You should never employ your intellect but only that it is not essential to exercise it in order to live a humane life. Language permeates all of life, of course, and one's mind is essential to it, but that does not mean intellectuality should transcend all of life.

The propensity to intellectualize is itself both essential and dangerous. I think in our modern world we are much more aware of its essential character than of its dangers, and that is why I think of it as being an expression of transcendence.

Language has multiple uses, and is embedded in different forms of life. It is not necessary to have this grand concept of "humanity" in order to behave decently.

I think the approach to Islam as a tradition is helpful. Tradition helps us to focus on questions about authority and temporality, and about the language used in relation to the two.

Why is it that aggression in the name of God shocks secular liberal sensibilities, whereas the act of killing in the name of the secular nation, or of democracy, does not?

I do not criticize religion as such, but I criticize the concept and the definition of "religion" - as I said in Genealogies.

Tradition is an aspiration to connect the Self with the Other. One "internalizes" the Other as one acquires a sense of what one's own tradition is, what one belongs to and what gives valid shape to one's life.