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Book Habermas and the Dialectic of Reason

Download or read book Habermas and the Dialectic of Reason written by David Ingram and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1987-01-01 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his magnum opus, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, the distinguished philosopher Jurgen Habermas presented his ideas as a whole, providing the first major defense of his philosophy. David Ingram here summarizes the themes of Habermas's masterwork, placing them in the context of the philosopher's other work, relating them to poststructuralism, hermeneutics, and Neo-Aristotelianism, and surveying what other critics have said about Habermas. "Ingram's exposition of Habermas is impressive for its erudition and its faithful adherence to the major contours of Habermas's work."--James Farganis, Contemporary Sociology "A valuable contribution to the understanding of an important, but difficult, thinker."--Ethics "The book is indispensable to an understanding of both Habermas and the contemporary human condition."--Scott Warren, Social Science Quarterly "Ingram has done sociologists, philosophers, and political scientists a great service by demystifying Habermas's more recent theory of communicative action."--R. George Kirkpatrick, American Journal of Sociology "Likely to be and to remain the leading study on Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action. What McCarthy did for Habermas's earlier writings, Ingram accomplishes for his more recent work."--Fred R. Dallmayr, University of Notre Dame

Book Habermas and the Dialectic of Reason

Download or read book Habermas and the Dialectic of Reason written by David Ingram and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his magnum opus, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, the distinguished philosopher Jurgen Habermas presented his ideas as a whole, providing the first major defense of his philosophy. David Ingram here summarizes the themes of Habermas's masterwork, placing them in the context of the philosopher's other work, relating them to poststructuralism, hermeneutics, and Neo-Aristotelianism, and surveying what other critics have said about Habermas. -- Back cover.

Book Dialectics of Secularization

Download or read book Dialectics of Secularization written by Benedikt XVI. (Papst) and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two of the worlds great contemporary thinkers--theologian and churchman Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, and Jrgen Habermas, philosopher and Neo-Marxist social critic--discuss and debate aspects of secularization, and the role of reason and religion in a free society. These insightful essays are the result of a remarkable dialogue between the two men, sponsored by the Catholic Academy of Bavaria, a little over a year before Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope.

Book Dialectic of Enlightenment

Download or read book Dialectic of Enlightenment written by Max Horkheimer and published by Burns & Oates. This book was released on 1993 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major study of modern culture, Dialectic of Enlightenment for many years led an underground existence among the homeless Left of the German Federal Republic until its definitive publication in West Germany in 1969. Originally composed by its two distinguished authors during their Californian exile in 1944, the book can stand as a monument of classic German progressive social theory in the twentieth century.>

Book Reason After Its Eclipse

    Book Details:
  • Author : Martin Jay
  • Publisher : University of Wisconsin Pres
  • Release : 2016-04-21
  • ISBN : 029930650X
  • Pages : 266 pages

Download or read book Reason After Its Eclipse written by Martin Jay and published by University of Wisconsin Pres. This book was released on 2016-04-21 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tackles a question as old as Plato and still pressing today: What is reason, and what roles does and should it have in human endeavor? The eminent intellectual historian Martin Jay surveys Western ideas of reason, particularly in German philosophy from Kant to Habermas.

Book Habermas

    Book Details:
  • Author : David Ingram
  • Publisher : Cornell University Press
  • Release : 2011-01-15
  • ISBN : 0801459990
  • Pages : 384 pages

Download or read book Habermas written by David Ingram and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-15 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Book Adorno  Habermas and the Search for a Rational Society

Download or read book Adorno Habermas and the Search for a Rational Society written by Deborah Cook and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-07-31 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theodor W. Adorno and Jnrgen Habermas both champion the goal of a rational society. However, they differ significantly about what this society should look like and how best to achieve it. Exploring the premises shared by both critical theorists, along with their profound disagreements about social conditions today, this book defends Adorno against Habermas' influential criticisms of his account of Western society and prospects for achieving reasonable conditions of human life. The book begins with an overview of these critical theories of Western society. Both Adorno and Habermas follow Georg Lukacs when they argue that domination consists in the reifying extension of a calculating, rationalizing form of thought to all areas of human life. Their views about reification are discussed in the second chapter. In chapter three the author explores their conflicting accounts of the historical emergence and development of the type of rationality now prevalent in the West. Since Adorno and Habermas claim to have a critical purchase on reified social life, the critical leverage of their theories is assessed in chapter four. The final chapter deals with their opposing views about what a rational society would look like, as well as their claims about the prospects for establishing such a society. Adorno, Habermas and the Search for a Rational Society will be essential reading for students and researchers of critical theory, political theory and the work of Adorno and Habermas.

Book Dialectic of Enlightenment

Download or read book Dialectic of Enlightenment written by Max Horkheimer and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer are the leading figures of the Frankfurt School and this book is their magnum opus. Dialectic of Enlightenment is one of the most celebrated works of modern social philosophy that continues to impress in its wide-ranging ambition. Writing just after the Second World War and reflecting on the bureaucracy and myths of National Socialism and the inanity of the dawn of consumerism, Adorno and Horkheimer addressed themselves to a question which went to the very heart of the modern age: 'why mankind, instead of entering into a truly human condition, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism'. Modernity, far from redeeming the promises and hopes of the Enlightenment, had resulted in a stultification of mankind and administered society, characterised by simulation and candy-floss entertainment. Tracing humanity's modern fall to the very rationality that was to be its liberation, the authors exposed the domination and violence that underpin the Enlightenment project.

