In ”Die Zeit” (June 12, 2014), Alexander Canmann reviews ”Jürgen Habermas – Eine Biographie” by Stefan Müller Doohm:
”Der Herr der Großdebatten”
[now available online here]
Excerpts:
” Habermas, der am kommenden Mittwoch 85 wird, bekommt nun pünktlich zum Geburtstag seine erste große Biografie […….]. Geschrieben hat sie Stefan Müller-Doohm, emertierter Soziologieprofessor in Oldenburg, der 2003 eine voluminöse Biografie Theodor W. Adorno vorgelegt hat. Auf 750 Seiten schildert er nun Leben und Werk des ”berühmtesten lebenden Philosophen der Welt”, wie ihm der Rechtstheoretiker Ronald Dworkin einmal genannt hat. Habermas selbst war zunächst skeptisch bei dem Gedanken, dass ein Biograf in seinen ”Gedärmen wühlen” würde. Jedoch stand er dann für Gespräche zur Verfügung und gewährte Einsicht in seine Korrespondenzen. Einen wohlwollenderen Biografen allerdings hätte er sich auch kaum wünschen können: Geheimnisse werden nicht ausgeplaudert. Müller-Doohm folgt in der allermeisten Wertungen seinem biografischen Subjekt. Somit bekommt diese detaillierte Biografie einen brav-offiziösen Touch, was die faszinierende Figur von Habermas nicht verdient hat."
"Die schönste Anekdote dieser Biografie gilt Peter Handke: Bei einem Autorentreffen habe dieser Habermas gefragt, was er von den Beatles halte - auf die Antwort des Philosophen, er würde die Beatles nicht kennen, reagierte der Dichter mit Schlägen. Adorno hingegen hätte die Antwort beglückt.
Dabei ist Habermas währlich kein Stubengelehrter, sondern ein bestens vernetzter homme de lettres, mit einer Sammlung moderner Kunst und engen Schriftstellerfreunden wie Max Frisch und Martin Walser, im Falle Walsers allerdings in allmählicher Entfremdung. Einen "Mann voller Spannungen" nannte ihn der Litteraturwissenschaftler Karlheinz Bohrer, der ihm in freund-schaftlicher Gegnerschaft seit Jahrzehnten verbunden ist."
See the press release from the University of Oldenburg here.
See my previous post on the biography here.
A number of European intellectuals - among them Jürgen Habermas, Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck - have published a joint appeal to the European Council to "take into account the elections to the European Parliament" and that the Commission President shall be elected by the European Parliament.
See the appeal "Europe's Democratic Moment".
John Rawls and the History of Political Thought
The Rousseauvian and Hegelian Heritage of Justice as Fairness
by Jeffrey Bercuson
(Routledge, 2014)
150 pages
Description
In this book, Jeffrey Bercuson presents the immense, and yet for the most part unrecognized, influences of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel on John Rawls, the most important political philosopher of the 20th century. While the well-documented influence of Immanuel Kant on Rawls is deep and profound, Kantian features and interpretation of justice as fairness do not tell the whole story about that doctrine.
Drawing on Rawls’s Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy and his Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy, Bercuson presents the reader with a more nuanced, accurate account of the moral and political philosophy of Rawls in light of these under-appreciated influences. This new, richer image of Rawls’s political philosophy shows that Rawls’s notion of reasonableness – his notion of the kind and extent of our obligations to those fellows with whom we are engaged in social cooperation – is conspicuously more demanding, and therefore more attractive, than most interpreters and critics assume. Rawls turns to Rousseau and to Hegel, both of whom provide attractive images of engaged citizenship worthy of emulation.
Contents [preview]
Introduction
1. Beyond Kant
2. The Hegelian Dimensions of Justice as Fairness
3. The Rousseauvian Dimensions of Justice as Fairness
4. Bringing Robust Reasonableness into View
5. The Width of Public Reason
Conclusion
Jeffrey Bercuson is an Instructor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, Mississauga.
The book is based on his PhD thesis: "Reconsidering Rawls: The Rousseauvian and Hegelian Heritage of Justice as Fairness" [pdf].
