Habermas on Martin Buber (video)

A video of Jürgen Habermas's lecture on the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber (1878-1965) at the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Jerusalem, on May 1, 2012: 

A Philosophy of Dialogue - In Memory of Martin Buber (1 hour)

Habermas's lecture is published in his book "The Lure of Technocracy" (Polity Press, 2015), pp. 119-136. German translation: "Martin Buber - Dialogphilosophie im zeitgeschichtlichen Kontext" in "Im Sog der Technokratie" (Suhrkamp 2013), pp. 27-46.

Habermas: "EU caught in a trap?"

On September 21, 2018, Jürgen Habermas delivered a speech at a conference in Bad Homburg on "New Perspectives for Europe". An abridged version of his speech is now available at the website of "Social Europe":

"“New” Perspectives For Europe"

Excerpt

"If you in the end ask me, not as a citizen but as an academic observer, what my overall assessment is today, I’ll have to admit to failing to see any encouraging trends right now. Certainly, economic interests are so unambiguous and, despite Brexit, as powerful as ever that the collapse of the eurozone is unlikely. That implies the answer to my second question: why the eurozone still clings together: Even for the protagonists of a northern euro the risks of separation from the south remain incalculable. And for the corresponding case of a southern state’s exit we have seen the test case of the current Italian government that, despite loud and clear declarations during the election campaign, has immediately relented; for one of the obvious consequences of leaving would be unsustainable debts. On the other hand, this assessment is not very comforting either. Let’s face it: if the suspected link between the economic drifting apart of the eurozone member economies on the one hand and the strengthening of right-wing populism on the other hand in fact holds, then we’re sitting in a trap in which the necessary social and cultural preconditions for a vital and safe democracy face further damage. This negative scenario naturally cannot count for more than just that. But already common-sense experience tells us that the European integration process is on a dangerous downward curve. You only recognize the point of no return when it’s too late. We can only hope that the rejection of Macron’s proposed reforms by the German government has not been the last lost opportunity."

Appeal for stronger EU

Jürgen Habermas and five German politicians and economists have published an appeal for stronger EU:

"Wir sind in tiefer Sorge um die Einigung Europas und die Zukunft Deutschlands"

by Hans Eichel, Jürgen Habermas, Roland Koch, Friedrich Merz, Bert Rürup, Brigitte Zypries 

(Handelsblatt, October 22, 2018)

UPDATE: English translation: "We are deeply concerned about the future of Europe and Germany" (Handelsblatt Global, October 25, 2018).

Excerpts

"Im Innern Europas breitet sich wieder Nationalismus aus und Egoismus ist die vorherrschende Haltung – als vergäßen wir gerade wieder alles, was die vorige Generation aus der Geschichte gelernt hatte. Von außen stellen Trump, Russland und China Europas Einheit, unsere Bereitschaft, gemeinsam für unsere Werte einzustehen, unsere Lebensweise zu verteidigen, immer härter auf die Probe. 
Darauf kann es nur eine Antwort geben: Solidarität und Kampf gegen Nationalismus und Egoismus nach innen und Einigkeit, gemeinsame Souveränität nach außen. Und diese Antwort muss jetzt und überall gegeben werden, von den Bürgern Europas, von jedem von uns. Allein als Deutsche, allein als Franzosen, als Italiener, Polen sind wir zu schwach, nur gemeinsam können wir uns im 21. Jahrhundert behaupten. Wir wollen ein Europa, das unsere Art zu leben schützt, ein Europa, das Wohlstand für alle schafft, ein Europa der Demokratie und der Menschenrechte, ein Europa des Friedens und der globalen Solidarität im Kampf für die Erhaltung der natürlichen Lebensgrundlagen. Jetzt müssen wir große Schritte gehen, weiteres Durchwursteln von Krise zu Krise bringt alles in Gefahr, was wir bisher erreicht haben.
Deshalb fordern wir, jetzt mit der vertieften Integration der Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik auf der Grundlage von Mehrheitsentscheidungen und dem Ziel einer gemeinsamen europäischen Armee zu beginnen. Nicht mehr Geld ist dafür nötig – die europäischen Nato-Mitglieder geben etwa dreimal so viel für Verteidigung aus wie Russland –, sondern eine Überwindung der verteidigungspolitischen Kleinstaaterei." (.......)

