Habermas : a very short introduction

156 Pages·2005·1.29 MB·english

by  Habermas

Habermas: A Very Short Introduction
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James Gordon Finlayson
HABERMAS
A Very Short Introduction
1
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to all my colleagues in the Department of Philosophy at
the University of York. I greatly appreciated discussing ideas with Marie
McGinn and Stephen Everson. Tom Baldwin was all I could have wished
for in a colleague and head of department, and I benefited greatly
from his friendship, encouragement and encyclopaedic knowledge
of philosophy. Above all Christian Piller was both a good friend,
departmental neighbour, and conversation partner, whom I made find
out more about Habermas than he bargained for, and whose insightful
questions always left me thinking more deeply and more clearly than I
had before. In 2003, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to teach
Habermas’s discourse ethics to an excellent class of students at the
University of York. I gained ideas from the contributions of Robin
Howells and Alexander Perry. I am indebted also to Matt Brown,
Juliana Sokolová, Sonja Schnöring, John-David Rhodes, Charlie Burns
and William Outhwaite, all of whom read and or commented on
drafts of the book; to Marsha Filion, the commissioning editor at
Oxford University Press, Alyson Lacewing and Peter Butcher at
Refinecatch, who helped me to make order out of managed chaos.
I would especially like to thank Dr. Ting-Ming Li and Connie Dibiasio
both of whom, in different ways showed me care, generosity, and
kindness, over the last few years. Finally, my parents Kathryn and Jon
Finlayson, and Juliana deserve special mention, for their love, support
and goodwill, upon which I have been able to rely in difficult times.
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Contents
Preface: Who is Jürgen Habermas? xi
Abbreviations xxi
List of illustrations xxiii
1
Habermas and Frankfurt School critical theory 1
2
Habermas’s new approach to social theory 16
3
The pragmatic meaning programme 28
4
The programme of social theory 47
5
Habermas’s theory of modernity 62
6
Discourse ethics I: the discourse theory of morality 76
7
Discourse ethics II: ethical discourse and the political
turn 91
8
Politics, democracy, and law 106
9
Germany, Europe, and post-national citizenship 122
Appendix 139
Further reading 143
Index 153