International conference in Lodz on Jürgen Habermas

On June 13-14, the University of Lodz hosts an international conference on Jürgen Habermas:

"Normativity and Praxis: Celebrating the philosophical and intellectual achivements of Jürgen Habermas".

The speakers are:

Rainer Adolphi (Berlin) – "Lebenssphären und Lebensformen. Zur Tragweite der Max-Weber-Tradition bei J. Habermas"

Hauke Brunkhorst (Flensburg) – "Kommunikative Vernunft und rächende Gewalt – Zur kritischen Theorie von Jürgen Habermas"

Matthias Kettner (Witten/Herdecke) – "The Mystery of „Communicative Rationality“ dispelled"

Peter Koller (Graz) – "Habermas Diskurstheorie des Rechts im Dilemma zwischen sozialtheoretischem Objektivismus und ethischem Normativismus"

Georg Lohmann (Magdeburg) – "Habermas über Menschenrechte und Demokratie"

Martin Matuštík (Tempe) – "Rituals and Algorithms: Postmetaphysical Thinking in Post-Secular Condition"

Stephan Müller-Doohm (Oldenburg) – "Gibt es Grenzen nachmetaphysischen Denkens? Jürgen Habermas‘ Konzept von Normativität in der säkularisierten Gesellschaft"

Alessandro Pinzani (Santa Catarina) – "Habermas and Capitalism"

David M. Rasmussen (Boston)  – "Populism and The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere"

Thomas M. Schmidt (Frankfurt) – "Prozedurale Demokratie und symbolische Repräsentation. Zur politischen Rolle von Religion in postsäkularen Gesellschaften"

Gunnar Skirbekk (Bergen) – "Freedom of Expression. A Normative Justification of the Legal Protection of Freedom of Expression" [paper]

Wang Xingfu (Shanghai) – "How Critical Theory Works in the Age of Decline"

A public lecture by Habermas in Frankfurt on June 19?

A rumour that we hope is true: A public lecture by Jürgen Habermas at Goethe University Frankfurt on June 19, 2019 – the day after he turns 90 – with the title: “Noch einmal: Zum Verhältnis von Moralität und Sittlichkeit”.

The title refers to a lecture Habermas gave in 1982 at the University of Hamburg: "Über Moralität und Sittlichkeit – Was macht eine Lebensform ”rational”?. It was published in "Rationalität”, edited by Herbert Schnädelbach (Suhrkamp Verlag, 1984)  and reprinted in Jürgen Habermas’s “Erläuterungen zur Diskursethik” (Suhrkamp Verlag, 1991), pp. 31-48.

Book launching ceremony: The Cambridge Habermas Lexicon

On May 27, 2019, a book launching ceremony takes place at the university in Bad Homburg celebrating the launch of "The Cambridge Habermas Lexicon" edited by Amy Allen & Eduardo Mendieta (Cambridge University Press). See my post on the book here.

Speakers: Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (Bad Homburg), Amy Allen (Pennsylvania State University), Eduardo Mendieta (Pennsylvania State University), Hilary Gaskin (Cambridge University Press), Rainer Forst (Frankfurt am Main) and Jürgen Habermas (Starnberg).

More information here.

The Cambridge Habermas Lexicon

The Cambridge Habermas Lexicon

Ed. by Amy Allen & Eduardo Mendieta

(Cambridge University Press, 2019)

850 pages



From the Preface

The Cambridge Habermas Lexicon is intended to be the “go to,” indispensable, and leading research tool for scholars, students, and general readers interested in the work of Jürgen Habermas. It is without doubt the most up-to-date resource on Habermas’s by now massive oeuvre, which spans nearly seven decades of philosophical and intellectual productivity. The Lexicon also aims to be an important bibliographical resource for those trying to make sense of the impact and reception of Habermas’s thought in twentieth- and early twenty-first-century European, North Atlantic, and global contexts. The editors are particularly honored and proud to include some of the top Habermas scholars from across the world. Habermas’s work has had a global reception, and the Lexicon aims to reflect this fact.

Each entry aims to present the concept, figure, or philosopheme in question in a language that is thoroughly researched yet jargon-free, lucid, and comprehensive.