See also Bercuson's paper "An Ethical Community? Kant and Hegel on Cultural and National Particularity".
His master's thesis on "Patriotism, Self-respect and the Limits of Cosmopolitanism" (2007) is available here. An abstract here.
Vivisektionen eines Zeitalters
- Porträts zur Ideengeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts
by Axel Honneth
(Suhrkamp Verlag, June 2014)
308 pages
Description
The term vivisection refers to an operation carried out on a living organism in order to understand its inner workings. In a sense, this is also a fitting description for the operations carried out by the theorists whom Axel Honneth portrays in this study: they dissect the flow of events in order to gain insights that can in turn be made productive for their theories.
Be it Franz Rosenzweig at the beginning of the 20th century, Siegfried Kracauer during the Weimar Republic, or Judith Shklar in the shadow of the Holocaust, they all vivisected their present moment in order to formulate an adequate concept of history, of society, and of politics.
Contents
Vorwort [pdf]
1. Das ambivalente Erbe Hegels [pdf]
Franz Rosenzweig zu Beginn des Jahrhunderts
2. Logik des Fanatismus
John Deweys Archäologie der deutschen Mentalität
3. Phänomenologie des Bösen
Das vergessene Werk von Aurel Kolnai
4. Der destruktive Realist
Zum sozialphilosophischen Erbe Siegfried Kracauers
5. Dispositive unseres Denkens
Die verkannte Leistung Robin G. Collingwoods
6. Versuchungen eines Liberalen
Helmuth Plessner vor dem Nationalsozialismus
7. Die Gefährdungen des Wir [pdf]
Sozialistische Tendenzen im Werk von Amitai Etzioni
8. Die Grenzen des »homo oeconomicus«
Zum intellektuellen Vermächtnis Albert O. Hirschmans
9. Die Historizität von Furcht und Verletzung
Sozialdemokratische Züge im Denken von Judith Shklar
10. Geschichtsschreibung als Befreiung
Quentin Skinners Revolutionierung der Ideengeschichte
11. »Nach Weltuntergang«
Zur Sozialtheorie von Jan Philipp Reemtsma
Interview with Jürgen Habermas in "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" (May 30, 2014):
"Europa wird direkt ins Herz getroffen"
Excerpt
"Es ist gewiss unüblich, dass weit mehr als ein Zehntel der Abgeordneten das Parlament, in das sie gewählt worden sind, abschaffen oder in seinen Rechten beschneiden wollen. Aber diese Anomalie spiegelt nur den Umstand, dass wir uns noch mitten in einem umstrittenen Prozess der Verfassungsentwicklung befinden. Ich finde es gut, dass die Europagegner ein Forum gefunden haben, auf dem sie den politischen Eliten die Notwendigkeit vor Augen führen, die Bevölkerungen selbst endlich in den Einigungsprozess einzubeziehen.
Der Rechtspopulismus erzwingt die Umstellung vom bisherigen Elitemodus auf die Beteiligung der Bürger. Das kann dem europäischen Parlament und seinem Einfluss auf die europäische Gesetzgebung nur guttun. Anders verhält es sich mit den Auswirkungen auf die nationalen Szenen in den Mitgliedstaaten. Hier mag in einigen Ländern die Gefahr entstehen, dass sich politische Parteien einschüchtern lassen und auf einen Anpassungskurs à la CSU umschwenken."
Update:
Comments:
* Christian Thomas - "Die Souveränität ist nicht erkennbar"
(Frankfurter Rundschau, May 31, 2014)
* Werner Mussler - "Europas Herz schlägt anderswo"
(Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 2, 2014)
See also Timothy Garton Ash's article "Europe: the continent for every type of unhappy" (The Guardian, May 26, 2014).
Constitutionalism in Global Constitutionalisation
by Aoife O'Donoghue
(Cambridge University Press, May 2014)
288 pages
Description
Constitutionalism offers a governance order a set of normative values including, amongst others, the rule of law, divisions of power and democratic legitimacy. These normative values regulate the relationship between constituent and constituted power holders. Such normative constitutional legal orders are commonplace in domestic systems but the global constitutionalisation debate seeks to identify a constitutional narrative beyond the state. This book considers the manner in which the global constitutionalisation debate has neglected constitutionalism within its proposals. It examines the role normative constitutionalism plays within a constitutionalisation process, and considers the use of community at both the domestic and global governance levels to identify the holders of constituent and constituted power within a constitutional order. In doing so this analysis offers an alternative narrative for global constitutionalisation based within normative constitutionalism.
