Ranking of German philosophers and social scientists

The German magazine "Cicero - Magazin für politische Kultur" October 2009 has a ranking of the most important living scientists and thinkers in Germany. Some of the results:

Philosophy

1. Jürgen Habermas
2. Peter Sloterdijk
3. Julian Nida-Rümelin
4. Hermann Lübbe
5. Hans Albert
6. Richard Davis Precht
7. Nobert Bolz
8. Dieter Thomä
9. Robert Spaemann

Social science

1. Paul Kirchhof
2. Jutta Limbach
3. Jan-Philipp Reemtsma
4. Ulrich Beck
5. Necla Kelek
6. Christian Pfeiffer
7. Herfried Münkler
8. Micha Brumlik
9. Winfried Hassemer

The other categories are: Natural science, economics, history, culture, film production, comedy, and writers.

The ranking refers to their presence in 160 German newspapers and periodicals. For previous rankings of Germany's public intellectuals see Max A. Höfer's "Das Denker-Ranking".

The October issue of "Cicero" also contains an interview with Nobert Bolz, who - as usual - has some critical comments about Habermas:

"Jürgen Habermas gehört sicherlich zu den führenden Intellektuellen, andererseits hatte sein Ansatz verheerende Folgen. Er versteht sich als "praeceptor germaniae", er wollte von Beginn an die Deutschen aus ihrer Unmündigkeit befreien und ihnen die richtige Gesinnung beibringen. Er ist stolz darauf, ein Kind der "Reeducation" zu sein, und so ist er erfüllt vom Geist der "philosophical reeducation". Er wollte politisch wirken, deshalb hat er Proselyten gemacht und den Habermasismus nun schon in der zweiten Generation weitergegeben. Dieser Kometenschweif der Habermasisten ist immer noch präsent im Gestus einer latenten Bevormundung."

See my previous post on Nobert Bolz and "Habermas = Ersatzreligion".

Charles Taylor on Habermas - "The Philosopher-Citizen"

On the blog "The Immanent Frame" (SSRC's blog on secularism, religion, and the public sphere), Charles Taylor has posted a short portrait of Jürgen Habermas:

The Philosopher-Citizen

Excerpt:
"In our time, we can almost fear that the public intellectual is an endangered species. On the one hand, the role can be trivialized by the proliferation of collective petitions for fashionable causes which it is very easy to sign. On the other, in the making of policy the intellectual is often replaced by the expert, master of some narrow field, who is rarely asked to decide on the use to be made of his expertise. In this world, Jürgen Habermas stands out as a shining example of the philosopher-citizen, two roles indissolubly linked in a figure of great depth and integrity. We, in democratic countries and beyond, are all in his debt, and that more than anything else accounts for his unparalleled prominence. He is an inspiration to us all."

A version of the text originally appeared in German in "Süddeutsche Zeitung", June 18, 2009, in honor of Jürgen Habermas’s 80th birthday. See here (and my previous post).

New book by Fishkin on deliberative democracy

When the People Speak
Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation

James Fishkin

(Oxford University Press, 2009)

256 pages


Description

"All over the world democratic reforms have brought power to the people-but under conditions where the people have little opportunity to think about the power that they exercise.
Do we want a democracy inspired by Madison or by Madison Avenue? A democracy animated by deliberation or by manipulation? This book examines each of the principal democratic theories and makes the case for a democracy in which the people offer informed judgments about politics or policy. It then goes on to show how this form of democracy can be made a reality.

"When the People Speak" describes deliberative democracy projects conducted by the author with various collaborators in the US, China, Britain, Denmark, Australia, Italy, Bulgaria, Northern Ireland, and in the entire European Union.

Critics of deliberative democracy say that it will privilege the more educated or that the public is incompetent when it comes to understanding policy issues, and should not be consulted. Others argue that it will increase polarization. Fishkin offers rebuttals for each of these arguments. Combining theory and practice he shows how a more deliberative politics is both practical and compelling."

