Habermas, Jürgen

The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)

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Habermas: The Public in History
One of the most influential studies on the subject
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
Habermas puts me to sleep

The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
Jürgen Habermas
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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Binding: Paperback

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Habermas and the Public Sphere (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
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ASIN: 0262581086

Book Description

This is Jurgen Habermas's most concrete historical-sociological book and one of the key contributions to political thought in the postwar period. It will be a revelation to those who have known Habermas only through his theoretical writing to find his later interests in problems of legitimation and communication foreshadowed in this lucid study of the origins, nature, and evolution of public opinion in democratic societies.

Customer Reviews:

Habermas: The Public in History.......2005-09-17

In this monograph, Habermas tracks the origination, the evolution, and the dispersal of an informed "public sphere" among democratic Western nations. He defines public sphere as "private people com[ing] together as a public" (27). Once these individuals, gathered as reading groups or as aficionados of theatre, the arts, and politics, the individuals melded into a public capable of debating the government. Habermas locates these fledgling "publics" primarily in eighteenth-century France, England and to a lesser extent in the areas of Europe designated as German. Tellingly, Habermas strongly links the formation of the public sphere with the rise of capitalism and a continuing bourgeois revolution. Comprised of literate individuals governed by the principals of the Enlightenment, these "publics" eventually challenged the validity and legitimacy of governments, most notably in France during the French Revolution and England during the English Civil War.

Habermas builds a compelling argument based upon his interpretation of Rousseau, Kant, Locke, Hegel, and Marx. He links the works of these philosophers and sociologists in a credible chain stretching back to the eighteenth century. However, he only deals thoroughly with the educated, propertied elite of society. Habermas views the "unpropertied" and illiterate as a separate from and incapable of participating in a true public sphere. To do this he must dismiss a plethora of lower class uprisings found throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Even when the various governments quickly quashed these rebellions, the Ludites in England and the various rebellions of 1848 come to mind, it is difficult to dispute the effect these rebels and rebellions had upon the public discourse. As an early work on the subject, it is almost certain that Habermas had to amend his arguments following E.P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class, published in 1963 a scant year after this work. His exclusion of the great press of society from a functioning public sphere seems arrogant at best and naïve at worst.

One of the most influential studies on the subject.......2004-11-01

Habermas' work, though written more than four decades ago, still retains most of its original relevance for the study of the public sphere. If you are interested in this subject, and if you are into critical thinking, then this book is certainly worth reading. Why? Well, if you take in consideration the fact that no other book has been written so far on the subject that has been able to surpass Habermas' account both in depth and originality, then you begin to get my point. As to a critical reading of the argument put forth by Habermas, one should read "Habermas and the Public Sphere", edited by Craig Calhoun. This book includes an appendix by Habermas where he revises some of his original positions.

The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere.......2002-04-04

When you talk about the public sphere in front of intellectuals, Jürgen Habermas's name is bound to come up. Habermas's 1962 study, "The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere," examines the creation, brief flourishing, and demise of a public sphere based in rational-critical debate and discussion. The feasibility of a true public sphere, which is inclusive of anyone who would participate, is for Habermas of utmost importance. Habermas follows a methodology similar to the one Michel Foucault takes in "Discipline and Punish," which analyzes the abolition of public displays of power, and the process by which the structures of power are inculcated in the individual from the 17th through the 20th centuries. Habermas analyzes historical, economic, and political conditions from classical antiquity through his own historical moment, tracing the circumstances in which the public sphere arises, how it functions, and ceases to function over time.

Habermas begins with a delineation of the terms 'public' and 'private,' orienting them philologically from their roots and meanings in classical antiquity. From here, he traces the adoption of the words and their synonyms into the European Middle Ages and the era of feudalism. Habermas says that in this period, the feudal lord and the monarch, for whom `representative publicness' functioned as a display of power before their subjects, dominated the public. Authority figures embodied virtues and powers in a public fashion. Public representation of political and economic power continued, unabated until the Reformation, at which time, the privatization of religious faith signaled a separation between society and the state. Economically, in the 16th and 17th centuries, the spread of trade necessitated the spread of news from various locales. As news outside of the home became relevant to home economy, the private individual begins to take an interest in public events. Consolidation of 'national' financial administration and state-controlled taxation, along with the rise of print culture, facilitated the dissemination of news, initially in the form of governmental decrees, market conditions, and happenings at court. Through this, the actions of the authorities came under the scrutiny of a reading public.

