The Elgar Companion to Jürgen Habermas

The Elgar Companion to Jürgen Habermas

Ed. by William Outhwaite & Larry Ray

(Edward Elgar, 2025)

332 pages

Description

This companion provides a comprehensive guide to Jürgen Habermas’s prodigious body of work, bringing together contributions from leading specialists. It explores his main areas of study in chronological order, including topics such as the public sphere and the history of philosophy, to which he has returned in his recent books.

Addressing both the continuities and shifts of Habermas’s writings over the past 70 years, multidisciplinary contributions analyse his most recent opus on post-metaphysical philosophy and religion. They present essential theoretical and conceptual frameworks for understanding modern-day crises and, using Habermas’s theory, consider the potential for societal emancipation. Chapters discuss sociology and philosophy, the theory of law and democracy, religion and the challenges of practical reason, as well as Habermas’s global reception. 

Contents

1. Introduction - William Outhwaite & Larry Ray

2. Sociology and philosophy in the work of Jürgen Habermas - Stefan Müller-Doohm

3. Habermas: theory and diagnoses of the times - Marcos Nobre

4. Is Habermas a critical theorist? Continuities and discontinuities in the Frankfurt School - Fabian Freyenhagen

5. Schelling in the work of Jürgen Habermas: from the philosophy of history to the historicity of communicative action - Dorothee Zucca

6. The genesis of Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit - Roman Yos

7. Knowledge and human interests: epistemology as social theory? - Simon Susen

8. Continuities and discontinuities in Habermas’ relation to historical materialism - William Outhwaite

9. From Kant to Hegel but not back: the intersubjective foundations of Habermas’s concept of the lifeworld - Dorothee Zucca

10. Theory of law and democracy - Regina Kreide

11. Revolutionary transcendence at the core of social integration - Hauke Brunkhorst

12. Habermas and the European Union: contributions to a discourse theory of supranational democracy - Markus Patberg

13. The relation of reason and religion in late Habermas - Hans-Herbert Kögler

14. Voices in the public sphere: Habermas, feminism, and the pursuit of recognition - Marina Calloni

15. Solidarity and critical reason - Isabelle Aubert

16. Habermas reception worldwide - William Outhwaite