There is no alternative to postmetaphysical thinking : this statement, made by Jurgen Habermas in 1988, has lost none of its relevance. Postmetaphysical thinking is, in the first place, the historical answer to the crisis of metaphysics following Hegel, when the central metaphysical figures of thought began to totter under the pressure exerted by social developments and by developments within science. As a result, philosophy s epistemological privilege was shaken to its core, its basic concepts were de-transcendentalized, and the primacy of theory over practice was opened to question. For good reasons, philosophy lost its extraordinary status , but as a result it also courted new problems. In Postmetaphysical Thinking II, the sequel to the 1988 volume that bears the same title (English translation, Polity 1992), Habermas addresses some of these problems. The first section of the book deals with the shift in perspective from metaphysical worldviews to the lifeworld, the unarticulated meanings and assumptions that accompany everyday thought and action in the mode of background knowledge . Habermas analyses the lifeworld as a space of reasons even where language is not (yet) involved, such as, for example, in gestural communication and rituals. In the second section, the uneasy relationship between religion and postmetaphysical thinking takes centre stage. Habermas picks up where he left off in 1988, when he made the far-sighted observation that philosophy, even in its postmetaphysical form, will be able neither to replace nor to repress religion , and explores philosophy s new-found interest in religion, among other topics. The final section includes essays on the role of religion in the political context of a post-secular, liberal society. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars in philosophy, religion and the social sciences and humanities generally.

We live in a time of turbulent change when many of the frameworks that have characterized our societies over the last few centuries - such as the international order of sovereign nation-states - are being called into question. In this new volume of essays and interviews, Habermas focuses his attention on these processes of change and provides some of the resources needed to understand them.

What kind of international order should we seek to create in our contemporary global age? How should we understand the political project of Europe and how can the democratic deficit of the EU be overcome? How should we understand the relation between democracy as popular sovereignty, which has become the defining principle of political legitimacy in the modern world, and the idea of basic human rights embodied in the rule of law?

Habermas brings his formidable powers of analysis and his distinctive theoretical perspective to bear on these and other key questions of the modern age. His analysis is shaped throughout by his commitment to informed public debate and his powerful advocacy of a postnational renewal of the project of constitutional democracy.

"Time of Transitions" will be essential reading for all students and scholars of sociology and politics, and it will be of interest to anyone concerned with the key social and political questions of our time.

Two countervailing trends mark the intellectual tenor of our age the spread of naturalistic worldviews and religious orthodoxies. Advances in biogenetics, brain research, and robotics are clearing the way for the penetration of an objective scientific self-understanding of persons into everyday life. For philosophy, this trend is associated with the challenge of scientific naturalism. At the same time, we are witnessing an unexpected revitalization of religious traditions and the politicization of religious communities across the world. From a philosophical perspective, this revival of religious energies poses the challenge of a fundamentalist critique of the principles underlying the modern Wests postmetaphysical understanding of itself.
The tension between naturalism and religion is the central theme of this major new book by Jrgen Habermas. On the one hand he argues for an appropriate naturalistic understanding of cultural evolution that does justice to the normative character of the human mind. On the other hand, he calls for an appropriate interpretation of the secularizing effects of a process of social and cultural rationalization increasingly denounced by the champions of religious orthodoxies as a historical development peculiar to the West. These reflections on the enduring importance of religion and the limits of secularism under conditions of postmetaphysical reason set the scene for an extended treatment the political significance of religious tolerance and for a fresh contribution to current debates on cosmopolitanism and a constitution for international society.

This major work retraces the emergence and development of the Bourgeois public sphere - that is, a sphere which was distinct from the state and in which citizens could discuss issues of general interest. In analysing the historical transformations of this sphere, Habermas recovers a concept which is of crucial significance for current debates in social and political theory.

Habermas focuses on the liberal notion of the bourgeois public sphere as it emerged in Europe in the early modern period. He examines both the writings of political theorists, including Marx, Mill and de Tocqueville, and the specific institutions and social forms in which the public sphere was realized.

This brilliant and influential work has been widely recognized for many years as a classic of contemporary social and political thought, of interest to students and scholars throughout the social sciences and humanities.

