Habermas was born inDüsseldorf,Rhine Province, in 1929.[7] He was born with acleft palate and had corrective surgery twice during childhood.[8] Habermas argues that his speech disability made him think differently about the importance of deep dependence and of communication.[9] He grew up inGummersbach.
As a young teenager, Habermas was profoundly affected byWorld War II. Until his graduation fromgrammar school, Habermas lived inGummersbach, nearCologne. His father, Ernst Habermas, was executive director of the Cologne Chamber of Industry and Commerce, and was described by Habermas as a Nazi sympathizer and, from 1933, a member of the Nazi PartyNSDAP. Habermas himself was aJungvolkführer, a leader of theGerman Jungvolk, which was a section of theHitler Youth. He was brought up in a staunchlyProtestantmilieu, his grandfather being the director of the seminary in Gummersbach. He studied at the universities ofGöttingen (1949/50),Zurich (1950/51), andBonn (1951–54) and earned a doctorate inphilosophy from Bonn in 1954 with a dissertation written on the conflict between "the Absolute" andhistory inSchelling's thought, entitled,Das Absolute und die Geschichte. Von der Zwiespältigkeit in Schellings Denken ("The Absolute and History: On the Schism in Schelling's Thought").[10] His dissertation committee includedErich Rothacker andOskar Becker.[10]
From 1956 to 1959, he studiedphilosophy andsociology under thecritical theoristsMax Horkheimer andTheodor W. Adorno at theUniversity of Frankfurt am Main'sInstitute for Social Research. Due to a rift between the two over hisdissertation—Horkheimer had made unacceptable demands for revision—as well as his own belief that theFrankfurt School had become paralyzed with political skepticism and disdain formodern culture,[11] he finished hishabilitation inpolitical science at theUniversity of Marburg under the MarxistWolfgang Abendroth. His 1961 habilitation work was entitledStrukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft (published in English translation in 1989 asThe Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society). It is a detailed social history of the development of thebourgeoispublic sphere from its origins in the 18th century salons up to its transformation through the influence of capital-drivenmass media. In 1961, he became aPrivatdozent in Marburg, and—in a move that was highly unusual for the German academic scene of that time—he was offered the position of "extraordinary professor" (professor without chair) of philosophy at theUniversity of Heidelberg (at the instigation ofHans-Georg Gadamer andKarl Löwith) in 1962, which he accepted. In this same year, he gained his first serious public attention, in Germany, with the publication of his habilitation. In 1964, strongly supported by Adorno, Habermas returned to Frankfurt to take over Horkheimer's chair in philosophy and sociology. The philosopherAlbrecht Wellmer was his assistant in Frankfurt from 1966 to 1970.
In 1983, Habermas returned to his chair at Frankfurt and the directorship of the Institute for Social Research. Since retiring from Frankfurt in 1994, Habermas has continued to publish extensively. In 1986, he received theGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of theDeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, which is the highest honour awarded in German research. He also holds the position of "permanent visiting" professor atNorthwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and "Theodor Heuss Professor" atThe New School,New York.
Jürgen Habermas was the father ofRebekka Habermas (1959–2023), historian of German social and cultural history and professor of modern history at theUniversity of Göttingen.
Habermas's works resonate within the traditions of Kant andthe Enlightenment and ofdemocratic socialism through his emphasis on the potential for transforming the world and arriving at a more humane, just, and egalitarian society through the realization of the human potential for reason, in part through discourse ethics. While Habermas has stated that the Enlightenment is an "unfinished project," he argues it should be corrected and complemented, not discarded.[19] In this he distances himself from the Frankfurt School, criticizing it, as well as much ofpostmodernist thought, for excessive pessimism,radicalism, and exaggerations.[19]
Within sociology, Habermas's major contribution was the development of a comprehensive theory ofsocietal evolution andmodernization focusing on the difference between communicative rationality and rationalization on one hand and strategic/instrumental rationality and rationalization on the other. This includes a critique from a communicative standpoint of the differentiation-basedtheory ofsocial systems developed byNiklas Luhmann, a student ofTalcott Parsons.
