Jonas Jakobsen

Habermas's 'ethics of citizenship' raises a number of relevant concerns about the dangers of a secularistic exclusion of religious contributions to public deliberation, on the one hand, and the dangers of religious conflict and sectarianism in politics, on the other. Agreeing largely with these concerns, the paper identities four problems with Habermas's approach and attempts to overcome them: (a) the full exclusion of religious reasons from parliamentary debate; (b) the full inclusion of religious reasons in the informal public sphere; (c) the philosophical distinction between secular and religious reasons; and (d) the sociological distinction between 'Western' and 'non-Western' religions. The result is a revised version of the ethics of citizenship, which I call moderate inclusivism. Most notably, moderate inclusivism implies a replacement of Habermas's 'institutional translation proviso' with a more flexible 'conversational translation proviso'.

The paper discusses Rawls' and Habermas' theories of deliberative democracy, focusing on the question of religious reasons in political discourse. Whereas Rawls as well as Habermas defend a fully inclusivist position on the use of religious reasons in the 'background culture' (Rawls) or 'informal public sphere' (Habermas), we defend a moderately inclusivist position. Moderate inclusivism welcomes religiously inspired contributions to public debate, but it also makes normative demands on public argumentation beyond the 'public forum' (Rawls) or 'formal public sphere' (Habermas). In particular, moderate inclusivism implies what we call a 'conversational translation proviso' according to which citizens have a duty to supplement religious with proper political arguments if – but only if – they are asked to do so by their co-discussants. This position, we argue, is more in line with the deeper intuitions behind Rawls' political liberalism and Habermas' deliberative model than is the fully inclusivist alternative.

This chapter develops a Habermasian critique of the work of the anthropologist Talal Asad. Drawing freely upon Habermas, I argue that Asad’s critique of secularism and liberal democracy is flawed by «essentialism» (a reductionist binary between «Muslims» and «westerners») and «self-reference» (an implicit reliance on normative ideas that are explicitly rejected). Finally, I defend a Habermasian approach to the case of Islam in Europe against the Asadian approach.

The so-called ‘Danish cartoon controversy’ refers to a series of national and international conflicts related to the publication of 12 cartoons by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, some of them portraying the Muslim Prophet, Muhammad, and some of them in ways that many Muslims found deeply offensive. In this chapter I discuss the cartoon controversy in light of Axel Honneth’s social-philosophical theory of recognition. On the one hand, I will argue that neither negative claims to universal protection of religious feelings nor positive claims to esteem of religion can be defended within Honneth’s normative framework. On the other hand, a Honnethian approach may criticize Jyllands-Posten and some of its defenders on moral grounds, that is, grounds related to a normative vision of social solidarity. This vision concerns the conditions of possibility for an inclusive democratic public sphere in which also cultural minorities feel welcome and safe.

In this paper I discuss selected aspects of the case of the Sami people in Norway, their struggle for influence over their own education institutions, and for equal as well as special rights in the Norwegian education system. Compared to many other Indigenous peoples, the case of the Sami in Norway appears to be a story of success. For example, the Norwegian Sami have their own education institutions, and they are among the most educated Indigenous peoples in the world. I also use the Sami case to reflect upon the relation between education and the self-identity of cultural minorities, here drawing upon (and discussing) the work of German social philosopher Axel Honneth.

I conclude that recognition is an important aspect of learning and education and that Honneth’s critical theory of recognition has explanatory force when analyzing the postcolonial situation of the Sami people of Norway. The Sami struggle for inclusion and influence over their own situation has to a large extent been fought as a struggle for rights and for cultural recognition. However, I also pointed to some problems in Honneth’s focus on the nation state as a given analytic entity; the legitimacy of the Norwegian nation state and its territorial claims, for example, have always been called into question by (some of) the Sami.

Hvorfor er anerkjennelse viktig for menneskelig danning og utdanning? Denne artikkel presenterer grunntanker fra den tyske sosialfilosofen, Axel Honneth, og diskuterer relevansen av Honneth’s anerkjennelsesteori for spørsmål om selvrealisering, læring og utdanning. På den ene siden kan enhver undervisningssituasjon forstås som en ‘anerkjennelsesdialektikk’, dvs. som et prekært spenningsforhold mellom kritikk og verdsettelse; på den andre siden er utdanningspolitiske spørsmål alltid også anerkjennelsesspørsmål.

Det siges, at det moderne menneske er mere optaget af at udvikle sig selv og sine indre potentialer, end i at deltage i selv-overskridende projekter og fællesskaber. Mens dele af samtidskritikken skyder skylden på nutidsmenneskets selvopmærksomhed, spørger vi i denne artikel, om det kunne være omvendt: Kan egocentrismen skyldes at vi ikke – ret beset – er opmærksomme på os selv? Og hvad har det med stilhed at gøre?

Mindfulness is a secular meditative practice that cultivates qualities such as acceptance, compassion and bodily awareness of the present moment. The beneficiary psychological effects of mindfulness meditation are now confirmed by a vast body of studies and research, and mindfulness has become a normalized part of popular culture, psychotherapy and healthcare in the west. More recently, mindfulness has found its way into environmentalist movements and the IDG (Inner Development Goals) initiative, which aims at accelerating the UN’s Global Goals (SDG) by way of changing human attitudes and relations to nature “from within”. Also, mindfulness is now being thematized in the literature on eco-phenomenology, environmentalist education, sustainability and regenerative leadership. 

However, many scholars remain highly skeptical of the use of mindfulness as an individualized and apolitical practice in the environmentalist movement. The climate and ecological disasters we are facing, they rightly claim, are systemic and social in nature, and thus require a collective and institutional response, not a “spiritual” and self-centered one. Also, mindfulness may contribute to a peculiar form of greenwashing as it offers an opportunity for business leaders and politicians to meditate on their inner connectedness with nature, and gives them a language of “regenerative leadership”, that entails no direct moral, economic or political responsibilities.

While agreeing on the potential misuses of mindfulness in the environmentalist movement, the paper argues that mindfulness should nevertheless be regarded as part of the solution, not part of the problem. First, while the form of mindfulness meditation is introspective, meditative exercises in this tradition aim at transcending the ego-perspective and openings ourselves up transforming our experience of “being-in-the world” (Heidegger) so that we may be more rectake action rather than simply react. Second, the Buddhist moral psychology that underpins mindfulness meditation provides a potent theoretical and explanatory tool that can be used to critically analyze how capitalist societies currently exploit the human tendency to feel unsatisfied and incomplete, and how this exploitation leads to ecological disaster. When mindfulness is practiced and understood within this theoretical framework, I call it critical mindfulness.