Translating truth

Philosophy and Social Criticism

Volumn 37, Issue 4, 2011, Pages 479-491

  Cooke, Maeve ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN   (Ireland)

Author keywords

Intercultural encounters; J rgen habermas; Mutual learning; Translation; Truth

Indexed keywords

EID: 79957962781     PISSN: 01914537     EISSN: 1461734X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0191453710398856     Document Type: Article

References (88)

1. R. Rorty, 'Solidarity or Objectivity?', in J. Rajchman and C. West (eds) Post-Analytic Philosophy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985).
2. See my discussion of Rorty in M. Cooke, Re-Presenting the Good Society (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006), ch. 2.
3. Accordingly, Habermas criticizes Rorty for construing the process of intercultural understanding as each party's assimilation of what is alien into their respective interpretive horizons.
4. See J. Habermas, 'The Unity of Reason in the Diversity of Its Voices', in his Postmetaphysical Thinking, trans. W. M. Hohengarten (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992).
5. H.-G. Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans.G.Barden and J.Cumming (NewYork: Crossroad, 1985).
6. As he puts it: 'learning itself belongs neither to us nor to them; both sides are caught up in it in this same way. Even in the most difficult processes of reaching understanding, all parties appeal to the common reference point of a possible consensus. For, although they may be interpreted in various ways and applied according to different criteria, concepts like truth, rationality, or justification play the same grammatical role in every linguistic community.'
7. Habermas, 'The Unity of Reason in the Diversity of Its Voices', p. 138.
8. J. Habermas, 'Remarks on Discourse Ethics', in his Justification and Application, trans. C. Cronin (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), p. 105.
9. To be sure, intercultural learning emerges from intercultural conflicts, which typically involve religion; however, up to the end of the 1980s Habermas did not address the question of learning from religion at all.
10. In this context, when referring to 'secular' citizens, Habermas generally means those who have no religious beliefs.
11. R. Rorty, Contingency, Irony, Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
12. J. Habermas, 'Transcendence from within, Transcendence in this World', in his Religion and Rationality: Essays on Reason, God and Modernity, ed. E. Mendieta, trans. E. Crump and P. Kenny (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), pp. 72-5.
13. Cf. J. Habermas, 'Religion in the Public Sphere: Cognitive Presuppositions in the "Public Use of Reason" by Religious and Secular Citizens', in his Between Naturalism and Religion, trans. C. Cronin (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), p. 129.
14. J. Habermas, Dialectics of Secularization. On Reason and Religion, ed. F. Schuller, trans. B. McNeil (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2006), p. 42.
15. It should be noted that Habermas does not distinguish between religions, apparently attributing a fundamental dependence on revelation to all of them.
16. He writes: '[the] core [of religious faith] remains as profoundly alien to discursive thought as the hermeneutic core of aesthetic experience, which likewise can be at best circumscribed, but not penetrated, by philosophical reflection.'
17. Habermas, 'Religion in the Public Sphere', p. 143.
18. See also Habermas, 'Transcendence from within', pp. 72-5.
19. J. Habermas, 'A Return to Metaphysics', in his Postmetaphysical Thinking, pp. 28-53.
20. J. Habermas, 'Are there Postmetaphysical Answers to the Question: What is the "Good Life"?', in his The Future of Human Nature, trans. W. Rehg, M. Pensky and H. Beister (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), pp. 1-15.
21. Habermas, 'Religion in the Public Sphere', pp. 141-3.
22. ibid., pp. 131, 143.
23. ibid., p. 138.
24. ibid., p. 141.
25. In each case they must do so without jeopardizing either the truth-claims they make as adherents of a particular religion or the articles of faith and the ethical attitudes and practices they embrace as members of a particular religious community.
26. Habermas, ibid., pp. 136-8.
27. ibid., p. 139.
28. ibid., pp. 130-2.
29. ibid., pp. 131-2.
30. Habermas' 'translation proviso' is clearly intended as a successor to the 'proviso' stipulated by John Rawls in his revised account of public reason: J. Rawls, 'The Idea of Public Reason Revisited', in John Rawls, Collected Papers, ed. S. Freeman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).
31. Habermas, 'Religion in the Public Sphere', p. 129.
32. ibid., pp. 133-5.
33. I discuss various aspects of Habermas' position in M. Cooke, 'A Secular State for a Postsecular Society? Postmetaphysical Political Theory and the Place of Religion', Constellations 14(2) (2007): 224-38.
34. and in M. Cooke, 'Violating Neutrality? Religious Validity Claims and Democratic Legitimacy', in C. Calhoun, E. Mendieta and J. VanAntwerpen (eds) Habermas and Religion (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011).
