Saturday, December 31, 2022

In mourning for the philosopher Dieter Henrich

 


(Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 31-12-2022)

Thursday, December 29, 2022

Arte.tv - A portrait of Jürgen Habermas

A portrait of Jürgen Habermas:

Arte.tv: "Philosopher and European" (video, 53 minutes)

with Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Axel Honneth, Isabelle Aubert, Joschka Fischer, Rahel Jaeggi, Gérard Raulet, Thomas M. Schmidt et al.

Director: Christian Bettges. 



Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Manfred Frank on Dieter Henrich

Manfred Frank on Dieter Henrich (1927-2022) in "Die Zeit" (December 22, 2022): 

"Ein helles Licht ist erloschen". 

Excerpts:

"Henrich zeigte, dass alle Theorien, die das Subjekt für ein Prinzip der Philosophie hielten, von Descartes, dem "Vater der modernen Philosophie", bis in große Teile der europäischen Vorkriegsphilosophie hinein, einen kleinen, aber bedeutsamen Fehler aufwiesen: Subjekte sind durch Selbstbewusstsein ausgezeichnet, und das kann nicht als "Reflexion" verstanden werden, also nicht als Ergebnis eines bewusst-machenden Sich-auf-sich-selbst-Zurückbeugens des "Ichs". Der bewusstmachende Akt musste mit sich (der Reflexion zuvor) schon bekannt sein. Diese Bekanntschaft wird von der "Reflexionstheorie" nicht erklärt, sondern erschlichen.

Es bedurfte mithin einer Neujustierung des zugrundeliegenden Modells, denn die Existenz von Selbstbewusstsein stand ja nicht in Zweifel. Nicht in einer Selbst-vergegen - ständ lichung, sondern in einer "unmittelbaren", das heißt, durch kein zweites Glied vermittelten Kenntnis besteht es. Es war also auch nicht als eine hochstufig kognitive Leistung zu beschreiben, nicht als ein Wissen von sich, wie bei Descartes." (....)

Henrich hat weniger mit eigenen Theorien brilliert als durch sein Talent, die Texte der Klassiker so zu lesen, dass zuvor übersehene Einsichten aus ihnen hervorleuchteten. Sein Ehrgeiz war, die Grundeinsicht eines Autors zu erschließen und sie gegen die unzureichende Weise abzuheben, mit der dieser Autor sie begründet hat. So haben wir auch einen ziemlich neuen und ungleich komplexeren, aber auch spannenderen und verständlicheren Kant kennengelernt. Henrich nannte sein Verfahren die "argumentierende Rekonstruktion". (....)

"Unvergessen ist seine Auseinandersetzung mit Tugendhat und Habermas. Beiden, die auf vergleichbare Weise für einen Vorrang der gesellschaftlich-sprachlichen Einbettung von Subjekten vor ihrem angeblich solitären Selbstbewusstsein plädieren, hat er in bedeutenden Auseinandersetzungen kraftvoll widersprochen. Auch die Vorordnung der Intersubjektivität vor der Subjektivität führt in die Zirkel der Reflexionstheorie. Das hatten schon Fichte und Sartre bemerkt." (....)

"Eine wesentliche Kindheitserfahrung war, wie er in seiner philosophischen Autobiographie erzählt, ein schwerer chirurgischer Eingriff am Kopf, den er als Zweijähriger erleben musste. Die Dankbarkeit, die er den nachsorgenden Eltern gegenüber empfand, sei Auslöser seines Gedankens geworden, dass die Subjektivität nicht aus sich selbst sei, dass sie sich einem "unverfüglichen Grund" verdanke. Ein weiteres Argument gegen Heideggers, wie er sagte, "ingeniöse, aber grund-verkehrte" Ansicht, neuzeitliches Denken bestehe in einer "Selbstermächtigung der Subjektivität"."


Alessandro Pinzani: Habermas and Capitalism

New essay by Alessandro Pinzani:

"Habermas and Capitalism: An Historic Overview" [PDF]

(Cadernos de Filosofia Alemã, vol. 27, no. 2 (2022), pp. 51-68)


AbstractThe article reconstructs Habermas’ view of capitalism from the 1970s to his most recent writings. It takes its starting point from Wolfgang Streeck’s claim that Habermas has failed to acknowledge that the real enemy of democracy is not bureaucracy but capitalism and that, therefore, he underestimates the role of capitalism in shaping the global order. It first returns to the diagnoses of late capitalism that Habermas developed in the 1970s and early 1980s and then moves on to some of his later writings. This will reveal that there was indeed a shift of emphasis from a critique of capitalism to a critique of technocracy, but not because of Habermas’ unawareness of the role of capitalism in shaping reality. Rather, he has come to objectify capitalism while looking for legal and political tools for reining it in instead of looking for possible alternatives to it.

Alessandro Pinzani is a professor of ethics and political philosophy at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil. He is the author of "Jürgen Habermas" (München: C.H. Beck, 2007), and (together with Walquiria Leão Rego) "Money, Autonomy and Citizenship. The Experience of the Brazilian Bolsa Família" (Basel: Springer, 2019).


Friday, December 16, 2022

Karl-Otto Apel's 100th birthday celebration

Video:

Celebrating Karl-Otto Apel’s 100th birthday (1922-2022) [132 minutes]

Zoom seminar, December 16, 2022, organized by Amos Nascimento, University of Washington, Tacoma, and Eduardo Mendieta, Pennsylvania State University. (The first part of Dorothea Apel's presentation is missing in the video.)

Participants: Dorothea Apel (Wiesbaden), Amos Nascimento (Tacoma), Michael Forman (Tacoma), Adela Cortina (Valencia), Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (Frankfurt), Matthias Kettner (Witten),  Alessandro Pinzani (Florianópolis), Marianna Papastephanou (Nicosia), René von Schomberg (Aachen), Juan Nicolás (Granada), Jorge Zúñiga (Mexico City), Hans Schelkshorn (Vienna), Linda Lovelli (Genova), Juan Carlos Siurana (Valencia) et al. 