"Wir fordern die Bundesregierung auf, jetzt mutig voranzugehen, gemeinsam mit dem französischen Präsidenten Emmanuel Macron, um die Wirtschafts- und Währungsunion krisenfest zu machen. Ein weiteres Auseinanderdriften in der Euro-Zone muss verhindert, eine Politik, die zu mehr Konvergenz führt, muss eingeleitet werden. Eine Haushaltspolitik für die Euro-Zone, die dem Zusammenhalt und der Zukunftsfähigkeit des Währungsgebietes dient, und eine gemeinsame Arbeitsmarktpolitik bis hin zu einer europäischen Arbeitslosenversicherung sind jetzt nötig, um glaubhaft zu machen, dass Europa auch im Innern zusammenhält. Dazu müssen wir zu echten Kompromissen bereit sein, auch zu deutschen finanziellen Beiträgen. Die Gründungsväter Europas, zu denen auch Konrad Adenauer gehörte, wussten, dass die europäische Einigung nur gelingen kann, wenn die Wohlstandsunterschiede nicht zu groß sind. Sie wussten, dass die schwächeren Regionen und Schichten neben eigenen Anstrengungen auch der Hilfe der Stärkeren bedürfen, um ihren Rückstand aufzuholen. Sie wussten, dass die Einigung Europas auch ein Wohlstands-versprechen an seine Bürgerinnen und Bürger ist, finanziert aus der Friedensdividende. Noch Helmut Kohl wusste das und handelte danach. Das hat auch Deutschland sehr genutzt. Europa wird das sein, worauf die Europäer sich einigen können, oder es wird nicht sein. Was Europa stark macht, stärkt alle Europäer, was Europa schwächt, schwächt alle Europäer."

Hans Eichel is former Minister of Finance (SPD), Roland Koch is a former Minister President of Hesse (SPD), Friedrich Merz is a former member of the European Parliament and former member of the German Parliament (CDU), Bert Rürup is economist at the "Handelsblatt", Brigitte Zypries is a former Minister for Economics and Energy and a former Minister of Justice (SPD).

The Routledge Companion to the Frankfurt School

The Routledge Companion to the Frankfurt School

Ed. by Peter E. Gordon, Espen Hammer, & Axel Honneth

Routledge, 2018

576 pages

Contents

Part I: Basic Concepts

1. The Idea of Instrumental Reason - J.M. Bernstein
2. The Idea of the Culture Industry - Juliane Rebentisch & Felix Trautmann
3. Psychoanalysis and Critical Theory - Joel Whitebook
4. The Philosophy of History - Martin Shuster
5. Discourse Ethics - Maeve Cooke
6. The Theory of Recognition in the Frankfurt School - Timo Jütten
7. History as Critique: Walter Benjamin - Eli Friedlander
8. Topographies of Culture: Siegfried Kracauer - Andreas Huyssen
9. History and Transcendence in Adorno’s Idea of Truth - Lambert Zuidervaart

Part II: Historical Themes

10. Ungrounded: Horkheimer and the Founding of the Frankfurt School - Martin Jay
11. Revisiting Max Horkheimer’s Early Critical Theory - John Abromeit
12. The Frankfurt School and the Assessment of Nazism - Udi Greenberg
13. The Frankfurt School and Antisemitism - Jack Jacobs
14. The Frankfurt School and the Experience of Exile - Thomas Wheatland
15. Critical Theory and the Unfinished Project of Mediating Theory and Practice - Robin Celikates
16. The Frankfurt School and the West German Student Movement - Hans Kundnani

Part III: Affinities and Contestations

17. Lukács and the Frankfurt School - Titus Stahl
18. Nietzsche and the Frankfurt School - David Owen
19. Weber and the Frankfurt School - Dana Villa
20. Heidegger and the Frankfurt School - Cristina Lafont
21. Arendt and the Frankfurt School - Seyla Benhabib & Clara Picker
22. Marcuse and the Problem of Repression - Brian O’Connor
23. Critical Theory and Poststructuralism - Martin Saar
24. Habermas and Ordinary Language Philosophy - Espen Hammer

Part IV: Specifications

25. The Place of Mimesis in The Dialectic of Enlightenment - Owen Hulatt
26. Adorno and Literature - Iain Macdonald
27. Adorno, Music, and Philosopy - Max Paddison
28. Schelling and the Frankfurt School - Peter Dews
29. Critical Theory and Social Pathology - Fabian Freyenhagen
30. The Self and Individual Autonomy in the Frankfurt School - Kenneth Baynes
31. The Habermas–Rawls Debate - James Gordon Finlayson

Part V: Prospects

32. Idealism, Realism, and Critical Theory - Fred Rush
33. Critical Theory and the Environment - Arne Johan Vetlesen
34. Critical Theory and the Law - William E. Scheuerman
35. Critical Theory and Postcolonialism - James D. Ingram
36. Critical Theory and Religion - Peter E. Gordon
37. Critical Theory and Feminism - Amy Allen
38. Critique, Crisis, and the Elusive Tribunal - Judith Butler
39. Critique and Communication: Philosophy’s Missions - Jürgen Habermas (interview) 

The Postsecular Political Philosophy of Jürgen Habermas

The Postsecular Political Philosophy of Jürgen Habermas: Translating the Sacred 

by Dafydd Huw Rees 

(University of Wales Press, 2018)

256 pages



Contents

Introduction – At the Paulskirche

1. Sacred and Profane

2. Religion and Postmetaphysical Thinking

3. The Anthropic Problem

4. Rawls, Habermas and the Critique of Secularism

5. Postsecular Deliberative Democracy

6. Pyrrhic Translation

Conclusion – Ethics and Metaphysics


Dafydd Huw Rees is a Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol University teacher in Philosophy at Cardiff University. The book is based on Rees's PhD Thesis: "Translating the Sacred: Religion and Postsecularism in the Recent Work of Jürgen Habermas" (Sussex University, March 2015) [PDF].

See also Rees's paper "Decolonizing Philosophy? Habermas and the Axial Age" (Constellations vol. 24 no. 2 (June, 2017).

Conceptualizing the Future of Democracy

A video of a panel discussion today in Frankfurt am Main on 

"Conceptualizing the Future of Democracy: Combining Representation and Participatory Innovations" (1 hour, 49 minutes)


Statements by the participants:

* Mark Warren (University of British Columbia, Vancouver) [starts 10:50]

* Rainer Forst (Goethe University Frankfurt) [starts 22:30]

* Anne Phillips (London School of Economics and Political Science) 
   [starts 32:00]

* Jane Mansbridge (Harvard University) [starts 43:00]

Panel discussion. Moderater: Brigitte Geiẞel (Goethe University Frankfurt) [starts 54:30]

Open discussion [starts 1.14:00]


Further information on the conference here.

Habermas in Bad Homburg

Jürgen Habermas participated in a two-days conference in Bad Homburg on "Neue Perspektiven für Europa".

