Habermas: An Intellectual Biography

by Matthew G. Specter

• ISBN13: 9780521738316
• ISBN10: 0521738318
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-09-27
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book follows postwar Germany's leading philosopher and social thinker, Jürgen Habermas, through four decades of political and constitutional struggle over the shape of liberal democracy in Germany. Habermas's most influential theories - of the public sphere, communicative action, and modernity - were decisively shaped by major West German political events: the failure to de-Nazify the judiciary, the rise of a powerful Constitutional Court, student rebellions in the late 1960s, the changing fortunes of the Social Democratic Party, NATO's decision to station nuclear weapons, and the unexpected collapse of East Germany. In turn, Habermas's writings on state, law, and constitution played a critical role in reorienting German political thought and culture to a progressive liberal-democratic model. Matthew Specter uniquely illuminates the interrelationship between the thinker and his culture.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The making of a '58er: Habermas's search for a method

Habermas as synthesizer of German constitutional theory, 1958âÇô63

From the 'great refusal' to the theory of communicative action, 1961âÇô81

Civil disobedience, constitutional patriotism, and modernity: rethinking Germany's link to 'the West' (Westbindung), 1978âÇô87

Learning from the Bonn Republic: recasting democratic theory, 1984âÇô1996

Conclusion

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