Contents [PDF]

Chronology of Jürgen Habermas

I. TERMS 

1. Aesthetics [PDF] - Pieter Duvenage 
2. All-Affected Principle - Matthias Fritsch 
3. Application and Justification - Rúrion Melo 
4. Argumentation - Maeve Cooke 
5. Authenticity - Alessandro Ferrara 
6. Autonomy - Joel Anderson 
7. Axial Age - Peter E. Gordon
8. Civil Disobedience - Juan Carlos Velasco 
9. Civil Society - Jean L. Cohen 
10. Colonization of the Lifeworld - Felipe Gonçalves Silva 
11. Communicative Action - Hans-Peter Krüger 
12. Communicative Competence - Amy Allen 
13. Communicative Freedom - Peter Niesen 
14. Communicative Power - Jeffrey Flynn 
15. Communicative Rationality - David Strecker 
16. Consensus - David Ingram
17. Conservatism - Robert C. Holub
18. Constitutional Patriotism - Dafydd Huw Rees
19. Constitutional State and Constitutionalization - Simone Chambers
20. Cosmopolitan Citizenship - Amos Nascimento
21. Counterfactual Presupposition - Federica Gregoratto
22. Critical Hermeneutics - Hans-Herbert Kögler 
23. Critical Theory - Stefan Müller-Doohm
24. Deconstruction - Matthias Fritsch 
25. Deliberative Democracy - Simone Chambers
26. Detranscendentalization - Melissa Yates
27. Discourse - Rúrion Melo
28. Discourse Ethics - Joseph Heath
29. Enlightenment - Matthias Lutz-Bachmann
30. Equality - Felipe Gonçalves Silva
31. Ethics and Morality - Adela Cortina and Jesús Conill
32. Europe - Dafydd Huw Rees 
33. Facticity - Andrew Buchwalter 
34. Feminism - María Pía Lara 
35. Formal/Universal Pragmatics - Barbara Fultner 
36. The Frankfurt School - Stefan Müller-Doohm 
37. Free Will and Determinism - Joel Anderson 
38. Functional and Social Integration - Todd Hedrick
39. Functionalist Reason - Todd Hedrick 
40. Genealogy - Martin Saar 
41. Hermeneutics - Hans-Herbert Kögler 
42. Historians’ Debate - Robert C. Holub
43. Historical Materialism - Amy Allen
44. Human Nature - Lenny Moss
45. Human Rights - Regina Kreide
46. Ideal Speech Situation - David Rasmussen
47. Ideology - Robin Celikates
48. Illocutionary Force - María Pía Lara
49. Immanent Critique - Titus Stahl
50. Individuation - Allison Weir
51. Instrumental Reason - Melissa Yates
52. Intellectual - Max Pensky
53. Jewish Philosophy - Peter E. Gordon
54. Juridification - Daniel Loick
55. Justice - James Gordon Finlayson
56. Knowledge Anthropology - Amos Nascimento
57. Language and the Linguistic Turn - Cristina Lafont
58. Late Capitalism - Albena Azmanova
59. Law - Hugh Baxter
60. Learning Processes - David S. Owen
61. Legitimation - Joseph Heath
62. Lifeworld and System - Martin Hartmann
63. Linguistification - Maeve Cooke
64. Markets - Timo Jütten
65. Mass Culture - Chad Kautzer
66. Mass Media - Chad Kautzer
67. Migrants and Refugees - Juan Carlos Velasco
68. Modernity and Modernization - Alessandro Ferrara 
69. Moral Development - Simon Laumann Jørgensen 
70. Multiculturalism - Lorenzo C. Simpson 
71. Multiple Modernities - Amy Allen 
72. Naturalism - Melissa Yates 
73. Nature - Steven Vogel 
74. Performative Self-Contradiction - Lasse Thomassen 
75. Philosophical Anthropology - Amos Nascimento
76. Philosophy of History - Camil Ungureanu 
77. Philosophy of the Subject/Consciousness - Matthias Fritsch 
78. Popular Sovereignty - Kevin Olson 
79. The Positivism Debate - Robert C. Holub 
80. Postcolonialism/Decoloniality - Eduardo Mendieta
81. Postliberal Society - Chad Kautzer
82. Postmetaphysical Thinking - Melissa Yates
83. Postmodernism and Poststructuralism - Daniel Loick 
84. Postnational - Max Pensky
85. Power - David Strecker
86. Practical Reason - James Gledhill
87. Pragmatic Turn - Christopher Voparil
88. Pragmatism - Colin Koopman
89. Praxis - David Ingram
90. Principle of Self-Reconstruction - Marianna Papastephanou
91. Private and Public Autonomy - Christopher F. Zurn 
92. Psychoanalysis - Noëlle McAfee 
93. Public Sphere - Eduardo Mendieta
94. Race - Lorenzo C. Simpson 
95. Radical Reformism - William E. Scheuerman 
96. Rational Reconstruction - Daniel Gaus 
97. Rationality/Rationalization - Isaac Ariail Reed and Abigail Cary Moore
98. Recognition - Mattias Iser
99. Reification - Timo Jütten
100. Religion - Eduardo Mendieta
101. Ritual and Myth - Edmund Arens 
102. Rule of Law - Hugh Baxter 
103. Secularization/Postsecularism - Javier Aguirre
104. Semantic Contents - María Pía Lara
105. Social Evolution - David S. Owen
106. Social Pathology - Christopher F. Zurn
107. Socialism/Marxism - Raphael Neves
108. Society - Christopher F. Zurn 
109. Solidarity - Max Pensky 
110. Speech Act - Barbara Fultner 
111. Strategic Rationality - David Ingram 
112. Subjective/Basic Rights - Jeffrey Flynn 
113. Systematically Distorted Communication - Robin Celikates 
114. Technology - Steven Vogel 
115. Transitional Justice - Raphael Neves 
116. Truth - Barbara Fultner 
117. Universalization Principle and Discourse Principle - William Rehg
118. Utopia - Loren Goldman
119. Validity - Andrew Buchwalter
120. Validity Claim - Joseph Heath
121. Vulnerability - Joel Anderson
122. World Disclosure - Nikolas Kompridis

