Product Description
In Modernity Out of Joint, our global age is redefined as the time in which modernity has gone "out of joint". What happens to the traditional and well-established notion of "modernity" when we can no longer rely on a single center of the world? How does our conception of rights change when confronted with the "democracy of others"? The author deals with these pressing issues through an acute survey of two widely influential paradigms of contemporary democratic theory: J. Habermas' discourse ethics and A.K. Sen's capabilities approach. In both cases, the global challenge represented by today's claim to an "Asian difference" against the Western canon motivates us to revise some fundamental assumptions of modern political anthropology. At the same time, this challenge invites us to revive the unexpressed potential still latent in the building blocks of Western thought and experience, in view of a renewed multilateral universalism. ... Read more

Book Description
Based on the new German edition of Philosophisch-politische Profile which has attracted serious and widespread attention, this book includes thirteen pieces written by Habermas between 1958 and 1978 - the most important of those in the German edition, plus additional articles.

In these essays, Habermas offers a clear and strikingly personal examination of major modern German philosophers and cultural critics, focusing particularly on the content of their thought in relation to their respective political and biographical contexts.

Contents: Does Philosophy Still Have a Purpose?; The German Influence (Heidegger); The Figures of Truth (Jaspers); Karl Löwith's Stoic Retreat from Historical Consciousness; A Marxist Schelling (Bloch); A Primal History of Subjectivity and Self-Affirmation Gone Wild (Adorno); Imitated Substantiality (Gehlen); Consciousness-raising or Rescuing Critique-On the Relevance of Walter Benjamin; Herbert Marcuse on Art and Revolution; Hannah Arendt's Concept of Power; The Hidden Torah (Gershom Scholem); Urbanizing the Heideggerian Province-In Praise of Hans-Georg Gadamer.

Philosophical-Political Profiles is included in the series, Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought. ... Read more

Book Description
This collection of ten essays offers the first systematic assessment of Jürgen Habermas's Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, a book that defended the rational potential of the modern age against the depiction of modernity as a spent epoch. The essays (of which four are newly commissioned, five were published in the journal Praxis International, and one -- by Habermas -- first appeared in translation in New Critique) are divided into two sections: Critical Rejoinders and Thematic Reformulations.

An opening essay by d'Entrèves sets out the main issues and orients the debate between Habermas and the postmodernists by identifying two different senses of responsibility: a responsibility to act versus a responsibility to otherness (an openness to difference, dissonance, and ambiguity). These are linked with two alternative understandings of the primary function of language: action-orienting versus world-disclosing. This is a fruitful way of looking at the issues that Habermas has raised in his attempt to resurrect and complete the project of Enlightenment.

Habermas's essay discusses the main themes of his book in the context of a critical engagement with neoconservative cultural and political trends. The main body of essays offer an interesting collection of points of view, for and against Habermas's position by philosophers, social scientists, intellectual historians, and literary critics.

SECTIONS & CONTRIBUTORS: Introduction, Maurizio Passerin d'Entrèves. Modernity versus Postmodernity, Jürgen Habermas. Critical Rejoinders: Fred Dallmayr. Christopher Norris. David C. Hoy. James Schmidt. Joel Whitebook. Thematic Reformulations: James Bohman. Diana Coole. Jay M. Bernstein. David Ingram. ... Read more

Book Description
Critiquing Habermas, this volume bring fresh perspectives and ideas to bear on debates about the public sphere.

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. Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action
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, providesa developmental perspective.The focus of the essays moves from Habermas'sstatements about the role of philosophy today, in "Philosophy asStand-in and Interpeter, to his writing on reconstructive social science ingeneral, to his program for a discourse ethics in particular.The finalpapers address criticisms of this program.The volume suffers a bit fromthe fact that Thomas McCarthy's introduction is keen to locate Habermas'sposition vis a vis various contemporary moral-philosophical standpoints,but does not go very far toward locating the whole initiative in thebroader canvas of Habermas's overarching social-theoretic project. ... Read more

Book Description
JÜrgen Habermas is one of the foremost philosophers and social theorists in the world today, but the complexity and breadth of his thought make him often difficult to understand.This book offers a clear, accessible, and reliable introduction to Habermas' work, particularly that which he has written in the 1970s and 1980s when new themes and directions have emerged in his thought.The author explains the ideas that characterize Habermas' later work, locating them in the context of contemporary debates, and demonstrates how they constitute the beginnings of a coherent and distinctive new research program. ... Read more