His defence of modernity andcivil society has been a source of inspiration to others, and is considered a major philosophical alternative to the varieties of poststructuralism. He has also offered an influential analysis oflate capitalism.
Habermas perceives the rationalization,humanization anddemocratization of society in terms of theinstitutionalization of the potential for rationality that is inherent in thecommunicative competence that is unique to thehuman species. Habermas contends that communicative competence has developed through the course of evolution, but in contemporary society it is often suppressed or weakened by the way in which major domains of social life, such as themarket, thestate, andorganizations, have been given over to or taken over by strategic/instrumental rationality, so that the logic of the system supplants that of thelifeworld.
Habermas introduces the concept of "reconstructive science" with a double purpose: to place the "general theory of society" between philosophy and social science and re-establish the rift between the "great theorization" and the "empirical research".The model of "rational reconstructions" represents the main thread of the surveys about the "structures" of the world of life ("culture", "society" and "personality") and their respective "functions" (cultural reproductions, social integrations and socialization). For this purpose, the dialectics between "symbolic representation" of "the structures subordinated to all worlds oflife" ("internal relationships") and the "material reproduction" of the social systems in their complex ("external relationships" between social systems and environment) has to be considered.
This model finds an application, above all, in the "theory of the social evolution", starting from the reconstruction of the necessary conditions for aphylogeny of the socio-cultural life forms (the "hominization") until an analysis of the development of "social formations", which Habermas subdivides into primitive, traditional, modern and contemporary formations."This paper is an attempt, primarily, to formalize the model of "reconstruction of the logic of development" of "social formations" summed up by Habermas through the differentiation between vital world and social systems (and, within them, through the "rationalization of the world of life" and the "growth in complexity of the social systems"). Secondly, it tries to offer some methodological clarifications about the "explanation of the dynamics" of "historical processes" and, in particular, about the "theoretical meaning" of the evolutional theory's propositions. Even if the German sociologist considers that the "ex-post rational reconstructions" and "the models system/environment" cannot have a complete "historiographical application", these certainly act as a general premise in the argumentative structure of the "historical explanation".[20]
InThe Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Habermas argues that prior to the 18th century, European culture had been dominated by a "representational" culture, where one party sought to "represent" itself on its audience by overwhelming its subjects.[21] As an example of "representational" culture, Habermas argued thatLouis XIV'sPalace of Versailles was meant to show the greatness of the French state and its King by overpowering the senses of visitors to the Palace.[21] Habermas identifies "representational" culture as corresponding to the feudal stage of development according to Marxist theory, arguing that the coming of the capitalist stage of development marked the appearance ofÖffentlichkeit (the public sphere).[22] In the culture characterized byÖffentlichkeit, there occurred a public space outside of the control by the state, where individuals exchanged views and knowledge.[23]
In Habermas's view, the growth innewspapers,journals, reading clubs,Masonic lodges, andcoffeehouses in 18th-century Europe, all in different ways, marked the gradual replacement of "representational" culture withÖffentlichkeit culture.[23] Habermas argued that the essential characteristic of theÖffentlichkeit culture was its "critical" nature.[23] Unlike "representational" culture where only one party was active and the other passive, theÖffentlichkeit culture was characterized by a dialogue as individuals either met in conversation, or exchanged views via the print media.[23] Habermas maintains that as Britain was the most liberal country in Europe, the culture of the public sphere emerged there first around 1700, and the growth ofÖffentlichkeit culture took place over most of the 18th century in Continental Europe.[23] In his view, theFrench Revolution was in large part caused by the collapse of "representational" culture, and its replacement byÖffentlichkeit culture.[23] Though Habermas's main concern inThe Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere was to expose what he regarded as the deceptive nature of free institutions in the West, his book had a major effect on the historiography of the French Revolution.[22]
According to Habermas, a variety of factors resulted in the eventual decay of the public sphere, including the growth of acommercialmass media, which turned the critical public into a passive consumer public; and the welfare state, which merged the state with society so thoroughly that the public sphere was squeezed out. It also turned the "public sphere" into a site of self-interested contestation for the resources of the state rather than a space for the development of a public-mindedrational consensus.