The 18th century is the key moment for Habermas. In this period, the government, along with private individuals, made use of the press, for the first time, in persuasive appeal to a public made up of private people. The press now presented the public with information, with which they were to use reason and discussion to determine what was in the public's interest. Habermas emphasizes the theoretical parity that this brings about - the rise of the coffee houses and salons, in which merchants met with gentility and engaged in rational-critical debate over issues of public import. Stretching this into the realm of the franchise, Habermas is careful to point out the problematics of a situation in which actual decision-making was restricted to those with money and land, but stresses that the opportunity for anyone to acquire these prerequisites was, again, theoretically, open to all.

For a brief time during the 18th century, Habermas sees the flourishing of a public sphere, born out of a reading public, that began to interact with the processes of public policy, legally, and morally. The purpose of this public sphere, according to Habermas, is to eliminate the domination of authoritative power, and establishing a government that is actually representative of the public will and contingent upon public opinion. Unfortunately, in the 19th century, with the stratification of party politics, the proliferating press encouraged less rational-critical discussion. Increasingly, debate moved into parliamentary circles, and the public was asked only to approve of party measures, not participate in the formation of the rules that governed them. In the 20th century, along with the creation of the welfare-state, consolidation of moneyed interests, and the expansion of universal suffrage (ironically), the public sphere disintegrated even further. New media - radio, television, etc. - turned its addresses to the public into mere advertising. Even the illusion of a private people engaged, as a public, in matters of their own governance, was gone, and the public became vessels for mass media.

To recuperate a true participatory public sphere, Habermas takes a guarded approach. He indicates that some kind of elite could be formed. These private individuals would undertake the responsibility of rational-critical debate, determining the public interest. The general public, then, would give their approval or disapproval to the measures decided on by this elite. This is kind of a bleak outlook, and one I don't much care for myself. Of course, this is a horribly limited review of Habermas's "Structural Transformation". I haven't even noted the break he takes to outline the historical-philosophical evaluation and critique of the public sphere by Kant, Hegel, Marx, Mill, and Tocqueville. Nor did I note the extensive use Habermas makes of political and economic changes in his key nations - England, France, and Germany - and the contributions these make to the disintegration of the public sphere. At any rate, "Structural Transformation" is an exhaustive (and exhausting) study, as relevant now to the study of literature, economics, government, history, etc., especially of the last three centuries, as it ever was. Even though it is a pain to read, you'll be glad you finally read it. Think of it as theoretical medicine - it may not taste good, but in the long run, it's good for you.

Habermas puts me to sleep.......2000-07-23

... This is Habermas' dissertation, but his writing is so poor, in English or in German, that it really doesn' matter. The book is a response, in my opinion, to Carl Schmitt, and specifically to Schmitt's argument that the core of liberal democracy is debate in parliament, that liberal democracy is rule by discussion (or, as its called now, "political discourse"), but that that discussion is now more real than painted flames on a radiator. Liberal democracy is in fact the triumph of aliberal, private, hidden powers, who rule from the shadows and through the true organs of power, the media, and through the hidden power of the private vote cast in the illicit privacy of the voting booth, where the bourgeois individual is free to exercise his worst prejudices and basest motives. So argues Schmitt. Habermas gives an interesting historical account of the rise of "Offentlichkeit" (which translates into the all-too-easy abstraction "public sphere," whatever that is), from the letters passed in the mail relating the news from town to town, to French salons, to newspapers, to television and radio. Habermas, like Schmitt, seeks to unmask the illiberal powers lurking behind the good liberal prejudices, but he, like Schmitt, mistakes liberalism for a debating society when in fact it is much more sophisticated than that. Habermas needs to read the Federalist Papers and the debates (!) at the constitutional convention to understand how little the founders of one liberal democracy thought of the power of discussion.

The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)

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INCLUDING DEMOCRACY

The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
Jürgen Habermas
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0262581868

Book Description

edited by Ciaran Cronin and Pablo De Greiff

Since its appearance in English translation in 1996, JÃ¼rgen Habermas's Between Facts and Norms has become the focus of a productive dialogue between German and Anglo-American legal and political theorists. The present volume contains ten essays that provide an overview of Habermas's political thought since the original appearance of Between Facts and Norms in 1992 and extend his model of deliberative democracy in novel ways to issues untreated in the earlier work.

