Habermas
An Intellectual Biography

This book follows postwar Germany's leading philosopher and social thinker, Jürgen Habermas, through four decades of German political and constitutional struggles.

Matthew G. Specter (Author)

9780521738316, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 27 September 2010

278 pages, 6 exercises
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.39 kg

'I read Matthew Specter's book with great pleasure and even astonishment. Like many American readers of Habermas, I knew little or nothing about his involvement in German politics, and even less about the German political and legal debates that form the background of many of his writings. Of course Habermas's arguments stand or fall on their merits. But until I read [this] superb book, I had no idea how much I was missing. From Specter I discovered that what seemed like arid abstractions in Habermas are not arid at all - indeed, are not even abstractions - once you know the views he was responding to. The book is excellent both as a piece of history and political theory. I would heartily recommend it to anyone with an interest in Habermas or, for that matter, in postwar German history.' David Luban

This book follows postwar Germany's leading philosopher and social thinker, Jürgen Habermas, through four decades of political and constitutional struggle over the shape of liberal democracy in Germany. Habermas's most influential theories - of the public sphere, communicative action, and modernity - were decisively shaped by major West German political events: the failure to de-Nazify the judiciary, the rise of a powerful Constitutional Court, student rebellions in the late 1960s, the changing fortunes of the Social Democratic Party, NATO's decision to station nuclear weapons, and the unexpected collapse of East Germany. In turn, Habermas's writings on state, law, and constitution played a critical role in reorienting German political thought and culture to a progressive liberal-democratic model. Matthew Specter uniquely illuminates the interrelationship between the thinker and his culture.

Introduction
1. The making of a '58er: Habermas's search for a method
2. Habermas as synthesizer of German constitutional theory, 1958–63
3. From the 'great refusal' to the theory of communicative action, 1961–81
4. Civil disobedience, constitutional patriotism, and modernity: rethinking Germany's link to 'the West' (Westbindung), 1978–87
5. Learning from the Bonn Republic: recasting democratic theory, 1984–96
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Political science & theory [JPA], Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000 [HBLW3], European history [HBJD]