In this important new book, J&#252rgen Habermas takes up certain fundamental questions of philosophy. While much of his recent work has been concerned with issues of morality and law, in this new work Habermas returns to the traditional philosophical questions of truth, objectivity and reality which were at the centre of his earlier classic book Knowledge and Human Interests. How can the norms that underpin the linguistically structured world in which we live be brought into step with the contingency of the development of socio-cultural forms of life? How can the idea that our world exists independently of our attempts to describe it be reconciled with the insight that we can never reach reality without the mediation of language and that 'bare' reality is therefore unattainable? In Knowledge and Human Interests Habermas answered these questions with reference to a weak naturalism and a transcendental-pragmatic realism. Since then, however, he has developed a formal pragmatic theory which is based on an analysis of speech acts and language use. In this new volume Habermas takes up the philosophical questions of truth, objectivity and reality from the perspective of his linguistically-based pragmatic theory. The final section addresses the limits of philosophy and reassesses the relation between theory and practice from a perspective that could be described as 'post-Marxist'. This volume, now available in paperback as well, by one of the world's leading philosophers will be essential reading for students and scholars of philosophy, social theory and the humanities and social sciences generally.

Translated by Ciaran Cronin.

In the midst of the current crisis that is threatening to derail the historical project of European unification, Jurgen Habermas has been one of the most perceptive critics of the ineffectual and evasive responses to the global financial crisis, especially by the German political class. This extended essay on the constitution for Europe represents Habermas's constructive engagement with the European project at a time when the crisis of the eurozone is threatening the very existence of the European Union. There is a growing realization that the European treaty needs to be revised in order to deal with the structural defects of monetary union, but a clear perspective for the future is missing. Drawing on his analysis of European unification as a process in which international treaties have progressively taken on features of a democratic constitution, Habermas explains why the current proposals to transform the system of European governance into one of executive federalism is a mistake. His central argument is that the European project must realize its democratic potential by evolving from an international into a cosmopolitan community. The opening essay on the role played by the concept of human dignity in the genealogy of human rights in the modern era throws further important light on the philosophical foundations of Habermas's theory of how democratic political institutions can be extended beyond the level of nation-states. Now that the question of Europe and its future is once again at the centre of public debate, this important intervention by one of the greatest thinkers of our time will be of interest to a wide readership.

Translated by Ciaran Cronin. In the midst of the current crisis that is threatening to derail the historical project of European unification, Jurgen Habermas has been one of the most perceptive critics of the ineffectual and evasive responses to the global financial crisis, especially by the German political class. This extended essay on the constitution for Europe represents Habermas's constructive engagement with the European project at a time when the crisis of the eurozone is threatening the very existence of the European Union. There is a growing realization that the European treaty needs to be revised in order to deal with the structural defects of monetary union, but a clear perspective for the future is missing. Drawing on his analysis of European unification as a process in which international treaties have progressively taken on features of a democratic constitution, Habermas explains why the current proposals to transform the system of European governance into one of executive federalism is a mistake. His central argument is that the European project must realize its democratic potential by evolving from an international into a cosmopolitan community. The opening essay on the role played by the concept of human dignity in the genealogy of human rights in the modern era throws further important light on the philosophical foundations of Habermas's theory of how democratic political institutions can be extended beyond the level of nation-states. Now that the question of Europe and its future is once again at the centre of public debate, this important intervention by one of the greatest thinkers of our time will be of interest to a wide readership.

Make no mistake, the normative authority of the United States of America lies in ruins. Such is the judgment of the most influential thinker in Europe today reflecting on the political repercussions of the war in Iraq. The decision to go to war in Iraq, without the explicit backing of a Security Council Resolution, opened up a deep fissure in the West which continues to divide erstwhile allies and to hinder the attempt to develop a coordinated response to the new threats posed by international terrorism.

In this timely and important volume, Jurgen Habermas responds to the dramatic political events of the period since September 11, 2001, and maps out a way to move the political agenda forward, beyond the acrimonious debates that have pitched opponents of the war against the Bush Administration and its coalition of the willing. What is fundamentally at stake, argues Habermas, is the Kantian project of overcoming the state of nature between states through the constitutionalization of international law.