See also:

* New book: "Karl-Otto Apel. Auf der Suche nach dem letzten Grund"

* New essays in honor of Karl-Otto Apel (Topologik, 2020)





Thursday, December 15, 2022

New essay by Habermas on diachronic justice

In a new essay in honor of Jan Philipp Reemtsma, Jürgen Habermas deals with "diachronic justice":

"Urteilt, auf dass Ihr beurteilt werden könnt", in Susanne Fischer, Gerd Hankel & Wolfgang Knöbl (eds.), Die Gegenwart der Gewalt und die Macht der Aufklärung. Festschrift für Jan Philipp Reemtsma, Band 1 (Springe: zu Klampen Verlag, 2022), pp. 77-91.

An earlier version of part two of the essay has been published in Polish: “W kwestii sprawiedliwości diachronicznej”, Folia Philosophica. Ethica-Aesthetica-Practica vol. 29, 2017 (The University of Łódź), pp. 11-20 [Open access]. 



Saturday, December 10, 2022

Revising Habermas’s colonisation thesis

Forthcoming in "European Journal of Social Theory":

* Regina Kreide - "Social critique and transformation: Revising Habermas’s colonisation thesis" [Open access]

Abstract

What is critical theory – and what is it not? This essay attempts a new answer to this old question and examines which normative convictions immanent to social reality can be used to describe, analyse and criticise contemporary, global forms of domination that form blockades of social and political participation. The analysis proceeds in a double step, referring both to the critique of society and to the critique of theory that describes society. The basis of this parallel swing is an analysis in which the author makes revisions to Jürgen Habermas’s colonisation thesis and uses the example of housing to show how these revisions which refer to the global perspective, the demarcation between system and lifeworld, the language of critique and, finally, the theoretical mode of an inherent dialectical critique make possible an analysis of the financial and economic sectors as well as everyday interactions. Reading Habermas more dialectically than he probably would himself also allows the identification of potentials for transforming relations of oppression.

Regina Kreide is Professor of Political Theory at the Justus Liebig University Gießen. She is the author of "Die verdrängte Demokratie" (Nomos, 2016), and co-editor of "The Habermas Handbook" (Columbia University Press, 2017). Forthcoming: "Globale Gerechtigkeit?" (Karl Alber, 2023) 


Thursday, December 08, 2022

Martha Nussbaum: Justice for Animals

Martha Nussbaum will be discussing her forthcoming book "Justice for Animals. Our Collective Responsibility" (Simon & Schuster, January 2023) on Monday December 12 (2pm EST), hosted by Boston Review & The Philosopher. 

Free (with registration) here.

See also:

* Lecture by Martha Nussbaum: "Justice for Animals(November 8, 2022)

* Interview with Martha Nussbaum: "Do Humans Owe Animals Equal Rights?" (New York Times Magazine, Online December 5, 2022)


Tuesday, December 06, 2022

Pragmatist political and social theory

The new issue of "Philosophy & Social Criticism" (vol. 48, no. 10) features articles on pragmatist political and social theory:

* "Critical problems and pragmatist solutions" [pdf] - Felix Petersen, Hauke Brunkhorst & Martin Seeliger

* "Not just a liberal – Social philosophy as antiauthoritarian and utopian social criticism: Richard Rorty’s Achieving Our Country today" - Hauke Brunkhorst

* "Vicious circles: Adorno, Dewey and disclosing critique of society" [pdf] - Arvi Särkelä

* "Not everyone can be a winner, baby: A pragmatist response to problems of contemporary crisis studies" - Veith Selk, Andy Scerri & Dirk Jörke

* "Aecsthetic transformative experience. A pragmatist outline" [pdf] - Federica Gregoratto

* "Pragmatist democracy and the populist challenge" [pdf] - Felix Petersen

* "Articulating the social: Expressive domination and Dewey’s epistemic argument for democracy" [pdf} - Just Serrano-Zamora

* "Politics, governance and the ethics of belief" - Karen Kunz & C. F. Abel

* "Does the European left have to choose between the nation-state and internationalism? Some considerations following Richard Rorty" [pdf] - Martin Seeliger & Johannes Kiess


Saturday, December 03, 2022

Research Methods in Deliberative Democracy


Research Methods in Deliberative Democracy

Ed. by Selen A. Ercan, Hans Asenbaum, Nicole Curato & Ricardo F. Mendonça 

(Oxford University Press, 2022)




Essays by Jane Mansbridge, Simone Chambers, James Johnson, André Bächtiger, Simon Niemeyer, Dannica Fleuß, Michael Neblo et al.

Open access here

Thursday, December 01, 2022

New book on COVID-19: Freedom or life?


Freiheit oder Leben?

Das Abwägungsproblem der Zukunft

Hg. von Klaus Günther & Uwe Volkmann

(Suhrkamp Verlag, 2022)

380 Seiten



Kurzbeschreibung

Die Covid-19-Pandemie hat zu einer moralischen und rechtlichen Kontroverse über das Verhältnis von Freiheit und Leben geführt, wie es sie in dieser Schärfe bisher nicht gegeben hat. In den beiden zentralen Fragen ist dabei bis heute keine Einigkeit erzielt worden: Kommt dem Leben ein prinzipieller Vorrang gegenüber der Freiheit zu? Und: Wie tief darf der Staat zum Schutz des Lebens in individuelle Freiheiten eingreifen? Bei der Bewältigung des Klimawandels – so zeichnet sich bereits ab – werden sich diese Fragen erneut stellen. Der vorliegende Band diskutiert mögliche Leitvorstellungen aus den Perspektiven von Rechtswissenschaft, Philosophie und Soziologie. 

Inhalt [Leseprobe]

Klaus Günther & Uwe Volkmann - Einführung [PDF]

Jürgen Habermas - Grundrechtsschutz in der pandemischen Ausnahmesituation. Zum Problem der gesetzlichen Verordnung staatsbürgerlicher Solidarleistungen *)

I. Konzepte von Leben und Gesundheit

Thomas Gutmann - Der Wert des »nackten Lebens« 

Petra Gehring - Krankheit, Tod und Sterbepolitik 

Steffen Augsberg - Leben als Höchstwert?

Thorsten Kingreen - Das Recht auf Leben und körperliche Unversehrtheit

Stefan Huster - Zwischen Sozialversicherung, medizinischer Infrastruktur und kollektiven Freiheitsbeschränkungen

Ursula Wolf - Freiheit oder Glück? Überlegungen im Anschluss an die antike Ethik

II. Konzepte von Freiheit und Autonomie

Günter Frankenberg - Glück im Öffentlichen – Angst im Privaten

Ute Sacksofsky - Relationale Freiheit – Philosophische Wurzeln und grundrechtstheoretische Implikationen

Matthias Mahlmann - Nichts geschenkt. Freiheit und die Verantwortung für das Leben von Anderen

Stephan Kirste - Riskantes Handeln und die Freiheit zur Selbstschädigung

Uwe Volkmann - Autonome Subjekte oder Kinder des Staates?

