The inclusion of the other?: Habermas and the paradox of tolerance

Political Theory

Volumn 34, Issue 4, 2006, Pages 439-462

  Thomassen, Lasse ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK   (Ireland)

Author keywords

Deconstruction; Derrida; Habermas; Secularism; Tolerance

Indexed keywords

EID: 33745800636     PISSN: 00905917     EISSN: 15527476     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0090591706288234     Document Type: Article

References (100)

1. Jürgen Habermas, "Religious Tolerance - The Pacemaker for Cultural Rights," in The Derrida-Habermas Reader, ed. Lasse Thomassen (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006), 195-207, at 197.
2. For Habermas on tolerance, see Jürgen Habermas, "Fundamentalism and Terror - A Dialogue with Jürgen Habermas," in Giovanna Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror, trans. Luis Guzman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 25-43, at 40-2;
3. Jürgen Habermas, "Intolerance and Discrimination," International Journal of Constitutional Law 1:1 (2003), 2-12 at 5-6;
4. and Jürgen Habermas, "Religion in the Public Sphere," Lecture at the Kyoto Laureate Symposium, March 4, 2005, University of San Diego, http://www.sandiego.edu/pdf/pdf_library/ habermaslecture031105_c939cceb2ab087bdfc6df291ec0fc3fa.pdf. accessed February 2, 2006;
5. Jürgen Habermas, "On the Relation between the Secular Liberal State and Religion," in The Frankfurt School on Religion: Key Writings by the Major Thinkers, ed. Eduardo Mendieta, trans. Matthias Fritsch (New York: Routledge, 2005), 339-48, at 347-8;
6. Jürgen Habermas, "Equal Treatment of Cultures and the Limits of Postmodern Liberalism," The Journal of Political Philosophy 13:1 (2005), 1-28;
7. and Jürgen Habermas, Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion: Philosophische Aufsätze (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2005), chap. 5.
8. See also Pauline Johnson, "Discourse Ethics and the Normative Justification of Tolerance," Critical Horizons 1:2 (2000), 281-305.
9. Habermas, "Religious Tolerance," 198.
10. Habermas, "Fundamentalism and Terror," 40.
11. Karl-Otto Apel, "Plurality of the Good? The Problem of Affirmative Tolerance in a Multicultural Society from an Ethical Point of View," Ratio Juris 10:2 (1997), 199-212;
12. James Bohman, "Deliberative Toleration," Political Theory 31:6 (2003), 757-79;
13. Rainer Forst, "The Limits of Toleration," Constellations 11:3 (2004), 312-25;
14. Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 60-3;
15. and Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, "Democratic Disagreement," in Deliberative Politics: Essays on Democracy and Disagreement, ed. Stephen Macedo (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 243-80, at 251-3.
16. Habermas, "Intolerance and Discrimination," 5-6.
17. Habermas, "Fundamentalism and Terror," 41, translation modified (the English has "straight deconstruction" for "vollstä ndige Dekonstruktion").
18. Forst ("The Limits of Toleration," 314)
19. makes the same point in relation to Stanley Fish, "Mission Impossible: Settling the Just Bounds between Church and State," Columbia Law Review 97:8 (1997), 2255-333.
20. In another but related context ("Equal Treatment of Cultures and the Limits of Postmodern Liberalism," 5-13), Habermas criticizes Christoph Menke's "deconstruction" of the liberal ideal of equality, although he also distinguishes Menke's from Derrida's deconstruction.
21. Lasse Thomassen, "Introduction," in The Derrida-Habermas Reader, ed. Lasse Thomassen (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006), 1-7.
22. Jacques Derrida, "Hostipitality," in The Derrida-Habermas Reader, ed. Lasse Thomassen, trans. Barry Stocker and Forbes Morlock (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006), 208-30;
23. Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle Invites Jacques Derrida to Respond, trans. Rachel Bowlby (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000);
24. Jacques Derrida, "Autoimmunity: Real and Symbolic Suicides - A Dialogue with Jacques Derrida," in Giovanni Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 85-136, at 126-30;
25. and Jacques Derrida, "The Principle of Hospitality," Parallax 11:1 (2005), 6-9.
