Book review: The Habermas-Luhmann Debate

Central European History, 2012

autonomy? To read Specter, one gets the impression that the key difference between Habermas and Horkheimer/Adorno is their readings and interpretations of Weber-but weren't their differing appraisals of Nietzsche also significant in shaping Habermas's early and late projects? To read Specter, one gets the impression that Adorno was strictly an "ivory tower" mandarin, which obscures the fact that he was the driving force behind the famous Gruppenexperiment, as well as a major public intellectual who shared many of Habermas's concerns about the future of German democracy and society. In a similar manner, Specter briefly mentions Habermas's debt to the American pragmatist tradition-which would seem to indicate that he fails to appreciate the importance and significance of that inspiration for his philosophy. Habermas is an undeniably German thinker with firm commitments to German intellectual traditions and contemporary history, but he is also a transatlantic scholar-a thinker who has supplemented his intellectual inheritance with foreign imports when necessary. In general, one worries whether Specter may have given the reader too much of a good thing. The political/legal context is illuminating and offers new and significant vantage points for reconsidering Habermas's social theoretical project, but these new offerings come at the expense of an underemphasis on the broader and more technical philosophical debates that have also shaped Habermas's writings.

u ̈rgen Habermas (b. 1929) has for decades been recognized as a leading European philosopher and public intellectual. But his global visibility has obscured his rootedness in German political culture and debate. The most successful historical accounts of the transformation of political culture in West Germany have turned on the concept of German statism and its decline. Viewing Habermas through this lens, I treat Habermas as a radical critic of German statism and an innovative theorist of democratic constitutionalism. Based on personal interviews with Habermas and his German colleagues, and by setting the major work alongside his occasion-specific political writings from 1984 to 1996, I interpret Habermas’s political thought as an evolving response to two distinct moments in German history: first, the mid-1980s, and second, the revolutions of 1989 and German reunification in 1990. This essay challenges the dominant interpretations of Habermas’s mature statement of his political theory. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Democracy (1992), which have described it as marking a distinct break with, and reversal of, the commitments of his earlier work. By contrast, I describe the work as an intellectual summa, consistent with Habermas’s previous thought and career, and containing remarkable historical interpretations of two intertwined phenomena: the intellectual and institutional dimensions of the Bonn Republic and Habermas’s own biography.

Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics, 2021

The political legacy of classical German philosophy can contribute in a crucial way to the most recent developments of contemporary political thought, thereby also making sense of the contradictions underlying the social practices and institutional values of our societies. What justifies this perspective is, in the first place, the complexity of contemporaneity, which holds within itself a doubleness that can be understood in the light of the conceptual tools of classical German philosophy. On the one hand, contemporary societies seem to be facing relentless crises in the modern idea of democracy, the political subject of the nation-state, and capitalist economic structures. On the other hand, there is an ever-increasing demand for rights and new forms of recognition, not to mention the emergence of grassroots movements that strive for greater political participation and generate new collective subjectivities. By radically questioning traditional philosophical categories, Kant, Fichte and Hegel provide a new and insightful understanding of the crucial challenges of modernity. They outline a conception of practical rationality and its multiple manifestations that is irreplaceable for philosophically understanding our contemporary world.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2023

Jürgen Habermas is one of the leading social theorists and philosophers of the post-Second World War period in Germany, Europe, and the US, a prodigiously productive journalist, and a high-profile public intellectual who was at the forefront of the liberalization of German political culture. He is often labelled a second-generation Frankfurt School theorist, though his association with the Frankfurt School is only one of a rather complex set of allegiances and influences, and can be misconstrued. This entry will begin with a summary of Habermas's background and early and transitional works, including his influential concept of the public sphere, before moving on to discuss in detail his three major philosophical projects: his social theory, discourse theory of morality (or "discourse ethics"), and discourse theory of law and democracy. It will then more briefly address Habermas's methodology and philosophical framework (rational reconstruction and postmetaphysical thinking), his applied political theory, focusing on issues of national identity and international law, and finally his recent work on religion.

