On the occasion of its 100th anniversary, "Institut für Sozialforschung" (IfS) is hosting an international conference "Futuring Critical Theory" at Goethe University Frankfurt on September 13–15, 2023.
* Section 1: Dissecting Critical Theory
* Section 2: Globalizing Critical Theory
* Section 3: Materializing Critical Theory
* Section 4: Recomposing Critical Theory
See the programme here.
Abstracts here.
Registration here.
Special issue of "Communication Theory" (vol. 33, nos. 2-3, 2023) on the role and future of public sphere theory in digital societies:
Reconceptualizing public sphere(s) in the digital age? (Open access)
Articles by Mark Eisenegger, Mike S Schäfer, Axel Bruns, Uwe Hasebrink, Thomas N. Friemel, Christoph Neuberger, Sarah J. Jackson, Daniel Kreiss, Hallvard Moe, Pascal Schneiders, Michael Brüggemann, Hendrik Meyer, Hans-Jörg Trenz, Lewis A Friedland, Risto Kunelius, Andreas Jungherr, and Ralph Schroeder.
Two reviews of Jürgen Habermas's "Ein neuer Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit und die deliberative Politik" (Suhrkamp, 2022):
* Hubertus Buchstein in "Politische Vierteljahresschrift", forthcoming (Open access)
* Rainer Freudenthaler in "Publizistik", forthcoming (Open access)
See my list of reviews of Habermas's book here.
In ”Educational Theory” (vol. 73, no. 2): Discourse Ethical Perspectives on Education in Polarized Political Cultures
* Christopher Martin – “Symposium Introduction: Discourse EthicalPerspectives on Education in Polarized Political Cultures” (open access)
* Julian Culp – “Democratic Citizenship Education in Digitized Societies: A Habermasian Approach"
* Christopher Martin – “Educational Institutions and Indoctrination” (open access)
* Anniina Leiviskä – “Truth, Moral Rightness, and Justification: AHabermasian Perspective on Decolonizing the University” (open access)
* Krassimir Stojanov – “Inclusive Universalism as a Normative Principleof Education” (open access)
* Darron Kelly – “Conceptualizing a Practical Discourse Survey Instrument for Assessing Communicative Agency and Rational Trust in Educational Policymaking”
* Gertrud Nunner-Winkler – “Discourse Ethics: A Pedagogical Policy for Promoting Democratic Virtues”
In the Spanish newspaper "El pais" (25-06-2023):
The ten most influential thinkers on the left (according to 37 experts): Karl Marx, Judith Butler, Antonio Gramsci, Thomas Pikkety, Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Jürgen Habermas, Karl Polanyi and Walter Benjamin.
"Los diez pensadores que más influyen en la izquierda" (pay wall).
The new issue of "European Journal of Social Theory" (May 2023) features articles on "The Critical Theory of Society":
* Patrick O’Mahony - "Introduction to special issue: The critical theory of society" (PDF)
* Klaus Eder - "Pandora’s box: The two sides of the public sphere" (PDF)
* Piet Strydom - "The critical theory of society: From its Young-Hegelian core to its key concept of possibility" (Abstract)
* Johann P. Arnason - "Lessons from Castoriadis: Downsizing critical theory and defusing the concept of society" (Abstract)
* Hartmut Rosa & Peter Schulz - "Synthesis, Dynamis, Praxis: Critical Theory’s ongoing search for a concept of society" (Abstract)
* Regina Kreide - "Social critique and transformation: Revising Habermas’s colonisation thesis" (PDF)
* Tracey Skillington - "Thinking beyond the ecological present: Critical theory on the self-problematization of society and its transformation" (PDF)
* Patrick O’Mahony - "Critical theory, Peirce and the theory of society" (PDF)
* Daniel Chernilo - "On the relationships between critical theory and secularisation: The challenges of democratic fallibility and planetary survival" (Abstract)
In "Süddeutsche Zeitung" (June 12, 2023):
Peter Schäfer - "Die Zukunft ist eine andere. Eine Laudatio zur Aufnahme von Jürgen Habermas in den Orden Pour le Mérite" (paywall)
Free access here.
See also my blog post:
Habermas receives the order "Pour le Mérite" (23-07-2022).