See this report in FAZ:

Thomas Thiel - "Habermas wirft sich für Europa in die Bresche" (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 24, 2018)

Excerpts from the report by Andrea Pollmeier in "Frankfurter Rundschau" (September 24):

"Mit tiefer Skepsis blickt der Soziologe und Philosoph Jürgen Habermas auf die gegenwärtige Lage Europas und wendet sich gegen einen Ton der "Dedramatisierung". Zwar drohe trotz Brexit wegen der mächtigen wirtschaftlichen Interessen kein Auseinanderfallen der Eurozone, doch sei dies keine gute, sondern eher eine schlechte Nachricht, erklärte Habermas am Wochenende in Bad Homburg. Ein Weiterführen des Status quo habe schließlich zur Folge, dass die innerpolitischen Polarisierungen in unseren Ländern fortschreiten werden. [....]
Das Erstarken europafeindlicher, rechtsextremer Parteien sei, so Habermas, nicht primär Folge der Migrationspolitik, sondern habe wirtschaftliche Ursachen. Die Währungsunion stelle nicht mehr für alle Mitgliedstaaten eine „Win-win-Situation“ dar. Im ökonomisch boomenden Deutschland werde eigentliche Grund für die fehlende Kooperationsbereitschaft derjenigen verdrängt, die sich heute als Verlierer sehen und sich ungerecht behandelt fühlen. Der Euro sei, so der Soziologe, noch vor der Ost-Erweiterung mit dem politischen Versprechen eingeführt worden, dass sich die Lebensverhältnisse der Menschen in allen Mitgliedstaaten einander angleichen würden. Das Gegenteil dieser Prognose sei jedoch eingetreten. Diese andauernde Diskrepanz der ökonomischen Leistungsbilanzen könne keine Währungsgemeinschaft auf Dauer aushalten. "Ich staune offen gestanden jeden Tag von neuem über die Chuzpe der jetzigen Bundesregierung, die glaubt, die Partner zu Gemeinsamkeit in Fragen der für uns wichtigen Flüchtlings-, Verteidigungs-, Außen- und Außenhandelspolitik gewinnen zu können, während sie gleichzeitig in der zentralen Frage des politischen Ausbaus der Eurozone mauert.""


Photos from the event here.

UPDATE:
An abridged version of Habermas's speech is now available at the website of Social Europe: "“New” Perspectives For Europe".

Albrecht Wellmer dies at 85

The German philosopher Albrecht Wellmer died on September 13, 2018. He was 85.

Obituaries:

Martin Seel - "Dialogisches Denken der besten Art" (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)

Stefan Müller-Doohm - "Kritik, Musik und Sprache" (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

Albrecht Wellmer was an assistant to Jürgen Habermas at the University of Frankfurt from 1966 to 1970 and later professor of philosophy at the University of Konstanz, the New York School for Social Research, and the The Free University of Berlin.

He was the author of:
* "Methodologie als Erkenntnistheorie. Zur Wissenschaftslehre Karl R. Poppers" (1967). 
* "Kritische Gesellschaftstheorie und Positivismus" (Suhrkamp, 1969)
* "Praktische Philosophie und Theorie der Gesellschaft. Zum Problem der normativen Grundlagen einer kritischen Sozialwissenschaft" (Universitätsverlag Konstanz, 1979)

* "Zur Dialektik von Moderne und Postmoderne. Vernuftkritik nach Adorno" (Suhrkamp, 1985)

* "Ethik und Dialog. Elemente des moralischen Urteils bei Kant und in der Diskursethik" (Suhrkamp, 1986)
* "Endspiele. Die unversöhnliche Moderne. Essays und Vorträge" (Suhrkamp, 1993)
* "Revolution und Interpretation. Demokratie ohne Letztbegründung" (Van Grocum, 1998)

* "Sprachphilosophie" (Suhrkamp, 2004)

* "Wie Worte Sinn machen. Aufsätze zur Sprachphilosophie" (Suhrkamp, 2007)

* "Versuch über Musik und Sprache" (Hanser, 2009)

In English:
* "Critical Theory of Society" (Herder, 1971)
* "The Persistence of Modernity" (Polity Press, 1991)

* "Endgames" (MIT Press, 1998)

For a fine tribute to Wellmer see Axel Honneth's "Artist of Dissonance: Albrecht Wellmer and Critical Theory" (Constellations, vol. 14 no. 3 (2007), pp. 305-314.