His most known work to date, theTheory of Communicative Action (1981), is based on an adaptation of Talcott Parsons'AGIL Paradigm. In this work, Habermas voiced criticism of the process of modernization, which he saw as inflexible direction forced through by economic and administrative rationalization.[24] Habermas outlined how our everyday lives are penetrated by formal systems as parallel to development of thewelfare state,corporate capitalism andmass consumption.[24] These reinforcing trends rationalize public life.[24] Disfranchisement of citizens occurs as political parties and interest groups become rationalized andrepresentative democracy replacesparticipatory one.[24] In consequence, boundaries between public and private, the individual and society, thesystem and the lifeworld are deteriorating.[24] Democratic public life cannot develop where matters of public importance are not discussed by citizens.[25] An "ideal speech situation"[26] requires participants to have the same capacities of discourse, social equality and their words are not confused by ideology or other errors.[25] In this version of theconsensus theory of truth Habermas maintains that truth is what would be agreed upon in an ideal speech situation.
Habermas has expressed optimism about the possibility of the revival of the public sphere.[27] He discerns a hope for the future where the representative democracy-reliantnation-state is replaced by adeliberative democracy-reliant political organism based on the equal rights and obligations of citizens.[27] In such a direct democracy-driven system, the activist public sphere is needed for debates on matters of public importance as well as the mechanism for that discussion to affect thedecision-making process.
Habermas offered some early criticisms in an essay, "Modernity versus Postmodernity" (1981),[28] which has achieved wide recognition. In that essay, Habermas raises the issue of whether, in light of the failures of the twentieth century, we "should try to hold on to theintentions of the Enlightenment, feeble as they may be, or should we declare the entire project of modernity a lost cause?"[29] Habermas refuses to give up on the possibility of a rational, "scientific" understanding of the life-world.
Habermas has several main criticisms ofpostmodernism:
Postmodernists are equivocal about whether they are producing serious theory or literature;
Postmodernists are animated by normative sentiments, but the nature of those sentiments remains concealed from the reader;
Postmodernism has a totalizing perspective that fails "to differentiate phenomena and practices that occur within modern society";[29]
Postmodernists ignore everyday life and its practices, which Habermas finds absolutely central.
Thepositivism dispute was a political-philosophical dispute between the critical rationalists (Karl Popper,Hans Albert) and the Frankfurt School (Theodor Adorno, Jürgen Habermas) in 1961, about the methodology of the social sciences. It grew into a broad discussion within German sociology from 1961 to 1969.
There is a controversy between Habermas andHans-Georg Gadamer about limits ofhermeneutics. Gadamer completed his magnum opus,Truth and Method, in 1960, and engaged in his debate with Habermas over the possibility of transcending history and culture in order to find a truly objective position from which to critique society.
