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References
C. Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition”, in A. Gutman, ed.,Mulitculturalism: Examining the “Politics of Recognition” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 25–73, at 72.
See Taylor,supra n. 1,, at 25f., 36f.
While a number of theorists have appealed to the notion of a “hermeneutic conversation”, the conception at issue here — one which seeks to accommodate diverse voices and perspectives in socio-political discourse — owes much to that developed by Feorgia Warnke. Central to Warnke's conception, which derives much of its inspiration from Gadamer's hermeneutics, is “the idea that an interpretive pluralism can be educational for all the parties involved”, provided “the fairness of the conversation” is assured. This includes “working to give all possible voices equal access”:Justice and Interpretation (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992), 157.
In drawing on both these sources my guiding presupposition is that a richer and more justifiable conception of “hermeneutic conversation” results when the Gadamerian approach is read in the light of the Habermasian, and vice versa. Here, I do not attempt explicitly to justify this presupposition, but the interested reader can pursue this theme by referring to. Some supporting reasons are also given in the latter part of my recent paper on Gadamer, “Situated Rationality and Hermeneutic Understanding: A Gadamerian Approach to Rationality”,International Philosophical Quarterly XXXVI (1996), 155–71.
For Habermas' discourse ethics, see, in particular, J. Habermas, “Discourse Ethics”, in hisMoral Consciousness and Communicative Action (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), 43–115. For a succinct overview of what discourse ethics involves, see T. McCarthy and D. Hoy,Critical Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), ch.2.4. For the terms “universal moral respect” and “egalitarian reciprocity”, see M. Cooke,Language and Reason: A Study of Habermas' Pragmatics (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994), 31.
As regards the difference between the properly Kantian and the Habermasian versions of the universalisation principle, McCarthy epitomises it as follows: “[R]ather than ascribing to others as valid any maxim that I can will to be a universal law, I must submit my maxim to others for purposes of discursively testing its claim to validity. The emphasis shifts from what each can will without contradiction to be a general law to what all can agree to as a general norm” (, at 50).
I. Kant,Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785); trans. Lewis White Beck asFoundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, Library of Liberal Arts, 1959), 429.
, at 91.
J. Ekennia, “Committed Dialogue as a Response to Pluralism”,International Philosophical Quarterly XXXVI (1996), 85–95, at 90.
, at 89.
, at 89.
, at 89.
The notion of an ideal speech situation has been prominent in Habermas' writings since at least the early 1970s, although, partly in response to criticisms, Habermas has consistently reiterated that it is to be understood in a regulative rather than a constitutive sense. Although the ideality of this notion continues to be problematic in certain respects, its intended critical import is aptly summarised by McCarthy as follows: “[T]he tension between the real and the ideal it builds into the construction of social facts represents an immanent potential for criticism that actors can draw upon in seeking to transcend and transform the limits of their situations.” As such, it acts as “a thorn in the flesh of social reality” (, at 37f.).
Thus, McCarthy notes: “[T]he active presence of the others' voices makes all the difference, not only for ‘them’ but for ‘us’ as well. There is no surer path to awareness of unspoken preconceptions and prejudgments than communicative encounters with others who do not share them” (, at 92). Consequently, McCarthy makes a forceful argument for the necessity of enabling other cultures to represent themselves in their own terms, not only in actual intercultural dialogues, but also in the anthropological and ethnographic literature which claims to portray them: see further T. McCarthy, “Doing the Right Thing in Cross-Cultural Representation”,Ethics 102 (1992), 635–49.
See, e.g., J. Habermas,The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. I (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), 26;The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1987), 315.
Frequently enough, and confusingly, Habermas seems to use the terms “agreement” and “understanding” almost interchangeably, notwithstanding the fact that their connotations are quite different. As David Hoy points out (, at 180), the link “is easier to see in German because of the verbal similarity between ‘understanding’ (Verständigung) and ‘agreement’ (Einverständnis)”. Nonetheless, as Hoy also observes (supra n. 5, J. Habermas, “Discourse Ethics”, in hisMoral Consciousness and Communicative Action (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), 43–115, at 181), “the verbal similarity that Habermas hears in German is not an argument for making agreement the paradigm of understanding”. For a further attempt to make sense of the interlinkage between these concepts from a Habermasian perspective, see Cooke,supra n. 5 J. Habermas, “Discourse Ethics”, in hisMoral Consciousness and Communicative Action (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), 43–115, at 110–12.
