Habermas Translation: Dialectic of Secularization (pt 3)

I’ve been slow to continue the Habermas translation of late for two reasons: I’m generally lazy, and I’ve been trying my best to finish a paper on Hegel (which is nearly done). For anyone who’s been waiting for the next installment, you have my apologies.

Before going to the text, however, I would like to enlist folks’ help: if anyone has any idea how to translate the German word, “regelungsbedürftig,” I would love to hear it, as it has me totally stumped. I’m also a little hesitant about how I’ve translated Einwanderungsgesellschaft. I’m sure these terms are part of the technical vocabulary of Political Science or Sociology, and so I’m less than confident in my attempts to capture them in English.

As usual, the original essay is here, my translation of Part 1 is here, and here is Part 2

Anyway, here goes the next subsection of Habermas’ essay:

Habermas Translation: Dialectic of Secularization (pt. 2)

Here is the second installment of my attempt to translate Habermas (first part here; Original German here). I’m trying to translate the piece one section at a time (which Habermas has generously broken down into an average of 4 or 5 paragraphs each), since I don’t have a huge amount of time available for longer portions. I hope no one minds.

This section remains mostly factual, but he is now beginning to set the stage for his argument to come. As usual, if anyone notes something funny in my translation, please let me know (there’s one sentence which totally eludes my efforts to translate literally; if anyone can find a better solution, I would be very grateful).

UPDATE: A second look at the troublesome sentence just mentioned made me realize that it wasn’t tricky at all — I was just ‘complexifying’ it for no good reason.  I’ve now fixed it.

Habermas Translation: The Dialectic of Secularization (pt 1)

Since there seems to be some interest in a translation of this essay by Habermas, I’ve decided to go ahead and translate the first section. For the record, I don’t consider myself anywhere near fluent in German, so read with caution. And perhaps folks who do read German could compare what’s below the fold with the original. any mistakes folks find will be learning experiences for me. Past this, I’ve inserted paragraph numbers for ease of discussion and comparison.

Dialectic of Secularization

Habermas’ article, “Die Dialektik der Sekulärisierung” has recently appeared in Blätter für Deutsche und Internationale Politik. And its worth checking out. He ends his piece with the following,

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.

Here’s a quick English translation:

Secular citizens who would engage their fellow citizens conditionally, so that the latter cannot be earnestly considered as modern contemporaries [perhaps equals] in light of their religious convictions, descend to the level of a bare modus vivendi, and thereby forsake the recognitive basis of common citizenship. They must not exclude, a fortiori, religious expression of semantic matters, which might even uncover one’s own concealed intuitions, and which translate into civil reasoning. If everything should go well, it must do so for for both sides. Each one must engage in an interpretation of the conditions of faith and knowledge from their respective points of view, which makes a self-reflexive, enlightened cooperation between them possible.

If folks express interest, I might be persuaded to translate the whole thing… (Thanks to Ali Rizvi for finding the article)

Impossible Conditions — a Fragment

(Trying to write on Hegel seems to become increasingly difficult for me. Below is a fragment of such an attempt, which I can’t finish, partly because I don’t have enough of a background in Kant’s moral philosophy, partly because such a paper would be entirely too long for its purpose. So I’ve put it here.)

What is Secularism?

The concept of secularism came up in the comments to my last post, and I’m in the process of stitching together a few thoughts on the subject.  But for now, I thought I would offer a quick pointer to Reset’s latest online issue, which has a couple of (short) articles on Secularism.  Enjoy.

Problematic Interests: Progress, Equality, and Objectivity

Although I’ve spent the last few days trying my best not to do think about anything philosophical — partly, I’m inclined to believe, because I need a fallow period; or, at the very least, I need a stretch of time where I’m not pushing myself to write something on Hegel (again!) — I can’t help but throw together a few thoughts on Christina Hoff Sommer’s article “Why can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?”, since its stance, its air of unbiased objectivity, strikes me as so utterly problematic that I really need to say something about it. Avoiding Hegel, it seems, has its own pittfalls. And I suppose what follows is one of them.