Book Postmetaphysical Thinking II

Download or read book Postmetaphysical Thinking II written by Jürgen Habermas and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-06-16 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘There is no alternative to postmetaphysical thinking’: this statement, made by Jürgen 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.

Book Dialectic of Enlightenment

Download or read book Dialectic of Enlightenment written by Jacob Klapwijk and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2010-08-09 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dialectic of Enlightenment is a thought-provoking introduction to the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno first identified the "dialectic of enlightenment" when fascism was on the rampage in Europe. They warned that enlightened reason and societal freedom threaten to revert into blindness and oppression. Herbert Marcuse and the young Jurgen Habermas elaborated their Critical Theory, declaring that post-war society has not escaped this dilemma, blinded as it is by ideology, pseudo-democracy, and mass manipulation. Critical Theory aims to unmask modern reason and liberate society. But a fundamental question keeps coming back: how can this critique of modernity remain viable within a repressive societal system? Is reason in the modern world indeed doomed to self-destruct? Does rationality inevitably lead to domination and oppression? Jacob Klapwijk argues that the dialectic of enlightenment proves to be a faith, a mythical faith encouraging resignation and despair. Instead we need a wholesome reason, one inspired by a messianic faith. Dialectic of Enlightenment is an important book for students of philosophy, theology, and the social sciences. It invites them to a renewed criticism of the mythological traits and self-destructive tendencies of modern reason. It also offers a perspective of hope to all who share the author's concern about the direction of today's globalizing world.

Book Kierkegaard s Writings  VII  Volume 7

Download or read book Kierkegaard s Writings VII Volume 7 written by Søren Kierkegaard and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-21 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains a new translation, with a historical introduction by the translators, of two works written under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus. Through Climacus, Kierkegaard contrasts the paradoxes of Christianity with Greek and modern philosophical thinking. In Philosophical Fragments he begins with Greek Platonic philosophy, exploring the implications of venturing beyond the Socratic understanding of truth acquired through recollection to the Christian experience of acquiring truth through grace. Published in 1844 and not originally planned to appear under the pseudonym Climacus, the book varies in tone and substance from the other works so attributed, but it is dialectically related to them, as well as to the other pseudonymous writings. The central issue of Johannes Climacus is doubt. Probably written between November 1842 and April 1843 but unfinished and published only posthumously, this book was described by Kierkegaard as an attack on modern speculative philosophy by "means of the melancholy irony, which did not consist in any single utterance on the part of Johannes Climacus but in his whole life. . . . Johannes does what we are told to do--he actually doubts everything--he suffers through all the pain of doing that, becomes cunning, almost acquires a bad conscience. When he has gone as far in that direction as he can go and wants to come back, he cannot do so. . . . Now he despairs, his life is wasted, his youth is spent in these deliberations. Life does not acquire any meaning for him, and all this is the fault of philosophy." A note by Kierkegaard suggests how he might have finished the work: "Doubt is conquered not by the system but by faith, just as it is faith that has brought doubt into the world!."

Book A Companion to Adorno

    Book Details:
  • Author : Peter E. Gordon
  • Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
  • Release : 2020-02-25
  • ISBN : 1119146933
  • Pages : 690 pages

Download or read book A Companion to Adorno written by Peter E. Gordon and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 690 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A definitive contribution to scholarship on Adorno, bringing together the foremost experts in the field As one of the leading continental philosophers of the last century, and one of the pioneering members of the Frankfurt School, Theodor W. Adorno is the author of numerous influential—and at times quite radical—works on diverse topics in aesthetics, social theory, moral philosophy, and the history of modern philosophy, all of which concern the contradictions of modern society and its relation to human suffering and the human condition. Having authored substantial contributions to critical theory which contain searching critiques of the ‘culture industry’ and the ‘identity thinking’ of modern Western society, Adorno helped establish an interdisciplinary but philosophically rigorous study of culture and provided some of the most startling and revolutionary critiques of Western society to date. The Blackwell Companion to Adorno is the largest collection of essays by Adorno specialists ever gathered in a single volume. Part of the acclaimed Blackwell Companions to Philosophy series, this important contribution to the field explores Adorno’s lasting impact on many sub-fields of philosophy. Seven sections, encompassing a diverse range of topics and perspectives, explore Adorno’s intellectual foundations, his critiques of culture, his views on ethics and politics, and his analyses of history and domination. Provides new research and fresh perspectives on Adorno’s views and writings Offers an authoritative, single-volume resource for Adorno scholarship Addresses renewed interest in Adorno’s significance to contemporary questions in philosophy Presents over 40 essays written by international-recognized experts in the field A singular advancement in Adorno scholarship, the Companion to Adorno is an indispensable resource for Adorno specialists and anyone working in modern European philosophy, contemporary cultural criticism, social theory, German history, and aesthetics.