Contents

1: Democratic Aspirations
2: The Trilemma of Democratic Reform
3: Competing Visions
4: Making Deliberative Democracy Practical
5: Making Deliberation Consequential
6: Deliberating Under Difficult Conditions

James Fishkin holds the Janet M. Peck Chair in International Communication at Stanford University. He is also Director of Stanford's Center for Deliberative Democracy and Chair of the Dept of Communication.

Conversations on Ethics

Conversations on Ethics

by Alex Voorhoeve

(Oxford University Press, 2009)

272 pages




Description

Can we trust our intuitive judgments of right and wrong? Are moral judgements objective? What reason do we have to do what is right and avoid doing what is wrong? In "Conversations on Ethics", Alex Voorhoeve elicits answers to these questions from eleven outstanding philosophers and social scientists. Many of the interviews are published here for the first time.

Contents

1: Frances Kamm: In Search of the Deep Structure of Morality
2: Peter Singer: Each of Us Is Just One Among Others
3: Daniel Kahneman: Can We Trust Our Intuitions?
4: Philippa Foot: The Grammar of Goodness
5: Alasdair MacIntyre: The Illusion of Self-Sufficiency
6: Ken Binmore: The Origin of Fairness
7: Allan Gibbard: A Pragmatic Justification of Morality
8: T. M. Scanlon: The Kingdom of Ends on the Cheap
9: Bernard Williams: A Mistrustful Animal
10: Harry Frankfurt: The Necessity of Love
11: David Velleman: Really Seeing Another

Alex Voorhoeve is Senior Lecturer in philosophy at the London School of Economics.

Two papers on deliberative democracy

Two recent papers on deliberative democracy from John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University:

(1) Who Wants to Deliberate – and Why?

by Michael A. Neblo, Kevin M. Esterling, Ryan P. Kennedy, David Lazer & Anand E. Sokhey

Abstract
Interest in deliberative theories of democracy has grown tremendously among political theorists over the last twenty years. Many scholars in political behavior, however, are skeptical that it is a practically viable theory, even on its own terms. They argue (inter alia) that most people dislike politics, and that deliberative initiatives would amount to a paternalistic imposition. Using two large, representative samples investigating people’s hypothetical willingness to deliberate and their actual behavior in response to a real invitation to deliberate with their member of Congress, we find: 1) that willingness to deliberate in the U.S. is much more widespread than expected; and 2) that it is precisely people who are less likely to participate in traditional partisan politics who are most interested in deliberative participation. They are attracted to such participation as a partial alternative to “politics as usual.”

(2) Deliberative and Non-deliberative Negotiations

by Jane Mansbridge

Abstract
The classic statements of deliberative democratic theory defined deliberation in opposition to negotiation. As deliberative theory has developed, that opposition has weakened. The normative terms of that relation, however, are as yet unclear. Building on work reformulating the regulative ideals for deliberative democracy (Mansbridge et al.* forthcoming), this paper argues that four previously excluded forms of agreement are themselves “deliberative.” One is simple convergence on an outcome. The other three -- incompletely theorized agreements, integrative negotiation, and fully cooperative distributive negotiation -- are forms of deliberative negotiation. The “regulative ideals” of these forms of negotiation, that is, the standards to which we should aspire in their practice even when full achievement is impossible, meet all the criteria for deliberation. This paper aims at reformulating the regulative ideal of deliberative democracy to incorporate these forms of agreement.

*Mansbridge, Jane, with James Bohman, Simone Chambers, David Estlund, Andreas Follesdal, Archon Fung, Cristina Lafont, Bernard Manin, and José Luis Martí. Forthcoming. “The Place of Self-Interest in Deliberation.” The Journal of Political Philosophy.

Martha Nussbaum: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities

Listen to Professor Martha Nussbaum's "Year of Humanities Chancellor's Lecture" at University of Chicago, September 14, 2009:

Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities

Martha Nussbaum is writing a book on the same subject: "Not For Profit: Liberal Education and Democratic Citizenship" (Princeton University Press, forthcoming).

