This article provides a critical assessment of Habermas’s recent work on religion and its role in the public sphere by comparing it to Kant’s phi-losophy of religion on the one hand and that of Kierkegaard on the other. It is argued that although Habermas is in many ways a Kantian, he diverges from Kant when it comes to religion, by taking a position which comes closer to the Kierkegaardian view that religiousness belongs to private faith rather than philosophy. This has (...) implications not just for the conception of religion but also for the very roles of communication, validity, rationality, and philosophy. (shrink)

Luca Corchia, Jürgen Habermas. A bibliography: works and studies (1952-2013). With an Introduction by Stefan Müller-Doohm, Pisa, Arnus University Books, 2013, pp. 606.

Philosophy becomes speculative when it raises questions about the ultimate nature of being and thought. What does it mean to be? What does it mean to think? How are being and thought related? What does it mean to ask these questions? These questions have occupied a central place in philosophy throughout history, but have led a shadow existence in twentieth-century thought, which has cut the tie between reason and these fundamental questions, leaving the questions in the twilight, and reason instrumentalised. (...) A.N. Whitehead (1861-1947), one of the founders of analytic philosophy and co-author (with Bertrand Russell) of Principia Mathematica, is one of the few contemporary thinkers to have developed an explicit speculative philosophy. Unsurprisingly, his philosophy has played a marginal role in academic debates. In this study, the methodological foundation of Whitehead’s speculative thought is reconstructed. On the basis of a systematic and historical examination of the nature of the question of being, Whiteheads ontology of the event as the passage into novelty emerges in its full scope, allowing the reader to understand why and to what extent Whitehead has walked a different path than other contemporary thinkers. His philosophy contains a conception of reason that is not alien to newness and creativity while being more than procedural or pragmatic, and a mode of understanding existence that brings out the acuteness of freedom, value and legitimacy, as well as the unity of things, of thought and nature. In order to show what is really happening in this philosophy, the received interpretation of Whitehead’s ontology is radically dismantled. The central thought, that to be means to happen, is explained in a process of reiteration and gradual clarification, examining traditional philosophical problems in metaphysics and epistemology (on topics like: nature and matter, knowledge, categorical structure, freedom and necessity, truth and meaning, modality) from its perspective. What emerges is a philosophy in which the temporality of being, when taken seriously, changes the status of familiar problems and dualisms and offers possibilities for thought, which previously did not exist. Whitehead “hears” the classical questions of philosophy in a new way. Beyond the trenches of twentieth-century philosophy, Whitehead’s speculative thinking contains many elements that will be of value to those studying the foundations of thought today and looking for new directions. In a time when the dualism of nature and man is maintained cynically in our economies and dismantled, but only in a biologistic fashion and therefore only seemingly, as a cover-up, in science and philosophy, Whitehead’s new and creative way of hearing, and answering, old questions about ultimate concerns, when understood properly, is more up to date than ever before. (shrink)

Is a conception of human nature still possible or even desirable in light of the “postmetaphysical sensibilities” of our time? Furthermore, can philosophy make any contribution towards the articulation of a tenable conception of human nature given this current intellectual climate? I will argue in this paper that affirmative answers can be given to both of these questions. Section I rehearses briefly some of the difficulties and even dangers involved in working out any conception of human nature at all, let (...) alone one that is philosophically informed. Section II sketches what I argue to be three necessary aspects of a tenable philosophical anthropology. Finally, section III argues that such a philosophical anthropology is only justifiable, given our postmetaphysical sensibilities, by its use of “transcendental arguments” in justifying its claims, ones that nonetheless must repudiate a common but damaging assumption that arguing for the conclusions of such arguments commits one necessarily to a hyper-strong conception of subjectivity. In general, my primary aim in this paper is only to make plausible, not so much to justify, let alone defend, adequately the aspects of a conception of a tenable philosophical anthropology as sketched below. (shrink)

semantic minimalism and moderte contextualism.

