The Limits of the Dialogical: Thoughts on Muslim Patterns of In- and Exclusion

Abstract

In a time of heightened demand for inter-religious, or inter-faith dialogue, especially from official political agents, a sound assessment of the possibilities and limitations of such endeavour seems imperative. Consequently, in the present paper serious doubts into the prospect of dialogue based on religious beliefs are raised. This is done, firstly, by criticising the rather optimistic discourse ethical concepts of Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas with the intervention of the analytical philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Secondly, the philosophical improbability of in fact any kind of faith-based dialogue is illustrated by a survey of the Muslim discourse on inclusion into, and exclusion from their idealised discursive community, that is, the Muslim umma. This example shows vividly the difficulties, if not the impossibility, to engage in a rational and, thus, productive, debate on faith premises already within a self-perceived single and unified religious tradition, leaving alone traditions rooted in fundamentally different axiomatic propositions.