Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) - Softcover

Habermas, Jürgen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262581183 ISBN 13: 9780262581189

Publisher: MIT Press, 1992

Synopsis

In this important volume Habermas outlines the views which form the basis of his critical theory of modern societies. The volume comprises five interlocking essays, which together define the contours of his theory of communication and of his substantive account of social change. 'What is Universal Pragmatics?' is the best available statement of Habermas's programme for a theoryof communication based on the analysis of speech acts. In the following two essays Habermas draws on the work of Kohlberg and others to develop a distinctive account of moral consciousness and normative structures. 'Toward a Reconstruction of historical Materialsim' takes these issues further, offering a wide-ranging reconstruction of Marx's historical materialsim understood as a theory of social evolution. The final essay focuses on the question of legitimacy and on the legitimation problems faced by modern states. This book is essential reading for anyone concerned with the key questions of social and political theory today.

About this title

Review:

′Certainly, it is this book which marks the crowning mature achievement of one whose fundamental preoccupation has always been with the articulation of questions of normativity.′ Philosophical Quarterly

About the Author:

Jonathan Crary is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Modern Art and Theory at Columbia University. A founding editor of Zone Books, he is the author of Techniques of the Observer (MIT Press, 1990) and coeditor of Incorporations (Zone Books, 1992). He has been the recipient of Guggenheim, Getty, Mellon, and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

About this edition

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0262581183
• ISBN 13: 9780262581189
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 244