Why Habermas?
3/11/2009 11:45:24 AM

I am putting some items about Jurgen Habermas and religion on the site right now. I first started reading Habermas when a friend who was a communication theorist suggested him to me when we were both involved in social policy planning at the Metro Council of the Twin Cities in the 1970s. I discovered Habermas was continuing in the tradition of Social Critical Theory of the Frankfurt Institute. I had become acquainted with critical theory through the book Dialectical Imagination by Martin Jay which is a history of the Frankfurt Institute. Critical theory was said to have provided the intellectual background for the New Left movement of the 1960s, so I thought I would dig into it, and have been reading it ever since.

Habermas has moved away from some of the positions of the older critical theory and has become the leading social theorist in Germany. It was particularly his focus on "the linguistic turn" in philosophy that caught my attention, the active role of words creating inter-subjective understanding leading to the possibility of mutual action in the "public sphere," a term associated with Habermas. This emphasis on words, of course, is part of the Lutheran theological tradition.

Though older now, Habermas continues to play a key role in philosophical debate. He recently has been saying that religious faith has a legitimate role in public debate. His works are part of the content we want to explore at this website.
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