New book: "Dialogues avec Jürgen Habermas"

Dialogues avec Jürgen Habermas

Ed. by Isabelle Aubert & Jean-François Kervégan

(CNRS Editions, 2018)

498 pages 




The book contains the papers from an international colloquium held in Paris in October 2014: "Les perspectives de la démocratie face aux transformations du capitalisme. Un dialogue avec Jürgen Habermas". 

Contents

Présentation - Isabelle Aubert & Jean-François Kervégan

I. Questions sur l’Europe

"La transformation de l’Union européenne en démocratie transnationale. Pourquoi est-elle nécessaire et comment est-elle possible?" [English] - Jürgen Habermas

"L’Europe est-elle démocratisable?" - Catherine Colliot-Thélène

"L’inclusion des autres Européens. Voyager avec Habermas à travers l’Europe et au-delà" - Daniel Innerarity

II. Habermas et la tradition critique de l’Ecole de Francfort

"De la Théorie critique" - Albrecht Wellmer [abstract in English]

"Critique de la domination et théorie de la démocratie" - Katia Genel

"Travail et interaction. Origines et implications d’une distinction" - Emmanuel Renault

"La théorie de l’apprentissage et la place de la critique chez Habermas" - Jean-Marc Durand-Gasselin

III. Espace public, industrie culturelle et démocratie

"Habermas et les médias" - Olivier Voirol

"L’espace public et la démocratie réelle" - Clotilde Nouët

"Habermas et les institutions de l’espace public. Un bilan dans le contexte néo-libéral" - Gérard Raulet

IV. Pouvoir et liberté

"La nature nouménale du pouvoir" - Rainer Forst

"Autorité et autonomie" - Maeve Cooke

"Habermas et le »politique«" -  Geminello Preterossi

"»Sommes-nous habitués à la liberté politique«? Participation politique dans le capitalisme tardif" - Francesca Raimondi

Habermas et la solidarité face aux mutations africaines de la démocratie -Edmond-Yao Kouassi

V. Droit et transformations sociales

"L’»autre forme« de la domination. Droit et société" - Christoph Menke

"Citoyenneté et langage des droits" - Isabelle Aubert

"Souveraineté partagée, nation et communauté juridique" - Klaus Günther

"Le droit international délibératif : cosmopolitisation ou constitutionnalisation du droit international?" - Valéry Pratt

"Le droit subjectif à la politique et le problème de l’accélération sociale" - Esther L. Neuhann

VI. Crises et capitalisme

"Crise de légitimation? Des contradictions politiques du capitalisme financiarisé" [Lecture] -  Nancy Fraser

"Crise, capitalisme, réflexivité. Pour une réactualisation de l’idée adornienne d’impuissance" - Estelle Ferrarese

"Economie, travail et démocratie dans la Théorie critique" - Pınar Karaoğlu

VII. Les contours de la modernité

"Peut-on traduire des énoncés religieux en énoncés séculiers?" - Alexandre Dupeyrix

"La problématique de la modernité chez Habermas: retour sur un ancien débat" - Khaldoun Alnabwani

"Parviendrons-nous à penser de manière postmétaphysique?" - Jean-François Kervégan [summary in German]

VIII. Réplique de Jürgen Habermas

"Réplique" [pp. 459-490] - Jürgen Habermas 
[The reply deals with five topics: (1) Democracy and globalization, (2) The European Union as an example of transnationalisation, (3) The conceptualization of the economy in the critical theory of society, (4) Criticism of domination and the concept of "the political", and (5) The theoretical tradition of Frankfurt. 

It was written by Jürgen Habermas a few months after the colloquium, after he had read most of the papers. He resumed and systematized the long interventions he made during the conference.]