Clanak raspravlja o odnosu izmedju paradigmatskog statusa filma i upotrebe filmskih analogija u psihoanalitickom diskursu filozofije Slavoja Zizeka koji cini temelj njegovog kritickog diskursa o drustvu i kulturi uopce. U prvom dijelu, polazeci od novijih rasprava medju nekolicinom engleskih i americkih sveucilisnih intelektualaca o kontroverznim vidovima djelovanja Slavoja Zizeka u akademskoj zajednici i na siroj javnoj sceni, u prvom dijelu clanka prikazuju se neki usporedni primjeri i unutrasnji pokretaci kontroverzije sadrzaj-forma u filozofiji i pop-kulturi te Zizekovo razumijevanje te kontroverzije. U (...) drugom dijelu raspravlja se o Zizekovim sporadicnim refleksijama o meta-egzemplifikaciji i obrazlaze teza da kod Zizeka, na pretpostavkama ontologije virtualnog, presutno djeluje dvostruka, paradigmatska i analogijska, koncepcija inherencije u odnosu primjera i principa te zamjena analogije predmet? analogijom analiz?, sto stvara tipican konflikt izmedju metonimijske i metaforicke evazivnosti diskursa. Na toj pozadini vrednuje se ponovo opci prigovor protiv Zizeka o?virtualnom totalitarizmu? lisenom kontingencije smisla i ukazuje na mjesto subjekta izvan diskursa kao druge osnove za analizu uvjeta istinitosti. U trecem dijelu ispituje se i metodoloski vrednuje Zizekovo vlastito razumijevanje njegovog postupka filmske ilustracije i njegovo osebujno performativno razrjesenje epistemoloskog problema filmske interpretacije kroz montazu imaginarne identifikacije ili?empatije? s filmskim objektima, koje s?m naziva?perverzijom? ili?ljubavlju?. U cetvrtom dijelu analizira se ocigledni nesrazmjer izmedju Zizekove primjene doktrinarnih zaliha psihoanalize u kritici kinematografije, s jedne strane, i njegove teorijski oskudno razradjene apoteoze?kinematickog materijalizma?. Argumentira se da taj nerazmjer donosi u rezultatu ono sto Zizek odbija u nacelu: supstituciju materijalizma analize i kontingencije uvjeta u potrazi za istinskom holistickom koncepcijom smisla, sto, u konzekvenciji, izokrece psihoanaliticki diskurs o kinematografiji u hermeneuticki. (shrink)

Social thinkers often use the concept of intersubjectivity to mark out a problem of theoretical sociology: If people are unable to look into each others' minds, why do they often understand each other nonetheless? This issue has been debated extensively by philosophers and sociologists in three largely disconnected discourses. The article investigates the three discourses for isolable ideas that can be fitted into a sociological answer to the problem of intersubjectivity. An interactional solution, fully coherent with key insights from the (...) discourses, is offered at the end of the article. Its main point is to identify coordinative interactional mechanisms that compel participants to "make themselves understandable" vis-à-vis their interaction partners. (shrink)

In order to secure ethical relevance for phenomenology, Peter Dabrock proposes a synthesis with a Kantian rational ethic. The theological question thus arises concerning the tenability of such a synthesis and the acceptability of the corresponding translation of Protestant anthropology into the language of philosophy. Dabrock argues that man's character as an image of god, understood in the context of a theology of justification, can be translated into the philosophical concept of incarnate reason. Even if the concept of incarnate reason (...) sounds plausible in view of foundational theology and anthropology, its contribution to a foundation for material ethics is very limited because the body itself however has no normative impact when it comes to deciding about the ethical acceptability of concrete medical interventions. Thus, the constitutive significance of our being embodied becomes ethically relevant only insofar as that significance is integrated into a moral philosophical or theological ethical framework theory. (shrink)

This paper seeks to show that the proposition of 'double contingency' introduced by Parsons and defended by Luhmann and Habermas is insufficient under the conditions of contemporary communication societies. In the latter context, the increasing differentiation and organization of communication processes eventuated in the recognition of the epistemic authority of the public, which in turn compels us to conceptualize a new level of contingency. A first step is therefore taken to capture the role of the public in communication societies theoretically (...) by what may be called 'triple contingency'. Since the process of the definition of reality and its outcome, to which the response of the public is central, is best seen in constructivist terms, attention is also paid to relevant methodological and epistemological questions. Key Words: cognitive turn • communication • constructivism • double contingency • Habermas • Luhmann • observation • Parsons • situationalism • the third point of view. (shrink)

In the debate about the moral status of human beings at the margins of life, arguments of species membership are often considered to be the least plausible ones. Against this backdrop, this article explores two possible ways to formulate feasible arguments of species membership. The first is an (in the broadest sense of the word) Aristotelian or neo‐Aristotelian argument; the second is an argument from the intrinsic logic of human rights, which Robert Spaemann refers toas a ‘transcendental‐pragmatic’ argument. On these (...) grounds, the article proposes a philosophical justification for an at least moderate speciesism. (shrink)