Book Description
Discourse ethics represents an exciting new development in neo-Kantian moral theory. William Rehg offers an insightful introduction to its complex theorization by its major proponent, Jürgen Habermas, and demonstrates how discourse ethics allows one to overcome the principal criticisms that have been leveled against neo-Kantianism.
Addressing both "commun-itarian" critics who argue that universalist conceptions of justice sever moral deliberation from community traditions, and feminist advocates of the "ethics of care" who stress the moral significance of caring for other individuals, Rehg shows that discourse ethics combines impartiality with solidarity. He provides the first systematic reconstruction of Habermas's theory and explores its relationship to the work of such contemporary philosophers as Charles Taylor. His book articulates a bold alternative to the split between the "right" and the "good" in moral theory and will greatly interest philosophers, social and legal scholars, and political theorists. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Clear cut and and well written
Rehg does an amazing job constructing the Habermas debate. This bookclearily defines Habermas's objectives and offers refutation to theconcepts.This book allows the inexpirenced reader in Habermas grasp thefundamental principles of Communicative action. Complex terms, issues, anddebates are broken down and made very accessible. This book is perfect forthe undergraduate beginning the journey into the work of Habermas. ... Read more

Book Description
Jurgen Habermas, particularly in his master work Theory of Communicative Action (1981), takes us several of the basic insights of the philosophical tradition of reflection initiated by Kant, and sets it on a new and highly original emancipative path. He claims that reflection not only can determine the limits of reasoning about thought and action, but also can grasp the limits that human agents face in freeing themselves form unjust social and economic structures. Human agents can engage in constructive and emancipative communication with others by determining the limits not of their own consciousness, but of the intersubjective structures shared in everyday communication. Reflection Revisited examines Habermas’ own two-stage development of this theory of emancipative reflection and explicates how he applies reflection specifically to the problems of personal identity development and ethics. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Review of Metaphysics, published by Philosophy Education Society, Inc. on December 1, 2004. The length of the article is 1125 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Habermas, Jurgen. Truth and Justification.(Book Review)
Author: Michael Ewbank
Publication: The Review of Metaphysics (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 2004
Publisher: Philosophy Education Society, Inc.
Volume: 58Issue: 2Page: 438(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A major work by Habermas: Is its thesis convincing?
Jurgen Habermas' Legitimation Crisis explores crisis tendencies in late capitalism and the possible order that might follow.Crises themselves come about from unresolved problems that begin to raise questions about the nature and efficacy of the system.When people lose faith in the values undergirding a system, the regime in power and, perhaps, even the entire system itself comes to be at risk.

The underlying engine of crisis is the economic system.He notes that "In liberal capitalism, crises appear in the form of unresolved economic steering problems" and ". . .crises become endemic because temporarily unresolved steering problems, which the process of economic growth produces at more or less regular intervals, as such endanger social integration."Economic crisis might occur when output declines and its distribution becomes increasingly unequal, so disproportionate that it raises questions about the fairness and viability of the system.In this way, the ideology supporting capitalism would come under question and cease generating loyalty from the people.If government capabilities are questioned too much by citizens, crisis develops, and people come to lose faith in the ideology supporting the system and the system's legitimacy in dividing up the pie so that all gain "fairly."

People will not be actively involved in politics as long as their careers, family lives, and enjoyment of consuming material goods continue.Under such circumstances, they allow the capitalist economy and government to operate with rather little question.By providing an appropriate level of "goodies" to the people, the system renders the masses quiescent and allows the elite to remain in power.When questions arise as to whether the system is generating consumer goods at the proper rate, then the political disengagement may end and a legitimation crisis begins as people begin to doubt the validity of the current system.

Habermas' ideal system would be based on dialogic communication and open discourse.The question here: If the current late capitalist system suffers a legitimation crisis and transformation of the system looms, how will new norms develop?Habermas answers: "Only communication ethics guarantees the generality of admissible norms and the autonomy of acting subjects solely through the discursive redeemability of the validity claims with which norms appear.That is, generality is guaranteed in that the only norms that may claim generality are those on which everyone affected agrees (or would agree) without constraint if they enter into (or were to enter into) a process of discursive will-formation."

