Habermas and the aporia of translating religion in democracy

Bibliographic Data

ID2398080
AuthorsBadredine Arfi (0000-0002-0905-7359, University of Florida, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume18
Issue4
Pages489-506
Publication date2015-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEuropean Journal of Social Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1368-4310 • E-ISSN: 1461-7137
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1368431014562703
OpenAlexW2325367422
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited11

In his recent attempt to make democracy more politically hospitable to religion, Habermas calls for the potential contributions of religion to democratic politics not to be neglected. He simultaneously calls for translating religious meanings into neutral reasons as a way of including them at the level of formal politics and for maintaining the necessity of an institutional translational proviso to immunize the neutral character of the state. This article presents three arguments. First, what Habermas effectively calls for is not conventional translation in which meaning is transferred from one language (signification system) into another. Rather, his call is for an anasemic translation which is an operation of de-signification of the truth contents of religious contributions and then a re-signification. Second, because Habermas calls for translation, he necessarily runs into the aporia of translation in the sense that certain aspects of religion are untranslatable into his generally acceptable language. Therefore, Habermas' translation proviso creates an asymmetry between religious and non-religious citizens, which is detrimental to the conditions of political legitimacy. Third, it is suggested that to address this problem the citizens must adopt an ethos of hospitality toward the untranslatable of religion as part of the conditions of political legitimacy

Democracy · Epistemology · Ethos · Legitimacy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious Education and Schools

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub