Abstract

June 19, 1979, marks the 50th birthday of Jürgen Habermas. Festschrifts are usually reserved for later birthdays, and are most successful when the honored thinker is so advanced in years as to be beyond influence and open only to honors. Fortunately, Habermas is still too young and too intellectually alive merely to be honored. Thus, what follows is a sample of his latest work, an interview with him that develops some of the political implications of his theses, two reviews of books dealing with related topics, and an exchange on the significance of the transformation he has made in the structure and content of critical social theory. Further contributions will be printed in the next issue.