III. Zuordnungen und Abwägungen

Oliver Lepsius - Zum Verhältnis von Lebens- und Würdeschutz im Grundgesetz

Klaus Günther - Die Verschränkung von Würde und Leben 

Rainer Forst - Freiheiten, Risiken und Rechtfertigungen

Lutz Wingert - Die liberale Gesellschaft und ihre Toten

Tilman Reitz - Primat des Politischen? Grenzen und Überschüsse moralischer Argumentation in der Coronakrise 


*) Eine gekürzte Fassung erschien als "Corona und der Schutz des Lebens" in "Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik" 9/2021, s. 65-78.

Tuesday, November 29, 2022

The Philosophy of Christine M. Korsgaard


Normativity and Agency
.

Themes from the Philosophy of Christine M. Korsgaard

Ed. by Tamar Schapiro, Kyla Ebels-Duggan & Sharon Street

(Oxford University Press, 2022)

304 pages



Description

This volume is a collection of twelve original essays written in honor of Christine Korsgaard, on the occasion of her retirement from teaching. These articles address questions about the foundations of morality, the nature of normativity, conceptions of the self and of agency, moral responsibility, obligations to non-human animals, constructivism in ethics, and the relations between Kant’s ethics, religion, and politics. 

Contents [Preview]

Editors' Preface

1. The Horizons of Humanity - David Sussman

2. Finite Valuers and the Problem of Vulnerability to Unmitigated Loss - Sharon Street

3. A Question of One’s Own: Concepts, Conceptions, and Moral Skepticisms - Kyla Ebels-Duggan

4. The Two Normativities - J. David Velleman

5. Self-Consciousness and Self-Division in Moral Psychology - Richard Moran

6. What Makes Weak-Willed Action Weak? - Tamar Schapiro

7. Integrity, Truth, and Value - Sigrún Svavarsdóttir

8. Shadows of the Self: Reflections on the Authority of Advance Directives [Paper] - Japa Pallikkathayil

9. Korsgaard on Responsibility - T. M. Scanlon

10. Animal Value and Right - Stephen Darwall

11. Juridical Personality and the Role of Juridical Obligation - Barbara Herman

12. The Social Conditions for Autonomy: Kant on Politics and Religion - Faviola Rivera-Castro



Friday, November 25, 2022

Habermas on Enzensberger (1929-2022)

Jürgen Habermas on the death of Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1929-2022): 

"Der Elektrisierende". Meine Erinnerung an Hans Magnus Enzensberger 

(Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2022-11-26; paywall!)


Excerpt:

"Ich habe ihn immer für den Intelligentesten unseres Jahrgangs gehalten. Und einen Vielbegabten hätte man ihn nennen können, wenn nicht dieses zweideutige Wort Zweifel weckte an der frühen und immer schon glanzvollen Realisierung seiner vielfältigen und ganz ungewöhnlichen Fähigkeiten. Die frühen, an Brecht und Benn geschulten Gedichte, die aufklärend-belesenen Pamphlete, die überraschenden Ausgrabungen, die funkelnden literarischen Essays, die gelehrten kulturkritischen Aufätze und präzisen "Einzelheiten" waren schon in der lähmenden Adenauerschen Republik ein Sprengsatz. Wer 1957 so alt war wie dieser noch kaum bekannte Autor, war vom Ton der "Verteidigung der Wölfe", von der adornesken Kritik an der "Sprache des Spiegels" und wenig später von dem anarchistischen Blick auf "Politik und Verbrechen" elektrisiert. (....)

Ich hatte 1965 Gelegenheit, die außergewöhnliche Belesenheit Hans Magnus Enzensbergers kennenzulernen - jene Nase für Produktives auf fast allen einschlägigen Gebieten, die sich in der Gründung von mehreren Zeitschriften und vor allem bei der Leitung der "Anderen Bibliothek" bewähren sollte. (....) Seit den bewegten Tagen der Studentenbewegung sind wir uns persönlich nur noch gelegentlich begegnet; aber sein Tod macht mir seine anhaltende intellektuelle Präsenz bewusst." 

Thursday, November 24, 2022

John Rawls died 20 years ago today

John Rawls died 20 years ago today. In this interview from 1991 he speaks about his career, the historical context of his "A Theory of Justice", the role of philosophy - and its limitations: 

John Rawls: For the Record [pdf]

Interview by Samuel R. Aybar, Joshua D. Harlan, and Won J. Lee

(The Harvard Review of Philosophy, Spring 1991)


Tuesday, November 22, 2022

New book: Critical Theory Today


Critical Theory Today

On the Limits and Relevance of an Intellectual Tradition

Ed. by Denis C. Bosseau & Tom Bunyard 

(Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

279 pages



Description

This book considers whether critical theory is up to the task of addressing our contemporary crises, including the question of ‘post-truth’ discourse, psycho-social pathologies, the rise of right-wing populism, the Covid-19 pandemic, the anticolonial deficit in critical theory, and the neo-liberal management of the academy. The contributors offer a series of timely and complex reflections on the nature of critical theory, its role in contemporary society, and its various developments since the early twentieth century. In doing so, they analyse a variety of contemporary issues that, through critical reflection, can help us to navigate these problems. This volume seeks to highlight problems and possibilities within this field of thought, and endeavours to contribute towards reconsidering its capabilities and relevance.

The book is based on papers presented at a conference at the University of Brighton in November 2019: "Critical Theory in (a Time of) Crisis".

