In the framework of this essay, it is intended to consider the ambivalence of the concept of “tradition”. Considered in different contexts, the idea of traditions and the present, true adherence to them, may seem diffuse, blurry. Periodically, in different historical cases, the idea of tradition can be directly opposite in two opposing camps. It is suggested that dialogue and the search for consensus in its process may be able to resolve some contradictions by shifting the focus from one specifically engaged side to the awareness of the pluralism of public opinion. The question of a “true successor” of a particular tradition in itself stems from the subjective impossibility to grasp a concept in its contradictory diversity and thus cannot be easily resolved.
The author makes an attempt to verify the concept of real following the tradition, to create a certain methodological model in order to conduct an academic dialogue about it (Ruben 32). Throughout history, opposing parties may fight for different ideals despite calling them the same names. The collapse of an adequate and unified idea of such major concepts as, for example, democracy or Islam indicates the absence of a single rational explanation of these terms due to their vastness and ambiguity of interpretation.
To explain such conflicts of interpretation, the author proposes to use the terminological distinction between concept and conception. The concept cannot be contradictory or vague in itself, presenting a definition without discrepancies (Ruben 33). Conceptions that grow from concepts work in a completely different way. In other words, the concept is objective because it cannot be interpreted as such, representing a semantic monad. The conception is a subjective, individual or collective representation of the concept, a private interpretation which claims to be the only true one. It is difficult to say who is the real follower who professes a truly correct version of the concept, since the tradition itself implies the variability and eradication of the previous dominant idea. The tradition is asymmetric and contradicts modernity, so it cannot be unequivocally stated that the conservative continues the tradition. The very concept of tradition is thus blurred, since tradition can also be interpreted as a constant, eternal desire for change.
In conclusion, it should be pointed out that the qualitative similarity between the two phenomena is not sufficient to assert that between them there are relations of continuation of a certain tradition. Such relationships are usually nothing more than a coincidence, since the tradition requires a temporal transition between its stages. At the same time, the temporal transition may also imply a disintegration, a branching of the tradition into similar but not quite equal ones. Returning to the statement about different interpretations of one concept, this proves the plurality of such interpretations. The discussion about the truth of the version of the continued tradition can only be resolved by recognizing their plurality of variants, and the true successors cannot actually be determined.
Work Cited
Ruben, David-Hillel. ‘Traditions and true successors,’ Social Epistemology: A Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Policy, vol. 27, no. 1, 2013, pp. 32-46.