This article analyses how recent critiques of secularism in political philosophy and cultural anthropology might productively be combined and contrasted with each other. I will show that Jürgen Habermas' postsecularism takes insufficient account of elementary criticisms of secularism on the part of anthropologists such as Talal Asad and Saba Mahmood. However, I shall also criticize Saba Mahmood’s reading of secularism by arguing that, in the end, she replaces the secular–religious divide with a secularity–piety divide; for example, in her reading of (...) Nasr Abu Zayd’s secular Islamic hermeneutics. This inhibits the use of her framework of analysis for a criticism of a problem central to Habermas' postsecularism, namely that it remains focused on specific intensities of belief. I shall then argue that, combined with the anthropological critiques of the secular, the political-historical nature of the fanaticism–piety–violence nexus should be integrated into political philosophical debates on secularism and postsecularism. (shrink)

Hermeneutics as we understand it today is an essentially modern phenomenon. The chapter presents observations that illustrate some of the central ways in which the modern and late modern phenomena of philosophical hermeneutics relate to the ancient philosophical legacy. First, the roots of hermeneutics are traced to ancient views on linguistic, textual, and sacral interpretation. The chapter then looks at certain fundamentally unhermeneutic elements of the Platonic, Aristotelian, and Augustinian “logocentric” theory of meaning that philosophical hermeneutics and its heirs sought (...) to call into question, reconsider, and deconstruct. Augustine's De doctrina christiana, can be regarded as an epitome and culmination of the ancient protohermeneutic heritage, theological as well as philological. Finally, Aristotle's practical philosophy, particularly the notion of phronesis, “practical insight”, is designated as an implicit ancient prototype of hermeneutic thinking, the reappropriation of which lay at the core of the Heideggerian and Gadamerian philosophical projects. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud Some Views of Humankind Scientism and the Freudian Model of Personality The Social Sciences beyond Freud Evolution and the Social Sciences Freud and Revolutions in Thought Reading List Essay Questions.

Unsere alltagssprachlichen Mittel, mit denen wir auf den eigenen Sprachgebrauch reflektieren, geben Aufschluss darüber, woran sich halten zu müssen kommunikativ Handelnde glauben. Mit der Verwendung diktumscharakterisierender Ausdrücke wird angezeigt, dass das, was gesagt oder wie es gesagt wird, in verschiedener Hinsicht hätte anders gesagt werden müssen. Das Bemerkenswerte: Diejenigen Aspekte, die mit den unterschiedlichen diktumscharakterisierenden Ausdrücken thematisiert werden, sind im Wesentlichen die Aspekte, die in den Griceschen Konversationsmaximen zum Ausdruck kommen. Die meisten Diktumscharakterisierungen können als Bezugnahme auf eine dieser Maximen (...) bestimmt werden. Vollständig erfasst werden kann das sprachliche Phänomen des reflexiven Sprachgebrauchs jedoch erst vor dem Hintergrund eines erweiterten Maximenkatalogs. Insofern diktumscharakterisierende Ausdrücke die Maximen bestätigen, nach denen sie zustande kommen, kann die 'Existenz' dieser Maximen, insbesondere deren Wirksamkeit diesseits konversationaler Implikaturen, systematisch nachgewiesen werden. (shrink)

When we deal with complex things, like human subjects or organizations, we deal with identity – that which makes a person or an organization what it is and distinguishes him/her/it from other persons or organizations, a kind of “self”. Our identity determines how we think about and interact with others. It will be argued in this chapter that the self is constituted relationally. Moreover, when we are in the realm of the self, we are always already in the realm of (...) engaging with and mediating differences – the realm of ethics. The position which will be developed argues that approaching identity as a complex system allows us to resist thinking of identity as an easily identifiable and static entity. Identity is always being constituted within a complex and contingent world, where we have to make choices based on contingent values rather than on universal knowledge or the outcome of rational calculations. As a result, we have to keep in mind that our daily practices always already have an ethical component, and our decisions need to be continually evaluated and re-evaluated in the light of our (and others’) varying identities. (shrink)

ls it possible to understand not only linguistic expressions and actions but also persons? According to common sense it surely is. Here it is argued that to understand a person a fourfold knowledge is required, although this knowledge is not identical with the understanding of a person. The understanding of a person is cognitive, but neither complete nor scientific.

Habermas se ha valido a menudo de la expresión "sociedad postsecular" para referirse al proceso de aprendizaje mutuo entre la razón ilustrada y la conciencia religiosa en el seno de las sociedades modernas. Esa expresión es utilizada por el pensador alemán en dos acepciones distintas. Unas veces la emplea como categoría sociológica descriptiva y otras como categoría filosófica de carácter normativo. En este trabajo rechazamos el uso descriptivo del concepto de sociedad postsecular, haciéndonos eco de las críticas que contra él (...) se han vertido desde la sociología de la religión contemporánea. A la vez, reconocemos el interés que reviste la propuesta normativa de Habermas. Tras exponer el sentido preciso de esa propuesta, examinamos la principal acusación que contra ella cabe formular: la de funcionalismo religioso. (shrink)