Contents [Preview

* On the Crisis of Critique: Reformulating the Project of Critical Theory; Michael J. Thompson [PDF]

* An Anticolonial Deficit in Frankfurt School Critical Theory: A Need for a Decolonial Turn; Muhammad Qasim 

* Critical Condition; David Gould 

* Critical Theory, Political Modernity and Sociological Modernity; Darrow Schecter 

* Erich Fromm and Contemporary Critical Theory; Neal Harris and Owen Brown 

* The Uses of Marx’s Value-Theoretical Concept of Reproduction for Social Reproduction Theory; Rebecca Carson 

* Abandonment or Liberation? Anorexia, Refusal of Treatment, and the Limits of Proceduralism; Jacopo Condò 

* Responding to Precarity: Ethics and Mediation in Butler and Adorno; Luke Edmeads 

* Re-thinking Social Transformation: Utopian Consciousness Within Critical Theory; Lynn Alena Roth 

* Beyond Post-Truth: Critical Theory and the Possibility of Radical Enlightenment; Roderick Howlett 

* Totality, Malaise and Agitation: Towards a Critical Theory of Authoritarian Politics; Helge Petersen and Alex Struwe 

* Adorno’s Exaggerations and the Limits of Social Pathology Critique; Paul Ingram 

* Towards a Post-capitalist Horizon of Possibility. Mark Fisher, the Renewal of Critical Theory of Society for the Twenty; Paul Ewart


Thursday, November 17, 2022

Rainer Forst on Democratic Regression

A new working paper by Rainer Forst (Goethe University Frankfurt):

"Die Herrschaft der Unvernunft. Zum Begriff der (anti-)demokratischen Regression" (free access)

Abstract: In aktuellen Analysen der Krise der Demokratie wird in Verbindung mit dem Aufkommen autoritärer Populismen der Begriff der demokratischen bzw. antidemokratischen Regression verwendet. In diesem Text werden die normativen Voraussetzungen diskutiert, die den Gebrauch dieses Begriffs, verstanden als Diagnose der "Herrschaft der Unvernunft", rechtfertigen. Diese Klärung erlaubt es, einige Fehler in der diesbezüglichen Diskussion zu vermeiden: den der Status quo ante-Fixierung, den der Reduktion des Begriffs der Demokratie sowie den der falschen Einordnung von Demokratiekritik. Diese Überlegungen münden in eine eigene Einschätzung der Ursachen demokratischer Regression und der Paradoxien unserer Zeit.



Monday, November 14, 2022

Frank Michelman on the Constitutional Theory of Political Liberalism


Constitutional Essentials.

On the Constitutional Theory of Political Liberalism

by Frank I. Michelman 

(Oxford University Press, 2022)

232 pages



Description

This work examines closely the constitution-centered proposition on political legitimacy, offered by John Rawls in "Political Liberalism" in response to the problem posed for government by consent by facts of deep-lying disagreement among citizens. An answer, Rawls thought, could lie in the possibility of a framework law for a society’s politics—a “constitution,” including a bill of rights—that all, despite other disagreements, could find reason to accept. The work offers explication of the thought behind Rawls’s proposal, while also placing it in relation to a duality of functions — “regulatory” and “justificatory” — for which lawyers in constitutional-democratic societies typically look to their countries’ bodies of constitutional law. Conflicts in practical implications from these functional attributions, the work suggests, can help explain the persistence of debates in constitutional-democratic venues over topics ranging from choices between “legal” and “political” — or between “written” and “unwritten” — constitutions, to thinness versus thickness in formulations of constitutional principles and guarantees, the place of constitutional fidelity among liberal political virtues, activism versus restraint in the conduct of judicial constitutional review, original-meaning versus moral-reading approaches to constitutional interpretation, and extension of constitutional substantive guarantees beyond negative restraints on the government to take in affirmative state obligations for satisfaction of the basic material needs of citizens, and for protection of them against oppression from nongovernmental social powers. The book also looks into whether some later-arriving work from Rawls signifies modification of the procedurally dependent basis for political justification than it finds in the first edition of "Political Liberalism".

Table of Contents

PART I. JUSTIFICATION-BY-CONSTITUTION

1. The Constitution as Procedural Recourse: Rawls's "Liberal Principle of Legitimacy"

2. A Fixation Thesis and a Secondary Proceduralization: Constitution as Positive Law

3. Constitutional Essentials. A Singularity of Reason, or a Space of Reasonability?

4. Constitutional Law and Human Rights: The Call to Civility

5. Constitutional Fidelity: Of Courts, Citizens, and Time

6. A Realistic Utopia?

PART II. "THE CRITERION OF RECIPROCITY"

7. Legitimacy: Procedural Compliance or Ethical Attitude?

8. Offsets to Proceduralism

PART III. SOME CHRONIC DEBATES

9. Constitutional Application: Between Will and Reason

10. Justification-By-Constitution, Economic Guarantees, and the Rise of Weak-Form Review

11. Judicial Restraint (and Judicial Supremacy)

12. Legal Formalism and The Rule of Law

13. Constitutional Rights and "Private" Legal Relations

14. Liberal Tolerance to Liberal Collapse?


Sunday, November 13, 2022

Moral Equality

The new issue of "The Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues" (Vol. 23, No. 2, 2022) contains articles on equality and morality, including:

* Richard J. Arneson - "Which Inequalities Matter?" [pdf]

* Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen - "What Is It For Us To Be Moral Equals? And Does It Matter Much If We're Not?" [pdf]

*Michael J. Perry - "Moral Equality?" [pdf]

* George Sher - "Morey and Les" [pdf]

Free access!

Friday, November 04, 2022

Peter E. Gordon on the Frankfurt School

An interview with Peter E. Gordon on the Frankfurt School (Adorno and Habermas):

"Traces of different colors" (Platypus Review, November 2022)

Excerpt:

Soren Whited: Do you see a higher degree of continuity, at least in the philosophical realm, between the two generations [of the Frankfurt School] than others are inclined to see?

Peter Gordon: Yes. I drive home this point when I’m introducing students to the tradition of critical theory. This continuity is evident when one reads Adorno and Horkheimer’s "Dialectic of Enlightenment" (1947) alongside Hambermas’s "The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere" (1962). The latter was a very early book by Habermas, and it was one that he wrote when he was close to Adorno. One can detect lines of argumentative affinity between the two books. "Public Sphere" has been denatured by more empirically minded historians, who believe that Habermas plundered history for illustrations of a thriving public sphere that we should cherish. In fact, the historical and theoretical trajectory of the book is more sobering and dialectical than that: it ends with the refeudalization of the public sphere and the reemergence of the performance of publicity before an abject public. I.e., it ends with a dialectical reversal, not unlike "Dialectic of Enlightenment": enlightenment reverts to myth. Habermas has a realistic assessment of the chances of public rationality: he’s not an exemplar of what is called “ideal theory,” because he embeds his model of communicative reason in a socio-historical framework that acknowledges how frequently that model remains unrealized. This is a continuity that is often missed by critics who insist on the chasm between the first and second generations of critical theory.