In thus positing mutual, understanding, rather than consensus, as the goal of discourse, what I have in mind is similar to what Habermas himself alludes to as negotiating a commen definition of a situation (Theory of Communicative Action, supra n. 15, Boston: Beacon Press, 1984, at 100f.). As the term suggests, what is at issue here is the challenge of coming to forge a framework of understanding to which all parties to the debate can subscribe as adequately articulating their needs, interests and concerns, notwithstanding the fact that they may continue to disagree about what relative weighting is to be given to the needs and interests of different groups, and about how the concerns of all are to be met. Thus, as Habermas puts it, “[F] or both parties the interpretive task consists in incorporating the other's interpretation of the situation into one's own in such a way that ... the divergent situation definitions can be brought to coincide sufficiently” (supra n. 15 Boston: Beacon Press, 1984 at 100). Integral to the aim of mutual understanding, thus construed, is the ongoing exchange of viewpoints between participants—here, participants in intercultural dialogue—such that each side progressively comes to understand better the stance adopted by the other, regardless of whether or not the first side finds these interpretations and reasons compelling from its own perspective. In her essay “Discourse and Democratic Practices”, Simone Chambers also (implicitly) defends the goal of mutual understanding over that of consensus as supporting the conditions necessary for fostering a “deliberative”, “discursive” democracy. In this regard, Chambers to draws support from Habermas’ own allusions to the “negotiation of a new situation definition”. She notes that such negotiation is “informal and partial”, and she recognises that even Habermas himself is willing to acknowledge—in contrast to his all-too-frequent, rather heavy-handed emphasis on consensus achieved under ideal speech conditions—that such negotiations are characterised by a “diffuse, fragile, continuously revised and only momentarily successful communication in which participants rely on problematic and unclarified presuppositions and feel their way from one occasional commonality to the next”. In this connection, Chambers herself notes that “[T]he decisive force in these renegotiations is communication: We reach partial understandings through symbolic interaction in which we justify, convince, defend, criticise, explain, argue, express our inner feelings and desires while interpreting those of others” (S. Chambers, “Discourse and Democratic Practices”, inThe Cambridge Companion to Habermas, ed. S. White (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 233–59, at 242). Central to Chambers' thesis is the idea that mutual understanding, thus construed as thetelos of free and equal dialogue, forms a necessary backdrop for democratic policy making, even though it is not itself best understood as constituting a decision procedure (cf. 250, 255). In addition, she perceptively notes that “the notion of consensual willformation cannot be understood as the outcome of one constituent conversation, but must be seen as the cumulative product of many criss-crossing conversations over time and often a long time” (at 249). Finally, it should be noted that, the emphasis on mutual understanding advocated here is certainly not intended to preclude the achievement of full blown consensus on substantive issues when this is possible, nor to downplay the importance of consensus when it comes to making policy decisions. But thetelos of mutual understanding rightly achieves prominence here because (i) as has been emphasised from the outset, the concern is with elucidating the conditions necessary for fostering a politics of equal recognition (as distinct from concern with the mechanisms for arriving at policy decisions as such); and (ii) as the above discussion suggests, when—and if—consensus on policy emerges, it is likely to be on the basis of significant efforts directed at forging a framework of mutual understanding in the sense at issue here.
In thus preferring the goal of mutual understanding over that of consensus, I am, of course, referring to thetelos, or guiding aim, of intercultural debate, without wanting to deny that some levels and/or types of consensus need to be presupposed to allow dialogue to take place at all. Indeed, I am at one with Habermas in believing both that some background beliefs must be held in common between interlocutors for dialogue to be possible, and that participants must also agree to the rules and principles governing rational debate.
The problem of “invidious comparison” and the difficulties it poses for cross-cultural understanding are insightfully dealt with by M. Dascal, “The Ecology of Cultural Space”, inCultural Relativism and Philosophy, ed. M. Dascal (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 279–295.
As Warnke notes: “[A] genuine attempt to understand is one that ... tries to find insight in another's position and is open to the challenge these insights bring to its own perspective” (supra n.3, at 130).
Essentially, a “fusion of horizons” involves an enlargement of one's framework of understanding through an open-minded encounter with other traditions. For more on this theme, see, e.g., J. Weinsheimer,Gadamer's Hermeneutics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 182–84; see too Healy,supra n.4, at 159–66.
, at 67.
For further discussion of this theme in a Gadamerian context, see K. Wright, “Gadamer: The Speculative Structure of Language”, inHermeneutics and Modern Philosophy, ed. B. Wachterhauser (Albany, NY: The State University of New York Press, 1986), 193–218, at 198–202.
See McCarthy,. at 91.
, at 66.
, at 73.
