Habermas speaking with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, 2004

Jürgen Habermas (born June 18, 1929 in Düsseldorf, Germany) is a philosopher and social theorist in the tradition of critical theory. His work has been called Neo-Marxist, and focuses on the foundations of social theory and epistemology, the analysis of advanced capitalist industrial society and of democracy and the rule of law in a critical social-evolutionary context, and contemporary (especially German) politics. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI (Latin: ; born April 16, 1927 as Joseph Alois Ratzinger in Marktl am Inn, Bavaria) is the 265th and reigning pope, the head of the Roman Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City. ... June 18 is the 169th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (170th in leap years), with 196 days remaining. ... 1929 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Düsseldorf in Germany The Düsseldorf Coat of Arms Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. ... A philosopher is a person devoted to studying and producing results in philosophy. ... This page needs attention and peer review. ... In the humanities and social sciences, critical theory is a general term for new theoretical developments (roughly since the 1960s) in a variety of fields, informed by structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, Marxist theory, and several other areas of thought. ... In a sociological sense, neo-Marxism adds Webers broader understanding of inequality -- such as status and power -- to Marxism. ...

Habermas has integrated into a comprehensive framework of social theory and philosophy the German philosophical thought of Kant, Schelling, Hegel, Dilthey, Husserl, and Gadamer, the Marxian tradition - both the theory of Marx himself as well as the critical neo-Marxian theory of the Frankfurt School, i.e. Horkheimer, Adorno, and Marcuse -, the sociological theories of Weber, Durkheim, and Mead, the linguistic philosophy and speech act theories of Wittgenstein, Austin, and Searle, the American pragmatist tradition of Peirce and Dewey, and the sociological systems theory of Parsons. A painting of Immanuel Kant in his middle age Immanuel Kant (April 22, 1724 in Königsberg – February 12, 1804) was a German philosopher from Prussia, generally regarded as one of Europes most influential thinkers and the last major philosopher of the Enlightenment. ... Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (January 27, 1775 - August 20, 1854) was a German philosopher. ... G.W.F. Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 - November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher born in Stuttgart, Württemberg, in present-day southwest Germany. ... Wilhelm Dilthey Wilhelm Dilthey (November 19, 1833–October 1, 1911) was a German historian, psychologist, sociologist, student of Hermeneutics, the study of interpretations and meanings, and a philosopher. ... Edmund Husserl Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl, (April 8, 1859 - April 26, 1938), philosopher, was born into a Jewish family in Prostějov (Prossnitz), Moravia, Czech Republic (then part of the Austrian Empire). ... Hans-Georg Gadamer Hans-Georg Gadamer (February 11, 1900 – March 13, 2002) was a German philosopher best known for his 1960 magnum opus, Truth and Method (Wahrheit und Methode). ... Karl Marx Karl Marx (May 5, 1818 Trier, Germany – March 14, 1883 London, UK) was an influential German philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary organizer of the International Workingmens Association. ... The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist social theory, social research, and philosophy. ... Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg Max Horkheimer (February 14, 1895 - July 7, 1973) was a German philosopher and sociologist, known especially as the founder and guiding thinker of the Frankfurt School of critical theory. ... Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno (September 11, 1903 – August 6, 1969) was a German sociologist, philosopher, musicologist and composer. ... Herbert Marcuse Herbert Marcuse (July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a prominent German-American philosopher and sociologist of Jewish descent, member of the Frankfurt School. ... Maximilian Weber (April 21, 1864 – June 14, 1920) was a German political economist and sociologist who is considered one of the founders of the modern, antipositivistic study of sociology and public administration. ... David Émile Durkheim ( April 15, 1858 - November 15, 1917) is known as one of the founders of modern sociology. ... George Herbert Mead (February 27, 1863 - April 26, 1931) was a United States philosopher, sociologist and psychologist, who did much of his work at the University of Chicago as one of the founding members of the pragmatist school. ... A speech act is best described as in saying something, we do something, such as when a minister says, I now pronounce you husband and wife, or an action performed by means of language, such as describing something (), asking a question (Is it snowing?), making a request or order (Could... Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), pictured here in 1930, made influential contributions to logic and the philosophy of language, critically examining the task of conventional philosophy and its relation to the nature of language. ... John Langshaw Austin (March 28, 1911 - February 8, 1960) was a philosopher of language, who developed much of the current theory of speech acts. ... John Searle is a philosopher at UC Berkeley. ... Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce (September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American logician, philosopher, scientist, and mathematician. ... John Dewey (October 20, 1859 - June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, whose thought has been greatly influential in the United States and around the world. ... Talcott Parsons (December 13, 1902, Colorado Springs, USA - May 8, 1979, Munich, Germany) was the best-known sociologist in the United States, and one of the best-known in the world for many years. ...

