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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2010
The work of Jürgen Habermas has been described as eclectic. It is also prolific. Fortunately for his readers the prolificacy and eclecticism of the author are mitigated by the recurrence of his themes. These concern the emergence and nature of modern occidental society, both from a sociological and philosophical perspective. On a more philosophical level, there is also a strong plea for a paradigm change. The philosophy of the consciousness made the lone subject, in search of knowledge, face the external world. The dialogic philosophy of Habermas sees interlocutors engaged in dialogue about the material, social and internal world and their many aspects. Furthermore, there are many fruitful sidelines: the nature of language, the personality structure of the individual, socialisation and the status of the social sciences. All these various strands are woven into a coherent model of the nature of western civilisation. In the recombination of the contributory constituents, derived from American pragmatism, German Idealism, Hermeneutics, Marxism, the Frankfurt School of Sociology and Systems Theory, lies the originality and breadth of his work.
1 Habermas, J., ‘Dialektik der Rationalisierung’, in Die Neue Unübersichtlichkeit (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1985), p. 171.Google Scholar
2 Ibid., p. 204.
3 Habermas, J., Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, II (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1981), pp. 179, 226Google Scholar; The Theory of Communicative Action, II (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987), pp. [117], [15Of]Google Scholar; Legitimationsproblemeim Spätkapitalismus (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1973), p. 14Google Scholar; Legitimation Crisis (London: Heinemann Educational, 1976), p. [4]Google Scholar; Zur Rekonstruktiondes Historischen Materialismus (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1976), p. 114Google Scholar; Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1985), p. 421Google Scholar; The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987), p. [363].Google Scholar
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6 Theorie, II, pp. 488ff [332ff].
7 Ibid., p. 209 [138] and Habermas, J., Nachmetaphysisches Denken (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1988), pp. 95ff.Google Scholar
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11 Theorie, I, pp. 202, 306, 320 [140, 221, 232f].
12 Diskurs, p. 421 (this is my own translation which I prefer to the ‘official’ one which is to be found in the English translation of Diskurs, p. [363]; Theorie, II, p. 391 [261].
13 Theorie, I, p. 109 [71]; Neue UnÜbersichtlichkeit, pp. 183, 236, 252. The reflexivity of modern societies has also been stressed by Giddens, A., Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), pp. 36ff, 144, 152f.Google Scholar
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29 See Planck, Vorträge, pp. 29, 129, 131.
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32 SeePenrose, R., The Emperor's New Mind (London, 1990), pp. 273–8Google Scholar; Pagels, H., The Cosmic Code (London, 1994), p. 75Google Scholar; de Broglie, L., Matter and Light (Dover, 1939), p. 227Google Scholar
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35 SeePais, A., Niel's Bohr's Times (Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 151Google Scholar
36 See Habermas, J., ‘Questions and Counterquestions’, in Habermas and Modernity, p. 196Google Scholar and Theorie, II, pp. 584ff [397ff].
37 Theorie, I, p. 328 [240]; see also Habermas and Modernity, pp. 102, 177, 207.
38 Giddens, , Consequences of Modernity, p. 38 and pp. 144–54.Google Scholar
39 Bauman, Z., Postmodernity and its Discontents (Oxford: Polity Press, 1996).Google Scholar
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42 A famous example is Dali's picture The Persistence of Memory (1931).
43 Die Neue Uniibersichtlichkeit, p. 145.
44 Diskurs der Moderne, p. 11 [3]; see also Wellmer, A., ‘On the Dialectic of Modernism and Postmodenism’, in Praxis International, 4 (October, 1984), pp. 337–62Google Scholar. An expanded version of this essay has recently been published in Wellmer, A., The Persistence of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), pp. 36–94.Google Scholar
45 Theorie I, p. 75(ff) [45(ff)].
46 Theorie I, pp. 85, 99, 109f [52f, 64, 71f].
47 Giddens, A., ‘Reason without Revolution?’, in Habermas and Modernity, p. 100Google Scholar. This claim is discussed most explicitly in Rekonstruktion, pp. 34–5, 152–7, 162, 278, 330 [119f, 138–42, 148, 184f–.
48 Nachmetaphysisches Denken, chapter 7; Postmetaphysical Thinking (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992), chapter 6.Google Scholar
49 Habermas, Nach meta-physiches Denken, p. 179 [139]; Theorie I, pp. 93, 88 [58f, 55].
50 Die neue Uniibersichtlichkeit, p. 136.
51 Habermas, , ‘Questions and Counterquestions’, in Habermas and Modernity, pp. 196–7.Google Scholar
52 Diskurs der Moderne, p. 366 [314ff]; Theorie, I, pp. 25ff [8ff]; Nachmetaphysisches Denken, chapter I [I]; Rekonstruktion, p. 34 [119f].
53 Nachmetaphysisches Denken, p. 42; I have slightly amended the English translation on p. [35].
54 Nachmetaphysisches Denken, p. 46 [38]; Neue Uniibersichtlichkeit, p. 208.