During the 1960s, Gadamer supported Habermas and advocated for him to be offered a job at Heidelberg before he had completed his habilitation, despite Max Horkheimer's objections. While they both criticized positivism, a philosophical disagreement arose between them in the 1970s. This disagreement expanded the scope of Gadamer's philosophical influence. Despite fundamental agreements between them, such as starting from the hermeneutic tradition and returning to Greek practical philosophy, Habermas argued that Gadamer's emphasis on tradition and prejudice blinded him to the ideological operation of power. Habermas believed that Gadamer's approach failed to enable critical reflection on the sources of ideology in society. He accused Gadamer of endorsing a dogmatic stance toward tradition, which made it difficult to identify distortions in understanding. Gadamer countered that refusing the universal nature of hermeneutics was the more dogmatic stance because it affirmed the deception that the subject can free itself from the past.[30]
Habermas andKarl-Otto Apel both support a postmetaphysical, universal moral theory, but they disagree on the nature and justification of this principle. Habermas disagrees with Apel's view that the principle is a transcendental condition of human activity, while Apel asserts that it is. They each criticize the other's position. Habermas argues that Apel is too concerned with transcendental conditions, while Apel argues that Habermas doesn't value critical discourse enough.[31]
There is a debate between Habermas andJohn Rawls. The debate centers around the question of how to do political philosophy under conditions of cultural pluralism, if the aim of political philosophy is to uncover the normative foundation of a modernliberal democracy. Habermas believes that Rawls's view is inconsistent with the idea of popular sovereignty, while Rawls argues that political legitimacy is solely a matter of sound moral reasoning or that democratic will formation has been unduly downgraded in his theory.[32][33]
Habermas is famous as apublic intellectual as well as a scholar; most notably, in the 1980s he used thepopular press to attack the German historiansErnst Nolte,Michael Stürmer,Klaus Hildebrand andAndreas Hillgruber. Habermas first expressed his views on the above-mentioned historians in theDie Zeit on 11 July 1986 in afeuilleton (a type of culture and arts opinion essay in German newspapers) entitled "A Kind of Settlement of Damages". Habermas criticized Nolte, Hildebrand, Stürmer and Hillgruber for "apologistic" history writing in regard to the Nazi era, and for seeking to "close Germany's opening to the West" that in Habermas's view had existed since 1945.[34]
Habermas argued that Nolte, Stürmer, Hildebrand and Hillgruber had tried to detach Nazi rule and theHolocaust from the mainstream ofGerman history, explain away Nazism as a reaction toBolshevism, and partially rehabilitate thereputation of the Wehrmacht (German Army) duringWorld War II. Habermas wrote that Stürmer was trying to create a "vicarious religion" in German history which, together with the work of Hillgruber, glorifying the last days of the German Army on the Eastern Front, was intended to serve as a "kind of NATO philosophy colored with German nationalism".[35] About Hillgruber's statement thatAdolf Hitler wanted to exterminate the Jews "because only such a 'racial revolution' could lend permanence to the world-power status of hisReich", Habermas wrote: "Since Hillgruber does not use the verb in the subjunctive, one does not know whether the historian has adopted the perspective of the particulars this time too".[36]
Habermas wrote: "The unconditional opening of the Federal Republic to the political culture of the West is the greatest intellectual achievement of our postwar period; my generation should be especially proud of this. This event cannot and should not be stabilized by a kind of NATO philosophy colored with German nationalism. The opening of the Federal Republic has been achieved precisely by overcoming the ideology of Central Europe that our revisionists are trying to warm up for us with their geopolitical drumbeat about "the old geographically central position of the Germans in Europe" (Stürmer) and "the reconstruction of the destroyed European Center" (Hillgruber). The only patriotism that will not estrange us from the West is aconstitutional patriotism."[34]
Habermas andJacques Derrida engaged in a series of disputes beginning in the 1980s and culminating in a mutual understanding and friendship in the late 1990s that lasted until Derrida's death in 2004.[47] They originally came in contact when Habermas invited Derrida to speak at theUniversity of Frankfurt am Main in 1984. The next year Habermas published "Beyond a Temporalized Philosophy of Origins: Derrida" inThe Philosophical Discourse of Modernity in which he described Derrida's method as being unable to provide a foundation for social critique.[48] Derrida, citing Habermas as an example, remarked that, "those who have accused me of reducing philosophy to literature or logic to rhetoric ... have visibly and carefully avoided reading me".[49] After Derrida's final rebuttal in 1989 the two philosophers did not continue, but, as Derrida described it, groups in the academy "conducted a kind of 'war', in which we ourselves never took part, either personally or directly".[47]
At the end of the 1990s, Habermas approached Derrida at a party held at an American university where both were lecturing. They then met at Paris over dinner, and participated afterwards in many joint projects. In 2000 they held a joint seminar on problems of philosophy, right, ethics, and politics at the University of Frankfurt.[47] In December 2000, in Paris, Habermas gave a lecture entitled "How to answer the ethical question?" at theJudeities. Questions for Jacques Derrida conference organized by Joseph Cohen and Raphael Zagury-Orly. Following the lecture by Habermas, both thinkers engaged in a very heated debate on Heidegger and the possibility of Ethics. The conference volume was published at the Editions Galilée (Paris) in 2002, and subsequently in English at Fordham University Press (2007).
