Online research in philosophy

Although Jürgen Habermas has a strong argument to link reason and philosophy, he also thinks that religion has a legitimate place in the (rational) public sphere. The question, though, is: what does this legitimate place entail? Is the power of religious language due to the fact that modern culture is not sufficiently secularized, that is, not yet sufficiently philosophic? Or is the power of religious language due to the fact that it successfully articulates certain widely shared moral (and substantive) intuitions? (...) In addressing these questions, this contribution has four parts. In the first section the issue of Critical Theory and religion will be briefly examined. The point here is that where religion (like aesthetics) plays a more central role amongst the thinkers of the first movement of Critical Theory (theorists such as Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, and Benjamin), this is not the case with Habermas (the leading exponent of the second movement). In the second section, this aspect is further explored by reconstructing Habermas’s intellectual project (with its religious implications) in six steps. Finally (in the third and fourth sections) some critical remarks (inter-paradigmatic and extra-paradigmatic) will be made on Habermas’s view of religion. (shrink)

This book, which exhibits tremendous range and scholarship, will interest scholars of Habermas, Critical Theory, aesthetics, German and French philosophy, ...

This article focuses on the politics of memory and forgetting after Auschwitz and apartheid. In the first two sections Habermas' critical contribution to the German Historikerstreit is discussed. Important in this regard is the moral dimension of our relation to the past. In the next two sections the emphasis shifts to South Africa and more specifically the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The article ends with a general discussion of the dilemma of historical 'truth' and representation in (...) contemporary societies. Key Words: apartheid • Habermas • Historikerstreit • history • South Africa. (shrink)