Habermas's theory of democracy has at least three features that set it apart from competing positions. First, it combines a concern with questions of normative justification with an empirical analysis of the social conditions necessary for the realization of democratic institutions. Second, at the heart of his model is the assertion of an internal relationship between liberalism and democracy. Finally, Habermas defends a conception of universal human rights that is not only sensitive to cultural differences but also calls for legal and political institutions that facilitate the cultivation of cultural and religious identities within pluralistic societies.

These essays demonstrate the extraordinary power of Habermas's theory of democracy through a further engagement with Rawls's political liberalism and through original contributions to current debates over nationalism, multiculturalism, and the viability of supranational political institutions.

Customer Reviews:

INCLUDING DEMOCRACY.......2000-03-26

After his major work on legal theory (Between Facts and Norms), Jürgen Habermas revisits some of the hottest issues on metaethics, political theory and moral philosophy. The book is nicely divided in five parts. The first is the most specialized one. Habermas offers an exciting contribution to metaethics. As readers might know, most disputes in contemporary metaethics revolve around the question whether we could find a cognitive basis for "first principles" or "values", or what is the same, whether there is an objective ground for things like human rights and principles like those of liberty and equality. By means of reflecting on his discursive ethics (the main insight of which is that standards of right are to be related to the necessary assumptions which we make each and every time we enter into discourses concerning practical questions, like that all those with which we talk could contribute something to the issue at stake), Habermas puts forwards a convincing case for a moderate cognitivism, or what is the same, for an objective foundation. This implies moving beyond the relativism characteristic of much liberal thinking. Specialized readers will be interested in confronting Habermas' argument with that of Alexy, and will find the chapter an expansion of his 1997 article on the Aristotelian Society Proceedings. The second part contains two chapters, devoted to one of the major events in contemporary political thinking: the lectures in which John Rawls (author of the world-known Theory of Justice, second edition published in September 1999) and Jürgen Habermas revisited the work of each other. Habermas stresses the similarities of his and Rawls' theory, but stresses the dialogical conception of his theory of justice, vis a vis the monological character of the well-known Rawlsian original position. The third part is an essential reading for all those interested in globalisation. Habermas offers his insights on the process of European integration. The articles there included reflect his commitment to the further development of the Communities, based both in his own fear of an isolated Germany and his hope for extending solidarity beyond nation-states. Specialized readers will find specially interesting his new insights on the cement of liberal post-nationalistic societies, what Habermas himself labeled as "constitutional patriotism". The fourth part contains Habermas contributions with the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the publication of Kant's pamphlet "Towards Perpetual Peace", a major statement in favor of cosmopolitan democracy. Habermas takes the opportunity to challenge realists, that is, those claiming that international relations are mainly a matter of force and deception (the like of Carl Schmitt, a favorite target of his criticisms). The fifth and last part deals with the expanding number of writers who adhere to deliberative democracy as the legitimate political arrangement (like Joshua Cohen and Seyla Benhabib, to quote some names). Habermas makes a nice analysis of the main trends and implications of this line of argumentation, which basically aims at transcending majoritarian politics and reinforcing the effective participation of citizens in politics. The Inclusion of the Other is especially recommended to all those interested in having a taste of the work of Habermas but who were deterred by the complicated prose of Continental Philosophers. The book is clearly written and crisply translated. Habermas himself supervises the English translation of his books. A colleague from Germany told me that she preferred reading him in English because the texts were always more rich and complete than in the original edition!

The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society (The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol1)

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"monster work"
Do not emancipate yourself without it!
A classic

The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society (The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol1)
Jürgen Habermas
Manufacturer: Beacon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 2: Lifeword and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison
The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)

ASIN: 0807015075

Book Description

"The THEORY OF COMMUNICATIVE ACTION represents a major contribution to contemporary social theory. Not only does it provide a compelling critique of some of the main perspectives in 20th century philosophy and social science, but it also presents a systematic synthesis of the many themse which have preoccupied Habermas for thirty years." (Times Literary Supplement)

Customer Reviews:

"monster work".......2004-04-17

it took me 1.5 years to read this book and to make an attempt to understand it in its whole power and beauty.
Real contribution to social theory, a great synthesis...
But for ordinary readers there are two ways to approach this book:
1.to undertand the main idea, but even it in only 20-30%
2. to penetrate into the magical world of social philosophy and sociological theory..
you choose...
Thanks to Habermas for such an epical book...