This book follows postwar Germany's leading philosopher and social thinker, Jürgen Habermas, through four decades of political and constitutional struggle over the shape of liberal democracy in Germany. Habermas's most influential theories-of the public sphere, communicative action, and modernity-were decisively shaped by major West German political events: the failure to denazify the judiciary, the rise of a powerful constitutional court, student rebellions in the late 1960s, the changing fortunes of the Social Democratic Party, NATO's decision to station nuclear weapons in Germany, and the unexpected collapse of East Germany. In turn, Habermas's writings on state, law, and constitution played a critical role in reorienting German political thought and culture toward a progressive liberal-democratic model. Matthew G. Specter uniquely illuminates the interrelationship between the thinker and his culture.

German Politics

This article seeks to stimulate a debate about the propositions that this special issue advances on German political economy by presenting responses from two experts who were not otherwise involved. Both scholars independently engage with the volume's characterisations of empirical developments and arguments for conceptual innovation. Their comments highlight three themes in particular: the malleability of 'conflictual partnership' in industrial relations, the growing political prominence of consumer interests, and the revitalisation of social movements. In a rejoinder, the editors spell out how the proposed shift in the scholarly lens on Germany from stability to imbalance helps address these themes. The rejoinder closes with an invitation for scholars and practitioners to draw on the volume as they interpret, manoeuvre within, and try to positively shape what will undoubtedly be a challenging future. † The authors are listed in alphabetical order to underscore the collaborative nature of this article. This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Journal of Advances in Education and Philosophy, 2023

Here we present the first English translation of Chapter IV of section 3 of the book 'Contemporary German Philosophy' ('Die deutsche Philosophie der Gegenwart') written by Dr. Gerhard Lehmann, University of Berlin. This part, entitled 'Political Philosophy', summarizes the philosophical work of Alfred Rosenberg, Ernst Krieck, Alfred Baeumler and Hans Heyse. The authentic practitioners of the love of wisdom will find here very interesting and fascinating ideas to study and exploit (for example, the 'region' model of reality). Gerhard Lehmann, Alfred Rosenberg, Ernst Krieck, Alfred Baeumler, Hans Heyse, Immanuel Kant, Giordano Bruno, Plato, Anaxagoras, Alexander the Great, Pythagoras.

2021

The political legacy of classical German philosophy can contribute in a crucial way to the most recent developments of contemporary political thought, thereby also making sense of the contradictions underlying the social practices and institutional values of our societies. What justifies this perspective is, in the first place, the complexity of contemporaneity, which holds within itself a doubleness that can be understood in the light of the conceptual tools of classical German philosophy. On the one hand, contemporary societies seem to be facing relentless crises in the modern idea of democracy, the political subject of the nation-state, and capitalist economic structures. On the other hand, there is an ever-increasing demand for rights and new forms of recognition, not to mention the emergence of grassroots movements that strive for greater political participation and generate new collective subjectivities. By radically questioning traditional philosophical categories, Kant, Fichte and Hegel provide a new and insightful understanding of the crucial challenges of modernity. They outline a conception of practical rationality and its multiple manifestations that is irreplaceable for philosophically understanding our contemporary world.

Political Theory, 1980

Jiirgen Habermas may be, as a recent commentator asserted, the dominant intellectual figure in contemporary Germany. But in the last decade, the works of Habermas have found a receptive audience in the English-speaking world as well. Building upon the insights of Marxist social theory, Continental hermeneutic phenomenology, and Anglo-American linguistic philosophy, Habermas has attempted to construct a comprehensive critical theory of society. As a result, his work has broad implications for the entire range of humanities and social sciences. Habermas' theories are now the object of critical discussions in political theory, sociology, philosophy, education, social psychology, and speech communication. Because Habermas's project touches such a variety of disciplines, his own writing and critical discussions of it are spread throughout a disparate array of professional books and journals. Consequently, a reader wishing to comprehend Habermas' thought and its influence has faced a difficult task in locating all relevant materials. This problem was partially erased by Thomas McCarthy, TIre Critical Theory of Jiirgen Hubennus (Cambridge, MA MIT Press, 1978), pp. 441-445, who provided a fairly thorough listing of Habermas' books and articles in German and English. The present bibliography is intended to remedy the problem completely by cataloging the critical treatments and extensions of his work which have appeared in Europe, North America, and elsewhere since 1964. Included here are books, book chapters, articles, dissertations, conference papers, and book reviews in