In the aftermath ofthe 11 September attacks, Derrida and Habermas laid out their individual opinions on 9/11 and thewar on terror inGiovanna Borradori'sPhilosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida. In early 2003, both Habermas and Derrida were very active inopposing the comingIraq War; in a manifesto that later became the bookOld Europe, New Europe, Core Europe, the two called for a tighter unification of the states of theEuropean Union in order to create a power capable of opposingAmerican foreign policy. Derrida wrote a foreword expressing his unqualified subscription to Habermas's declaration of February 2003 ("February 15, or, What Binds Europeans Together: Plea for a Common Foreign Policy, Beginning in Core Europe") in the book, which was a reaction to theBush administration's demands upon European nations for support in the coming Iraq War.[50]
Habermas's attitudes toward religion have changed throughout the years. Analyst Phillippe Portier identifies three phases in Habermas's attitude towards this social sphere: the first, in the decade of 1980, when the younger Jürgen, in the spirit of Marx, argued against religion seeing it as an "alienating reality" and "control tool"; the second phase, from the mid-1980s to the beginning of the 21st century, when he stopped discussing it and, as a secular commentator, relegated it to matters of private life; and the third, from then until now, when Habermas saw a positive social role of religion.[51]
In an interview in 1999 Habermas had stated:
For the normative self-understanding of modernity,Christianity has functioned as more than just a precursor or catalyst. Universalisticegalitarianism, from which sprang the ideals of freedom and a collective life in solidarity, the autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of a continual critical reappropriation and reinterpretation. Up to this very day there is no alternative to it. And in light of the current challenges of a post-national constellation, we must draw sustenance now, as in the past, from this substance. Everything else is idle postmodern talk.[52][53][54]
The original German (from the Habermas Forum website) of the disputed quotation is:
Das Christentum ist für das normative Selbstverständnis der Moderne nicht nur eine Vorläufergestalt oder ein Katalysator gewesen. Der egalitäre Universalismus, aus dem die Ideen von Freiheit und solidarischem Zusammenleben, von autonomer Lebensführung und Emanzipation, von individueller Gewissensmoral, Menschenrechten und Demokratie entsprungen sind, ist unmittelbar ein Erbe der jüdischen Gerechtigkeits- und der christlichen Liebesethik. In der Substanz unverändert, ist dieses Erbe immer wieder kritisch angeeignet und neu interpretiert worden. Dazu gibt es bis heute keine Alternative. Auch angesichts der aktuellen Herausforderungen einer postnationalen Konstellation zehren wir nach wie vor von dieser Substanz. Alles andere ist postmodernes Gerede.
— Jürgen Habermas,Zeit der Übergänge (2001), p. 174f.
This statement has been misquoted in a number of articles and books, where Habermas instead is quoted for saying:
Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter.[55][56]
In his bookZwischen Naturalismus und Religion (Between Naturalism and Religion, 2005), Habermas stated that the forces of religious strength, as a result of multiculturalism and immigration, are stronger than in previous decades, and, therefore, there is a need of tolerance which must be understood as a two-way street:secular people need totolerate the role of religious people in the public square and vice versa.[57][58]
In early 2007,Ignatius Press published a dialogue between Habermas and the thenPrefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of theHoly Office Joseph Ratzinger (elected asPope Benedict XVI in 2005), entitledThe Dialectics of Secularization. The dialogue took place on 14 January 2004 after an invitation to both thinkers by the Catholic Academy of Bavaria in Munich.[59] It addressed contemporary questions such as:
Is philosophy permanently cut adrift from its grounding inbeing andanthropology?