Do not emancipate yourself without it!.......2001-02-14

I would like remind readers that this book is the first volume of the two that constitute "The Theory of Communicative Action" (the second volume has as subtitle "Lifeworld and System - A Critique of Functionalist Reason"). The first volume was published in English in 1984, while the second volume appeared in 1987. The two volumes are not independent books and should be read as a single book.

Habermas can be linked to the group of German philosophers and social theorists associated with the Institute of Social Research, founded in 1924 at the University of Frankfurt. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, the two most distinguished members of the "Frankfurt School" (as the Institute was nicknamed), developed a social analysis that departed from orthodox Marxism and was known as "critical theory". According to critical theory, the ailments of modern capitalist society were due to its encompassing rationalization, resulting in a complete alienation of the working class. Following Weber's pessimistic diagnostic, Horkheimer and Adorno considered that Enlightenment's dream of a society guided by reason had degenerated into an "iron cage": human beings were condemned to live without freedom, following rules devoid of meaning. "Instrumental reason", that is, the manipulative, self-interested, technical use of reason in administration, economics and science, had become so encompassing that there was no hope for escaping from it.

Habermas, who arrived at the Institute of Social Research in the early 1950's, concluded that Horkheimer's and Adorno's analysis of contemporary society hit a dead end. Critical theory, which was supposed to guide individuals in their struggle for emancipation, turned contemplative, pessimistic. The problem with the "old" critical theory, Habermas believed, was that it remained attached to the philosophy of consciousness. In order to put critical theory back to its original track, Habermas switched to the philosophy of language and expanded the concept of reason to include "communicative rationality". With these theoretical moves, Habermas reestablished the centrality of reason as the guiding principle for attaining emancipation. Because language presupposes unrestricted communication and mutual understanding, coordinated action is an always present possibility to speaking subjects. Parting from this philosophical outlook, Habermas developed the concept of "communicative action", defined as "the type of interaction in which all participants harmonize their individual plans of action with one another and thus pursue their illocutionary aims without reservation" (TCA, v.1, p. 294). According to this perspective, the predicaments of modern society are consequence - as Horkheimer and Adorno had argued - of an excessive reliance in instrumental reason (or purposive rationality, has Habermas prefers to call it). However, Habermas argued that there is a way out of this situation: In order to overcome social crises, it is necessary to counterbalance purposive rationality by bringing communicative rationality back into play.

Habermas' communicative action argument was already present in his writings of the early 1960's. In TCA Habermas presents a detailed justification of his theoretical approach and expands it into a social theory aimed at explaining the occurrence of social pathologies. In support of his argumentation, Habermas introduces a new concept of society that intertwine the lifeworld concept (the common pool of knowledge that individuals use in order to attach meaning to the world) and the social system concept. According to this "dual" approach, society evolves by differentiating itself both as system and as lifeworld. "Systemic evolution is measured by the increase in society's steering capacity, whereas the state of development of a symbolically structured lifeworld is indicated by the separation of culture, society, and personality" (TCA, v. 2, p. 152).

The argumentation Habermas conducts in TCA is highly abstract at times. This has lead to misunderstandings of his key arguments, particularly of the communicative action concept. According to this distorted interpretation, Habermas had advocated for the establishment of an ideal, utopian society in which all human beings would reach consensus about everything. Taken out of the context of the full argumentation, the communicative action concept acquires a naïve twist that Habermas' detractors - as well as some of his supporters - have contributed to establish. Nevertheless, the reader that endures the abstract aspects of TCA will be recompensed by a bright and clear interpretation of contemporary society. Habermas argument on the limitations of socialist states is particularly enlightening. Leftists will finally understand why democracy should not be seen just as a bourgeois invention and right-wingers will find reasons for not rejoicing at the downfall of socialism.

Prospective readers of TCA should be warned that they are at risk of establishing Habermas as a benchmark to every other social theorist. This risk, however, is worth taking.

A classic.......2000-05-24

I was quite surprised when I noted that there was no review to this book. In fact, this book will be considered in the future as a real classic lecture. As the figure of Habermas becomes more important every day his most important work become crucial. A must-read.

The Postnational Constellation: Political Essays (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)

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Gets me interested in political philosophy

The Postnational Constellation: Political Essays (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
Jürgen Habermas
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Justification and Application: Remarks on Discourse Ethics (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)

ASIN: 0262582066

Book Description

translated, edited, and with an introduction by Max Pensky

Does a global economy render the traditional nation-state obsolete? Does globalization threaten democratic life, or offer it new forms of expression? What are the implications of globalization for our understanding of politics and of national and cultural identities?