26. For a good summary, see Michael Naas, "Hospitality as an Open Question: Deconstruction's Welcome Politics," in Taking on the Tradition: Jacques Derrida and the Legacies of Deconstruction (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 154-69.
27. And, I hope, it is a tolerant reading of Habermas: a reading that follows, with an open mind, Habermas as far as possible, but also intervenes in and disturbs his texts, simultaneously opening and appropriating them.
28. Jürgen Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory, trans. Ciaran Cronin (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998), 40;
29. and Jürgen Habermas, The Postnational Constellation: Political Essays, trans. Max Pensky (Cambridge: Polity, 2001), 19.
30. Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, trans. William Rehg (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), 159-64, 565 n3.
31. Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, trans. William Rehg, Ibid., 309.
32. Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other, 99-100.
33. Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 104-18;
34. Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other, chap. 8;
35. and for the latest formulation, Jürgen Habermas, "The Moral and the Ethical: A Reconsideration of the Issue of the Priority of the Right over the Good," trans. William Rehg, in Pragmatism, Critique, Judgment: Essays for Richard J. Bernstein, ed. Seyla Benhabib and Nancy Fraser (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), 29-43.
36. Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other, 118, 224-6.
37. Habermas, The Postnational Constellation, 73.
38. Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other, 228-32.
39. Habermas, "Fundamentalism and Terror," 41.
40. Habermas, "Religious Tolerance," 197, 200.
41. Jürgen Habermas, "Reply to Symposium Participants," Cardozo Law Review 17:4 (1996), 1477-557, at 1505, my emphases.
42. Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 445-6.
43. For a critique, see Michel Rosenfeld, "Can Rights, Democracy, and Justice Be Reconciled through Discourse Theory? Reflections on Habermas's Proceduralist Paradigm of Law," Cardozo Law Review 17:4 (1996): 790-824, at 811-2.
44. Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other, 223.
45. Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other, Ibid., 223-4.
46. Habermas, "Fundamentalism and Terror," 31.
47. Jürgen Habermas, Justification and Application: Remarks on Discourse Ethics, trans. Ciaran Cronin (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993), 59-60.
48. See the criticisms of Habermas's ethical-political distinction in Rosenfeld, "Can Rights, Democracy, and Justice Be Reconciled through Discourse Theory?";
49. and Richard J. Bernstein, "The Retrieval of the Democratic Ethos," Cardozo Law Review 17:4 (1996), 1127-46.
50. Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 154.
51. Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, Ibid., 155-6.
52. Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, Ibid., 157.
53. Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other, 144.
54. Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other, Ibid., 225 (my emphasis), 220 (emphasis in German original).
55. Habermas, "Reply to Symposium Participants," 1498.
56. Habermas, "Religious Tolerance," 197 (and 198).
57. Similarly Derrida (Of Hospitality, 81): "exclusion and inclusion are inseparable in the same moment."
58. Habermas, "Religious Tolerance," 197.
59. Habermas, "Religious Tolerance,", Ibid.
60. Derrida, "Autoimmunity," 94ff.
61. Derrida, "Hostipitality," 211;
62. and Jacques Derrida, Rogues: Two Essays on Reason, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005), 33-41.
63. Habermas, "Religious Tolerance," 197;
64. and Habermas, "Intolerance and Discrimination," p. 5f.
65. Habermas, "Intolerance and Discrimination," 3.
