Jürgen Habermas Books

We live in a time of turbulent change when many of the frameworks that have characterized our societies over the last few centuries - such as the international order of sovereign nation-states - are being called into question.

In this new collection of recent essays, Habermas takes up and pursues the line of analysis begun in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. He begins by outlining the sources and central themes of twentieth–century philosophy, and the range of current debates. He then examines a number of key contributions to these debates, from the pragmatic philosophies of Mead, Perice and Rorty to the post–structuralism of Foucault. Like most contemporary thinkers, Habermas is critical of the Western metaphysical tradition and its exaggerated conception of reason. But he cautions against the temptation to relinquish this conception altogether. In opposition to the radical critics of Western philosophy, Habermas argues that postmetaphysical thinking can remain critical only if it preserves the idea of reason while stripping it of its metaphysical trappings. Habermas contributes to this task by developing further his distinctive approach to problems of meaning, rationality and subjectivity. This book will be of particular interest to students of philosophy, sociology and social and political theory, and it will be essential reading for anyone interested in the continuing development of Habermas′s project.

Jurgen Habermas's program in formal pragmatics fulfills two main functions. First, it serves as the theoretical underpinning for his theory of communicative action, a crucial element in his theory of society. Second, it contributes to ongoing philosophical discussion of problems concerning meaning, truth, rationality, and action. By the "pragmatic" dimensions of language, Habermas means those pertaining specifically to the employment of sentences in utterances. He makes clear that "formal" is to be understood in a tolerant sense to refer to the rational reconstruction of general intuitions or competences. Formal pragmatics, then, aims at a systematic reconstruction of the intuitive linguistic knowledge of competent subjects as it is used in everyday communicative practices. His program may thus be distinguished from empirical pragmatics—for example, sociolinguistics—which looks primarily at particular situations of use. This anthology brings together for the first time, in revised or new translation, ten essays that present the main concerns of Habermas's program in formal pragmatics. Its aim is to convey a sense of the overall purpose of his linguistic investigations while introducing the reader to their specific details, in particular to his theories of meaning, truth, rationality, and action.

The Inclusion of the Other contains Habermasa s most recent work in political theory and political philosophy. Here Habermas picks up some of the central themes of Between Facts and Norms and elaborates them in relation to current political debates.

Essays discuss denial of Germany's Nazi past, the rise of the neoconservative movement in Europe and America, and the welfare state.

This text contains Jurgen Habermas's most recent work in political theory and political philosophy. Here Habermas picks up some of the central themes of Between Facts and Norms and elaborates them in relation to current political debates of the late 1990s. One of the distinctive features of Habermas's work has been its approach to the problem of political legitimacy through a sustained reflection on the dual legitimating and regulating function of modern legal systems. Extending his discourse theory of normative validity to the legal-political domain, Habermas has defended a proceduralist conception of deliberative democracy in which the burden of legitimating state power is borne by informal and legally institutionalized processes of political deliberation. Its guiding intuition is the radical democratic idea that there is an internal relation between the rule of law and popular sovereignty. In these essays he brings this discursive and proceduralist analysis of political legitimacy to bear on such urgent contemporary issues as the enduring legacy of the welfare state, the future of the nation state, and the prospects of a global politics of human rights.

In Between Facts and Norms Jurgen Habermas works out the legal and political implications of his Theory of Communicative Action (1981), bringing to fruition the project announced with his publication of The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere in 1962. This new work is a major contribution to recent debates on the rule of law and the possibilities of democracy in postindustrial societies, but it is much more. The introduction by William Rehg succinctly captures the special nature of the work, noting that it offers a sweeping, sociologically informed conceptualization of law and basic rights, a normative account of the rule of law and the constitutional state, an attempt to bridge normative and empirical approaches to democracy, and an account of the social context required for democracy. Finally, the work frames and caps these arguments with a bold proposal for a new paradigm of law that goes beyond the dichotomies that have afflicted modern political theory from its inception and that still underlie current controversies between so- called liberals and civic republicans. The book includes a postscript written in 1994, which restates the argument in light of its initial reception, and two appendixes, which cover key developments that preceded the book. Habermas himself was actively involved in the translation, adapting the text as necessary to make it more accessible to English-speaking readers.

This study offers a systematic reconstruction of the theoretical foundations and framework of critical social theory. It is Habermas' magnum opus, and it is regarded as one of the most important works of modern social thought.

This collection features four essays and an interview that present Habermas's latest contributions to ethical theory, building on his previous work on discourse ethics. In response to critiques from contemporary neo-Aristotelians, Habermas asserts the significance of discourse ethics in modern moral philosophy, refining key concepts of his theory, particularly regarding practical reason, application, and motivation. The first essay provides a thorough analysis of practical rationality, distinguishing between pragmatic, ethical, and moral questions, as well as different forms of volition and practical discourse. The core of the collection is a robust defense of discourse ethics, including critiques of major competing theories from thinkers like John Rawls, Bernard Williams, and Alasdair MacIntyre. Subsequent essays uphold the universalist moral theory against neo-Aristotelian ethics and Horkheimer's skepticism toward reason, which led to a religiously inspired ethic of compassion. The collection concludes with an interview where Habermas discusses the origins of discourse ethics, its controversial aspects, and its connections to communicative action theory. Jurgen Habermas is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt.

Examines the theoretical and philosophical contours of the modern era. The book traces the contemporary critiques of modernity back to their philosophical origins in the work of Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger and others.