In The Postnational Constellation, Jürgen Habermas addresses these and other questions. He explores the historical and political origins of national identity, the achievements and catastrophes of the twentieth century, the future of democracy in the wake of the era of the nation-state, the political and moral challenges facing the European Union, and the status of global human rights in the ongoing debate on the sources of cultural identity. In their scope, critical insight, and clarity, the essays present a powerful vision of the contemporary political scene and the opportunities and challenges facing us. Those new to Habermas's work will find in this book a lucid and engaging introduction to one of the twentieth century's most influential thinkers. Those familiar with Habermas's writings will appreciate the application of his social and political theories to current political realities.

Customer Reviews:

Gets me interested in political philosophy.......2001-07-05

I started noticing the works of Habermas because of his discourse ethics and its affinity with Kant's position. I never really had much interests in political / social philosophy (e.g. Locke, Hobbes, Marx, Weber, Freud, etc.) but this book changed me.

The issue addressed by the keynote essay 'Postnational Constellation' explores the problem of the possibility of democracy in the process of globalization (esp. in Europe) where the traditional power of the nation states-- the traditional home of democracy-- continues to decline. While this might not be a very important problem say 50 years from now, the analysis is very interesting to me because:

1. It emphasizes the importance of 'normative basis' in social-political debates. 2. It incorporates many insightful (at least to me) observations of empirical historical trends with normative considerations. 3. Habermas is a real thinker!

After reading the book, which also includes a short summary of his account of the history of the philosophical idea of modernity and a short essay concerning human rights among other works, I am now interested in Habermas' social / political theory as expounded in his other books Facts and Norms and the Inclusion of Others.

A side-note: Habermas' shorter essay Against Human Cloning is not as well-argued as other essays in the collection.

The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
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Are You Old Enough To Read This Book?

Leaves no stone unturned

Excellent overview of 200 centuries of thought

The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
Jürgen Habermas
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0262581027

Book Description

This critique of French philosophy and the history of German philosophy is a tour de force that has the immediacy and accessibility of the lecture form and the excitement of an encounter across national cultural boundaries as Habermas takes up the challenge posed by the radical critique of reason in contemporary French postmodernism. The lectures on Georges Bataille, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Cornelius Castoriadis are of particular note, since they are the first fruits of the recent cross-fertilization between French and German thought.

Jurgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt.

Customer Reviews:

Are You Old Enough To Read This Book?.......2004-02-24

If we were to nominalize a certain category by calling it the "theoretical 80s", there are two books I "elect" to represent this time for interested parties: Richard Rorty's *Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature* and Juergen Habermas' *Philosophical Discourse of Modernity*. Much as Rorty there offered a concise introduction to philosophers then "motivating" the bulk of contemporary discourse in the "discipline", Habermas here offers relatively quick rundowns of Continental thinkers against the backdrop of the reconstituted IfS's enduring concerns. In other words, this is as close to journalistic as responsible essays on postmodernisms early and late can be; Habermas could tell you who coined the term, but does not.

The gamely accepted Anglo-American logical and metaethical work is blissfully absent from "historically informed" portraits of left-wing philosophers and social theorists relatively sanguine about the passing of fetishized "reasonings", with the unfortunate exception of a recasted Derrida/Searle debate: here staged outside the *Proposition's Progress* which is "intention-based semantics" for Stalnaker and Schiffer, but oh so much more once *realites* formerly banned from Berkeley get into the act. Also excepted is the "unfortunate norm", fellow sociologist Jean Baudrillard (who could easily benefit from a readily accessible longform periodization of his work) -- but instead we have a marvelously sanitized Bataille, a genuine argument for "inspirational" treatments of negative theodicies.

The book to read if *Theory of Communicative Action* does not excite you; and if it does, the sundry works of Niklas Luhmann and Pierre Bourdieu are rather readily available after all, as is the German philosophical scholarship of which I imagine this was more-or-less a part domestically. But really, the only thing which impinges on this as a history of postmodernism (*After-Foucault* and all) is the *Wirkungsgeschichte* of intellectual life's influence upon culture during this period. If every band has a Shonen Knife that loves them, I'm not sure the widespread availability of Lacan in New York has nothing to do with it -- and this evaluation of postmodernism enables a serious assessment of its effective influence.

