The Cambridge Companion to Habermas

by Edited by Stephen K. White

• ISBN13: 9780521446662
• ISBN10: 052144666X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-04-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Jurgen Habermas is unquestionably one of the foremost philosophers writing today. His notions of communicative action and rationality have exerted a profound influence within philosophy and the social sciences. This volume examines the historical and intellectual contexts out of which Habermas' work emerged, and offers an overview of his main ideas, including those in his most recent publication. Amongst the topics discussed are his relationship to the Frankfurt School of critical theory and Marx, his unique contributions to the philosophy of the social sciences, the concept of 'communicative ethics', and the critique of post-modernism. New readers and non-specialists will find this the most convenient, accessible guide to Habermas currently available. Advanced students will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Habermas.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction Stephen White

2. The heritage: Habermas and Adorno Romand Coles

What remains of Marx? Nancy Love

3. Communicative rationality: philosophical and social scientific implications

The idea of communicative rationality Georgia Warnke

Critical theory as a research programme John Dryzek

4. Normative democracy

Practical discourse and communicatve ethics J. Donald Moon

Rechtstheorie Kenneth Baynes

Universalism and the situated critic Max Pensky

5. Democracy

Democracy and self Mark Warren

Discourse and democractic practices Simone Chambers

6. The defense of modernity

Habermas' critique of Nietzsche and his progeny Tracy Strong

Modernity and postmodernity Axel Honneth.