Tribute to Charles Taylor

The current issue of "Philosophy & Social Criticism" (vol. 44 issue 7) contains 24 "short reflections" in honor of Charles Taylor's 85th birthday in November 2016.

All the contributions were published in the German journal "Transit. Europäische Revue" 49/2016.

Contents [pdf]

Introduction: Mapping Charles Taylor - Ulf Bohmann, Gesche Keding, Hartmut Rosa 

Abstract: The extensive, profound and influential oeuvre of Charles Taylor has inspired generations of thinkers. But how can we explore such a body of work? As we try to show in this Special Issue: by understanding him literally and making use of his notion of moral maps – or, differently put, by ‘mapping’ Charles Taylor. As he is far too modest a person to reveal to us his own moral atlas, we have decided to seize the occasion of his 85th birthday to ask several of his renowned colleagues, students and interlocutors to contribute to the reconstruction of such a map. This introduction develops three ‘mountain ridges’ in this cartography – a philosophical anthropology in spatial terms, the indispensable motif of dialogue, and the role of political life –, around which the following 24 illuminating appraisals are grouped.

1. A strong evaluator - Jocelyn Maclure

2. A capacious mind [preview] - Steven Lukes

3. Charles Taylor, today, yesterday, and tomorrow - William E. Connolly

4. The creature of language: Three postcards to Chuck [preview] - Eduardo Mendieta

5. The art of holding opposites together [preview] - Alessandro Ferrara

6. Seeing differently, or: How I discovered the Sources of the Self [preview] - Michael Kühnlein

7. Ordinary life [preview] - Nicholas H. Smith

8. Dialogical animals - James Tully

9. Charles Taylor as polemicist [preview] - Hans Joas

10. For Charles Taylor. An appreciation - Nancy Fraser

11. Charles Taylor and dramatic narrative. Argument and genre [preview] - Alasdair MacIntyre

12. Philosophy and self-expression [preview] [German text] - Arto Laitinen

13. Higher goods and common goods. Strong evaluation in social life [preview] - Maeve Cooke

14. Thinking better of ourselves - Craig Calhoun

15. Taylor’s Hegel - Axel Honneth

16. Encounters with and impulses from Charles Taylor [preview] - Ludwig Nagl

17. Enlarging the dialogue - Richard J. Bernstein

18. Resonance – A key concept in the philosophy of Charles Taylor [preview] - Jürgen Goldstein

19. Cultures of democracy [preview] [German text] - Darío Montero

20. Essays in retrieval. Charles Taylor as a theorist of historical change [preview] - Paolo Costa

21. Freedom – A silent but significant thread across Taylor’s oeuvre [preview] - Ruth Abbey

22. The power of recognition. When Charles Taylor parsed personal identity [preview] - Amy Gutmann

23. Charles Taylor at the front line in Canadian politics [preview] - Guy Laforest

24. A letter to an old friend and colleague on his birthday - Jürgen Habermas

Excerpt: "There is a simple explanation for my undying interest in your continuously evolving philosophical work: in my view, we still pursue the same project, although perhaps from opposing vantage points by now. At any rate, we continue to be linked by the same topics, beginning with the “politics of recognition” in our multicultural immigrant societies up to the more profound historical and philosophical debate on religion as one of the still-living spiritual manifestations of the present age. Your third major book, A Secular Age, has once again shown that you remain far ahead of my own thinking. Moreover, since 1996 I have not only understood the theoretical impact of your Catholic background much more clearly, but also the reason for our opposing perspectives: what from my point of view separates a secular from a religious self-understanding, namely the unreserved openness to fallibility and rational discourse across the board, appears to mean from your point of view a nongeneralizable element of just one among the many context-bound and incessantly competing worldviews. If, however, as you believe, this pluralism of worldviews (which we can reasonably expect to remain unresolved) is precisely what characterizes the unabatedly particularistic self-understanding of modernity, then I imagine you can live with our amicable disagreements quite well. For the future, I wish you more of the same energy and clear mind you have shown as a philosophical wanderer thus far."