II. NAMES

123. Theodor W. Adorno - Stefan Müller-Doohm and Roman Yos
124. Karl-Otto Apel - Amos Nascimento
125. Andrew Arato - Albena Azmanova
126. Hannah Arendt - Peter J. Verovšek
127. J. L. Austin - Lasse Thomassen
128. Robert Bellah - Matt Sheedy
129. Seyla Benhabib - Anna Jurkevics
130. Walter Benjamin - Max Pensky
131. Richard Bernstein - Vincent Colapietro
132. Ernst Bloch - Loren Goldman
133. Robert Brandom - Joseph Heath
134. Hauke Brunkhorst - Jeffrey Flynn
135. Ernst Cassirer - Peter E. Gordon
136. Cornelius Castoriadis - Michael C. Behrent
137. Jean Cohen - Amy Allen
138. Jacques Derrida - Giovanna Borradori
139. Émile Durkheim - Matt Sheedy
140. Enrique Dussel - Eduardo Mendieta
141. Ronald Dworkin - Hugh Baxter
142. Alessandro Ferrara - David Rasmussen
143. Jean-Marc Ferry - Michael C. Behrent
144. Rainer Forst - Jeffrey Flynn
145. Michel Foucault - Thomas Biebricher
146. Nancy Fraser - Rocío Zambrana
147. Sigmund Freud - Amy Allen 
148. Hans-Georg Gadamer - Hans-Herbert Kögler 
149. Arnold Gehlen - Tilo Wesche
150. Anthony Giddens - Alan Sica 
151. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri - Giovanna Borradori
152. G. W. F. Hegel - Andrew Buchwalter 
153. Martin Heidegger - Nikolas Kompridis
154. Agnes Heller - Katie Terezakis
155. Dieter Henrich - Tilo Wesche
156. Axel Honneth - Mattias Iser
157. Max Horkheimer - John Abromeit
158. Edmund Husserl - James Swindal
159. Karl Jaspers - Stefan Müller-Doohm and Roman Yos
160. Hans Jonas - Eduardo Mendieta
161. Immanuel Kant - Matthias Lutz-Bachmann
162. Søren Kierkegaard - Martin Beck Matuštík
163. Otto Kirchheimer - Hubertus Buchstein
164. Lawrence Kohlberg - Simon Laumann Jørgensen
165. Karl Löwith - Eduardo Mendieta
166. Niklas Luhmann - Hans-Georg Moeller
167. Georg Lukács - Todd Hedrick
168. Jean-François Lyotard - Michael C. Behrent
169. Thomas McCarthy - William Rehg
170. Herbert Marcuse - Chad Kautzer
171. Karl Marx - Albena Azmanova
172. George Herbert Mead - Robert Danisch
173. Johann Baptist Metz - Edmund Arens
174. Javier Muguerza - Juan Carlos Velasco
175. Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge - Robert C. Holub 
176. Franz L. Neumann - William E. Scheuerman 
177. Friedrich Nietzsche - Martin Saar 
178. Claus Offe - Martin Hartmann
179. Talcott Parsons - Alan Sica
180. Charles S. Peirce - Vincent Colapietro
181. Jean Piaget - Jerry Wallulis 
182. Helmuth Plessner - Lenny Moss
183. Karl Popper - Alan Sica 
184. Hilary Putnam - Javier Gil
185. David Rasmussen - James Swindal
186. John Rawls - James Gledhill 
187. Paul Ricoeur - Hans-Herbert Kögler
188. Richard Rorty - Vincent Colapietro
189. Erich Rothacker - Stefan Müller-Doohm and Roman Yos
190. Max Scheler - Eric J. Mohr
191. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling - Peter Dews
192. Carl Schmitt - William E. Scheuerman
193. Gershom Scholem - Peter E. Gordon 
194. John Searle - Titus Stahl
195. Peter Sloterdijk - Jörg Schaub
196. Charles Taylor - Hartmut Rosa 
197. Michael Theunissen - Tilo Wesche 
198. Michael Tomasello - Johanna Meehan 
199. Ernst Tugendhat - Santiago Zabala 
200. Gianni Vattimo - Santiago Zabala 
201. Max Weber - Alan Sica 
202. Albrecht Wellmer - Maeve Cooke
203. Raymond Williams - Noëlle McAfee 
204. Ludwig Wittgenstein - Nikolas Kompridis 
205. Iris Marion Young - Allison Weir