Peter E. Gordon is Professor of History at Harvard University. He is the author of "Adorno and Existence" (Harvard University Press, 2016), and "Migrants in the Profane.  Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization" (Yale University Press, 2020). He is co-editor of "The Routledge Companion to the Frankfurt School" (Routledge, 2018). 


Monday, October 31, 2022

Critical Encounters with Habermas' Legal Theory in "Between Facts and Norms"

A conference on: Critical Encounters with Habermas' Legal "Theory in Between Facts and Norms", June 3, 2023, at the University of Buffalo.

Participants: 

Seyla Benhabib (Yale University)

Isabelle Aubert (University of Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Philipp Hansen (University of Regina)

John McCormick (University of Chicago)

Rurion Melo (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil)

Erin Pineda (Smith College)

William Scheuermann (University of Indiana)

Matthew Specter (UC Berkeley)

John Abromeit (Buffalo State College)

Matthew Dimick (UB School of Law)

Paul Linden-Retek (UB School of Law)


Saturday, September 10, 2022

Reviews of Habermas’ “Ein neuer Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit" [updated]

Reviews of Jürgen Habermas’ “Ein neuer Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit und die deliberative Politik” (Suhrkamp Verlag, 2022):


Note: See an updated list at "HabermasForum"! (2023-02-04)


*Mathias Brodkorb - "Diese Lücke, diese entsetzliche Lücke", Cicero, November 2022, pp. 114-115.

* Ulrich Müller-Schöll - "Rationalität in einer irrationalen Zeit", Journal21.ch, 24-10-2022.

* Georg Diez - "Schuld ist immer das Internet", Die Zeit online, 15-10-2022.

* Alexander Grau - "Verlust der kommunikativen Basis", Die Weltwoche, 13-10-2022.

* Markus Schwering - "Die Gefahr bleibt unverändert", Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, 11-10-2022. 

* Matthias Nöther - "Gegner sind besser als Feinde", Berliner Morgenpost, 02-10-2022.

* Stefan Lüddemann - "Netz macht alle zu „potenziellen Autoren“", Die Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, 29-09-2022. 

* Peter Neumann - "Lernt schnell besser schreiben!", Die Zeit, 22-09-2002

* Hendrikje Schauer - "Selbstgestrickt und ferngetrollt", Der Tagesspiegel, 21-09-2022.

* Robert Misik - "Geschnatter „unserer redseligen Spezies“", Falter, 38/22, 21-09-2022.

Andreas Barthelmess & Stefan Börnchen - "Einfach mal den Finger stillhalten", taz – die Tageszeitung, 20-09-2022. (The online version of the review is entitled "Social Media essen Diskurs auf")

* Ronald Pohl - "Im Echoraum der Querulanten", Der Standard, 20-09-2022. (The online version of the review is entitled "Jürgen Habermas' Sorge um die demokratische Öffentlichkeit").

* Daniel Binswanger - "Ohne Diskurs keine Demokratie", republik.ch, 17-09-2022.

* Thomas Ribi - "Jürgen Habermas macht sich Sorgen", Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 16-09-2022.

* Arno Widmann - "Jürgen Habermas: Die neue, erst noch entstehende Öffentlichkeit", Frankfurter Rundschau, 16-09-2022.

* Andreas Bernard - "Geschlossene Systeme", Süddeutsche Zeitung, 15-09-2022. (The online version of the review is entitled "Der inklusive Sinn von Öffentlichkeit verblasst")

* Jörg Phil Friedrich - "Viel Neuland für ihn", Der Freitag, 15-09-2022.

* Karl Gaulhofer - "Dabei müsste Habermas Twitter doch lieben", Die Presse, 13-09-2022.

* Moritz Rudolph - "Das Ende der Deliberation", Philosophie Magazin (online), 12-09-2022.

* Conrad Lay - "Jürgen Habermas: „Ein neuer Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit“" [interview/podcast], Deutschlandfunk, 12-09-2022.

* Christian Schüle - "Jürgen Habermas fällt zum „Neuen Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit“ leider nicht mehr viel ein" [radio broadcast], BR Bayern 2, 12-09-2022.

* Sebastian Sevignani & Anna-Verena Nosthoff - "Digitale Plattformen: Manipulation statt Diskussion?" [interview/podcast, 40 minutes], Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 11-09-2022.

* Guido Kalberer - "Mit 92 analysiert er die sozialen Medien", Tages-Anzeiger (online), 11-09-2022.

* Patrick Bahners - "Ganz schön ausgeflippt", Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 11-09-2022.

* Jürgen Kaube - "Arbeit am Phantomschmerz", Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 10-09-2022. 

* Stefan Reinecke - "Diskurs oder Barbarei", taz – die Tageszeitung, 10-09-2022.

* Konstantin Sakkas - "Jürgen Habermas: Der demokratische Diskurs muss in Zeiten von Social Media neu gelernt werden" [podcast], SWR2, 10-09-2022.

* Norman Marquardt - "Der zwanghafte Zwang des besseren Posts", Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 10-09-2022.

* Martin Bauer - "Strukturwandel 2.0", Soziopolis, 09-09-2022

* Mladen Gladić - "Jürgen Habermas schreibt seinen Klassiker neu", Welt am Sonntag, 04-09-2022.


Summaries of some of the reviews are available at "Perlentaucher" here.

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

Honneth on Habermas's "Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie"

Axel Honneth's critique of Jürgen Habermas's "Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie" (Suhrkamp, 2019):

"Secular Reason? A Minor Query about a Major Work(New German Critique, vol. 49, no. 2 (2022), pp. 1-14). Free access.

The article originally appeared in "Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie", vol. 69, no. 2 (2021).

Friday, August 12, 2022

New book by Habermas on deliberative democracy


Ein neuer Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit und die deliberative Politik

by Jürgen Habermas

(Suhrkamp Verlag, September 2022)

109 pages



Table of Contents [Preview]

1. Vorwort

2. Überlegungen und Hypothesen zu einem erneuten Strukturwandel der politischen Öffentlichkeit (pp. 9-67)

A revised version of an essay originally published in Martin Seeliger & Sebastian Sevignani (eds.), Ein neuer Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit? (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2021), pp. 470-500. English: "Reflections and Hypotheses on a Further Structural Transformation of the Political Public Sphere", Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 39, no. 4 (2022), pp. 145-171.