Habermas develops a detailed multidimensional model of transnational and supranational governance inspired by Kantian cosmopolitanism, situates it in the context of the evolution of international law toward a cosmopolitan constitutional order during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and defends it against the new challenge posed by the hegemonic liberal vision underlying the aggressive unilateralism of the current US administration.

The Divided West is a major intervention by one of the most highly regarded political thinkers of our time. It will be essential reading for students of sociology, politics, international relations, and international law, and it will be of great interest to anyone concerned with the current and future course of European and international politics.

We live in a time of turbulent change when many of the frameworks that have characterized our societies over the last few centuries - such as the international order of sovereign nation-states - are being called into question. In this new volume of essays and interviews, Habermas focuses his attention on these processes of change and provides some of the resources needed to understand them.

What kind of international order should we seek to create in our contemporary global age? How should we understand the political project of Europe and how can the democratic deficit of the EU be overcome? How should we understand the relation between democracy as popular sovereignty, which has become the defining principle of political legitimacy in the modern world, and the idea of basic human rights embodied in the rule of law?

Habermas brings his formidable powers of analysis and his distinctive theoretical perspective to bear on these and other key questions of the modern age. His analysis is shaped throughout by his commitment to informed public debate and his powerful advocacy of a postnational renewal of the project of constitutional democracy.

"Time of Transitions" will be essential reading for all students and scholars of sociology and politics, and it will be of interest to anyone concerned with the key social and political questions of our time.

In this book Jurgen Habermas addresses some of the most pressing social and political issues of our time: the consequences of the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union; the resurgence of nationalism and right-wing violence in Europe; and, the prospects for a transformation of international relations and the building of a more just and peaceful world order. Most of the book takes the form of an extended interview which covers a wide range of contemporary topics and events, from German unification to the Gulf War, from the limits of theory to the role of intellectuals. While Habermas draws on ideas developed in his more theoretical works, he states his views here with exceptional clarity and force. "The Past as Future" will be of great interest not only to students of social and political theory, but to anyone concerned with the current state and future of Europe and the West.

In "Between Facts and Norms" Habermas works out the legal and political implications of his theoretical approach, bringing to fruition the project announced more than three decades ago in "The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Between Facts and Norms" is a major contribution to current debates on the role of law and the prospects for the development of democracy in contemporary societies. Habermas develops a distinctive account of the nature of law, arguing that law is characterized by an internal tension between factual and normative aspects. He links this account to a broader argument concerning the formation of the modern constitutional state and the role of democratic deliberation as a means of securing the legitimacy of legal norms in complex, pluralistic societies.

Habermas develops a proceduralist conception of democracy which emphasizes the importance of citizens organizing themselves in informal associations and voicing their concerns in a variety of public settings. If the formal processes of law-making in modern societies are to sustain their legitimacy, they must be capable of taking account of the concerns of ordinary citizens. In our complex, pluralistic societies, the legitimacy of political decision-making processes depends on a robust civil society and a vibrant public sphere.

"Between Facts and Norms" is an outstanding work by one the most important social and political thinkers of our time. It will be a focal point of debate for many years to come in the fields of social and political theory, sociology, politics and philosophy.

On the occasion of Habermas's 80th birthday, the German publisher Suhrkamp brought out five volumes of Habermas's work that spanned the full range his philosophical work, from the theory of rationality to the critique of metaphysics. For each of these volumes, Habermas wrote an introduction that crystallized, in a remarkably clear and succinct way, his thinking on the key philosophical issues that have preoccupied him throughout his long career. This new book by Polity brings together these five introductions and publishes them together for the first time. The result is a unique and comprehensive overview of Habermas's philosophy in his own words. In the five chapters that make up this volume, Habermas discusses the concept of communicative action and the grounding of the social sciences in the theory of language; the relationship between rationality and the theory of language; discourse ethics; political theory and problems of democracy and legitimacy; the critique of reason and the challenge posed by religion in a secular age. The volume includes a substantial introduction by Jean-Marc Durand-Gasselin which provides the reader with all the necessary background to understand Habermas's distinctive and original contribution to philosophy. Philosophical Introductions will be an indispensable text for students and scholars in philosophy and in the humanities and social sciences generally, and for anyone interested in the most important developments in philosophy and critical theory today.

