ХАБЕРМАС: ЭТИЧЕСКИЙ ДИСКУРС КАК СПОСОБ РЕАБИЛИТАЦИИ ПУБЛИЧНОЙ СФЕРЫ

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 111
Author(s):  
V. Y. Perov ◽  
V. M. Mikhailova

According to Jurgen Habermas, since the end of the 19th century the government had been increasingly interfering in the public sphere, depriving it of the opportunity to form an independent opinion and eroding its borders. With the erosion of public sphere contours, the involvement of people in solving social problems was weakened, and moral principles were replaced by the principles of economic feasibility or scientific provability. Withal, the break with tradition, the diminishing role of religion, the crisis of values, individualism and multiculturalism, which all are typical of modern society, have led us to the need to create the shared vision of the new society development. Thus, there are more reasons for the re-opening of the public sphere. The article considers the concept of Jurgen Habermas, in which discourse ethic is offered as a way to rehabilitate the public sphere. In discourse ethic, people are not burdened with government or other influence, and discuss socially important issues from equal positions and impartial perspectives, following the principles of moral reasoning. A number of critical remarks on Habermas’ concept is formulated. Critics are interested in questions about motivating people to take part in discourse ethic and behave morally, in question about the discourse ethic location, about the making decisions procedure and the strength of these decisions. A critical analysis of Habermas’ concept leads to the conclusion that the one is idealistic. The article presents two other concepts as alternatives to the discourse ethic concept. Apostolis Papakostas, the author of the first one, allows the government to participate in the public sphere formation. Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, the authors of the other one, consider social and economic development to be the driving force in the public sphere modernization. However, on closer examination, both concepts are also not able to give an exhaustive answer to the question of how to ensure the public sphere rehabilitation.

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.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 153-175
Author(s):  
Masayoshi Sumika

Jürgen Habermas, who popularized the concept of the “post-secular,” advocates that all citizens should be free to decide whether they want to use religious language in the public sphere. However, he adds the proviso that citizens who do so must accept that religious utterances ought to be translated into generally accessible language. Habermas presents this concept of “translation”—or the institutional translation proviso—as a way of bringing religious citizens into the public sphere. In his opinion, the public sphere and/or public institutions should not be open to any movement that tries to legitimize the nation on religious grounds. This paper shows that we can find logic and rhetoric that correspond to Habermas’s proviso in courtroom arguments over religion in Japan after World War II. By surveying these disputes, this paper examines whether or not the intended aims of the institutional translation proviso are achieved.


2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cora Alexa Døving

Do religious debaters challenge the secular public sphere? This article is an analysis of the largest religion related debate in Norway: the debate about the hijab and the use of religious symbols in the public sphere. The article is empirically founded on the debates in 2009 that began with the question about to which degree the hijab could become part of the Norwegian police uniform for those who would wish to use it. The analysis is mainly centred on the arguments of the hijab wearers: to what degree is their religious motivation translated into a secular language? The empirical examination will show that Muslim debaters arguments can be characterized by a striking absence of references to religious concepts, and a just as striking use of secular ones. The article suggests that the lack of religious argumentation is an expression of an Islamic secularism rather than a result of a translation process. The hijab wearer's arguments are presented in the light of John Rawls’ and Jürgen Habermas’ thoughts about the need for translation—and its price.


2005 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 95-104
Author(s):  
Frederick Rauscher

Kant's description of an enlightened society as involving the free use of reason in public debate has received due attention in recent work on Kant. When thinking of Kant's view of Enlightenment, one now conjures up the image of free persons speaking their mind in what is now often called the ‘public sphere’. Jürgen Habermas is well known for taking Kant to be committed to wide participation of individuals in public debate. Kant's own suggestion for a motto for the Enlightenment, ‘Sapere aude’, seems to speak to all citizens when urging them to ‘Have courage to make use of your own understanding’ (8: 35).


2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Federica Gregoratto

This paper investigates how and to which extent the model of the liberal public sphere, firstly outlined by Jürgen Habermas and later developed by some of his scholars, can be translated into a global context. Such an idea of a transnational publicity will be considered both from a normative idealizing perspective, according to which the discursive public activities aim at legitimizing actual democratizing processes beyond the national boundaries, and from a diagnostic perspective, which focuses on the critical power that post-national publics exercise against relations of domination on the global level. In order to maintain both perspectives, and to question the Habermasian preference for the normative one, I am proposing a two-track model of the transnational public sphere illustrating how ideal and normative aspects are interwoven with factual and non-ideal ones.


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