3. Deliberative Demokratie. Ein Interview (pp. 69-87)

An abridged version of "Interview with Jürgen Habermas", in: André Bächtiger, John S. Dryzek, Jane Mansbridge & Mark E. Warren (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018) pp. 871-882.

4. Was heißt "deliberative Demokratie"? Einwände und Missverständnisse (pp. 89-109)

A revised version of "Foreword", in: Emilie Prattico (ed.), Habermas and the Crisis of Democracy. Interviews with Leading Thinkers (London: Routledge, 2022), pp. xiii-xix.


Thursday, August 11, 2022

Rawls and the Social Bases of Political Theory

The new issue of "Analyse & Kritik" (vol. 44. no. 1, 2022) features articles on the social bases of political theory:

* Katrina ForresterLiberalism and Social Theory after John Rawls [PDF]

* Joel Isaac - Durkheimian Thoughts on "In the Shadow of Justice" [Abstract]

* Steven Lukes - Capitalism, Justice, and the Boundaries of Liberalism [Abstract]

* William Clare Roberts - Whose Realism? Which Legitimacy? Ideologies of Domination and Post-Rawlsian Political Theory [Abstract]

* Brad Baranowski - How to Do Things with Justice: Professor Rawls, 1962–1971 [Abstract]

* Bruce Kuklick - John Rawls and R. M. Hare: A Study of Canonization [Abstract]


Thanks to David A. Reidy for the pointer!


Tuesday, August 09, 2022

Vittorio Hösle on Habermas's "Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie" (video)

From a session at the Catholic Academy in Berlin in June 2022: A lecture by Professor Vittorio Hösle on Jürgen Habermas's "Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie" (Suhrkamp Verlag, 2019):

* Lecture by Professor Vittorio Hösle (Notre Dame University): "Postmetaphysisch, Postsäkular? Jürgen Habermas über Glauben und Wissen[36 minutes]

[See also Hösle's extensive review of Habermas's book in "Philosophische Rundschau"]

* Comments by Professor Thomas M. Schmidt (Goethe University Frankfurt am Main) [12 minutes]

* Comments by Professor Gesine Schwan (Humboldt-Viadrina Governance Platform, Berlin) [16 minutes]



Sunday, July 31, 2022

Tocqueville Review: Rawls's "A Theory of Justice" at Fifty

The latest issue of "The Tocqueville Review" (vol. 43, no. 1) features articles on John Rawls's "A Theory of Justice":

* Catherine Audard & Michel Forsé - "Rawls's A Theory of Justice at Fifty: Introduction"

* Michael J. Sandel - "Remembering Rawls" [2002]

* James T. Kloppenberg - "John Rawls and "Our Tradition" of Democracy"

Abstract:

The notion of a clear distinction between Rawls's liberalism and social democracy rests on a caricatured conception of the liberal tradition and Rawls's place in it. From Rousseau, John Adams, and Madison through Tocqueville to Dewey, notable political theorists have sought to balance the two principles at the core of Rawls's A Theory of Justice. In this essay I sketch the ways in which American thinkers and activists escaped the cages in which commentators have tried to confine them, not only the false binary between liberalism and democratic socialism but also that between secularism and religious belief. As Rawls himself tried to make clear in his later writing, his ideal of justice drew from earlier theorists who understood the constitutive role of social interaction and inherited traditions, and he envisioned a society with room for people animated by comprehensive philosophical and religious ideas not shared by everyone else. Rawls's political liberalism, historicist as well as pluralist, was attuned as much to the threat inequality poses to freedom as to the endangered status of freedom in mass society. Rawls's ideas, especially as articulated in his book Justice as Fairness, remain a vital resource for social democrats who prize social and economic equality as well as individual liberty.

* Céline Spector - "De Rousseau à Rawls. La théorie de la justice comme «utopie réaliste»?"

* David A. Reidy - "Rawls and Racial Justice in The United States"

Abstract: It has become increasingly common for students and scholars to criticize Rawls's work as irrelevant, or worse, when it comes to issues of race and justice. Though he clearly judges both structural and systemic racial hierarchy and interpersonal racial disrespect to be non-controversially unjust, Rawls does not much explore, either in his ideal theory or in his non-ideal theory, issues at the intersection of race and justice. In this essay, drawing from both his texts and biography, I highlight some of Rawls's thoughts on, and the seriousness with which he approached, these matters. Though I do not attempt to answer all the criticisms that have been raised regarding Rawls's approach to issues of race and justice, I answer a few and to point the way toward resources that might prove fruitful in answering others. With respect to issues of race and justice, there are good reasons, better than critics typically acknowledge, to continue exploring the extent to which working from within a Rawlsian framework we can successfully think through our aspirational ideals and eliminate existing injustices.

* Philippe Van Parijs - "Qu'est-ce qu'une Europe juste ? Dialogue avec John Rawls" [2019]

* Claude Gamel - "Cheminement d'un économiste dans l'œuvre de John Rawls"

* Thomas Ferretti - "Justice Between Individuals: John Rawls and the Demands of Political Liberalism"

Abstract: John Rawls proposed "A Theory of Justice" (1971) aiming at building consensus in democratic societies. In the middle of the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and the Civil Rights movement, while Americans were strongly divided, Rawls' political liberalism offered a method to build political agreement between people with different and conflicting values and interests, to preserve peace and other benefits of stable social cooperation. Fifty years on, while authors like Katrina Forrester (2019 a, b) suggest moving on from the ideal of political consensus, other voices such as Catherine Audard (2019) remind us of the relevance of public reason in a world full of divisions. This paper builds a dialogue between these two influential authors to assess the legacy and relevance of Rawls' political philosophy today.


Saturday, July 23, 2022

Habermas receives the order "Pour le Mérite"

Jürgen Habermas has received the order "Pour le Mérite" for sciences and arts, Germany’s highest Order of Merit

The list of recipients of the order includes: Jan Assmann (2020), Onora O'Neill (2014), Ralf Dahrendorf (2003), Umberto Eco (1998), Gershom Scholem (1981), Karl Popper (1980), and Hans-Georg Gadamer (1971).