Habermas considers his own major achievement the development of the concept and theory of communicative reason or communicative rationality, which distinguishes itself from the rationalist tradition by locating rationality in structures of interpersonal linguistic communication rather than in the structure of either the cosmos or the knowing subject. He carries forward the tradition of Kant and the Enlightenment and of democratic socialism through his emphasis on the potential for transforming the world and arriving at a more humane, just, and egalitarian society through the realization of the human potential for reason.

Habermas burst onto the German intellectual scene in the 1950s with an influential critique of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. He studied philosophy and sociology under the critical theorists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno at the Institute for Social Research at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, but because of a rift over him between the two, he took his Habilitation in political science at the University of Marburg under Wolfgang Abendroth. Very unusual in the German academic scene at that time, he was called to an extraordinary professorship of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg (at the instigation of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Karl Löwith), which he held until moving back to Frankfurt to a full Chair. The term philosophy derives from a combination of the Greek words philos meaning love and sophia meaning wisdom. ... Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976) was a German philosopher. ... Social interactions of people and their consequences are the subject of sociology studies. ... Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg Max Horkheimer (February 14, 1895 - July 7, 1973) was a German philosopher and sociologist, known especially as the founder and guiding thinker of the Frankfurt School of critical theory. ... Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno (September 11, 1903 – August 6, 1969) was a German sociologist, philosopher, musicologist and composer. ... The Institute for Social Research (German: Institut für Sozialforschung) is a research organization covering topics such as sociology and continental philosophy, best known as the institutional home of the Frankfurt School. ... The Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main (commonly called the University of Frankfurt) was founded in 1914 as a Citizens University, which means that while it was a State university of Prussia, it had been founded and financed by the wealthy and active liberal citizenry of Frankfurt am... Habilitation is a term used within the university system in Germany, Austria, and some other European countries such as the German-speaking part of Switzerland, in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. ... Niccolò Machiavelli, ca 1500, became the key figure in realistic political theory, crucial to political science Political Science is an academic and research discipline that deals with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. ... The University of Marburg, officially called Philipps-Universität Marburg after its founder, the Landgrave Philipp I of Hesse (usually called the Magnanimous), was founded in 1527 and is the worlds first and oldest Protestant university. ... The Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (German Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; also known as simply University of Heidelberg) was established in the town of Heidelberg in the Rhineland in 1386. ... Hans-Georg Gadamer Hans-Georg Gadamer (February 11, 1900 – March 13, 2002) was a German philosopher best known for his 1960 magnum opus, Truth and Method (Wahrheit und Methode). ... Karl Löwith (b. ...

He accepted the position of Director of the Max Planck Institute in Starnberg (near Munich) in 1971, and worked there until 1983, two years after the publication of his magnum opus, The Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas then returned to his chair at Frankfurt and the directorship of the Institute for Social Research. Since retiring from Frankfurt in 1993, Habermas has continued to publish extensively. Munich: Frauenkirche and Town Hall steeple Munich (German: München (pronounced listen) is the state capital of the German Bundesland of Bavaria. ...

Theory

Jürgen Habermas's main aim has been to construct a social theory that advances the goals of human emancipation, while maintaining an inclusive universalist moral framework. The framework rests on the argument (called "Universal pragmatics") that all speech acts have an inherent telos (the Greek word for "purpose" or "goal") -- the goal of mutual understanding, and that human beings possess the communicative competence to bring about such understanding. Habermas built the framework out of the speech-act philosophy of Austin and Searle, the theories of moral development of Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg, and the discourse ethics of his Heidelberg colleague Karl-Otto Apel. Universal pragmatics is a program that tries to explain all of the conditions that are necessary for an understanding between people to be reached. ... A speech act is an action performed by means of language, such as describing something (), asking a question (Is it snowing?), making a request or order (Could you pass the salt?, Drop your weapon or Ill shoot you!), or making a promise () For much of the history of linguistics... A telos (from the the greek word for end, purpose or goal) is an end or purpose, in a fairly constrained sense used by philosophers such as Aristotle. ... Understanding is a psychological state in relation to an object or person whereby one is able to think about it and use concepts to be able to deal adequately with that object. ... Jean Piaget(August 9, 1896 – September 16, 1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist. ... Lawrence Kohlberg (October 25, 1927 - April 15, 1987) was a psychologist who was born in Bronxville, New York. ... Karl-Otto Apel is a German philosopher. ...

Within sociology, Habermas's major contribution is the development of a comprehensive theory of societal evolution and modernization focusing on the difference between communicative rationality and rationalization on the one hand and strategic/instrumental rationality and rationalization on the other. This includes a critique from a communicative standpoint of the differentiation-based theory of social systems developed by Niklas Luhmann, a student of Parsons. The word theory has a number distinct meanings depending on the context. ... Social structure (also referred to as a social system) is a system in which people forming the society are organized by a patterns of prelationships. ... Niklas Luhmann (December 8, 1927 - November 6, 1998) was a German sociologist, administration expert, and social systems theorist, as well as the founder of the sociological systems theory. ...

His defence of modern society and civil society has been a source of inspiration to others, and is considered a major philosophical alternative to the varieties of poststructuralism. He has also offered an influential analysis of late capitalism. Modernity is a term used to describe the condition of being Modern. Since the term Modern is used to describe a wide range of periods, modernity must be taken in context. ... Civil society or civil institutions refers to the totality of voluntary civic and social organizations or institutions which form the basis of a functioning society as opposed to the force backed structures of a state (regardless of that states political system). ... Post-structuralism is a body of work that followed in the wake of structuralism, and sought to understand the Western world as a network of structures, as in structuralism, but in which such structures are ordered primarily by local, shifting differences (as in deconstruction) rather than grand binary oppositions and... Late capitalism is a term sometimes used to refer to capitalism of the late 20th century. ...

Habermas sees the rationalization, humanization, and democratization of society in terms of the institutionalization of the potential for rationality that is inherent in the communicative competence that is unique to the human species. Habermas believes communicative competence has developed through the course of evolution, but in contemporary society it is suppressed or weakened by the way in which major domains of social life, such as the market, the state, and organizations, have been given over to or taken over by strategic/instrumental rationality, so that the logic of the system supplants that of the lifeworld.

Habermas is famous as a teacher and mentor. Among his most prominent students have been the political sociologist Claus Offe (professor at Humboldt University of Berlin), the sociological theorist Hans Joas (professor at the Free University of Berlin and at the University of Chicago), the theorist of societal evolution Klaus Eder, the social philosopher Axel Honneth (the current director of the Institute for Social Research), and the American philosopher Thomas McCarthy. Alternative meaning: Humboldt State University, located in Arcata, California Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (German Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) is the successor to Berlins oldest university, the Friedrich Wilhelm University (Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität), founded in 1810 by the liberal Prussian educational reformer... Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (FU Berlin, German: Freie Universität Berlin) is the largest university in Berlin, Germany. ... The University of Chicago is a private co-educational university located in Chicago, Illinois. ... Charles Darwin, father of the theory of evolution by natural selection. ...

