Habermas
Subtitle: an intellectual biography
By: Matthew G. Specter
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9780521488037; 9780521738316
Description: "This book follows postwar Germany's leading philosopher and social thinker, Jürgen Habermas, through four decades of political and constitutional struggle over the shape of liberal democracy in Germany. Habermas's most influential theories - of the public sphere, communicative action, and modernity - were decisively shaped by major West German political events: the failure to de-Nazify the judiciary, the rise of a powerful Constitutional Court, student rebellions in the late 1960s, the changing fortunes of the Social Democratic Party, NATO's decision to station nuclear weapons, and the unexpected collapse of East Germany. In turn, Habermas's writings on state, law, and constitution played a critical role in reorienting German political thought and culture to a progressive liberal-democratic model. Matthew Specter uniquely illuminates the interrelationship between the thinker and his culture"--

"This book follows postwar Germany's leading philosopher and social thinker, Jürgen Habermas, through four decades of political and constitutional struggle over the shape of liberal democracy in Germany. Habermas's most influential theories - of the public sphere, communicative action, and modernity - were decisively shaped by major West German political events: the failure to denazify the judiciary, the rise of a powerful constitutional court, student rebellions in the late 1960s, the changing fortunes of the Social Democratic Party, NATO's decision to station nuclear weapons in Germany, and the unexpected collapse of East Germany. In turn, Habermas's writings on state, law, and constitution played a critical role in reorienting German political thought and culture toward a progressive liberal-democratic model. Matthew Specter uniquely illuminates the interrelationship between the thinker and his culture "--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Introduction; 1. The making of a '58er: Habermas's search for a method; 2. Habermas as synthesizer of German constitutional theory, 1958-63; 3. From the 'great refusal' to the theory of communicative action, 1961-81; 4. Civil disobedience, constitutional patriotism, and modernity: rethinking Germany's link to 'the West' (westbindung), 1978-87; 5. Learning from the Bonn Republic: recasting democratic theory, 1984-1996; Conclusion.