Bibliography

Index [PDF]

Neues Buch: "Habermas und die Religion" (2. Auflage)

Habermas und die Religion (2. Auflage)

Hrsg. von Klaus Viertbauer & Franz Gruber

(Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft WBG, 2019)





Kurzbeschreibung

Seit Ende der 1980er-Jahre öffnet Habermas sich langsam dem Dialog mit akademischen Vertretern der Religion. Doch nimmt er Religion nicht einfach als eine soziologische Kategorie wahr, sondern tritt in einen tiefgreifenden Austausch mit Theologen und Religionsphilosophen. 

Der Band analysiert das Verhältnis von Habermas zur Religion erstmals umfassend und bestimmt es nicht nur in seiner historisch-genealogischen Tiefe, sondern ordnet es auch in der gegenwärtigen Diskurslandschaft ein.

Für die vorliegende 2. Auflage wurde der Band durchgesehen und erweitert - so greift er nun auch die Rezeption der Religionsphilosophie Hegels auf und behandelt das aktuelle Thema der Bioethik. 

Inhalt [Leseprobe]

Einleitung
Von der Säkularisierungsthese zu einer postsäkularen Gesellschaft - Klaus Viertbauer

I. Kontexte und Konstellationen

1. Jürgen Habermas und Kants Religionsphilosophie - Friedo Ricken
2. Habermas und Hegel als Denker der Moderne - Thomas M. Schmidt (NEU)
3. Schleiermacher und Kierkegaard in der Sicht "nachmetaphysischen Denkens" - Maureen Junker-Kenny
4. Habermas' partielle Zuwendung zum Pragmatismus - Ludwig Nagl
5. Habermas und die neue Metaphysik - Klaus Müller
6. Liberal, deliberativ oder dekonstruktivistisch? - Michael Reder

II. Diskurse und Rezeptionslinien

7. Diskursethik und Leidenserfahrungen - Ottmar John
8. Habermas und die Öffentliche Theologie - Andreas Telser
9. Nicht zugänglich! Nicht verständlich! Nicht akzeptabel! [Englisch] - Maeve Cooke
10. Kommunikatives Handeln und Glaubensbegründung - Franz Gruber
11. Kommunikatives Vernunft, Religion und Gottesrede - Edmund Arens (NEU)
12. Sozialethik postsäkular? Diskursethik und katholische Soziallehre - Hans-Joachim Höhn
13. Jürgen Habermas und der Vernunft, den moralischen Status des Embryos diskursethisch zu begründen - Klaus Viertbauer (NEU)
14. Vom Ritual zur Sprache - Von der Sprache zum Ritual - Florian Uhl

Ausgewählte Schriften von Claus Offe

Ausgewählte Schriften von Claus Offe

















Band 1: Macht und Effizienz: Studien zur kapitalistischen Rationalisierung der Arbeit (Springer Verlag, 2018)

Leseprobe (PDF)

