New Book on Habermas and Giddens

Habermas and Giddens on Praxis and Modernity
A Constructive Comparison

by Craig Browne

(Anthem Press, 2017)

314 pages




Description

"Habermas and Giddens on Modernity: A Constructive Comparison" investigates how two of the most important and influential contemporary social theorists have sought to develop the modernist visions of the constitution of society through the autonomous actions of subjects. It compares Habermas and Giddens’ conceptions of the constitution of society, interpretations of the social-structural impediments to subjects’ autonomy, and their attempts to delineate potentials for progressive social change within contemporary society.

Contents [preview]

Introduction

Part I. New Paradigms and Social Theory Perspectives
1. Habermas’s New Paradigm of Critical Theory
2. Giddens’s Theory of Structuration – an Ontology of the Social

Part II. Institutionalizing Modernity: Development and Discontinuity
3. Habermas on the Institutionalizing of Modernity: Communicative Rationality, Lifeworld and System
4. Giddens on Institutionalizing Modernity: Power and Discontinuity
5. Intermediate Reflections on Social Theory Alternatives: Contrasts and Divisions

Part III. The Political and Social Constellation of Contemporary Modernity
6. Globalization, the Welfare State and Social Democracy
7. Deliberative Politics, the Democratizing of Democracy and European Cosmopolitanism

Conclusion

Craig Browne is a senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney.