Description
Book SynopsisFifty years ago, the two leading German philosophers and sociologists since the Second World War, Jürgen Habermas and Niklas Luhmann, embarked on a sweeping and contentious debate that would continue for decades. This is the first book in English about one of the most important conflicts in social theory today.
Trade ReviewThis is the most comprehensive, informed, sophisticated, and, in a word, the best book or essay that has ever been written on the famous debate between Habermas and Luhmann. Harste shows with great thoroughness and brilliance that this was not only a debate from 1971, with some smaller rearguard actions in the 1980s and early 1990s, but instead a lifelong concern of both scholars. -- Hauke Brunkhorst, coeditor of
The Habermas HandbookThe Habermas-Luhmann debate has been systematically misunderstood, misrepresented, and misinterpreted in the English-reading world for the past fifty years. The consequence is that an immensely rich vocabulary and truly revolutionary leap in social theory and social philosophy has remained out of reach. This book sets the record straight through an exhaustive, nuanced, and immensely knowledgeable account of the positions of Habermas and Luhmann and their ongoing exchange. It highlights both the commonalities and differences as well as the long-term significance of what was without doubt the most important exchange in continental European scholarship in the twentieth century. -- Poul F. Kjaer, editor of
The Law of Political Economy: Transformation in the Function of LawThe Habermas-Luhmann debate is a major intellectual encounter in contemporary social and political thought. Gorm Harste untangles this debate as it unfolded over three decades with equal sympathy for both thinkers. In so doing, he offers fascinating insights into profound resonances between critical theory and social systems theory. -- Hans-Georg Moeller, coauthor of
You and Your Profile: Identity After AuthenticityThis is a remarkable book on one of the great theoretical debates of the twentieth century. It goes well beyond simple reconstruction of the terms of the debate, articulating the broad context and deep theoretical preconditions that shaped the work of Luhmann and Habermas. The result is erudite, original, and stimulating. -- Chris Thornhill, author of
The Sociology of Law and the Global Transformation of DemocracyAcknowledgement should be given to Gorm Harste for making this debate more accessible than ever to an Anglophone readership, and despite the passage of half a century, the questions raised by Habermas and Luhmann remain as crucial as they did then. * Thesis Eleven *
Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments
Part I: A Debate Unlike Any OtherIntroduction
1. The Historical Context of the Debate
Part II: Meaning, Language, and Communication2. How a Debate Takes Off
3. Intersubjectivity and Lifeworld
Part III: Between History and Evolution4. History and Evolution: The Initial Debates
5. Evolution and History: The Harvest (1977– )
Part IV: The Debate on Legitimacy6. Complexity and Democracy (1968–71)
7. Paradoxes of Legitimacy: Crises and Risks (1973–91)
8. “Before the Law” (1992– )
Part V: Further Debates9. Broader Perspectives—Luhmann, Habermas, Foucault, and Bourdieu
Epilogue: Habermas’s Limitations to Secularization (2019)
Notes
Reference List
Index