Since the regulative assumption that Taylor favours centres on respecting and valuing the beliefs, practices, and frames of reference of other cultures, without however concluding that the contributions of all cultures are equally valuable in all respects, it could perhaps be more aptly termed a presumption of “equal validity”, rather than one of “equal worth”. Like Davidson's “principle of charity”, this principle attributes internal consistency and cohesiveness to the other culture from the outset—and thus respects the validity of the framework of understanding of the other culture as an approach to lived experience—without, however, prejudging the relative worth of diverse cultural contributions.
R. Bernstein, “Incommensurability and Otherness Revisited”, inCulture and Modernity, ed. E. Deutsch, (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991), 92. As Bernstein also notes, the challenge of coming to understand other cultures has an inherently hermeneutic dimension, given that “learning to live with (among) rival pluralistic... traditions... is always precarious and fragile. There are no algorithms for grasping what is shared in common and what is genuinely different. Indeed, commonality and difference is itself historically conditioned and shifting...” (at 93).
These anticipated objections derive from critical points raised by reviewers for this journal in respect of an earlier draft of this paper. My thanks are due to these commentators.
In this connection, Bernstein aptly comments that “[I]ncommensurable languages and traditions are not to be thought of as self-contained windowless monads that share nothing in common... There are always points of overlap and crisscrossing, even if there is not perfect commensuration.” Bernstein adds: “[O]ur linguistic horizons are always open. This is what enables comparison, and even sometimes a “fusion of horizons”. at 92). In a similar vein, McCarthy (supra n. 14, Thus, McCarthy notes: “[T]he active presence of the others' voices makes all the difference, not only for ‘them’ but for ‘us’ as well. There is no surer path to awareness of unspoken preconceptions and prejudgments than communicative encounters with others who do not share them”, at 645) notes that as a result of the globalisation of culture, “radical cultural relativism is now factually as well as conceptually a red herring”.
Compare Winch, who, in his treatment of the rationality of other cultures, famously maintains that the “limiting concepts” of birth, death, and sexual relations enter into the life of every society, and “give shape” to what we understand by “human life” and “morality” (P. Winch, “Understanding a Primitive Society,”, inRationality, ed. B. Wilson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970), 78–111, at 107). Winch thus concludes that “[I]n any attempt to understand the life of another society, an investigation of the forms taken by such concepts— their role in the life of that society—must always take a central place and provide a basis on which understanding may be built” (at 111).
, at 93.
Chambers,supra n.17, at 249. It should be noted, however, that Chambers makes this point, not about mutual understanding in intercultural dialogue, but rather about consensus in political discourse. Nonetheless, it seems equally valid in the former context.
Although it is not possible to develop this theme here, it should be noted that, for some commentators, there is another aspect to the “postmodern” objection, namely, the alleged fact that the very attempt to understand the other carries with it the threat of assimilating the other to our framework of understanding to the extent that real differences are eliminated and otherness is reduced to sameness (for an extended discussion of this problem as it arises in the context of Gadamerian hermeneutics, see R. Bernasconi, “You Don't Know What I'm Talking About': Alterity and the Hermeneutical Ideal,”, inThe Specter of Relativism: Truth, Dialogue, and Phronesis in Philosophical Hermeneutics, ed. L. Schmidt, (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1995), 178–194). For an insightful suggestion as to how this threat might be overcome in a manner sensitive to hermeneutical concerns, the interested reader should refer to S. White,Political Theory and Postmodernism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), especially 109f.
.
My thanks are due to an anonymous referee for pointing out the need to avoid potential confusion on these issues.
On this point, see too Warnke, at 138f.), who succinctly summarises what we stand to learn from the encounter with other cultures when she observes that, by “working through” diverse cultural interpretations” and assuming their possible insights into dimensions of meaning, we can reflect upon our own interpretations and revise or develop them more fully. Our own understanding can become more differentiated, sophisticated and nuanced by incorporating what it takes as the interpretive insights of others and protecting itself from what it still, after some consideration, takes as their lacunae.”
Compare Warnke: “[P]art of what the survival and fluorishing of a culture would seem to mean is a capacity to reflect on and assure itself of its own worth... But this would seem to entail its capacity to show its worth in relation to the worth of other cultures, to be able to enrich itself with what it takes to be valuable in other cultures, to show its own members how its values stack up against those of others, where it fits in the panoply of cultures and so on”— G. Warnke, “Communicative Rationality and Cultural Values”, inThe Cambridge Companion to Habermas (supra) n. 17, 120–42, at 139.
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Healy, P. Dialogue across boundaries: On the discursive conditions necessary for a “Politics of equal recognition”. Res Publica 4, 59–76 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02334933
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02334933