Wednesday, July 20, 2022

A new "Afterword" to "Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie"

A paperback edition of Jürgen Habermas's "Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie" is now available. It features a new "Afterword" by Habermas - "Nachwort zur Taschenbuchausgabe", vol. 2, pp. 811-833. 

The "Afterword" has the following sections:

1. Warum Glauben und Wissen?

2. Die Bedeutung der Alternative zwischen Hume und Kant

3. Warum "auch" eine Geschichte der Philosophie?

4. Desozialisierung der Weltbilder

5. Detranszendentalisierte Vernunft und Emanzipation zur Freiheit

6. Die Motivationsschwäche der Vernunftmoral

7. Vernunft in der Geschichte - was bleibt davon?

Section 2, 5, and 7 reuse text from Jürgen Habermas, "Rückblick eines Autors", Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, vol. 69, no. 2 (2021), pp. 231-240. English: "An Author's Retrospective View", Constellations, vol. 28, no. 1 (2021), pp. 5-10. But the entire text has been rewritten.

In the new edition, Habermas has also corrected a number of factual and linguistic errors, but not all. The corrections are not highlighted. It has the advantage that the page numbers are the same as in the first edition.

The paperback edition also contains a useful name index.



Wednesday, June 29, 2022

New book on Karl-Otto Apel


Karl-Otto Apel. Auf der Suche nach dem letzten Grund

Ed. by Reinhard Hesse

(Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2022)


236 pages






Table of contents [Preview]

"Einige einleitende und weierführende Gedanken" - Reinhard Hesse

1. Mein Bildungsgang - Karl-Otto Apel

2. Autobiographische Retrospektive - Karl-Otto Apel

3. Zur Retrospektive von Karl-Otto Apel - Jürgen Habermas (New essay!)

4. Karl-Otto Apel und die Zerstörung des moralischen Selbstbewusstseins - Vittorio Hösle

5. Sisyphos Karl-Otto Apel - Peter Naumann

6. In Erinnerung an meinen Vater - Dorothea Apel

7. My intellectual Biography in the Context of Contemporary Philosophy - Karl-Otto Apel

8. Kommentar zum Kapitel "Taking Issue with Habermas and others ..." Ein Missverständnis - Reinhard Hesse

9. Rekonstruktion der Vernunft durch Transformation der Transzendental-philosophie (Interview) - Karl-Otto Apel 

10. Gespräch mit Hauke Brunkhorst und Micha Brumlik (Interview) - Karl-Otto Apel

11. Apel und die Deutschen, das besondere Volk - Reinhard Hesse

12. Kondolenzschreiben von Bundespräsident Frank-Walter Steinmeier


Gewidmet Frau Judith Apel aus Anlass des 100. Geburtstages ihres Mannes.


See also my blog posts: 

* "New essays in honor of Karl-Otto Apel" (March 2020)

* "Habermas on Karl-Otto Apel (1922-2017)"

* "Karl-Otto Apel Dies at 95"  

Sunday, June 26, 2022

Timothy Snyder on Habermas

Timothy Snyder's response to Habermas's "Krieg und Empörung" / "War and Indignation" (Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 29, 2022):

"Deutschlands Verantwortung"

(Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, June 26, 2022)


English version:

"Jürgen Habermas and Ukraine: Germans have been involved in the war, chiefly on the wrong side" (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, online June 27, 2022).




Tuesday, May 24, 2022

New book: Habermas and the Crisis of Democracy


Habermas and the Crisis of Democracy

Interviews with Leading Thinkers

Ed. by Emilie Prattico

(London: Routledge, June 2022)

220 pages



Table of contents 

Foreword [Preview], by Jürgen Habermas

Introduction, by Emilie Prattico 

1. Can some basic rights and liberties be given up to safeguard democracy? (With an interview with Hauke Brunkhorst)

2. How does actual deliberation confer legitimacy to democratic decisions? (With an interview with Cristina Lafont)

3. Why is "fake news" a crisis of democracy? (With an interview with Michael Lynch)

4. How can we build a public sphere together and share it in a world characterized by divisiveness and tribalism? (With an interview with Barbara Fultner)

5. Can democracy survive without the voice of experts? (With an interview with Kenneth Baynes)

6. How dangerous are the current forms of authoritarianism we are seeing take hold all over the world? (With an interview with Maria Pia Lara)

7. What does the public sphere look like with new technologies? (With an interview with Gertrud Koch)

8. What duties do we owe descendants of slaves and how do we reckon with our antidemocratic and oppressive past? (With an interview with Lorenzo Simpson).

From Jürgen Habermas's foreword:

"Emilie Prattico has used the lens of a discourse-theoretic conception of deliberative democracy to engage eight prominent colleagues in stimulating interviews. They critically illuminate the various ways that a sound democratic regime depends upon the deliberative milieu of an inclusive public sphere. The deliberative conception of democracy directs our attention to recent trends that point to another structural transformation of the public sphere in the digital age. Given the demands that democratic opinion- and will-formation place upon a more or less well-functioning public sphere, the emergence of “new media” has been a mixed blessing. Indeed, certain aspects of social media communication signal a worrisome backslide toward a special kind of political regression." 

Emilie Prattico is Director of Strategy at BCG BrightHouse, Paris. She studied philosophy at the University of Oxford, and at Northwestern University, where she studied with Habermas. Since completing her doctoral work "Is Democracy Egalitarian or Epistemic? A Habermasian Perspective on Deliberative Democracy(2013), she has focused her work on pushing for more ambitious climate action on the part of governments and companies. She co-author (with Edward Cameron) of the book "The New Corporate Climate Leadership" (Routledge, 2021).

