Liberating Power of Symbols : Philosophical Essays

by Jürgen Habermas; Translated by Peter Dews

• ISBN13: 9780262082969
• ISBN10: 0262082969
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-03-19
• Publisher: Mit Pr

Summary

In this new collection of lectures and essays Jurgen Habermas engages with a wide range of figures in twentieth-century thought. The book displays once again his ability to capture the essence of a thinker's work, his feeling for the texture of intellectual traditions and his outstanding powers of critical assessment. Habermas has described these essays as 'fragments of a history of contemporary philosophy'. The volume includes explorations of the work of Ernst Cassirer, Karl Jaspers and Gershom Scholem, as well as reponses to friends and colleagues such as Michael Thuenissen, Karl-Otto Apel and the writer and film-maker Alexander Kluge. It also includes pieces on the Finnish philosopher Georg Henrik von Wright and the theologian Johann Baptist Metz. This new volume will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of Habermas and twentieth-century philosophy.

Author Biography

Jurgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Frankfurt.

Table of Contents

Preface	vi
The Liberating Power of Symbols	1	(29)
Ernst Cassirer's Humanistic Legacy and the Warburg Library
The Conflict of Beliefs	30	(16)
Karl Jaspers on the Clash of Cultures
Between Traditions	46	(11)
A Laudatio for Georg Henrik von Wright
Tracing the Other of History in History	57	(9)
On Gershom Scholem's Sabbatai Sevi
A Master Builder with Hermeneutic Tact	66	(12)
The Path of the Philosopher Karl-Otto Apel
Israel or Athens: Where does Anamnestic Reason Belong?	78	(12)
Johann Baptist Metz on Unity amidst Multicultural Plurality
Communicative Freedom and Negative Theology	90	(22)
Questions for Michael Theunissen
The Useful Mole who Ruins the Beautiful Lawn	112	(11)
The Lessing Prize for Alexander Kluge
Sources	123	(2)
Index	125