Book Review: In Defence of Communicative Reason
| Author | Frank Janning,Katrin Toens |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885105050456 |
| Published date | 01 April 2005 |
| Date | 01 April 2005 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
In Defence of Communicative
Reason
Habermas on Truth, Religion and Bioethics
Katrin Toens and Frank Janning
Universities of Hamburg and Konstanz
Jürgen Habermas Truth and Justification, ed., tr. and with an introduction by Barbara
Fultner. Cambridge: Polity Press 2003a. 327 pp.
Jürgen Habermas Religion and Rationality: Essays on Reason, God, and Modernity, ed.
and with an introduction by Eduardo Mendieta. Cambridge: Polity Press 2002. 176 pp.
Jürgen Habermas The Future of Human Nature, Cambridge: Polity Press 2003b. 127pp.
Looking back on more than four decades of Jürgen Habermas’s intellectual achievements
the theory of communicative action1stands out as the most systematic presentation of his
critical social theory. But beyond that remarkable contribution one has to acknowledge
Habermas’s continuous interdisciplinary engagement as well as the great variety of debates
he has been involved in, ranging from the Historians’ Dispute to the Anglo-American con-
troversy on democratic theory and social justice to the discussions about pressing political
problems such as genetic engineering, ethnic conflict and international terrorism. The
outstanding broadness of his contribution is further extended by three collections of essays
that have recently been published in English. They include systematic reflections on issues
in theoretical philosophy Habermas has rarely touched on since the late 1960s, as well as a
condensed insight into his writings on religion.
Reclaiming Philosophy
A brief glance at the themes and stages of Habermas’s work gives the impression that issues
in theoretical philosophy have not been at the centre of his attention. Even though his
formal pragmatics rest on such fundamental concepts as truth, objectivity, reality, validity
and rationality, Habermas did not systematically explicate their distinctive meanings from
the perspective of theoretical philosophy. For him the linguistic turn was less significant in
connection with traditional philosophical questions. Rather it informed his unique
209
review article
Contact addresses: Katrin Toens, Department of Political Science, University of
Hamburg, D-20146 Hamburg, Germany. Email: ktoens@sozialwiss.uni-hamburg.de
Frank Janning, Department of Political Science and Public Management, University of
Konstanz, D-78464 Konstanz, Germany. Email: Frank.Janning@uni-konstanz.de
EJPT
European Journal
of Political Theory
© SAGE Publications Ltd,
London, Thousand Oaks
and New Delhi
issn 1474-8851, 4(2)209–216
[DOI: 10.1177/1474885105050456]
To continue reading
Request your trial