Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. The Recent Work of Jürgen Habermas
  • Cited by 161
      • Show more authors
      • You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Select format
    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      11 November 2009
      07 January 1988
      ISBN:
      9780511598265
      9780521343602
      9780521389594
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511598265
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.428kg, 204 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.306kg, 204 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Social Theory, History, Sociology, History of Ideas and Intellectual History
    You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Selected: Digital
    Add to cart View cart Buy from Cambridge.org
    Subjects:
    Social Theory, History, Sociology, History of Ideas and Intellectual History
    Information

    Book description

    Jürgen Habermas is one of the foremost philosophers and social theorists in the world today. But the complexity and breadth of his thought make him often difficult to understand. In this book, Stephen White offers a clear, accessible, and reliable introduction to Habermas's work, particularly that which he has written since the publication of Knowledge and human interest (produced in English in 1971). During this period, new themes and directions have emerged in Habermas's thought, which culminated in The Theory of Communicative Action, a massive work that has not hitherto been the subject of extended commentary and analysis. This book is the first to provide a full-length study of Habermas's mature thought. Locating the latter in the context of contemporary debates, White explains Habermas's ideas about action, rationality, communicative ethics, contemporary capitalism, and new social movements, which characterize his later work. He also examines Habermas's interpretation of modernity, showing that although, like his forerunners in the Frankfurt School, Habermas maintains a critical stance towards modernity's instrumentalization of reason, he nonetheless offers a sophisticated defense of the universal significance of other aspects of modern consciousness that are too often forgotten by many recent radical critics of modernity. Throughout, White presents Habermas's work in such a way as to emphasize its coherence, and to demonstrate how it constitutes the beginnings of a distinctive new research program in the social sciences. As a well-researched and lucid account of Habermas's thought, this book will appeal to readers wanting an introduction to the complexity of his ideas, as well as to those already conversant with them. It will also interest social and political theorists concerned with the general theoretical issues that it covers.

    Reviews

    ‘White presents a clear and accurate account of Habermas’ recent work, most importantly The Theory of Communicative Action. Centering on the notion of communicative rationality, he traces Habermas’ elaborate effort to develop a non-foundationalist universalism through all its twists and turns. His discussion of the ‘minimal ethics’ built into the structure of communication and of the implications of this for a theory of justice is particularly perceptive. His study will be of value to everyone interested in Habermas, beginner and initiate alike.’

    Thomas McCarthy - Northwestern University

    Refine List

    Actions for selected content:

    Select all | Deselect all
    • View selected items
    • Export citations
    • Download PDF (zip)
    • Save to Kindle
    • Save to Dropbox
    • Save to Google Drive

    Save Search

    You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

    Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
    Cancel
    ×

    Contents

    Contents

    Metrics

    Altmetric attention score

    Full text views

    Total number of HTML views: 0
    Total number of PDF views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    Book summary page views

    Total views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    * Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

    Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

    Accessibility standard: Unknown

    Why this information is here

    This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

    Accessibility Information

    Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.