Over the past 25 years, Jurgen Habermas has presented what is arguably the most coherent and wide-ranging defence of the project of European unification and of parallel developments towards a politically integrated world society. In developing his key concepts of the transnationalisation of democracy and the constitutionalisation of international law, Habermas offers the main players in the struggles over the fate of the European Union (the politicians, the political parties and the publics of the member states) a way out of the current economic and political crisis, should they choose to follow it. In the title essay Habermas addresses the challenges and threats posed by the current banking and public debt crisis in the Eurozone for European unification. He is harshly critical of the incrementalist, technocratic policies advocated by the German government in particular, which are being imposed at the expense of the populations of the economically weaker, crisis-stricken countries and are undermining solidarity between the member states. He argues that only if the technocratic approach is replaced by a deeper democratization of the European institutions can the European Union fulfil its promise as a model for how rampant market capitalism can once again be brought under political control at the supranational level. This volume reflects the impressive scope of Habermas?s recent writings on European themes, including theoretical treatments of the complex legal and political issues at stake, interventions on current affairs, and reflections on the lives and works of major European philosophers and intellectuals. Together the essays provide eloquent testimony to the enduring relevance of the work of one of the most influential and far-sighted public intellectuals in the world today, and are essential reading for all philosophers, legal scholars and social scientists interested in European and global issues.

Here, for the first time in English, is volume one of Jurgen Habermas's long-awaited magnum opus: The Theory of Communicative Action. This pathbreaking work is guided by three interrelated concerns: (1) to develop a concept of communicative rationality that is no longer tied to the subjective and individualistic premises of modern social and political theory; (2) to construct a two-level concept of society that integrates the 'lifeworld' and 'system' paradigms; and (3) to sketch out a critical theory of modernity that explains its sociopathologies in a new way.
Habermas approaches these tasks through a combination of conceptual analyses, systematic reflections, and critical reconstructions of such predecessors as Marx and Weber, Durkheim and Mead, Horkheimer and Adorno, Schutz and Parsons. Reason and the Rationalization of Society develops a sociological theory of action that stresses not its means-ends or teleological aspect, but the need to coordinate action socially via communication. In the introductory chapter Habermas sets out a powerful series of arguments on such foundational issues as cultural and historical relativism, the methodology of Verstehen, the inseparabilty of interpretation from critique. In addition to clarifying the normative foundations of critical social inquiry, this sets the stage for a systematic appropriation of Weber's theory of rationalization and its Marxist reception by Lukacs, Horkheimer and Adorno.
This is an important book for degree students of philosophy, sociology and related subjects.

On the occasion of Habermas's 80th birthday, the German publisher Suhrkamp brought out five volumes of Habermas's work that spanned the full range his philosophical work, from the theory of rationality to the critique of metaphysics. For each of these volumes, Habermas wrote an introduction that crystallized, in a remarkably clear and succinct way, his thinking on the key philosophical issues that have preoccupied him throughout his long career. This new book by Polity brings together these five introductions and publishes them together for the first time. The result is a unique and comprehensive overview of Habermas's philosophy in his own words. In the five chapters that make up this volume, Habermas discusses the concept of communicative action and the grounding of the social sciences in the theory of language; the relationship between rationality and the theory of language; discourse ethics; political theory and problems of democracy and legitimacy; the critique of reason and the challenge posed by religion in a secular age. The volume includes a substantial introduction by Jean-Marc Durand-Gasselin which provides the reader with all the necessary background to understand Habermas's distinctive and original contribution to philosophy. Philosophical Introductions will be an indispensable text for students and scholars in philosophy and in the humanities and social sciences generally, and for anyone interested in the most important developments in philosophy and critical theory today.

