialism is also found in advocates of cybernetics or mathematics]. In fact, of course, it is only human language that meets this requirement). These are not new claims, and they affected both Kant and Darwin. Yet it is clear that [academic] subjects create their own objects .

K&HI tried to show this with Kant (his successors used his categories but saw them as generated in specific historic circumstances), or with Marx, (who tried to ground his work in some self reproduction of the species, [but the historical nature of his concepts also became apparent?]). Other philosophers have also tried to offer 'universal' or 'a priori' starting points, such as 'pragmatic a prioris' (Peirce), or 'communicative a prioris' (Dilthey).

Certain approaches to language kept alive the possibility of methodical self-reflection, and so did the emergence of psychoanalysis, but some new transcendental philosophy is needed, and this is what led Habermas and Apel to try and develop one. The argument goes that we need a transcendental level of analysis in order to explain the [coherent, consistent, and continuous] emergence of specific competencies in science [and thus to see these specific competences as only partial realisations]. No transcendental [human] subject is available, however [possible candidates include particular scientists, the whole group of scientists, or possibly Society itself].

However , the question arises whether any universal factors can be separated from the 'marginal conditions' which generate them, or the processes whereby they are learned, or the processes whereby competent actors emerge [which conventional sociologies or histories of science provide]. it is possible to argue for a notion of universal reason given the subtypes that exist -- pure and practical, pragmatic/communicative, empirical/argumentative. We cannot explain these by going back to earlier transcendental philosophies, which is what some critics want to do. Nor can we use Marx to explain these types as variants of some general process of social labour [Habermas insists that we need to separate labour and interaction]. Nor does the answer lie in the development of a scientific Freudianism.

Objectivity and truth

The processes of object construction, and the notion of truth need to be separated: a useful way to do this is via Apel on the difference between 'experimental and argumentative a prioris'. The former objectivate reality, and enable categorical statements, but the latter are about argumentative corroboration. These a prioris produce the 'objectivity' of science when they correspond to collective scientific experience. Science operates with a set of propositions and some notion of 'performative' or intersubjective validity. The latter produce facts out of objects of experience (361).

'Facts' are what true statements state, rather than things or events presented immediately through experience. A statement of truth is therefore always a proposition, not just a suggestion that something exists: it expresses some truth claim, which presupposes objects of experience, and takes a hypothetical form. All this implies there is some discourse to guide these claims and their acceptance, and it is this discourse, not experience which leads to a successful truth claim. Scientific discourses are 'purged of action and experience' [at their most theoretical and abstract]: there is no compulsion to accept them, and no information content double - they only offer persuasion by arguments, and some cooperative search for truth.

In practical conduct by comparison, experience is acquired and shared, and statements become actions (363). The objectivity of experience can be established through successful action, but this is not the same thing as the truth of the statement. Experience limits discussion, and settles issues by action: it operates with 'behavioural truth'.

Scientific discourses treat experiences as data for discussion. They do not attempt to establish truth by experience directly, but only by analogous experience -- truth is confirmed not by behaviour but only in 'successful reasoning'. The notion of truth expresses a consensus among parties to the discourse rather than what actually happens in the world, which is merely presupposed. Simple statements [as in the 'basic statements' which express some kind of rock bottom objectivity for Popper], such as 'this ball is red', show there can be a close correlation between experience and truth. But not all statements can show this -- 'negative' and 'general 'propositions, such as 'the present King of France is handsome', especially .

To summarise, experience can be clarified in the construction of objects, but truth only in the logic of discourse. Consensus in both cases can only be achieved by using language as some form of metacommunication, where two kinds of motives -- action/intersubjective, and cognitive/intersubjective are found together. This is unique to human language. Language transforms sense data, and helps us develop intentions which can become reciprocated.

This leads to the development of expectations, desires, and goals which can be made generalisable intersubjectively. One way of thinking about this is in terms of validity claims which are checked out in discourse: these also imply some universalisable norms. Apel's two a prioris are distinguishable in principle, but combine in empirical theories, and both can be tested within the limits of argument and experience. [Arguments provide us with an opportunity to test the validity claims, as above, but experience provides us with a useful intersubjectively agreed object domain].

Knowledge and interest

As Apel argues, there are different object domains according to different interests [three main ones as we shall see], but there is a unity in the reasoning found in different domains. Unity is not found in the common adoption of a scientific method.

The existence of different object domains has been argued by people such as Peirce and Dilthey [on the need to separate natural and human sciences, expressing the interests in 'work' and 'communication' specifically]:

(a) There are differences between observation and understanding in each case. Understanding [that is, the understanding of subjective meanings as in cultural sciences] is different from mere perception, and offers a procedure which resists objectivation. This kind of understanding emerges best in the form of narratives of action rather than descriptions of observations.

(b) The objects of sensory experience are not the same as the objects of communication -- different categories are applied differently in each system of reference.

(c) The pragmatic a priori is not the same as the communicative a priori, however [so here we are splitting Peirce and Dilthey]. The pragmatic one involves constructing objects in order to manipulate them, while the communicative one has a different transcendental intent [I think! The intent here is to relate to other people not as objects to manipulate, but as 'partners in a dialogue'?].