Book Mimesis and Reason

    Book Details:
  • Author : Gregg Daniel Miller
  • Publisher : State University of New York Press
  • Release : 2011-09-23
  • ISBN : 1438437412
  • Pages : 202 pages

Download or read book Mimesis and Reason written by Gregg Daniel Miller and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2011-09-23 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complicating the standard interpretation of Habermas as a proceduralist, Mimesis and Reason uncovers the role that mimesis, or imitation, plays as a genuinely political force in communicative action. Through a penetrating examination of Habermas's use of themes and concepts from Plato, George Herbert Mead, and Walter Benjamin, Gregg Daniel Miller reconstructs Habermas's theory to reveal a new, postmetaphysical articulation of reason that lays the groundwork for new directions in political theory.

Book The Recent Work of J  rgen Habermas

Download or read book The Recent Work of J rgen Habermas written by Stephen K. White and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1989-08-25 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jürgen Habermas is one of the foremost philosophers and social theorists in the world today. But the complexity and breadth of his thought make him often difficult to understand. In this book, Stephen White offers a clear, accessible, and reliable introduction to Habermas's work, particularly that which he has written since the publication of Knowledge and human interest (produced in English in 1971). During this period, new themes and directions have emerged in Habermas's thought, which culminated in The Theory of Communicative Action, a massive work that has not hitherto been the subject of extended commentary and analysis. This book is the first to provide a full-length study of Habermas's mature thought. Locating the latter in the context of contemporary debates, White explains Habermas's ideas about action, rationality, communicative ethics, contemporary capitalism, and new social movements, which characterize his later work. He also examines Habermas's interpretation of modernity, showing that although, like his forerunners in the Frankfurt School, Habermas maintains a critical stance towards modernity's instrumentalization of reason, he nonetheless offers a sophisticated defense of the universal significance of other aspects of modern consciousness that are too often forgotten by many recent radical critics of modernity. Throughout, White presents Habermas's work in such a way as to emphasize its coherence, and to demonstrate how it constitutes the beginnings of a distinctive new research program in the social sciences. As a well-researched and lucid account of Habermas's thought, this book will appeal to readers wanting an introduction to the complexity of his ideas, as well as to those already conversant with them. It will also interest social and political theorists concerned with the general theoretical issues that it covers.

Book Introduction to Critical Theory

Download or read book Introduction to Critical Theory written by David Held and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1980-10-13 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mandy is bewildered by the unhappy reaction of some of her Cherokee friends to her discovery of gold inside a cave and her Christian values are tested by a troublesome Cherokee cousin.

Book Autonomy and Solidarity

Download or read book Autonomy and Solidarity written by Jürgen Habermas and published by Verso. This book was released on 1992 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last half decade or so, Jürgen Habermas has increasingly employed the interview format, both as a means of presenting his changing views on philosophical topics in an accessible way, and as a means of debating current social and political issues. This new, expanded edition of Autonomy and Solidarity includes an additional five interviews in which Habermas discusses such themes as the history and significance of the Frankfurt School, the social and political development of post-war Germany, the moral status of civil disobedience, the implications of the "Historians' Dispute," and the function of national identity in the modern world. Never before published autobiographical material covering Habermas' early years at the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research is followed by an extended philosophical interrogation of his latest thinking on the relations between ethics, morality and law. With an extended introduction by Peter Dews, exploring the status and prospects of Critical Theory in the light of the recent revolutionary transformations in Europe, Autonomy and Solidarity should be of interest and value both to newcomers and those already familiar with Habermas' thought.

Book The Highway of Despair

    Book Details:
  • Author : Robyn Marasco
  • Publisher : Columbia University Press
  • Release : 2015-03-24
  • ISBN : 0231538898
  • Pages : 241 pages

Download or read book The Highway of Despair written by Robyn Marasco and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-24 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hegel's "highway of despair," introduced in his Phenomenology of Spirit, is the tortured path traveled by "natural consciousness" on its way to freedom. Despair, the passionate residue of Hegelian critique, also indicates fugitive opportunities for freedom and preserves the principle of hope against all hope. Analyzing the works of an eclectic cast of thinkers, Robyn Marasco considers the dynamism of despair as a critical passion, reckoning with the forms of historical life forged along Hegel's highway. The Highway of Despair follows Theodor Adorno, Georges Bataille, and Frantz Fanon as they each read, resist, and reconfigure a strand of thought in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Confronting the twentieth-century collapse of a certain revolutionary dialectic, these thinkers struggle to revalue critical philosophy and recast Left Hegelianism within the contexts of genocidal racism, world war, and colonial domination. Each thinker also re-centers the role of passion in critique. Arguing against more recent trends in critical theory that promise an escape from despair, Marasco shows how passion frustrates the resolutions of reason and faith. Embracing the extremism of what Marx, in the spirit of Hegel, called the "ruthless critique of everything existing," she affirms the contemporary purchase of radical critical theory, resulting in a passionate approach to political thought.