Samuel Freeman on Rawls, justice and liberalism

Liberalism and Distributive Justice

by Samuel Freeman

(Oxford University Press, 2018)

368 pages




Description

Samuel Freeman is a leading political philosopher and one of the foremost authorities on the works of John Rawls. Liberalism and Distributive Justice offers a series of Freeman's essays in contemporary political philosophy on three different forms of liberalism-classical liberalism, libertarianism, and the high liberal tradition-and their relation to capitalism, the welfare state, and economic justice. Freeman organizes his chapters into a narrative arc: from liberalism as the dominant political and economic system, to the laws governing interpersonal transactions in a liberal society, to the broad social and political structures that determine distributive justice. Freeman analyzes the primary differences between the classical and high liberal traditions and shows why libertarianism is not a liberal view. He then shows how Rawls's liberal principles of justice and the difference principle are to be applied in both ideal and non-ideal circumstances, and also to questions of private law, and then demonstrates why Rawls's difference principle supports a property-owning democracy rather than welfare-state capitalism, effectively responding to criticisms by Amartya Sen, G.A. Cohen, and others. Finally, he argues for the social rather than global bases of distributive justice and explains why principles of distributive justice should apply primarily to structure basic social and economic institutions.

Contents

Introduction [abstract]

Part I. Liberalism, Libertarianism, and Economic Justice

1. Capitalism in the Classical and High Liberal Traditions [pdf]
2. Illiberal Libertarians: Why Libertarianism is not a Liberal View [abstract]

Part II. Distributive Justice and the Difference Principle

3. Rawls on Distributive Justice and the Difference Principle [abstract]
4. Property-Owning Democracy and the Difference Principle [pdf]
5. Private Law and Rawls's Principles of Justice [abstract]

Part III. Liberal Institutions and Distributive Justice

6. The Social and Institutional Bases of Distributive Justice [abstract]
7. The Basic Structure of Society as the Primary Subject of Justice [abstract]
8. Ideal Theory and the Justice of Institutions [abstract]
9. Constructivism, Facts, and Moral Justification [pdf]

Samuel Freeman is Professor of Philosophy and of Law at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of "Justice and the Social Contract" (Oxford University Press, 2007) and of "Rawls" (Routledge, 2007). He is the editor of "The Collected Papers of John Rawls" (Harvard University Press, 1999), "The Cambridge Companion to Rawls" (Cambridge University Press, 2002), and John Rawls's "Essays in the History of Political Philosophy" (Harvard University Press, 2007).

Jürgen Habermas and Gershom Scholem

Interview with Thomas Sparr on Jürgen Habermas and the Jewish philosopher Gershom Scholem:

Thomas Sparr im Gespräch (video, 18 minutes)


See also Habermas's four texts on Scholem:

* "Die verkleidete Tora. Rede zum 80. Geburtstag von Gershom Scholem" (preview), Merkur no. 356 (1978), pp 96-104. Reprinted in Habermas - Philosophisch-politische Profile (Suhrkamp 1981). English translation in Habermas - Philosophical-political Profiles (MIT Press, 1083).

* „Tod in Jerusalem. Am Grabe von Gershom Scholem - am Ende einer Ära“, Merkur no. 406 (1982), pp, 438-439.

"In der Geschichte das Andere der Geschichte aufspüren. Zu Gershom Scholems "Sabbatai Zwi"", Babylon. Beiträge zur jüdische Gegenwart, Heft 10-11 (1992), pp. 139-145. Reprinted in Habermas - Vom sinnlichen Eindruck zum symbolischen Ausdruck (Suhrkamp 1997). English translation in Habermas - The Liberating Power of Symbols (Polity Press, 2001) and in Habermas - Religion and Rationality (Polity Press, 2002).

* ”Begegnungen mit Gershom Scholem”, Münchner Beiträge zur Jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur no. 2 (2007), pp. 9-18.