Does this decline of rationality signal an opportunity or a deep crisis forreligion itself?
In this debate a shift of Habermas became evident—in particular, his rethinking of the public role of religion. Habermas stated that he wrote as a "methodological atheist," which means that when doing philosophy or social science, he presumed nothing about particular religious beliefs. Yet while writing from this perspective his evolving position towards the role of religion in society led him to some challenging questions, and as a result conceding some ground in his dialogue with the future Pope, that would seem to have consequences which further complicated the positions he holds about a communicative rational solution to the problems of modernity. Habermas believes that even for self-identifiedliberal thinkers, "to exclude religious voices from the public square is highlyilliberal."
In addition, Habermas has popularized the concept of "post-secular" society, to refer to current times in which the idea of modernity is perceived as unsuccessful and at times, morally failed, so that, rather than a stratification or separation, a new peaceful dialogue and coexistence between faith and reason must be sought in order to learn mutually.[60]
Habermas has sided with other 20th-century commentators on Marx such asHannah Arendt who have indicated concerns with the limits of totalitarian perspectives often associated with Marx's over-estimation of the emancipatory potential of the forces of production. Arendt had presented this in her bookThe Origins of Totalitarianism and Habermas extends this critique in his writings on functional reductionism in the life-world in hisLifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason. As Habermas states:
... traditional Marxist analysis ... today, when we use the means of the critique of political economy ... can no longer make clear predictions: for that, one would still have to assume the autonomy of a self-reproducing economic system. I do not believe in such an autonomy. Precisely for this reason, the laws governing the economic system are no longer identical to the ones Marx analyzed. Of course, this does not mean that it would be wrong to analyze the mechanism which drives the economic system; but in order for the orthodox version of such an analysis to be valid, the influence of the political system would have to be ignored.[17]
Habermas reiterated the positions that what refutedMarx and his theory ofclass struggle was the "pacification of class conflict" by thewelfare state, which had developed in the West "since 1945", thanks to "a reformist relying on the instruments ofKeynesian economics".[61][62] Italian philosopher and historianDomenico Losurdo criticised the main point of these claims as "marked by the absence of a question that should be obvious:— Was the advent of the welfare state the inevitable result of a tendency inherent incapitalism? Or was it the result of political and social mobilization by the subaltern classes—in the final analysis, of a class struggle? Had the German philosopher posed this question, perhaps he would have avoided assuming the permanence of the welfare state, whose precariousness and progressive dismantlement are now obvious to everyone".[62]
In 1999, Habermas addressed theKosovo War. Habermas defendedNATO's intervention in an article forDie Zeit, which stirred controversy.[63]
In 2002, Habermas argued that the United States should not go to war inIraq.[64]
On 13 November 2023, Habermas and co-authors issued a statement arguing thatIsrael'smilitary response to the "extreme atrocity" of theHamas-led attack on Israel was "justified in principle". Although questions of proportionality and civilian casualties can rightly be asked about the Israeli response, the statement maintained that such critiques cannot justly attribute "genocidal intentions" to Israel's actions and, furthermore, should in any case not lead toantisemitism[65]
During theEuropean debt crisis, Habermas criticizedAngela Merkel's leadership in Europe. In 2013, Habermas clashed withWolfgang Streeck, who argued the kind of European federalism espoused by Habermas was the root of the continent's crisis.[66]
^Max Mangold and Dudenredaktion:Duden Aussprachewörterbuch. In:Der Duden in zwölf Bänden. Volume 6, 6th edition, Dudenverlag, Mannheim/Leipzig/Wien/Zürich 2005ISBN978-3-411-04066-7, "Jürgen" p. 446 and "Habermas" p. 383.
^Habermas, Jürgen (1995). "Reconciliation Through the Public Use of Reason: Remarks on John Rawls's Political Liberalism".Journal of Philosophy.92 (3):109–131.