Over the past 25 years, Jurgen Habermas has presented what is arguably the most coherent and wide-ranging defence of the project of European unification and of parallel developments towards a politically integrated world society. In developing his key concepts of the transnationalisation of democracy and the constitutionalisation of international law, Habermas offers the main players in the struggles over the fate of the European Union (the politicians, the political parties and the publics of the member states) a way out of the current economic and political crisis, should they choose to follow it. In the title essay Habermas addresses the challenges and threats posed by the current banking and public debt crisis in the Eurozone for European unification. He is harshly critical of the incrementalist, technocratic policies advocated by the German government in particular, which are being imposed at the expense of the populations of the economically weaker, crisis-stricken countries and are undermining solidarity between the member states. He argues that only if the technocratic approach is replaced by a deeper democratization of the European institutions can the European Union fulfil its promise as a model for how rampant market capitalism can once again be brought under political control at the supranational level. This volume reflects the impressive scope of Habermas?s recent writings on European themes, including theoretical treatments of the complex legal and political issues at stake, interventions on current affairs, and reflections on the lives and works of major European philosophers and intellectuals. Together the essays provide eloquent testimony to the enduring relevance of the work of one of the most influential and far-sighted public intellectuals in the world today, and are essential reading for all philosophers, legal scholars and social scientists interested in European and global issues.

This study offers a systematic reconstruction of the theoretical foundations and framework of critical social theory. It is Habermas' "magnum opus", and it is regarded as one of the most important works of modern social thought. In this second and final volume of the work, Habermas examines the relations between action concepts and systems theory and elaborates a framework for analyzing the developmental tendencies of modern societies. He discusses in detail the work of Marx, Durkheim, G.H. Mead and Talcott Parsons, among others. By distinguishing between social systems and what he calls the "life-world", Habermas is able to analyze the ways in which the development of social systems impinges upon the symbolic and subjective dimensions of social life, resulting in the kind of crises, conflicts and protest movements which are characteristic of advanced capitalist societies in the late-20th century.

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 thinkera s work, his feeling for the texture of intellectual traditions and his outstanding powers of critical assessment. Habermas has described these essays as a fragments of a history of contemporary philosophya . 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.

In this important book Habermas develops his views on a range of moral and ethical issues. Drawing on his theory of communicative action, Habermas elaborates an original conception of 'discourse ethics', seeking to reconstruct a moral point of view from which normative claims can be impartially judged.

Habermas connects communicative ethics to the theory of social action via an examination of research in the social psychology of moral and interpersonal development. He aims to show that our basic moral intuitions spring from something deeper and more universal than contingent features of our tradition, namely from normative presuppositions of social interaction that belong to the repertoire of competent agents in any society.

"Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action" confronts directly a variety of difficult and controversial problems which are at the centre of current debates in philosophy and social and political theory.

There is no alternative to postmetaphysical thinking : this statement, made by Jurgen Habermas in 1988, has lost none of its relevance. Postmetaphysical thinking is, in the first place, the historical answer to the crisis of metaphysics following Hegel, when the central metaphysical figures of thought began to totter under the pressure exerted by social developments and by developments within science. As a result, philosophy s epistemological privilege was shaken to its core, its basic concepts were de-transcendentalized, and the primacy of theory over practice was opened to question. For good reasons, philosophy lost its extraordinary status , but as a result it also courted new problems. In Postmetaphysical Thinking II, the sequel to the 1988 volume that bears the same title (English translation, Polity 1992), Habermas addresses some of these problems. The first section of the book deals with the shift in perspective from metaphysical worldviews to the lifeworld, the unarticulated meanings and assumptions that accompany everyday thought and action in the mode of background knowledge . Habermas analyses the lifeworld as a space of reasons even where language is not (yet) involved, such as, for example, in gestural communication and rituals. In the second section, the uneasy relationship between religion and postmetaphysical thinking takes centre stage. Habermas picks up where he left off in 1988, when he made the far-sighted observation that philosophy, even in its postmetaphysical form, will be able neither to replace nor to repress religion , and explores philosophy s new-found interest in religion, among other topics. The final section includes essays on the role of religion in the political context of a post-secular, liberal society. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars in philosophy, religion and the social sciences and humanities generally.