Preview

1. Sozialökonomie des Arbeitsmarktes: primäres und sekundäres Machtgefälle (1984)
2. Perspektiven auf die Zukunft des Arbeitsmarktes. „Orthodoxie“, „Realismus“ und „dritte Wege“ (1983)
3. Zur institutionellen Ordnung von Arbeitsmarkt und „Arbeitsgesellschaft“ (2003)
4. Die Zukunft des Arbeitsmarktes. Zur Ergänzungsbedürftigkeit eines versagenden Allokationsprinzips (1982)
5. Arbeitszeitflexibilisierung – Alternative zu allgemeinen Arbeitszeitverkürzungen? (1983)
6. Work, Time, and Social Participation. Policy Options for Dealing with Labor Market Precariousness (1999)
7. Die Widersprüche des Sozialen (2001)
8. Der Niedriglohnsektor und das „Modell Deutschland“ (2002)
9. Am Arbeitsmarkt vorbei. Überlegungen zur Neubestimmung "haushaltlicher“ Wohlfahrtsproduktion in ihrem Verhältnis zu Markt und Staat (1986)
10. Die Entwicklungsdynamik des Dienstleistungssektors (1976)
11. The Vanishing “Shadow of the Future”* (2011)
12. Das Rationalisierungsdilemma der Angestelltenarbeit. Arbeitssoziologische Überlegungen zur Erklärung des Status von kaufmännischen Angestellten aus der Eigenschaft ihrer Arbeit als „Dienstleistungsarbeit“ (1981)
13. Das Wachstum der Dienstleistungsarbeit: Vier soziologische Erklärungsansätze (1984)
14. Two Logics of Collective Action (1980)
15. Conceptualizing “Capitalism” (2011)


Band 2: Der Wohlfahrtsstaat und seine Bürger (Springer Verlag, 2018)

Leseprobe (PDF)

Preview

1. Politisch-soziologische Erklärungsansätze für Funktionen und Innovationsprozesse der Sozialpolitik (1977)
2. The German welfare state: principles, performance and prospects after unification (1999)
3. Sozialstaat (2008)
4. Some Contradictions of the Modern Welfare State (1981)
5. Democracy against the Welfare State ? Structural Foundations of Neoconservative Political Opportunities (1987)
6. Akzeptanz und Legitimität strategischer Optionen in der Sozialpolitik (1990)
7. Schock, Fehlkonstrukt oder Droge ? Über drei Lesarten der Sozialstaatskrise (1995)
8. Bildungssystem, Beschäftigungssystem und Bildungspolitik – Ansätze zu einer gesamtgesellschaftlichen Funktionsbestimmung des Bildungswesens (1975)
9. Armut und städtische Armutspolitik (1991)
10. A Non-Productivist Design for Social Policies (1992)
11. Basic Income and the Labor Contract (2009)
12. Wasteful Welfare transactions: Why basic income security is fundamental (2005)
13. Towards a new equilibrium of citizens’ rights and economic resources ? (1997)
14. Inequality and the Labor Market – Theories, opinions, models, and practices of unequal distribution and how they can be justified (2010)


Band 3: Institutionen, Normen, Bürgertugenden (Springer Verlag, 2019)

Leseprobe (PDF)

1. Political Institutions and Social Power: Conceptual Explorations (2006)
2. Civil society and social order: demarcating and combining market, state and community (2000)
3. Fessel und Bremse. Moralische und institutionelle Aspekte „intelligenter Selbstbeschränkung“ (1989)
4. Moderne „Barbarei“: Der Naturzustand im Kleinformat? (1996)
5. Die Ehrlichkeit politischer Kommunikationen. Kognitive Hygiene und strategischer Umgang mit der Wahrheit (1993)
6. Die Utopie der Null-Option. Modernität und Modernisierung als politische Gütekriterien (1986)
7. How can we trust our fellow citizens? (1999)
8. Pflichten versus Kosten: Typen und Kontexte solidarischen Handelns (2004)
9. „Verantwortlich sein“ und „verantwortlich gemacht werden“. Zur Grammatik und Semantik verantwortlichen Handelns (2005)
10. Shared Social Responsibility. Reflections on the need for and supply of “responsible” patterns of social action (2010)
11. What, if anything, may we mean by “progressive” politics today? (2001)
12. New Social Movements: Challenging the Boundaries of Institutional Politics (1985)
13. Reflections on the Institutional Self-transformation of Movement Politics: A Tentative Stage Model (1990)
14. Vier Hypothesen über historische Folgen der Studentenbewegung (1998)1
15. The Politics of Parity: Can Legal Intervention Neutralize the Gender Divide? (2001)
16. Wessen Wohl ist das Gemeinwohl? (2001)
17. Nach dem „Ende der Utopie“: die Zivilgesellschaft als Fortschrittsidee? (2004)
18. Die kritische Funktion der Sozialwissenschaften (1975)
19. Do Western Universities Have a Mission to Educate? Thoughts on expertise and judgment (2007)
20. Akademische Soziologie und politischer Protest: Der Frankfurter Soziologentag 1968 (2012)


Band 4: Liberale Demokratie und soziale Macht: Demokratie-theoretische Studien (Forthcoming, 2019)


Band 5: Staatskapazität und Europäische Integration (Forthcoming, 2019) 


Band 6: Übergänge: Vom Staatssozialismus zum demokratischen Kapitalismus (Forthcoming, 2019)