Robert Brandom on "Reason in Philosophy"

Reason in Philosophy

Robert B. Brandom


(Harvard University Press, 2009)

248 pages



Description

Transcendentalism never came to an end in America. It just went underground for a stretch, but is back in full force in Robert Brandom’s new book. Brandom takes up Kant and Hegel and explores their contemporary significance as if little time had expired since intellectuals gathered around Emerson in Concord to discuss reason and idealism, selves, freedom, and community. Brandom’s discussion belongs to a venerable tradition that distinguishes us as rational animals, and philosophy by its concern to understand, articulate, and explain the notion of reason that is thereby cast in that crucial demarcating role.

An emphasis on our capacity to reason, rather than merely to represent, has been growing in philosophy over the last thirty years, and Robert Brandom has been at the center of this development. "Reason in Philosophy" is the first book that gives a succinct overview of his understanding of the role of reason as the structure at once of our minds and our meanings—what constitutes us as free, responsible agents. The job of philosophy is to introduce concepts and develop expressive tools for expanding our self-consciousness as sapients: explicit awareness of our discursive activity of thinking and acting, in the sciences, politics, and the arts.

Contents

Introduction
1. Norms, Selves, and Concepts
2. Autonomy, Community, and Freedom
3. History, Reason, and Reality
4. Reason, Expression, and the Philosophic Enterprise
5. Philosophy and the Expressive Freedom of Thought
6. Why Truth Is Not Important in Philosophy
7. Three Problems with the Empiricist Conception of Concepts
8. How Analytic Philosophy Has Failed Cognitive Science

The first three chapters are identical to Brandom's Woodridge Lectures 2007: "Animating Ideas of Idealism: A Semantic Sonata in Kant and Hegel". They are available here as texts and video.

Update:
Review by Arto Laitinen in "Metapsychology".

Review by Nicholas Smith in "The Philosopher's Magazine".

David Reidy writes Rawls biography

David A. Reidy (University of Tennessee) has won a

National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Faculty Fellowship

to support his work on an intellectual biography of John Rawls.




Reidy is spending the 2009-2010 academic year working on the biography (see here).

David Reidy is Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy, University of Tennessee. His latest book is "John Rawls" - an edited collection of essays (Ashgate, 2008).

For biographical information on Rawls, see Thomas Pogge's "John Rawls. His Life and Theory of Justice" (Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 3-27.

Habermas speaks in Amsterdam

In a newsletter from "Felix Meritis - European Center for Arts, Culture and Science", Amsterdam, Netherlands, the center announces that Jürgen Habermas will give a lecture in Amsterdam on November 8, 2009:

Lecture by Jürgen Habermas
Sunday November 8, 2009, 15.30-17.00 hrs.

After the lecture Habermas will answer questions from Frits Bolkestein (Former European Commissioner), Job Cohen (Mayor of Amsterdam), Beate Rössler (Professor of Ethics at the University of Amsterdam), Paul Scheffer (Professor of Urban Sociology at the University of Amsterdam), and Désirée Verweij (Professor of Military Ethics at the Dutch Defense Academy in Breda).

Against Injustice - The New Economics of Amartya Sen

New book edited by Reiko Gotoh & Paul Dumouchel:

Against Injustice
- The New Economics of Amartya Sen

(Cambridge University Press, 2009)

344 pages





Description

Traditional theories of justice as formulated by political philosophers, jurists, and economists have all tended to see injustice as simply a breach of justice, a breakdown of the normal order. Amartya Sen’s work acts as a corrective to this tradition by arguing that we can recognise patent injustices, and come to a reasoned agreement about the need to remedy them, without reference to an explicit theory of justice. "Against Injustice" brings together distinguished academics from a variety of different fields – including economics, law, philosophy, and anthropology – to explore the ideas underlying Sen’s critique of traditional approaches to injustice. The centerpiece of the book is the first chapter by Sen in which he outlines his conception of the relationship between economics, ethics, and law. The rest of the book addresses a variety of theoretical and empirical issues that relate to this conception, concluding with a response from Sen to his critics.