^Rawls, John (1995). "Political Liberalism: Reply to Habermas".Journal of Philosophy.92 (3):132–180.
^abHabermas, Jürgen (1993). "A Kind of Settlement of Damages On Apologetic Tendencies In German History Writing". In Piper, Ernst (ed.).Forever In the Shadow of Hitler?. Atlantic Highlands:Humanities Press. pp. 34–44 [43].
^Habermas, Jürgen (1993). "A Kind of Settlement of Damages On Apologetic Tendencies In German History Writing". In Piper, Ernst (ed.).Forever In the Shadow of Hitler?. Atlantic Highlands:Humanities Press. pp. 34–44 [42–43].
^Habermas, Jürgen (1993). "A Kind of Settlement of Damages On Apologetic Tendencies In German History Writing". In Piper, Ernst (ed.).Forever In the Shadow of Hitler?. Atlantic Highlands:Humanities Press. pp. 34–44 [37–38].
^Fest, Joachim (1993). "Encumbered Remembrance: The Controversy about the Incomparability of National-Socialist Mass Crimes". In Piper, Ernst (ed.).Forever In The Shadow of Hitler?. Atlantic Highlands:Humanities Press. pp. 63–71 [64–65].
^Fest, Joachim (1993). "Postscript, April 21, 1987". In Piper, Ernst (ed.).Forever In The Shadow of Hitler?. Atlantic Highlands:Humanities Press. pp. 264–265.
^Schulze, Hagen (1993). "Questions We Have To Face: No Historical Stance without National Identity". In Piper, Ernst (ed.).Forever In The Shadow of Hitler?. Atlantic Highlands:Humanities Press. pp. 93–97 [94].
^Möller, Horst (1993). "What May Not Be, Cannot Be: A Plea for Rendering Factual the Controversy about Recent History". In Piper, Ernst (ed.).Forever In The Shadow of Hitler?. Atlantic Highlands:Humanities Press. pp. 216–221 [216–218].
^Geiss, Imanuel (1993). "On theHistorikerstreit". In Piper, Ernst (ed.).Forever In The Shadow Of Hitler?. Atlantic Highlands:Humanities Press. pp. 254–258 [256].
^Hildebrand, Klaus, "The Age of Tyrants: History and Politics The Administrators of the Enlightenment, the Risk of Scholarship and the Preservation of a Worldview A Reply to Jürgen Habermas", pp. 50–55, & "He Who Wants To Escape the Abyss Will Have Sound It Very Precisely: Is the New German History Writing Revisionist?" pp. 188–195 fromForever In The Shadow of Hitler? ed. Piper (1993).
^Broszat, Martin, "Where the Roads Part: History Is Not A Suitable Substitute for a Religion of Nationalism", pp. 123–129,Forever In The Shadow of Hitler? ed. Piper (1993), p. 127.
^Jäckel, Eberhard, "The Impoverished Practice of Insinuation: The Singular Aspect of National Socialist Crimes Cannot Be Denied", pp. 74–78 fromForever In The Shadow of Hitler? ed. Piper (1993), pp. 74–75.
^Mommsen, Hans, "The New Historical Consciousness and the Relativizing of National Socialism", pp. 114–124 fromForever In The Shadow of Hitler? ed. Piper (1993), pp. 114–115.
^Evans, Richard,In Hitler's Shadow, New York: Pantheon Books, 1989, pp. 159–160.
^Thomassen, L. "Introduction: Between Deconstruction and Rational Reconstruction" inThe Derrida-Habermas Reader, ed. Thomassen (2006), pp. 1–7. P.2.
^Derrida, J., "Is There a Philosophical Language?" inThe Derrida-Habermas Reader, ed. Thomassen (2006), pp. 35–45. P.37.
^Habermas, J. and Derrida, J. "February 15, Or What Binds Europeans Together: A Plea for a Common Foreign Policy, beginning in the Core of Europe" inThe Derrida-Habermas Reader, ed. Thomassen (2006), pp. 270–277. P. 302.