New book by Habermas on the history of philosophy [updated]

A new book by Jürgen Habermas is coming out on Suhrkamp Verlag in September 2019:

Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie (1.700 pages)

Band 1: Die okzidentale Konstellation von Glauben und Wissen 

Band 2: Vernünftige Freiheit. Spuren des Diskurses über Glauben und Wissen 

Kurzbeschreibung

"Das neue Buch von Jürgen Habermas ist auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie. Es gibt im Stil einer Genealogie darüber Auskunft, wie die heute dominanten Gestalten des westlichen nachmetaphysischen Denkens entstanden sind. Als Leitfaden dient ihm der Diskurs über Glauben und Wissen, der aus zwei starken achsenzeitlichen Traditionen im römischen Kaiserreich hervorgegangen ist. Habermas zeichnet nach, wie sich die Philosophie sukzessive aus ihrer Symbiose mit der Religion gelöst und säkularisiert hat. In systematischer Perspektive arbeitet er die entscheidenden Konflikte, Lernprozesse und Zäsuren heraus sowie die sie begleitenden Transformationen in Wissenschaft, Recht, Politik und Gesellschaft.

Das neue Buch von Jürgen Habermas ist aber nicht nur eine Geschichte der Philosophie. Es ist auch eine Reflexion über die Aufgabe einer Philosophie, die an der vernünftigen Freiheit kommunikativ vergesellschafteter Subjekte festhält: Sie soll darüber aufklären, »was unsere wachsenden wissenschaftlichen Kenntnisse von der Welt für uns bedeuten – für uns als Menschen, als moderne Zeitgenossen und als individuelle Personen«."


On the forthcoming book see:

* Jürgen Habermas - "Acceptance Speech", receiving the John W. Kluge Prize in Washington September 29, 2015.  

* Jürgen Habermas - "The New Philosophical Interest in Religion. A Conversation with Eduardo Mendieta", Jürgen Habermas - Postmetaphysical Thinking II (Polity Press, 2017), pp. 59-76. Online version here. 

* Eduardo Mendieta - "Appendix: Religion in Habermas's Work", Craig Calhoun, Eduardo Mendieta, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen - Habermas and Religion (Polity Press, 2013), pp. 403-407.

* Eduardo Mendieta - "Religion", Amy Allen & Eduardo Mendieta (eds) - The Cambridge Habermas Lexicon (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2019) pp. 394-399.

According to Eduardo Mendieta, Habermas's manuscript in the fall of 2017 consisted of the following nine chapters (The Cambridge Habermas Lexicon, 2019, p. 398f):

"The first chapter deals with the genealogy of postmetaphysical thinking, and begins with the crisis scenarios and histories of decay that have characterized the philosophy of the twentieth century.

The second chapter is an intensive engagement with Jaspers’ notion of the Axial Age, focusing on the “sacred roots of the inheritance of the Axial Age,” and taking up themes such as the cognitive breakthrough and preservation of the sacred core of Axial Age religions, the relationship between myth and ritual, the meaning of ritual practices, and the path of the Axial Age’s transformation of consciousness.  

The third chapter engages in a comparative view of the different Axial Age pictures of the world, and here Habermas takes up themes in ancient Judaism, Buddha’s teachings and practice, Confucianism, and Taoism, and ancient Greek “philosophy of nature” up through Socrates. 

Chapter four, which focuses on the “Symbiosis of Faith and Knowledge in Christian Platonism and the development of the Roman-Catholic Church,” has extensive engagements with Plotinus and Augustine. 

Chapter five focuses on “Christian Europe” and the advancing differentiation between the “sacerdotium” and “regnum.” In this chapter we encounter treatments of Aristotle’s challenge to thirteenth century theology, and Aquinas’s response, as well as the consequences for political philosophy of the ontologization of Aristotelian ethics. 

Chapter six, titled “The Via Moderna,” engages Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and the “nominalistic revolution,” as well as the works of Machiavelli and Francisco de Vittoria. 

Chapter seven deals with the “separation between faith and knowledge,” and focuses on the relationship between Protestantism and the rise of the philosophy of the subject. 

Chapter eight focuses on the emergence of postmetaphysical thinking in the works of Hume and Kant. 

Finally, chapter nine, titled “The Linguistic Corporalization of Reason. From Subjective Spirit to the Communicatively Socialized Learning Subject,” focuses on the factors that catalyzed paradigm shifts, and concludes, for the moment, on certain motifs in the linguistic turn in the works of Herder, Schleiermacher, and Humboldt."