Leaves no stone unturned.......2000-12-26

Though I am almost always disturbed by Habermas's borderline naivety concerning what he calls the "unfinished project of modernity," in this volume he rises to the heights I always thought him capable. In 400+ pages (a big book, but always just short enough on the essays to be concise and clear), Habermas shows his command of almost all post-Kantian philosophy. His criticisms are almost always on-target, and even though I do not follow his conclusions (has he read and dealt seriously with ALL of Heidegger? what does he do with metaphysics that are expressly anti-metaphysical, such as those of Bergson, Whitehead, and James?), I am always amazed at his insights and explanations. Interestingly enough, much of what Habermas is explicating (critique of foundations) has always been found in theoretical form in Gadamer, and in cosmological form in Whitehead. Habermas always seems to hold out hope that some sort of Rawlsian "original position" will be found (can Habermas really think that there could ever be such a thing as an "ideal speech situation," devoid of what Gadamer calls the Wirkungsgeschichte, or history which affects it?). For my part, I cannot accept this. Insofar as modernity wanted to find such a situation, it was guilty of what Whitehead called "misplaced concrescence." Habermas makes himself succeptible to the same criticisms. But even though I all too often find Habermas too optimistic in regards the quest of modernity, I am never disappointed when he writes about that quest. I believe this is one of Habermas's finest books, worth the time and effort required to read it.

Excellent overview of 200 centuries of thought.......2000-07-21

This is truly a masterpiece. Especially if you're somebody schooled in the incredibly repetitive and tedious Anglo-Saxon tradition, this book will surely be a revelation. You'll need some philosophical training to understand a lot of this, but if you want a brilliant, sweeping evaluation of most of the most important thinkers in Europe post-Kant, with just the perfect balance of detail and summary, and of exegesis and polemic, then this book is essential.

Habermas begins by showing how the discourse of modernity and postmodernity, the concepts that transmitted philosophy from the Humean/Kantian epistemologist's study to the real world, began with Hegel, and how it has been developed since then in different directions, but nobody has really risen to Marx's challenge successfully. Somebody who doesn't know Heidegger and Derrida too well may get the impression that they're not as important as they actually are, due to Habermas' necessarily selective treatment of their work, but other than that the way Habermas dissects the nature of modernity and postmodernity, and then shows how the future can still be hopeful with 'communicative rationality' rather than the solipsistic nature of pre-Habermasian philosophy which inevitably ends up in postmodern tangles, is brilliant.

You can hardly expect any one text to be perfectly right, and I do have a few annoyances - mainly 1) his treatment of Searle's attack upon Derrida, which leaves the situation seeming a little more lopsided in favour of Searle than it really was (you get the impression Searle beat Derrida, when in fact Derrida really won the argument, he just failed to emphasise a few things) & 2) his treatment of Horkheimer and Adorno's pessimism, which in many ways, though disheartening, is still a little more realistic than his own optimistic point of view (he could've said that, despite Adorno's pessimism, communicative rationality is the best way to go, rather than making it seem as if we're on a direct, quick road to his utopian 'ideal speech situation'), and finally 3) when he assumes that "metaphysical world views" are "outdated", he ignores the possibility of going right back to Hegel and revitalising him with the positive, rather than the negative-Nietzschean, insights of the last 200 years, especially that of Lévinas Heideggerean theology and the late Derrida's 1990s writings on religion. A possibility that's difficult but he dismisses a little too easily.

Other than that, though, this is an astounding book of a quality immensely superior to the mass of over-rated rubbish you get these days, like Foucalt and Rorty.

Religion and Rationality: Essays on Reason, God and Modernity (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
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Habermas is interesting, but selection of essays is questionable

Religion and Rationality: Essays on Reason, God and Modernity (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
Jürgen Habermas
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Religious | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)

ASIN: 0262582163

Book Description

This important new volume brings together Jürgen Habermas's key writings on religion and religious belief. In these essays, Habermas explores the relations between Christian and Jewish thought, on one hand, and the Western philosophical tradition on the other. He often approaches these issues through critical encounters with the work of others, including Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Johann Baptist Metz, and Gershom Scholem.

In an introduction written especially for this volume, Eduardo Mendieta places Habermas's engagement with religion in the context of his work as a whole. Mendieta also discusses Habermas's writings in relation to Jewish Messianism and the Frankfurt School, showing how these essays reflect an important yet often neglected dimension of critical theory. The volume concludes with an original extended interview that examines Habermas's current views on religion and modern society.

