Rawls, Political Liberalism and Reasonable Faith
by Paul Weithman
Cambridge University Press, 2016
270 pages
Description
For over twenty years, Paul Weithman has explored the thought of John Rawls to ask how liberalism can secure the principled allegiance of those people whom Rawls called 'citizens of faith'. This volume brings together ten of his major essays (including one new unpublished essay), which reflect on the task and political character of political philosophy, the ways in which liberalism does and does not privatize religion, the role of liberal legitimacy in Rawls's theory, and the requirements of public reason. The essays reveal Rawls as a thinker deeply engaged with political and existential questions that trouble citizens of faith, and explore how - in firm opposition to political realism - he tries to show that the possibility of liberal democracy and the natural goodness of humanity are objects of reasonable faith.
Contents [pdf] [preview]
Introduction
Part I. The Undergraduate Thesis
1. On John Rawls's A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith [pdf]
Part II. From A Theory of Justice to Political Liberalism
2. John Rawls and the Task of Political Philosophy [pdf]
3. Rawlsian Liberalism and the Privatization of Religion [preview]
4. Liberalism and the Political Character of Political Philosophy [pdf]
5. Legitimacy and the Project of Political Liberalism [pdf]
Part III. Public Reason and its Role
6. Citizenship and Public Reason
7. Inclusivism, Stability and Assurance
8. Convergence and Political Autonomy [pdf]
Part IV. Rawls, Realism and Reasonable Faith
9. Law of Peoples and Christian Realism
10. Does Justice as Fairness Have a Religious Aspect? [paper]
Paul Weithman is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of "Religion and the Obligations of Citizenship" (Cambridge University Press, 2002) and "Why Political Liberalism? On John Rawls's Political Turn" (Oxford University Press, 2010).
Habermas: A Biography
by Stefan Müller-Doohm
(Polity Press, 2016)
598 pages
Description
Jürgen Habermas’, wrote the American philosopher Ronald Dworkin on the occasion of the great European thinker’s eightieth birthday, "is not only the world’s most famous living philosopher. Even his fame is famous." Now, after many years of intensive research and in-depth conversations with contemporaries, colleagues and Habermas himself, Stefan Müller-Doohm presents the first comprehensive biography of one of the most important public intellectuals of our time. From his political and philosophical awakening in West Germany to the formative relationships with Adorno and Horkheimer, Müller-Doohm masterfully traces the major forces that shaped Habermas’s intellectual development. He shows how Habermas’s life and work were conditioned by the possibilities offered to his generation in the unique circumstances of regained freedom that characterized postwar Germany. And yet Habermas’s career is fascinating precisely because it amounts to more than a corpus of scholarly work, however original and influential that may be. For here is someone who continually left the protective space of the university in order to assume the role of a participant in controversial public debates - from the significance of the Holocaust to the future of Europe - and in this way sought to influence the development of social and political life in an arena much broader than the academy. The significance and virtuosity of Habermas’s many writings over the years are also fully and expertly documented, ranging from his early work on the public sphere to his more recent writings on communicative action, cosmopolitanism and the postnational condition. What emerges from this biography is a vivid portrait of one of the great public intellectuals of our time - a unique thinker who has made an immense and lasting philosophical contribution but who, when he perceives that society is not living up to its potential for creating free and just conditions for all, becomes one of its most rigorous and persistent critics.
Contents [pre-view]
Preface
Prologue: The Other among his Peers
Part I: Catastrophe and Emancipation
1. Disaster Years as Normality. Childhood and Youth in Gummersbach
2. At University in Göttingen, Zurich and Bonn
Part II: Politics and Critique
3. Education intellectuelle in Café Marx
4. Under the Aegis of Conflicting Personalities: Abendroth and Gadamer
5. Back in Frankfurt. Torn between Academic Work and Political Practice
6. In the Ivory Tower of Social Scientific Research
Part III: Science and Commitment
7. Genius Loci: In Frankfurt for the Third Time
8. New Projects
9. Battles over the Politics of Ideas
10. Against Germanomania and Nationalism
Part IV: Cosmopolitan Society and Justice
11. Critique as a Vocation. The Transition into the Third Millennium
12. The Taming of Capitalism and the Democratization of Europe
13. Philosophy in the Age of Postmetaphysical Modernity
14. Books at an Exhibition
Epilogue: The Inner Compass
Bibliography of Works by Jürgen Habermas
Stefan Müller-Doohm is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Oldenburg. His other works include "Adorno: A Biography" (Polity Press, 2005).
The German version of the biography was published by Suhrkamp Verlag in 2014. See my links to reviews of the book.
Four reviews of the English edition [Updated, April 2017]:
* "A Lion in Winter" by Peter E. Gordon (The Nation)
* "From Hitler Youth to Famed Philosopher" by Stuart Jeffries (The Guardian)
* "Habermas and the Fate of Democracy" by William E. Scheuerman (Boston Review)
* "The Headquarters of Neo-Marxism" by Samuel Freeman (New York Review of Books)
Two interviews with Stefan Müller-Doohm on his book:
* "Spuren eines Lebens" [pdf]
* "Ein Leben mit Brüchen"
The biography will also be translated into Spanish, French and Chinese.