Contents

Introduction [pdf] - Reiko Gotoh and Paul Dumouchel

1. Economics, Law and Ethics - Amartya Sen
2. Neorepublicanism and Sen's Economic, Legal and Ethical Desiderata - Philip Pettit
3. The Prajâpati Test: Response to Amartya Sen - Marcel Hénaff
4. The Power of a Democratic Public - Philip Pettit
5. The Challenge of Gender Justice - Martha C. Nussbaum
6. Gift, Market, and Social Justice - Marcel Hénaff
7. Justice and Public Reciprocity - Reiko Gotoh
8. Reasoning with Preferences? - John Broome
9. Conceptions of Individual Rights and Freedom in Welfare Economics: A Re-Examination - Prasanta K. Pattanaik and Yongsheng Xu
10. On Synthetic Indices of Multidimensional Well-Being - Andrea Brandolini
11. Assessing Children's Capabilities - Flavio Comim
12. The Search for Socially Sustainable Development - Jean-Luc Dubois
13. Response - Amartya Sen

Reiko Gotoh and Paul Dumouchel are professors at Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan.

Michael Sandel speaks in London

On October 12, 2009, Professor Michael Sandel speaks at the London School of Economics:

Justice and the Moral Limits of Markets

The financial crisis raises hard questions about justice, ethics, and the role of markets. In this lecture, Michael Sandel will examine the moral limits of markets, one of the themes of his new book, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?

Chair: Professor Julian Le Grand

On October 13, Michael Sandel speaks at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) in London,:

Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?

Michael Sandel considers the role of justice in our society and our lives, revealing how an understanding of philosophy can help to make sense of politics, religion, morality - and our own convictions. Showing how the biggest questions in our civic life can be broken down and illuminated through reasoned debate, Professor Sandel argues for a new commitment to citizenship and the common good.

Michael Sandel is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught political philosophy since 1980.

New book: Religious Voices in Public Places

Religious Voices in Public Places

Edited by Nigel Biggar and Linda Hogan

(Oxford University Press, 2009)





Description

Must religious voices keep quiet in public places? Does fairness in a plural society require it? Must the expression of religious belief be so authoritarian as to threaten civil peace? Do we need translation into 'secular' language, or should we try to manage polyglot conversation? How neutral is 'secular' language? Is a religious argument necessarily unreasonable? What issues are specific to Islam within this exchange?

These are just some of the pressing questions addressed by "Religious Voices in Public Places". Drawn from Australia, Canada, France, Ireland and England - as well as the United States - thirteen contributors take the long-running discussion about religion in the public square beyond its usual American confines.

"Religious Voices in Public Places" comprehends both political philosophy and theology, and moves adeptly between political theory and practice. Whether offering critical analyses of key theorists such as John Rawls, Jeffrey Stout and Jürgen Habermas, or pursuing the issue of the public expression of religion into the debate about religious education in the USA, the legalisation of euthanasia in the UK, and human rights worldwide, this incisive volume speaks directly into crucial areas of religious and political complexity.

Contents

Linda Hogan: Introduction

I: Religion & Public Reason: Philosophical Views

1. Nicholas Wolterstorff - Why Can't We Just Get Along With Each Other?
2. Raymond Plant - Citizenship, Religion, and Political Liberalism [on Rawls]
3. Maureen Junker-Kenny - Between Postsecular Society and the Neutral State: Religion as a Resource for Public Reason [on Rawls & Habermas]

II: Religion & Public Reason: Theological Views

4. Luke Bretherton - Translation, Conversation, or Hospitality? Approaches to Theological Reasons in Public Deliberation
5. Travis Kroeker - Messianic Ethics and Diaspora Communities: Upbuilding the Secular Theologically from Below
6. Robert Gascoigne - Christian Hope and Public Reason [on Rawls]

III: Religion & Public Reason: Public Policy Issues

7. Nigel Biggar - Not Translation, but Conversation: Theology in Public Debate about Euthanasia
8. Paul Weithman - Religious Education and Democratic Character
9. Linda Hogan - Religion and Public Reason in the Global Politics of Human Rights

IV: Religion & Public Reason: National Contexts

10. Peter Sedgwick - The Public Presence of Religion in England: Anglican Religious Leaders and Public Culture
11. Steven Michels & Brian Stiltner - Religion, Rhetoric, and Running for Office: Public Reason on the U.S. Campaign Trail
12. Jocelyne Cesari - Islam and the Secularized Nation: A Transatlantic Comparison

Nigel Biggar - Conclusion

Read abstract on each chapter here.