Habermas is famous as a public intellectual as well as a scholar; most notably, in the 1980s he used the popular press to attack historians (i.e., Ernst Nolte and Andreas Hillgruber) who had tried to demarcate Nazi rule and the Holocaust from the mainstream of German history, explain Nazism as a reaction to Bolshevism, and partially rehabilitate the German armed forces. (The so-called "Historikerstreit," or "Historians' Quarrel" was not at all one-sided, because Habermas was himself attacked by eminent scholars like Joachim Fest.) More recently, Habermas has been outspoken in his opposition to the American invasion of Iraq. He is perhaps most famous outside of Germany for his conceptualization of the public sphere. An intellectual is a person who uses their intellect to study, reflect, and speculate on a variety of different ideas. ... Andreas Fritz Hillgruber (January 18, 1925-May 8, 1989) was an conservative West German historian. ... The Historikersteit (historians dispute) was an intellectual and political controversy in West Germany about the way the Holocaust should be treated in history. ... A concept in continental philosophy and critical theory, the public sphere contrasts with the private sphere, and is the part of life in which one is interacting with others and with society at large. ...

Habermas visited the China in April 2001 and received a big welcome. He gave numerous speeches under titles such as "Nation-states under the Pressure of Globalisation." Habermas was also the 2004 Kyoto Laureate in the Arts and Philosophy section. He traveled to San Diego and on March 5, 2005, as part of the University of San Diego's Kyoto Symposium, gave a speech entitled The Public Role of Religion in Secular Context, regarding the evolution of separation of Church and State from neutrality to intense secularism. The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ... The term philosophy derives from a combination of the Greek words philos meaning love and sophia meaning wisdom. ... San Diego County in the Southwest corner of California. ... A church building is a building used in Christian worship. ... A state is an organized political community occupying a definite territory, having an organized government, and possessing internal and external sovereignty. ... Secularism means: in philosophy, the belief that life can be best lived by applying ethics, and the universe best understood, by processes of reasoning, without reference to a god or gods or other supernatural concepts. ...

Habermas and Jacques Derrida engaged in somewhat acrimonious disputes beginning in the 1980s, which resulted in a refusal of extended debate or talking past one another of what were perhaps Europe's two most influential philosophers. Following Habermas's publication of "Beyond a Temporalized Philosophy of Origins: Derrida" (in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity), Derrida, citing Habermas as examplary, remarked that, "those who have accused me of reducing philosophy to literature or logic to rhetoric ... have visibly and carefully avoided reading me" ("Is There a Philosophical Language?," p. 218, in Points...). Others prominent in deconstruction, notably Jean-François Lyotard, engaged in more extended polemics againt Habermas, whereas Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe found these polemics counterproductive (in hindsight they probably contributed to a rift within deconstruction), as they tended to circle around what one may regard as overinvestment in an opposition between modernism and postmodernism — these terms were occasionally elevated to totemic if not cosmological importance in the 1980s, due in no small part to works by Lyotard and Habermas and their often enthusiastic and sometimes uncautious reception in American universities. It may not be unreasonable to generalize that schematic terminology such as poststructuralism, trafficked heavily in the United States but virtually unknown in France yet imported into some of Habermas's readings of his French contemporaries, inflected their exchanges with the vitriol of the "culture wars" which had begun to rage in the American academy and helped overheat matters at a time when many prominent European academics saw strategic value and career opportunities in extending their influence in America, arguably the world's largest market for academic imports. In short: although the differences between Habermas and Derrida (if not deconstruction generally) were profound but not necessarily irreconcilable, they were fueled by polemical responses to mischaracterizations of those differences, which in turn sharply inhibited meaningful discussion. Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French literary critic and philosopher of Jewish descent, considered the first to develop deconstruction after it emerged in the work of Martin Heidegger. ... This article needs a complete rewrite for the reasons listed on the talk page. ... Jean-François Lyotard ( August 10, 1924- April 21, 1998) was a French philosopher and literary theorist. ... Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe (born 1940) is a contemporary French philosopher, literary critic, and translator. ... Le Corbusiers Villa Savoye, 1929-30: The modern style is noted for its rigorous geometrical forms, and became adopted internationally, though not without continuing controversy Modernism in the cultural historical sense is generally defined as the new artistic and literary styles that emerged in the decades before 1914 as... Postmodernism is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, design, architecture, art, literature, religion, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding, modernism. ... Post-structuralism is a body of work that followed in the wake of structuralism, and sought to understand the Western world as a network of structures, as in structuralism, but in which such structures are ordered primarily by local, shifting differences (as in deconstruction) rather than grand binary oppositions and...