Customer Reviews:

Habermas is interesting, but selection of essays is questionable.......2006-12-10

This collection of Habermas's essays dealing with religion is a very mixed bag. A number of them are so specific in topic (and so historically-minded) that it's hard to draw any real inferences about Habermas's own opinions. The introductory essay by Eduardo Mendieta is nearly worthless for those who don't already know Habermas's other work quite well, so it fails to open up the volume to theologians and clergy who want to engage with his thought.

Nevertheless, some of the essays are very illuminating, including "Transcendence from Within, Transcendence in this World," "Israel or Athens: Where does Anamnestic Reason Belong?" "Tracing the Other of History in History," and the final interview. Given some of Habermas's commitments to reason and methodological atheism, I expected him to travel down roads similar to the ones Dewey explores in Common Faith, which folks like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are exploring in the present day, but I never found him actually rejecting the way religious people now enter the public sphere. It definitely gives cause for hope and entices the reader to explore Habermas's philosophical work.

Habermas and Marxism (SAGE Library of Social Research)

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Habermas and Marxism (SAGE Library of Social Research)

Manufacturer: Sage Publications, Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Time of Transitions
Jürgen Habermas , and Gareth Schott
Manufacturer: Polity Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Moral Conciousness and Communicative Action (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)

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Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action

Moral Conciousness and Communicative Action (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
Jürgen Habermas
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0262581183

Book Description

This long-awaited book sets out the implications of Habermas's theory of communicative action for moral theory. "Discourse ethics" attempts to reconstruct a moral point of view from which normative claims can be impartially judged. The theory of justice it develops replaces Kant's categorical imperative with a procedure of justification based on reasoned agreement among participants in practical discourse.

Habermas connects communicative ethics to the theory of social action via an examination of research in the social psychology of moral and interpersonal development. He aims to show that our basic moral intuitions spring from something deeper and more universal than contingent features of our tradition, namely from normative presuppositions of social interaction that belong to the repertoire of competent agents in any society. JÃ¼rgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt.

Customer Reviews:

Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action.......1999-08-25

Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action is the primary anglophone source for Habermas's writings on "Discourse Ethics." Written in the early eighties, this translation, which was published in 1990, provides a developmental perspective. The focus of the essays moves from Habermas's statements about the role of philosophy today, in "Philosophy as Stand-in and Interpeter, to his writing on reconstructive social science in general, to his program for a discourse ethics in particular. The final papers address criticisms of this program. The volume suffers a bit from the fact that Thomas McCarthy's introduction is keen to locate Habermas's position vis a vis various contemporary moral-philosophical standpoints, but does not go very far toward locating the whole initiative in the broader canvas of Habermas's overarching social-theoretic project.

Truth and Justification (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)

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Still the best
Excellent Translations! Excellent Essays!

Truth and Justification (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
Jürgen Habermas
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0262582589

Book Description

Jurgen Habermas has developed the theory of communicative action primarily in the context of critical social and political theory and discourse ethics. The essays collected in this volume, however, focus on the theory's implications for epistemology and metaphysics. They address two fundamental issues that have not figured prominently in his work since the early 1970s. One is the question of naturalism: How can the ineluctable normativity of the perspective of agents interacting in a linguistically structured lifeworld be reconciled with the contingency of the emergence and evolution of forms of life? The other is a key problem facing epistemological realism after the linguistic turn: How can the assumption that there is an independently existing world be reconciled with the linguistic insight that we cannot have unmediated access to "brute" reality?

Truth and Justification collects Habermas's major essays on these topics published since the mid-1990s. They offer detailed discussions of truth and objectivity as well as an account of the representational function of language in terms of the formal-pragmatic framework he has developed. In defending his post-Kantian pragmatism, Habermas draws on both the continental and analytic traditions and endorses a weak naturalism and a form of epistemological realism.

Customer Reviews:

Still the best.......2006-12-21

Habermas remains the best philosopher living, one who is neither reactionary nor radical, just clear and above all balanced!

Excellent Translations! Excellent Essays!.......2004-02-05

For Habermas fans this book is a must. There is so much excellent material in this book that it is not a page turner -- you have to stay awhile and enjoy each page before moving on to the next. Taking time to think a lot makes this page a very slow and very worthwhile read.

Habermas keeps getting better.

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