Wege zur Toleranz – Überlegungen zur Beschreibung ihrer Geschichte

Abstract

In this paper, I will discuss how the history of the development that led to ‚tolerance’ in the sense of the Enlightenment, can be told as a European story. The topic ‚tolerance’ has to be integrated into the life-worlds with their specific epistemological views. This requires transforming life-worldly discourses into the rational discourses dominant in ‚expert worlds’. How this could be achieved will be shown on the one hand by analysing the novel Joseph und seine Brüder by Thomas Mann, on the other hand with Jan Assman’s theory on collective memory. Conclusively, I advocate the insight that telling the story of ‚tolerance’ requires in itself a tolerant form. In a scientific narrative this form arises from the ethnic implications, that are fundamentally immanent to any argumentative discourse. Keywords: tolerance, live worlds – expert worlds, ethics, history on European culture, theory of collective memory