In this enormously influential book, Jurgen Habermas examines the deep tensions and crisis tendencies which underlie the development of contemporary Western societies and develops a powerful analysis of the legitimation problems faced by modern states. Habermas argues that Western societies have succeeded to some extent in stabilizing the economic fluctuations associated with capitalism, but this has created a new range of crisis tendencies which are expressed in other spheres. States intervene in economic life and attempt to regulate markets, but they find themselves confronted by increasing and often conflicting demands. As individuals become increasingly disillusioned, the state is faced with the possibility of a mass withdrawal of loyalty or support - a 'legitimation crisis'. Widely recognized as a classic of contemporary social and political analysis, Legitimation Crisis sheds light on a range of issues which are central to current debates, from the decline of class conflict and the disillusionment with established political institutions to the crisis of the welfare state. It remains essential reading for students of sociology, politics and the social sciences generally.

This work by Jurgen Habermas examines the theoretical and philosophical contours of the modern era. It is a work on a theme that concerns a wide range of disciplines, from sociology and politics to philosophy, aesthetics and literary theory. Habermas traces the contemporary critiques of modernity back to their philosophical origins in the work of Marx, Nietzshe, Heidegger and others and shows how the work of these thinkers was to some extents a response to the ideas of reason and reflexive self-understanding, and the the processes of rationalization and modernization, which developed in the course of the 18the and early 19the centuries.

Two countervailing trends mark the intellectual tenor of our age the spread of naturalistic worldviews and religious orthodoxies. Advances in biogenetics, brain research, and robotics are clearing the way for the penetration of an objective scientific self-understanding of persons into everyday life. For philosophy, this trend is associated with the challenge of scientific naturalism. At the same time, we are witnessing an unexpected revitalization of religious traditions and the politicization of religious communities across the world. From a philosophical perspective, this revival of religious energies poses the challenge of a fundamentalist critique of the principles underlying the modern Wests postmetaphysical understanding of itself.
The tension between naturalism and religion is the central theme of this major new book by Jrgen Habermas. On the one hand he argues for an appropriate naturalistic understanding of cultural evolution that does justice to the normative character of the human mind. On the other hand, he calls for an appropriate interpretation of the secularizing effects of a process of social and cultural rationalization increasingly denounced by the champions of religious orthodoxies as a historical development peculiar to the West. These reflections on the enduring importance of religion and the limits of secularism under conditions of postmetaphysical reason set the scene for an extended treatment the political significance of religious tolerance and for a fresh contribution to current debates on cosmopolitanism and a constitution for international society.

Recent developments in biotechnology and genetic research are raising complex ethical questions concerning the legitimate scope and limits of genetic intervention. As we begin to contemplate the possibility of intervening in the human genome to prevent diseases, we cannot help but feel that the human species might soon be able to take its biological evolution in its own hands. 'Playing God' is the metaphor commonly used for this self-transformation of the species, which, it seems, might soon be within our grasp.

In this important new book, Jurgen Habermas - the most influential philosopher and social thinker in Germany today - takes up the question of genetic engineering and its ethical implications and subjects it to careful philosophical scrutiny. His analysis is guided by the view that genetic manipulation is bound up with the identity and self-understanding of the species. We cannot rule out the possibility that knowledge of one's own hereditary factors may prove to be restrictive for the choice of an individual's way of life and may undermine the symmetrical relations between free and equal human beings.

In the concluding chapter - which was delivered as a lecture on receiving the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for 2001 - Habermas broadens the discussion to examine the tension between science and religion in the modern world, a tension which exploded, with such tragic violence, on September 11th.

In this important book, Jurgen Habermas takes up certain fundamental questions of philosophy. While much of his recent work has been concerned with issues of morality and law, in this new work Habermas returns to the traditional philosophical questions of truth, objectivity and reality which were at the centre of his earlier classic book "Knowledge and Human Interests."
In this new work Habermas returns to the traditional philosophical questions of truth, objectivity and reality.
Habermas pursues these questions from the perspective of his own formal pragmatic theory which is based on an analysis of speech acts and language use.
He asks: How can the idea that our world exists independently of our attempts to describe it be reconciled with the insight that we can never reach reality without the mediation of language?
Addresses the limits of philosophy and reassesses the relation between theory and practice from a 'post-Marxist' perspective.