Jürgen Habermas
Public Intellectual and Engaged Critical Theorist
(Columbia University Press, 2026)
432 pages
Description
This book transforms our understanding of Habermas by focusing on his work as a public intellectual, showing how he has shaped debates far beyond the ivory tower. Peter J. Verovšek argues that while Habermas maintains a strict separation between his academic and his public-facing writings, he has also ensured that these two aspects of his work are part of a consistent whole. The book highlights the development of Habermas’s views over time and the changing nature of his public interventions. His early political writings focused on questions tied to the particular situation of postwar West Germany, but since 1989 he has increasingly turned his attention to the future of Europe and global politics more broadly. Verovšek sheds light on the interrelationship between Habermas’s participation in the public sphere and his theoretical work, demonstrating that his political engagement is crucial to understanding his philosophy. In a moment when public debate is under threat, this book offers timely new insight into Habermas’s lifelong project of defending the public sphere - both in theory and in practice.
Contents
Introduction: Habermas the Public Intellectual
1. Mediating Theory and Practice
2. The Journalistic Years, 1951–1955
3. At the Institute for Social Research, 1956–1959
4. A Partisan Professor in the Student Movement, 1960–1971
5. Retreat to Starnberg, 1971–1982
6. Return to the Public Sphere, 1983–1992
7. A Turn From Germany to Europe, 1993–2009
8. The Colonization of Politics by Economics, 2010–2020
Conclusion: The Last Public Intellectual? 2021–2025