Friday, May 13, 2022

Adam Tooze on Habermas

Adam Tooze on Habermas's essay on the war in Ukraine:

"After the Zeitenwende: Jürgen Habermas and Germany’s new identity crisis"

(The New Statesman, online 12-05-2022)


Saturday, April 30, 2022

Responses to Habermas's "Krieg und Empörung" [updated]

Responses to Jürgen Habermas's "Krieg und Empörung" / "War and Indignation" (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 29-04-2022):

"Selbst der Philosoph Jürgen Habermas muss sich für seine kluge und differenzierende Betrachtung der deutschen Waffenexport-Diskussion als “Putinversteher” verunglimpfen lassen. Daran merkt man, wie verrückt manche Debatte geworden ist." (Sigmar Gabriel, FOCUS 19/2022, May 7, 2022)

"Es ist wohl eher eine Frage des persönlichen Temperaments, ob man die Chance wahrnimmt und vor allem die Mühe auf sich nimmt, als Intellektueller öffentlich zu polarisierenden Fragen Stellung zu nehmen. Man muss mit Feindseligkeiten leben lernen. Und manchmal setzt man sich jahrzehntelanger Häme aus. Im Laufe der Zeit habe ich mich andererseits auch an eine Menge Lobreden gewöhnen dürfen." (Jürgen Habermas, Kölnische Rundschau 17-06-2004)


Johannes Schneider - "Im Land der Strohmänner", Die Zeit online 29-04-2022

Nora Bossong - "Er sieht uns ein bisschen naiver, als wir sind", Deutschlandsfunk Kultur online 29-04-2022

Thomas Schmid - "Wo Jürgen Habermas irrt – und wo er richtig liegt", Die Welt online 29-04-2022

Thomas Schmid - "Der Philosoph und der Krieg. Eine Antwort auf Jürgen Habermas", Schmid.welt.de [blog] 29-04-2022; Die Welt 02-05-2022

Kurt Kister - "Gefühle am Anschlag", Süddeutsche Zeitung 30-04-2022

Thomas Ribi - "Die Ukraine darf nicht verlieren", Neue Zürcher Zeitung 30-04-2022

Simon Strauss - "Hart verteidigte Illusionen", Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 30-04-2022

Gregor Dotzauer - "Aufrüstung und Entrüstung", Der Tagesspiegel 30-04-2022

Andreas Fanizadeh - "Gepard, Marder, Leopard und Co", taz - die Tageszeitung 30-04-2022

Karlheinz Weißmann - "Politikfremdheit als Methode", Junge Freiheit online 01-05-2022

Christian Rath - "Zurückhaltung ist gefährlich", taz - die Tageszeitung online 02-05-2022

Bernd Stegeman - "Churchill oder Habermas?", Cicero online 02-05-2022

Georg Diez - "Der deutsche Weg", Die Zeit online 02-05-2022

Marcel Fratzscher - "Die Hysterie der Ukraine-Debatte hilft Putin", Die Zeit online 03-05-2022

Thomas Risse - "Argumente und/oder Emotionen – Zum Beitrag von Jürgen Habermas in der Süddeutschen Zeitung", SCRIPTS (blog), 04-05-2022

Armin Thurnher - "Der Kriegskritiker Jürgen Habermas und seine Kritiker", Falter 04-05-2022

Cord Schmelzle - "Faktizität und Vergeltung", Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 04-05-2022

Nora Bossong - "Habermas übersieht, dass auch die jüngere Generation von Krieg geprägt ist", taz - die Tageszeitung 04-05-2022

Marcus Thielking - "Krieg der Worte", Sächsische Zeitung 04-05-2022

Robert Habeck - "Wir treffen höchst bedrückende Entscheidungen" (Interview), Die Zeit 05-05-2022

Thomas Ribi - "“Kein Risiko eingehen” oder “keine Zeit verlieren”?", Neue Zürcher Zeitung 05-05-2022

Matthew Karnitschnig - "12 Germans who got played by Putin", Politico online 05-05-2022

Olaf Scholz - "Die Lage ist dramatisch" (interview), Stern 19/2022, 05-05-2022

Konrad Schuller - "Frieden mit dem Todfeind", Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 08-05-2022

Robin Alexander - "Alte Argumente, neuer Frontverlauf", Welt am Sonntag, 08-05-2022

Herfried Münkler - "Ratgeber ohne Sachverstand", Die Zeit online 08-05-2022

Dieter Schnaas - "Erniedrigte und Beleidigte", WirtschaftsWoche online 08-05-2022

Andreas Kluth - "Germans Are Waging a War of Open Letters Over Ukraine and Russia", Washington Post online 11-05-2022

Slavoj Žižek - "Heroes of the Apocalypse", Project Syndicate 11-05-2022. German: "Angst vor einem Krieg ohne Ende", Der Standard online 20-05-2022. 

Peter Strasser - "Offener Brief: Die Intellektuellen und der Krieg", Die Furche 12-05-2022

Adam Tooze - "After the Zeitenwende: Jürgen Habermas and Germany’s new identity crisis", The New Statesman online 12-05-2022

Paul Mason - "Resistance is the road to freedom. A reply to Jürgen Habermas", Paul Mason News (blog), 14-05-2022. German: "Wenn wir keine Untoten werden wollen", Frankfurter Rundschau 21-05-2022

Gerald Heidegger - "Längerer Krieg, breitere Debatten", Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF) online 14-05-2022

Jacques Schuster - "Wetzstein der Demokratie", Die Welt 19-05-2022

Wilfried Hinsch - "Nicht nur wir müssen eine Eskalation fürchten, auch Putin hat Grund zur Sorge" (interview), Die Welt online 19-05-2022

Anatoliy Yermolenko - "Widerstand statt Verhandlung", Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 20-05-2022

Paul Mason - "Wacht auf!" (interview), taz - die Tageszeitung 21-05-2022

Veronika Grimm & Albrecht Ritschl - "Vernachlässigung mit Folgen", Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 22-05-2022

Alexander Riebel - "Habermas wünscht einen Aufbruch ohne Wertekonsens", Die Tagespost online 24-05-2022

Daniel Johnson - "Germany’s crisis of conscience", The Critic June 2022

Anton Tarasyuk – "Der Vernunft der Alten ist naiv", Die Zeit, 15-06-2022

Timothy Snyder – "Deutschlands Verantwortung", Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 26-06-2022. English: "Jürgen Habermas and Ukraine: Germans have been involved in the war, chiefly on the wrong side", Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, online 27-06-2022

Marlene Streeruwitz – "Der grösste Rechtsbruch des Krieges besteht darin, dass es keine Rückkehr gibt" (Interview), Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 19-07-2022

Georg Diez – "Die neue Verrohung", Die Zeit online, 22-07-2022

Bruno Maçães – "Intellectual snobbery is hobbling support for Ukraine", The New Statesman, 30-07-2022. [see also: “"Dummheit gegen Verstand": Schwächen Intellektuelle die Ukraine?”, BR24, 28-07-2022] 

Ukraine's Ambassador to Germany Andrij Melnyk on Twitter.


Listen to Patrick Breitenbach's podcast – "Reflektion zum Habermas Artikel “Krieg und Empörung”"