Maybe the title of Habermas's book is a reference to Johann Gottfried Herder's "Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie zur Bildung der Menschheit" (1774) ["This Too a Philosophy of History for the Formation of Humanity"] and his book  "Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit" (1784-1791) ["Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind"]

Habermas on Inequality in the EU

A new contribution by Jürgen Habermas to the debate on populism and inequality in the European Union:

"La disuguaglianza avvelena l’Europa più dei sovranismi" 
(The Italiann newspaper "la Repubblica" March 21, 2019)


See also Jürgen Habermas's "New Perspectives for Europe" (September, 2018).

Excerpts from "la Repubblica":

"I temi dell’immigrazione e delle politiche di riconoscimento dell’asilo politico, che dal settembre del 2015 dominano i media in Germania e catturano in modo esclusivo l’attenzione dell’opinione pubblica, si propongono come risposta immediata alla domanda sulla causa determinante dei sempre più acuti riflessi di difesa antieuropeisti. Ma se si considera l’Europa nel suo complesso, e soprattutto l’eurozona nel suo complesso, l’aumento delle migrazioni non può costituire la spiegazione primaria per la crescita dei populismi di destra; e questo perché il mutamento nell’opinione pubblica si è prodotto molto prima, in risposta alle controverse politiche intraprese per superare la crisi finanziaria che iniziò nel 2008 e la crisi del debito sovrano innescata dalla crisi economica del 2010." (......)

"I sentimenti antieuropei, in maniera totalmente indipendente dal tema delle migrazioni, scaturiscono dalla realistica percezione che l’Unione monetaria non sia più un vantaggio per tutti i paesi membri. Il Sud dell’Europa contro il Nord e viceversa: i “perdenti” si sentono trattati ingiustamente, i “vincitori” respingono tali imputazioni. Come si è fatto evidente, il rigido sistema di regole imposte agli Stati membri dell’Unione monetaria europea va a tutto vantaggio dei paesi economicamente più forti, senza offrire in cambio alcuno spazio né alcuna attribuzione di competenze tale da condurre a un’azione condivisa e dotata di flessibilità. Perciò, a mio parere, la questione su cui davvero emergono differenze di vedute politiche non è quella riguardante l’essere a favore o contro l’Unione europea. L’unico modo in cui l’Unione potrebbe guadagnare capacità di azione politica e recuperare il supporto dei suoi cittadini sarebbe attraverso l’istituzione, a livello europeo, di poteri e risorse per programmi democraticamente legittimati miranti a contrastare l’acuirsi delle divergenze economiche e sociali tra gli Stati membri."

An Intellectual Biography of John Rawls

John Rawls. The Path to a Theory of Justice

by Andrius Gališanka

(Harvard University Press, 2019)

272 pages




Description

It is hard to overestimate the influence of John Rawls on political philosophy and theory over the last half-century. His books have sold millions of copies worldwide, and he is one of the few philosophers whose work is known in the corridors of power as well as in the halls of academe. Rawls is most famous for the development of his view of “justice as fairness,” articulated most forcefully in his best-known work, A Theory of Justice. In it he develops a liberalism focused on improving the fate of the least advantaged, and attempts to demonstrate that, despite our differences, agreement on basic political institutions is both possible and achievable.

Critics have maintained that Rawls’s view is unrealistic and ultimately undemocratic. In this incisive new intellectual biography, Andrius Gališanka argues that in misunderstanding the origins and development of Rawls’s central argument, previous narratives fail to explain the novelty of his philosophical approach and so misunderstand the political vision he made prevalent. Gališanka draws on newly available archives of Rawls’s unpublished essays and personal papers to clarify the justifications Rawls offered for his assumption of basic moral agreement. Gališanka’s intellectual-historical approach reveals a philosopher struggling toward humbler claims than critics allege.

Contents

Introduction

1. Protestant Beginnings
2. Drawing on Logical Positivism
3. Engagement with Wittgensteinian Philosophy
4. The Fair Games of Autonomous Persons
5. Practices of Reasoning
6. Natural Bases of Justice
7. No Shortcuts in Philosophy
8. Kantian Autonomy
9. A Theory of Justice

Epilogue

Appendix A: John Rawls: Courses Taken and Taught
Appendix B: John Rawls: Publications


Andrius Gališanka is an Assistant Professor at Wake Forest University. He is co-editor (with Mark Bevir) of "Wittgenstein and Normative Inquiry" (Brill, 2016).

See his dissertation: "The Path to A Theory of Justice" (pdf).