^Habermas, Jurgen,Religion and Rationality: Essays on Reason, God, and Modernity, ed. Eduardo Mendieta, MIT Press, 2002, p. 149. And Habermas, Jurgen,Time of Transitions, Polity Press, 2006, pp. 150–151.
^Buston, Fernando del. 2014.El Estado debe proteger a la religión. El Comercio. Date access 10 January 2015: "Jürgen Habermas ha acuñado el término de postsecularidad.Se da por fallida la idea central de la modernidad de que la religión iba a desaparecer y se establece una nueva relación entre razón y religión. Habermas plantea que es necesario emprender un aprendizaje mutuo entre las sociedades modernas y las creencias, o entre razón secular y fe. Se inicia una nueva época de mutuas tolerancias. La razón no puede echar por la borda el potencial de sentido de las religiones y éstas deben traducir sus contenidos racionalmente."
^Habermas, Jürgen (1987).Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. 2. Translated by Thomas, McCarthy.Beacon Press. p. 348.
^Jürgen Habermas, 'Bestialität und Humanität: Ein Krieg an der Grenze zwischen Recht und Moral',Die Zeit, 29 April 1999; in English as 'Bestiality and Humanity: A War on the Border between Law and Morality', in William Buckley (ed.),Kosovo: Contending Voices on the Balkan Intervention (2000).
^Jürgen Habermas, "Letter to America",The Nation, 16 December 2002
Discussing Habermas's legal philosophy in the 1992 original German edition ofBetween Facts and Norms.
Andreas Dorschel: 'Handlungstypen und Kriterien. Zu Habermas'Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, in:Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 44 (1990), nr. 2, pp. 220–252. A critical discussion of types of action in Habermas. In German.
Erik Oddvar Eriksen and Jarle Weigard,Understanding Habermas: Communicative Action and Deliberative Democracy, Continuum International Publishing, 2004 (ISBN0-8264-7179-X).
A recent and comprehensive introduction to Habermas's mature theory and its political implications both national and global.
Alexandre Guilherme and W. John Morgan, 'Jürgen Habermas (1929–present) – dialogue as communicative rationality', Chapter 9 inPhilosophy, Dialogue, and Education: Nine modern European philosophers, Routledge, London and New York, pp. 140– 154.ISBN978-1-138-83149-0.
Detlef Horster.Habermas: An Introduction. Pennbridge, 1992 (ISBN1-880055-01-5)
Martin Jay,Marxism and Totality: The Adventures of a Concept from Lukacs to Habermas (Chapter 9), University of California Press, 1986. (ISBN0-520-05742-2)
Ernst Piper (ed.)"Historikerstreit": Die Dokumentation der Kontroverse um die Einzigartigkeit der nationalsozialistschen Judenvernichtung, Munich: Piper, 1987, translated into English by James Knowlton and Truett Cates asForever In The Shadow Of Hitler?: Original Documents Of the Historikerstreit, The Controversy Concerning The Singularity Of The Holocaust, Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1993 (ISBN0-391-03784-6)Contains Habermas's essays from theHistorikerstreit and the reactions of various scholars to his statements.
Edgar, Andrew.The Philosophy of Habermas. Мontreal, McGill-Queen's UP, 2005.
Adams, Nicholas.Habermas & Theology. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Mike Sandbothe,Habermas, Pragmatism, and the Media, Online publication: sandbothe.net 2008; German original in: Über Habermas. Gespräche mit Zeitgenossen, ed. by Michael Funken, Darmstadt: Primus, 2008.
Moderne Religion? Theologische und religionsphilosophische Reaktionen auf Jürgen Habermas. Hrsg. v. Knut Wenzel und Thomas M. Schmidt. Freiburg, Herder, 2009.
"How to save the quality press?" by Jürgen Habermas at signandsight.com, published 21 May 2007 – Habermas argues for state support for quality newspapers, at signandsight.com, published 21 May 2007
