Judith Butler, Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor and Cornel West, The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere, edited by Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan Vanantwerpen (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), pp. viii + 137, £15.00, ISBN: 978-0-231-15646-2 (pbk).

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 482-484
Author(s):  
J. Aaron Simmons
Author(s):  
Σπύρος Καλτσάς

   Το κείμενο επιδιώκει την ανακατασκευή της προβληματικής της θέσης του θρησκευτικού επιχειρήματος στη δημόσια σφαίρα στο πλαίσιο της μετακοσμικής κοινωνίας. Ανατρέχοντας στη σκέψη των John Rawls, Charles Taylor, Jürgen Habermas και William Connolly, θα επιδιώξω την ανασυγκρότηση των πολλαπλών και πολυσύνθετων διαστάσεων της θέσης του θρησκευτικού επιχειρήματος στη μετακοσμική δημόσια σφαίρα με άξονα τη συνθήκη του πλουραλισμού από την οποία χαρακτηρίζονται οι νεωτερικές κοσμικές κοινωνίες. Το κείμενο κλείνει με την κριτική ανασύνθεση της προβληματικής στη σκέψη των Taylor και Connolly αναδεικνύοντας παράλληλα τη σημασία που έχει η διάσταση της διυποκειμενικής εγκυρότητας των διαβουλεύσεων στη δημόσια σφαίρα μέσα από μια κριτική προσέγγιση της θεώρησης του Habermas.   Λέξεις κλειδιά: Δημόσια σφαίρα, θρησκευτικό επιχείρημα, μετακοσμική κοινωνία, πλουραλισμός.  Abstract  This paper addresses the question of the role of religious argument in the post-secular public sphere in the thought of John Rawls, Charles Taylor, Jürgen Habermas and William Connolly. In order to highlight the complex and multiple dimensions of this subject, I will focus on the importance of pluralism as the mediating concept between religious argumentation and the public sphere. In the concluding section of the paper I will provide a constructive criticism of Taylor’s and Connolly’s arguments and I will defend Habermas’s reconstruction of the intersubjective validity of deliberations in the post-secular public sphere through a critical account of his thought. Keywords: Public sphere, religious argument, post-secular society, pluralism. 


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-498
Author(s):  
Maureen Junker-Kenny

Concepts of ‘public reason’ vary according to the underlying understandings of theoretical and practical reason; they make a difference to what can be argued for in the public sphere as justified expectations to oneself and fellow-citizens. What is the significance for the scope of ethics when two neo-Kantian theorists of public reason, John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas, propose a reduced reading of the ‘antinomy’ highlighted in Kant’s analysis of practical reason? The desire for meaning, unrelinquishable for humans, is frustrated when moral initiatives are met with hostility. Kant resolves the antinomy between morality and happiness by invoking the concept of a creator God whose concern that our anticipatory moral actions should not fail encourages the hope on which human agency relies. Defining the scope of ethics by the unconditional character of reason ( Vernunft) rules out the minimisation of ethics to what can safely be expected to be delivered.


2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 252-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Müller-Doohm

The label ‘Frankfurt School’ became popular in the ‘positivism dispute’ in the mid-1960s, but this article shows that it is wrong to describe Jürgen Habermas as representing a ‘second generation’ of exponents of critical theory. His communication theory of society is intended not as a transformation of, but as an alternative to, the older tradition of thought represented by Adorno and Horkheimer. The novel and innovative character of Habermas’s approach is demonstrated in relation to three thematic complexes: (1) the public sphere and language; (2) democracy and the constitutional state; and (3) system and lifeworld as categories for a theory of modernity.


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