Hrsg. von Johannes J. Frühbauer, Michael Reder, Michael Roseneck & Thomas M. Schmidt
(J.B. Metzler, 2023)
692 Seiten
Kurzbeschreibung
Mit seiner "Theorie der Gerechtigkeit" löste John Rawls (1921–2002) eine Renaissance der normativen politischen Theorie aus, da sie Fragen nach der gerechten Verteilung von Gütern und Chancen wieder als eine zentrale philosophische Aufgabe ernst nahm. Es gilt als eines der einflussreichsten Werke der politischen Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts und kann nach wie vor als konstruktiver Beitrag zu aktuellen Diskussionen um Verteilungsgerechtigkeit gesehen werden. Mit seinem zweiten Hauptwerk "Politischer Liberalismus" hat er die Debatte eröffnet, wie wir unter Bedingungen einer pluralistischen Gesellschaft auf vernünftige Weise gemeinsam leben können. Das Werk von Rawls besitzt eine zentrale Bedeutung für die politische Philosophie der Gegenwart und für angrenzende Disziplinen wie Sozialwissenschaften, Rechtswissenschaften oder Theologie. Das Handbuch ist das erste deutschsprachige Nachschlagewerk, welches auf dem aktuellen internationalen Forschungsstand das Gesamtwerk von Rawls in seiner Entwicklung darstellt, zentrale Begriffe erläutert und zudem die wichtigsten Referenzen und Diskussionen vorstellt.
Beiträge von Otfried Höffe, Thomas M. Schmidt, Tim Reiß, Peter Niesen, Oliver Hidalgo, Michael Roseneck, Regina Kreide, Johannes J. Frühbauer, Andreas Gösele, Eva Buddeberg, Michael Reder, Sofie Møller, Darrel Moellendorf et al.
An international conference on Jürgen Habermas' Legal Theory in "Between Facts and Norms", May 26 - 27, 2023, at the University of Buffalo:
"Critical Encounters with Habermas' Legal Theory"
Zoom access is available.
Keynote speaker: Seyla Benhabib.
Also: Isabelle Aubert, David Ingram, Matthew Specter, Cristina Lafont, William Scheuerman, John D. Abromeit, Phillip Hansen, Brian Caterino, Rurion Melo, Matthew Dimick, and Erin Pineda.
Further information here (location, schedule, abstracts).
Jürgen Habermas's dissertation from 1954 is now available online:
Das Absolute und die Geschichte. Von der Zwiespältigkeit in Schellings Denken [Free access] (Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg)
Thanks to Hannes Kerber for the pointer!
What Would a Fair Society Look Like?
(Penguin/Allen Lane, 2023)
416 pages
Description
Imagine: you are designing a society, but you don't know who you'll be within it - rich or poor, man or woman, gay or straight. What would you want that society to look like? This is the revolutionary thought experiment proposed by the twentieth century's greatest political philosopher, John Rawls. As economist and philosopher Daniel Chandler argues in this hugely ambitious and exhilarating intervention, it is by rediscovering Rawls that we can find a way out of the escalating crises that are devastating our world today.
Taking Rawls's humane and egalitarian liberalism as his starting point, Chandler builds a careful and ultimately irresistible case for a progressive agenda that would fundamentally reshape our societies for the better. He shows how we can protect free speech and transcend the culture wars; get money out of politics; and create an economy where everyone has the chance to fulfil their potential, where prosperity is widely shared, and which operates within the limits of our finite planet. This is a book brimming with hope and possibility - a galvanising alternative to the cynicism that pervades our politics.
Contents [Preview]
Introduction
1. What's Fair
2. A New Social Contract
3. Rawls and His Critics
4. Freedom
5. Democracy
6. Equality of Opportunity
7. Shared Prosperity
8. Workplace Democracy
Conclusion
Daniel Chandler is an economist and philosopher based at the London School of Economics. An interview with Daniel Chandler at Literary Hub (May 2023).
Reviews:
* Jonathan Wolff (Times Literary Supplement)
* Alan Ryan (Literary Review)
* Stuart Jeffries (The Guardian)
* Jonathan Derbyshire (Financial Times)