In the aftermath of 9/11 Derrida and Habermas established a profound political solidarity and put their previous disputes behind them. After laying out their individual opinions in Giovanna Borradori's Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, Derrida wrote a foreword expressing his unqualified subscription to Habermas's declaration, alternatively titled "The 15th of February, or: What Binds the Europeans. – A Plea for a Common Foreign Policy—First of all, in Core-Europe” or “Our Renewal. After the War: The Rebirth of Europe” (unfortunately, no authorized translation of this text is freely available in English). Habermas has offered further context for this declaration in an interview (http://www.logosjournal.com/habermas_america.htm). Quite distinct from this, Geoffrey Bennington, a close associate of Derrida's, has in a further conciliatory gesture offered an account (http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~gbennin/habermas.doc) of deconstruction couched in language specifically intended for those versed in Habermas's work. Derrida was already extremely ill by the time the two had begun their reconciliation, and the two were not able to build on this such that they could substantially revisit previous disagreements before his death. Nevertheless, this late collaboration has encouraged some scholars to revisit the work of both and revisit positions of both, recent and past, vis-a-vis the other. 9-11 can refer to: The September 11, 2001 attacks A collection of interviews of Noam Chomsky by a variety of European publications and individual interviewers during the month after the September 11, 2001 attacks September 11 (month-day date notation) 9 November (day-month date notation) The North American... Geoffrey Bennington is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of French and Professor of Comparative Literature, Emory University, as well as a member of the International College of Philosophy. ...

Major works

• The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
• On the Logic of the Social Sciences
• Knowledge and Human Interest
• Theory and Practice
• Towards a Rational Society
• Legitimation Crisis
• Communication and the Evolution of Society
• The Theory of Communicative Action Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theorie_des_kommunikativen_Handelns)
• Philosophical-Political Profiles
• The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity
• The New Conservatism
• Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action
• Postmetaphysical Thinking
• Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy
• On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction
• The Inclusion of the Other
• The Postnational Constellation

The best interpretation in English of Habermas's work, especially his earlier work is still Thomas McCarthy's The Critical Theory of Jürgen Habermas (MIT Press, 1978), which was written just as Habermas was developing his full-fledged communication theory. An especially clear account of Habermas's key views in philosophy, is provided by Raymond Geuss' The Idea of a Critical Theory (Cambridge University Press, 1981). For a very short, good, more recent introduction focusing on Habermas's communication theory of society, see Jane Braaten's Habermas's Critical Theory of Society (http://print.google.com/print?id=rxlg75uJrCMC&lpg=9&prev=http://print.google.com/print%3Fie%3DUTF-8%26q%3DHabermas's%2BCritical%2BTheory%2Bof%2BSociety%26btnG%3DSearch&pg=0_1&printsec=0&sig=3bMQypmyBQvD465kprntAMpgY8k) (State University of New York Press, 1991.) Raymond Geuss, a Reader in the Department of Philosophy, University of Cambridge, is one of the finest scholars of 19th and 20th century German philosophy. ...

See also

• Zoran Djindjic

Zoran Đinđić Zoran Djindjic  listen (Zoran Đinđić, in Serbian Cyrillic: Зоран Ђинђић) (August 1, 1952 – March 12, 2003) was Serbian prime minister, long-time opposition politician and philosopher by profession. ...

External links

• "Jürgen Habermas" in the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism (http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory/jurgen_habermas.html)
• A contribution to the critique of Jürgen Habermas (http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jul1999/hab-j27.shtml)
• Jurgen Habermas, On Society and Politics (http://home.cwru.edu/~ngb2/Authors/Habermas.html)
• Geoffrey Bennington offers an account of deconstruction for an audience familiar with Habermas (http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~gbennin/habermas.doc) (microsoft word file)