Contents [Preview]
1. Introduction
2. Norms of Constitutionalism
3. Who Benefits? Constituent and Constituted Power
4. The Global Constitutionalisation Debate in Context
5. The Structure of Global Constitutionalisation
6. The Development of a Constitutional Approach
7. Who Does Global Constitutionalism Address?
8. Constitutionalism in Global Constitutionalisation Theories
Aoife O'Donoghue is a senior lecturer at Durham Law School, Durham University.
On 11 September, Jürgen Habermas delivers a lecture on "Democracy in Europe" at the University of Stavanger, Norway. His lecture is part of a two-day symposium on Habermas's theory of democracy.
Other participants are: Erik Oddvar Eriksen (Oslo), Anders Molander (Oslo/Akershus), and Cathrine Holst (Oslo).
See the programme here.
At "Libertarianism.Org", Aaron Powell and Trevor Burrus talk about egalitarianism with Professor Elizabeth Anderson:
"Equality of Capabilities, or Equality of Outcomes" (1 hour)
Elizabeth Anderson talks about the history of egalitarianism, John Rawls, and luck versus relational egalitarianism.
Elizabeth Anderson is Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at University of Michigan. She is the author of "The Imperative of Integration" (Princeton University Press, 2010). See a chapter from the book here [pdf].
Jürgen Habermas is speaking in Budapest on May 29 and May 30, 2014.
Update:
Video with Habermas's lecture on May 29 here (very poor quality!)
And a report in "Wiener Zeitung" here.
The Power of Tolerance: A Debate
by Wendy Brown and Rainer Forst
Ed. by Luca Di Blasi and Christoph Holzhey
(Columbia University Press, 2014)
112 pages
Description
Wendy Brown and Rainer Forst debate the uses and misuses of tolerance, an exchange that highlights the fundamental differences in their critical practice despite a number of political similarities. Both scholars address the normative premises, limits, and political implications of various conceptions of tolerance. Brown offers a genealogical critique of contemporary discourses on tolerance in Western liberal societies, focusing on their inherent ties to colonialism and imperialism, and Forst reconstructs an intellectual history of tolerance that attempts to redeem its political virtue in democratic societies. Brown and Forst work from different perspectives and traditions, yet they each remain wary of the subjection and abnegation embodied in toleration discourses, among other issues.
Contents [preview]
1. The Power of Tolerance: A Debate Between Wendy Brown and Rainer Forst
2. Epilogue: Tensions in Tolerance - Luca Di Blasi and Christoph F. E. Holzhey
Wendy Brown is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of "Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Empire and Identity" (Princeton University Press, 2006).
Rainer Forst is Professor of Political Theory and Philosophy at Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main. His recent books include "The Right to Justification" (Columbia University Press, 2011), "Toleration in Conflict" (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and "Justification and Critique" (Polity Press, 2013).
The book is based on a discussion in Berlin in 2008.
See the videos from the event:
* Statement by Wendy Brown
* Statement by Rainer Forst
* Discussion: part 1, part 2, part 3.
A German edition of the book has been published by Turia-Kant Verlag.
Professor Axel Honneth (Frankfurt/Columbia) is giving a lecture at the University of Oxford on "The Idea of Social Freedom" on May 5.
More information here.
On May 6-7, the Senate House (University of London) is hosting a symposium on critical theory - "The Right to Freedom".
The speakers are: Axel Honneth (Frankfurt/Columbia), Lois McNay (Oxford), David McNeill (Essex), Jörg Schaub (Essex), Timo Jütten (Essex), and Michael Rosen (Harvard).
The symposium is free but requires registration.
More information here.
The symposium is jointly organised and funded by the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford; the Department of Philosophy, The Open University; and the School of Philosophy and Art History, University of Essex.