35. See M. Cooke, 'Salvaging and Secularizing the Semantic Contents of Religion: the Limitations of Habermas's Postmetaphysical Approach', International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 60(1-3) (2006): 187-207.
36. See, for instance, Habermas, 'Religion in the Public Sphere', p. 142.
37. J. Habermas, 'The Boundary between Faith and Knowledge: On the Reception and Contemporary Importance of Kant's Philosophy of Religion', in his Between Naturalism and Religion, esp. pp. 223-47.
38. Habermas, ibid., p. 227.
39. Cf. J. Habermas, An Awareness of What is Missing: Faith and Reason in a Post-Secular Age (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010), pp. 18-19.
40. Habermas, Dialectics of Secularization, p. 45.
41. Habermas, 'The Boundary between Faith and Knowledge', p. 241.
42. ibid., p. 231.
43. He also mentions a host of clusters of normative ideas such as 'responsibility, autonomy and justification', 'history and remembering', 'new beginning, innovation and return', 'emancipation and fulfilment', 'expropriation, internalization and embodiment' and 'individuality and fellowship'.
44. Habermas, Dialectics of Secularization, p. 44.
45. As already indicated, they also contribute to societal processes of semantic renewal.
46. Elsewhere I question too static conception of the general accessibility with regard to the translated contents of religion.
47. (see Cooke, 'A Secular State for a Postsecular Society').
48. as well as his demarcation of religious validity-claims from other kinds of claims in the domain of practical reason on grounds of their dogmatic and authoritarian character and the revealed truths at their core.
49. (see Cooke, 'Violating Neutrality?').
50. See also note 43 below.
51. (see Cooke, 'Violating Neutrality?')
52. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 1.
53. In the following, I pass over the specific difficulties involved in translating stories of exemplary figures and acts. In my view, every articulation of exemplarity is a re-presentation, in which truth contents are mediated in a particular way. In each case, the experiential component of exemplarity complicates translation. Stories are one mode of articulation (re-presentation). The distinctive difficulties they pose for translation are not relevant for our present purposes.
54. Book of Genesis 22:1-19.
55. I read Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling as an attempt to offer a non-deflationary translation of this story.
56. See S. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (Radford, VA: A & D Publishing, 2008).
57. At any given time in any given socio-cultural context, the linguistic resources for articulating certain sorts of experience may not be available.
58. See Cooke, Re-Presenting the Good Society, pp. 158-9.
59. See also Cooke, 'Violating Neutrality?'.
60. P. Ricoeur, Figuring the Sacred, ed. M. I. Wallace, trans. D. Pellauer (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1995), pp. 35-47.
61. Cf. ibid., pp. 48-67.
62. A. Ferrera, The Force of the Example (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008).
63. He writes: 'an exemplary figure or act has the quality of bringing reality and normativity, facts and norm. to an enduring, nearly complete and rare fusion'.
64. ibid., p. 3.
65. I. Kant, The Critique of the Power of Judgment, ed. P. Guyer, trans. P. Guyer and E. Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
66. See, for example, Ferrara, The Force of the Example, pp. 21-2.
67. However, there are problems with his postmetaphysical interpretation of translation.
68. (see Cooke, 'Salvaging and Secularizing the Semantic Contents of Religion').
69. and he is wrong to imply that religious contents always require translation.
70. O. Pamuk, My Name is Red, trans. E. Göknar (London: Faber & Faber, 2001).
71. The book raises a number of interesting questions about portrait painting as an art form and about representational art in general, which I leave aside in the following.
72. ibid., p. 393.
73. ibid., p. 391.
74. ibid., p. 392.
75. ibid., pp. 393-4.
76. J. Fleischhauer, M. Hujer, K. Kullman et al., 'Aufstieg einer Sünderin', Der Spiegel, 9 (1 March 2010): 66-74.
77. Walter Benjamin's remarks on the task of the translator are relevant here.
78. See W. Benjamin, 'The Task of the Translator', in Illuminations, ed. H. Arendt, trans. H. Zorn (London: Pimlico, 1999).
79. See Ricoeur, Figuring the Sacred, p. 50.
80. In Cooke, 'Violating Neutrality?', I take issue with Habermas' language-immanent conception of practical truth from the point of view of democratic legitimacy.
81. In general I am sceptical with regard to Habermas' demarcation of religious claims from other kinds of practical validity-claims and, in particular, with regard to his view that they are set apart by virtue of their revelatory moment.
82. See note 32 above.
83. see Cooke, 'A Secular State for a Postsecular Society'
84. as well as his demarcation of religious validity-claims from other kinds of claims in the domain of practical reason on grounds of their dogmatic and authoritarian character and the revealed truths at their core.
85. However, there are problems with his postmetaphysical interpretation of translation.
86. see Cooke, 'Salvaging and Secularizing the Semantic Contents of Religion'
87. and he is wrong to imply that religious contents always require translation.
88. see Cooke, 'Violating Neutrality?'.