The work of Jürgen Habermas (b. 1929) has been highly influential both in philosophy and across many disciplines in the social sciences. David Ingram here provides an accessible introduction to Habermas's complex thought as it has evolved from 1953 to the present, spanning philosophy, religion, political science, social science, and law. One of today's most intriguing thinkers, Habermas is also notably prolific; for students and other readers who wish to navigate the philosopher's more than thirty books, the lucid and precise Habermas: Introduction and Analysis is a welcome starting point rich in insights.
Ingram's book addresses the entire range of Habermas's social theory, including his most recent and widely discussed contributions to religion, freedom and determinism, global democracy, and the consolidation of the European Union. Recognizing Habermas's position as a highly public intellectual, Ingram discusses how Habermas applies his own theory to pressing problems such as abortion, terrorism, genetic engineering, immigration, multiculturalism, separation of religion and state, technology and mass media, feminism, and human rights. He also presents a detailed critical analysis of Habermas's key claims and arguments. Separate appendixes introduce and clarify such important concepts as causal, teleological, and narrative paradigms of explanation in action theory; contextualism versus rationalism in social scientific methods of interpretation; systems theory and functionalist explanation in social science; and decision and collective choice theory.
1: A Public Intellectual Committed to Reason
Habermas's Life
From the Critique of Ideology to the Dialectic of Enlightenment
Outline of Chapters2: Habermas's Defense of Psychoanalytic Social Science
The Positivism Debate in German Social Science
Modern Nihilism: The Crisis of Science and the Theory/ Practice Problem
Knowledge and Human Interests
A Critique of Knowledge and Human Interests3: The Linguistic Turn
TCA and the Dialectic of Enlightenment
Situating Habermas's Philosophy of Language
Transcendental Philosophy of Language as Rational Reconstruction
Universal Pragmatics and Formal Semantics
Formal Pragmatics and Speech Act Theory
Discourse
Communicative and Strategic Speech Acts
A Critique of Universal Pragmatics4: Knowledge and Truth Revisited
Subject-Object Paradigms of Knowledge
Internal Realism
Reference and Meaning
Knowledge and Evolution
Moral Realism
Is Formal Pragmatism a Defensible Alternative to Realism and Contextualism?5: Discourse Ethics
Practical Reason: Delimiting the Domain of the Moral
The Priority of the Right over the Good
Modernity and Moral Development
Deontological Moral Theory and Universalizability: Kant and Rawls
Moral Cognitivism versus Moral Skepticism
Moral Argumentation as Discourse
Neo-Aristotelian Objections and the Abortion Controversy
Justification and Application
Discourse Ethics Applied: Genetic Testing and the Future of Human Nature
Problems and Paradoxes
Habermas's Ideal of Argumentation: A Final Assessment6: Law and Democracy: Part I: The Foundational Rights
Modern Law and Morality: A Paradoxical Wedding of Facts and Norms
Situating Habermas's Theory of Law and Democracy: Some Contemporary Debates
The Sociological Genesis of Modern Law
The System of Rights
Negative and Positive Rights (Duties)
Constitutional Foundations
Human Rights: Subsistence as a Test Case for a Juridical Conception of Rights
Final Thoughts on the Procedural Ideal of Deliberative Democracy7: Law and Democracy: Part II: Power and the Clash of Paradigms
Democracy and the Powers of Government
The Separation of Powers
The Transmission of Communicative Power: From Public Sphere to Government Administration
Discourse and Adjudication
The Proceduralist Paradigm of Law and Democracy
A Concluding Assessment8: Law and Democracy: Part III: Applying the Proceduralist Paradigm
Separation of Church and State: The Public/ Private Distinction
Gender Difference and the Law
Multiculturalism
Immigration9: Law and Democracy: Part IV: Social Complexity and a Critical Assessment
Questioning the Proceduralist Paradigm
Substantive Economic Justice and Workplace Democracy
The Technological Dimension of Democracy
Revolution and Democracy10: Crisis and Pathology: The Future of Democracy in a Global Age
Capitalism and the Crisis of Democracy
Social Pathologies and the Colonization of the Lifeworld
Globalization: The New Challenge
Cosmopolitan Democracy and Global Politics as a Response to Global Crisis
Politics and the Rule of Law in International Relations
The Constitutionalization of International Relations
The Limits of Democratization: A Critical Assessment11: Postsecular Postscript: Modernity and Its Discontents
Marx on the Evolution of Modern Society
Weber on Modernization and the Problem of Meaning
Secularization and the Rationalization of the Lifeworld
Between Past and Future: Art, Religion, and the Dialectic of Enlightenment RevisitedAppendix A: Explaining Action
Appendix B: Understanding Action
Appendix C: Habermas and Brandom
Appendix D: Developmental Psychology
Appendix E: Rational Choice Theory
Appendix F: Systems TheoryIndex