See also two papers by Gališanka:

**"John Rawls in Historical Context" (History of Political Thought vol. 33 No. 4, 2012)

**"Just Society as a Fair Game: John Rawls and Game Theory in the 1950s" (Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 78. No. 2, 2017)

100th anniversary of sociology at the Goethe University in Frankfurt

In April 1919, the first Chair of Sociology was established at a German university: Franz Oppenheimer was appointed professor of sociology and economics at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. Together with the Institute for Social Research, which was founded in 1923, the sociological research at the Goethe University has had a decisive influence on the national and international research agenda. 

A jubilee celebration will take place at the Goethe University on November 12, 2019. It will include commemorative lectures by Jürgen Habermas and Saskia Sassen.

More information here.

New Book: Reconciliation and Reification

Reconciliation and Reification
Freedom's Semblance and Actuality from Hegel to Contemporary Critical Theory

by Todd Hedrick

(Oxford University Press, 2019)

297 pages



Description

The critical theory tradition has, since its inception, sought to distinguish its perspective on society by maintaining that persons have a deep-seated interest in the free development of their personality - an interest that can only be realized in and through the rational organization of society, but which is systematically stymied by existing society. And yet tradition has struggled to specify this emancipatory interest in a way that is neither excessively utopian nor accommodating to existing society. Despite the fact that Hegel's concept of reconciliation is normally thought to run aground on the latter horn of this dilemma, this book argues that reconciliation is the best available conceptualization of emancipatory interest. Todd Hedrick presents Hegel's idea of freedom as something actualized in individuals' lives through their reconciliation with how society shapes their roles, prospects, and sense of self; it presents reconciliation as less a matter of philosophical cognition, and more of inclusion in a responsive, transparent political process. Hedrick further introduces the concept of reification, which - through its development in Marx and Lukács, through Horkheimer and Adorno - substantiates an increasingly cogent critique of reconciliation as something unachievable within the framework of modern society, as social forces that shape our identities and life prospects come to appear natural, as part of the way things just are. 
Giving equal weight to psychoanalysis and legal theory, this work critically appraises the writings of Rawls, Honneth, and Habermas as efforts to spell out a reconciliation more democratic and inclusive than Hegel's, yet still sensitive to the reifying effects of legal systems that have become autonomous and anonymous.

Contents [preview]

Introduction

1. Reconciling Individuality and Sociality in Hegel's Philosophy of Right
2. Totality Fractured, Reconciliation Deferred: From Marx to Lukács, to Horkheimer and Adorno
3. Rawls' Liberal Right Hegelianism
4. Actualizing Social Freedom: Normative Reconstruction and Psychoanalysis in Honneth
5. Reification and Reconciliation in Habermas' Theory of Law and Democracy

Concluding Remarks


Todd Hedrick is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Michigan State University. He is the author of "Rawls and Habermas: Reason, Pluralism, and the Claims of Political Philosophy" (Stanford University Press, 2010). 

See also three related papers by Todd Hedrick:

* "Democratic Constitutionalism as Mediation: The Decline and Recovery of an Idea in Critical Social Theory" (2012).
* "Reifying and Reconciling Class Conflict: From Hegel’s Estates to Habermas’ Interchange Roles" (2013).
* "Reification In and Through Law: Elements of a Theory in Marx, Lukács, and Honneth" (2014).

Upcoming books on Jürgen Habermas

The Cambridge Habermas Lexicon

AMY ALLEN & EDUARDO MENDIETA (eds.)
(Cambridge University Press, May 2019) 

[Table of Contents]








Der junge Habermas. Eine ideengeschichtliche Untersuchung seines frühen Denkens 1952–1962

ROMAN YOS
(Suhrkamp Verlag, June 2019)








Habermas global. Wirkungsgeschichte eines Werks

LUCA CORCHIA, STEFAN MÜLLER-DOOHM & WILLIAM OUTHWAITE (eds.)
(Suhrkamp Verlag, June 2019)

Habermas und die Religion [extended 2nd edition]

KLAUS VIERTBAUER & FRANZ GRUBER (eds.)
(Wissenschaftlichen Buchgesellschaft WBG, May 2019)









Die Rahmung des Hintergrunds. Die Debatten Derrida-Searle und Derrida-Habermas

PHILIP FREYTAG
(Vittorio Klostermann, forthcoming) 

[Table of Contents]

Diskurstheoretische Glaubensverantwortung. Konturen einer religiösen Epistemologie in Auseinandersetzung mit Jürgen Habermas

MARTIN BREUL
(Verlag Friedrich Pustet, January 2019)

Habermas and Politics: A Critical Introduction

MATHESON RUSSELL
(Edinburgh University Press, May 2019)

                             Habermas and Feminism

                            TAINE DUNCAN
                            (Palgrave MacMillan, February 2019)