polity
Chapters 1–5 first published in German in Philosophische Texte. Studienausgabe in fünf Bänden © Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2009. All rights reserved and controlled through Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin
Introduction by Jean-Marc Durand-Gasselin © Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin, 2018
This English edition © Polity Press, 2018
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ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-0675-0
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Habermas, Jürgen, author.
Title: Philosophical introductions : five approaches to communicative reason / Jürgen Habermas.
Description: English edition. | Medford, MA : Polity, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017059698 (print) | LCCN 2018015509 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509506750 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509506712 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509506729 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Philosophy, German--History--20th century. | Communication--Philosophy.
Classification: LCC B3258.H322 (ebook) | LCC B3258.H322 E5 2018 (print) | DDC 193--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017059698
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On the occasion of my eightieth birthday, Suhrkamp Verlag encouraged me to make a systematic selection of essays on the five main areas on which my philosophical work has focused. I found this initiative very opportune because I have not written any books on important topics to which my philosophical interests, in the narrower sense, are directed. As a result, the individual collections of texts could take the place of unwritten monographs on:
The ‘theory of communicative action’ is so complex that it needs to be defended simultaneously on many different fronts. The foundations of such a social theory are laid down in ‘preparatory studies’ on philosophical questions, which must not be confused with social scientific questions; rather, they must be respected in their distinctive character. In the highly diverse network of scientific discourses, philosophical arguments can be defended only in the specific contexts in which the associated problems arise. The edition of philosophical essays was intended to throw light on this independent systematic import of philosophical questions. On the other hand, even though these attempts at explanation have to stand on their own two feet as contributions to technical philosophical discussions, at the same time they preserve their status within the more comprehensive context of an ambitious social theory.
In order to render this context transparent, I wrote an introduction to each of the five thematic volumes. In no other place have I attempted to provide an ‘overview’ of my philosophy, if I may speak in such terms, as a whole. For several decades I have had the vexing experience that, as our discipline becomes inexorably more specialized, my publications are no longer read as attempts to develop a philosophical conception as a whole. Rather than being read as a generalist’s contributions to certain aspects of the theory of rationality or the theory of action, political theory or the theory of law, moral theory, language pragmatics or, specifically, social theory, they are interpreted in ‘fragmented’ form. This is why the synoptic view provided by these ‘introductions’ is close to my heart, without wishing to misrepresent their reference to a specific occasion of publication.
Publishing a series of introductions without the texts to which they refer is, of course, an imposition on the reader, who will if necessary have to track down these texts using the references.2 Therefore, I am grateful to Jean-Marc Durand-Gasselin for fulfilling my all but impossible request to repair this deficiency. He supplements the introductions, which always refer to specific texts, with a masterful account of my approach from the perspective of a capable French colleague from across the Rhine.
Starnberg, December 2016
Jürgen Habermas