(d) There are different relations between the practice of life and research. Communication in action and experience is not the same as discourses in theory. Science builds on the former to establish an object domain, but then shifts to the latter when it 'seriously claims to be objective' (369). This shift is described as part of a 'logic of inquiry', but it is also 'institutionally guaranteed' (369) [that is, theorists are located in special institutions separated from every day life? Or perhaps theory has some different social location and status?]. The process of measurement is crucial to the shift as well -- it must remain within experience, and yet enable and permit theorising.

(e) Knowledge-constitutive interests are different. 'Objects of possible action-related experience' are constructed [ in all object domains?] rather than facts. Statements become hypothetical and thus theorisable, and presuppositions get to be tested in different ways, but otherwise there is still a link in language. The very syntax of [all] language is connected to feedback-regulated action, hence there is a connection between knowledge and interests in both pragmatic action and communication. These interests form the nexus between theory/discourse and action/communication.

(f) The emancipatory interest [ the new one added by Habermas and Apel to the old split between science and humanities] is derivative. It connects theories and objects only after distorted communication and repression has been detected (371). We experience constraint only when our cognitive activities dissolve pseudo objectivity (372).

Criticisms

(1) Bubner argues that interests are always limited, so they cannot be used as some transcendental ground for knowledge: they're always irrational rather than universal. Habermas thinks that it is possible to identify generalisable interests, but these have to be shaped and discovered, and are not immediately apparent. The role of interests is clearest in the normative areas, less so in the cognitive ones -- but cognitive activity is still affected by interests. These have to be found or reconstructed in or from general areas of human life.

(2) Albert and others argue that reality determines the shape of science, not just a pragmatic interest, and that to argue thus is to reduce science to instrumentalism. Habermas insists that he is doing transcendental analysis, and seeing pragmatism as affecting the consensus that is so important to science rather than just instrumentalism, and suggests that transcendental pragmatism effects the very meanings of scientific terms not just the ways in which they are applied. He is not suggesting that scientists only pragmatically settle truth claims -- he has already argued that successful applications offer only one step towards the truth of statements. Theoretical progress arises from the development of theoretical language which is only adequate if it contain true statements. Experience stays the same, it guarantees the identity of a collection of truth statements but does not offer direct corroboration of them.

(3) The transcendental approach precludes realism, and correspondence theories hypostatise facts. Habermas uses transcendental analysis to show that this is an illusion. The quasi-transcendental human interests link discourse-related facts and object domains instead. The interests show why links are embedded in forms of life, and why true statements are essential to reproduce this life. There is no 'outside' objectivity -- these interests produce the criteria which help us construct objectivity. It is not just that perception restricts [limits, biases] our experience -- objectivity, as intersubjective agreement, is guaranteed by our pragmatic interests. These interests are transcendental, identified from reflection on the logic of inquiry. They are not 'empirical', unless seen as a result of some historical evolutionary process.

The distinction between objectivity and truth has been cleared up, but there is now the matter of the differences between reconstruction and self-reflection. Reflection does mean both reflection on the conditions of the potentialities of the subject (which is a Kantian notion and thus rather abstract), but also on the constraints in the processes of self formation (which is more critical, sociological, political -- although Habermas sees this as more in the Hegelian tradition, to do with dissolving the constraints of pseudo objectivity).

It is clear that language generates both rules and cognitive schemata, and we now know that it needs no subject, that language form subjects as well.. There is also the impact of Freud to consider. All this leads to new complexities in the relations between critiques/reflection and reconstruction [to argue for a place.for this version of critical theory against the claims of linguistics etc. The first step is to clarify intents...]

(a) critique is directed against pseudo objectivity, but reconstruction is based on actions which are subjective from the beginning

(b) critique is directed at particular blocks on reflection, but reconstruction attempts to explicate what is correct

These differences were blurred in K&HI, where the aim was to critique scientism rather than to found new theories.

[Then we go on to consider the more positive claims and see what we should have said about them in K&HI]:

Reconstructive sciences claim a universal status, as in linguistics or logic, and appear as candidates for replacing traditional transcendental philosophy. However, they are not components of practical life, but emerge because of criticisms and problems with the earlier approaches. Nor are they of hypothetical status only. In this way, they can appear as 'pure' knowledge [ nonsense, of course, and thus unsuitable for a properly critical investigation aimed at 'unblocking' constraints].

Critical sciences depend on the reconstruction of general rules -- for example to explain how communication gets distorted. But the aim is not to construct new objects, as conventional science does [nor to establish some claim to purity]. The idea instead is to produce some pre-notion of undistorted communication to trace distortions, then to unblock these to restore normal communication (379). It is not an empirical subject which bears the burden of the transcendental here, but some notion of universal pragmatics [as a capacity found in all human beings capable of using language]: the intention is to show that both truth claims and discourse are universal. This universal potential is counterfactual [that is, it cannot be confirmed by pointing to existing examples, but must be asserted critically against the claims of existing forms of communication to be natural or universal], but it is grounded in human reproduction itself [that is, human and social life would not be possible without this potential].

This is not claiming that universal pragmatics are 'natural'. It is arguing that empirical speech is only possible because of some transcendentally rational speech which is implicit in communication and inaction, as a 'fact of reason'.

from here