66. Compare the similar critique of Habermas in Reiner Grundmann and Christos Mantziaris, "Fundamentalist Intolerance or Civil Disobedience? Strange Loops in Political Theory," Political Theory 19:4 (1991), 572-605. Here it might be objected that Habermas may tolerate the inclusion of fundamentalist discourses without having to tolerate fundamentalist practices or policies (if such a distinction is possible). In a sense, this is what he does when accepting antiabortionist discourses but not the imposition of antiabortionist policies across society. (Interestingly, he is, as far as I am aware, silent on this when it comes to Nazis.) Importantly, he accepts antiabortionist discourses as ethical discourses. In other words, these discourses are tolerated and included within deliberations but barred from winning the argument qua ethical reasons because theirarguments have been discredited from the very beginning. A distinction between discourses (qua fundamentalist expressions) and policies would not get Habermas off the hook, because it would affect the equal status of individuals within deliberations.
67. Habermas, "Religious Tolerance," 202.
68. The problem may be described in terms of Derrida's notion of "supplementarity," cf. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 141-57, 295-316.
69. Self-reflexivity is at the heart of the attempt to rethink tolerance by another deliberative theorist, James Bohman, in "Deliberative Toleration."
70. Habermas, "Religious Tolerance," 196;
71. and Habermas, "Intolerance and Discrimination," 2-3.
72. Habermas, "Religious Tolerance," 204;
73. Habermas, "Intolerance and Discrimination," 4-8;
74. and Habermas, "Equal Treatment of Cultures and the Limits of Postmodern Liberalism," 24-8.
75. Habermas, "On the Relation between the Secular Liberal State and Religion," 346-7.
76. Habermas, "Intolerance and Discrimination," 6.
77. For Habermas's use of Piaget and Kohlberg, see Jürgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, trans. Christian Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholson (Cambridge: Polity, 1990), 33-41.
78. Habermas, "A Conversation about God and the World," 150;
79. and Habermas, "Fundamentalism and Terror," 31.
80. Habermas ("Equal Treatment of Cultures and the Limits of Postmodern Liberalism," 28, my emphasis) refers to "religious groups who adapt their doctrines and forms of life . . . to the secularization of state and society."
81. See, for instance, his comments on the French head-scarves case: Habermas, "Religious Tolerance," 203.
82. Habermas, "Equal Treatment of Cultures and the Limits of Postmodern Liberalism," 28.
83. On the marginalization of the religious in Habermas, see Brian J. Shaw, "Habermas and Religious Inclusion: Lessons from Kant's Moral Theology," Political Theory 27:5 (1999), 634-66.
84. Habermas, "Equal Treatment of Cultures and the Limits of Postmodern Liberalism," 27. The unequal burdens are, for instance, those put on citizens opposed to abortion living in a society with a liberal abortion policy,
85. cf. Habermas, "Equal Treatment of Cultures and the Limits of Postmodern Liberalism,", ibid., 9.
86. Space does not allow me to go into detail concerning the relationship between equality and tolerance. For an argument related to equality which is close to mine, see Christoph Menke, Reflections of Equality, trans. Howard Rouse and Andrei Denejkine (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), part I.
87. Fish, "Mission Impossible," 2256.
88. Similarly, Derrida, "Hostipitality," 213-6.
89. Fish, "Mission Impossible," 2324.
90. Derrida, Rogues, 60.
91. Derrida, "Autoimmunity," 127ff.
92. Compare Jacques Derrida, "Faith and Knowledge: The Two Sources of 'Religion' at the Limits of Reason Alone," in Acts of Religion, ed. Gil Anidjar, trans. Samuel Weber (London: Routledge, 2002), 40-101, at 59-60.
93. Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 486.
94. Derrida, "Hostipitality," 217-18.
95. Derrida, Rogues, 101.
96. Derrida, Rogues, Ibid., 86-7.
97. Fish, "Mission Impossible," 2258.
98. David Campbell, National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity, and Justice in Bosnia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 205-6.
99. Enrique Dussel, "Deconstruction of the Concept of Tolerance' : From Intolerance to Solidarity," Constellations 11:3 (2004), 326-33, at 327-8.
100. Jacques Derrida, "Force of Law: The 'Mystical Foundation of Authority,' " trans. Mary Quaintance, in Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, ed. Drucilla Cornell, Michel Rosenfeld, and David G. Carlson (London: Routledge, 1992), 3-67, at 21.