Citizens will test the validity claims of the various ideas and norms under debate.In the final analysis, "The validity claim of norms is grounded not in the irrational volitional acts of the contracting parties, but in the rationally motivated recognition of norms, which may be questioned at any time."And what determines which validity claim is best?Habermas contends that the better argument that emerges from a cooperatively engaged in dialogue should rule--if a consensus forms around this one possibility.

This is a powerful work, whether or not one agree with the thesis.Habermas has faith in the ability of people to create the norms that will govern politics and society.Is he too optimistic?That is the key question that readers will have to grapple with.

Habermas' Opus is Timely!
The German political and social philosopher Jurgen Habermas is heir to the semantically rich tradition of Frankfurt School thinkers. These men (and sadly, they are mainly men, although Hannah Arendt is in some sense in this circle) were seriously threatened by the collapse of the Weimar Republic. Their decision to go into exile in the United States should probably be controversial. Habermas is profoundly influenced by Marx, Weber, Freud, and Talcott Parsons, and wrote this book in the context of uprisings against the Viet Nam War. What we are seeing right now, Bush versus Gore in a contested election in which the very structure of the United States government is being questioned, could be illuminated by careful study of this book. I commend it to the attention of anyone who would better understand a moment in United States history which has been descibed as a constitutional crisis. ... Read more

Book Description
Which paradigm of critique--Foucault's or Habermas's--is philosophically and practically superior, especially with regard to the nature and role of power in contemporary society? In shaping this collection, Michael Kelly has sought to address this question in relation to the ethical, political, and social theory of the past two decades.

Michel Foucault and Jurgen Habermas had only just begun to come to terms with one another's work when Foucault died in 1984; they had even discussed the possibility of a formal debate on "Enlightenment" in the neutral arena of the United States. In the decade since, Habermas and his supporters have continued to respond to Foucault in various ways, but Foucault's followers have not shown as strong an inclination to keep up his side of the dialogue. For this reason an invaluable exchange on the nature and limits of philosophy in the present age has never achieved its full potential.

In this anthology Michael Kelly recasts the debate in a way that will open it up for further development. The book starts by juxtaposing key texts from the two philosophers; it then adds a set of reactions and commentaries by theorists who have taken up the two alternative approaches to power and critique. (Two of these essays were written especially for this volume.) The result is a guide for those seeking to understand and build on this important but unfinished debate.

Essays by:
Michel Foucault, Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, Nancy Fraser, Richard Bernstein, Thomas McCarthy, James Schmidt and Thomas E. Wartenberg, Gilles Deleuze, Jana Sawicki, Michael Kelly. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Review of Metaphysics, published by Philosophy Education Society, Inc. on December 1, 2002. The length of the article is 885 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Habermas, Jurgen. The Postnational Constellation: Political Essays.(Book Review)
Author: John Denvir
Publication: The Review of Metaphysics (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 2002
Publisher: Philosophy Education Society, Inc.
Volume: 56Issue: 2Page: 421(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Book Description
Jürgen Habermas is one of the most important thinkers of this century.His work has been highly influential not only in philosophy, but particularly in the fields of politics, sociology and law.This is the first collection that explores the connections between his body of work and North America's biggest philosophical movement, pragmatism.

Habermas and Pragmatism investigates the influences of pragmatism on Habermas' thought in a collection of stellar essays with contributions by Habermas himself, leading representatives of pragmatism, as well as critical and legal theorists.The essays cover a range of subjects including philosophy of language, democracy, nature of rationality and social theory as well as the relation of major figures such as Hegel, Pierce, Mead and Dewey to Habermas and pragmatism. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Definitely worth buying!
If your interests revolve around deliberative democracy, philosophy of language, Habermas' work, or American philosophical pragmatism, then this book is definitely worth buying. The editor, Mitchell Aboulafia, is a well-known thinker in his own right; the range and quality of the contributions could hardly be any better. In a word, this book should capture the attention of both Habermas' followers and his critics, for his interpretation of pragmatism is not without problems as some of the contributions here show. ... Read more