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Postmetaphysical Thinking II
'There is no alternative to postmetaphysical thinking' this statement, made by JUrgen Habermas in 1988, has lost none of its relevance. Postmetaphysical thinking is, in the first place, the historical answer to the crisis of metaphysics following Hegel, when the central metaphysical figures of thought began to totter under the pressure exerted by social developments and by developments within science. As a result, philosophy's epistemological privilege was shaken to its core, its basic concepts were de-transcendentalized, and the primacy of theory over practice was opened to question. For good reasons, philosophy 'lost its extraordinary status', but as a result it also courted new problems. In Postmetaphysical Thinking II, the sequel to the 1988 volume that bears the same title (English translation, Polity 1992), Habermas addresses some of these problems.
The first section of the book deals with the shift in perspective from metaphysical worldviews to the lifeworld, the unarticulated meanings and assumptions that accompany everyday thought and action in the mode of 'background knowledge'. Habermas analyses the lifeworld as a 'space of reasons' - even where language is not (yet) involved, such as, for example, in gestural communication and rituals. In the second section, the uneasy relationship between religion and postmetaphysical thinking takes centre stage. Habermas picks up where he left off in 1988, when he made the far-sighted observation that 'philosophy, even in its postmetaphysical form, will be able neither to replace nor to repress religion', and explores philosophy's new-found interest in religion, among other topics. The final section includes essays on the role of religion in the political context of a post-secular, liberal society.
This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars in philosophy, religion and the social sciences and humanities generally.
The first section of the book deals with the shift in perspective from metaphysical worldviews to the lifeworld, the unarticulated meanings and assumptions that accompany everyday thought and action in the mode of 'background knowledge'. Habermas analyses the lifeworld as a 'space of reasons' - even where language is not (yet) involved, such as, for example, in gestural communication and rituals. In the second section, the uneasy relationship between religion and postmetaphysical thinking takes centre stage. Habermas picks up where he left off in 1988, when he made the far-sighted observation that 'philosophy, even in its postmetaphysical form, will be able neither to replace nor to repress religion', and explores philosophy's new-found interest in religion, among other topics. The final section includes essays on the role of religion in the political context of a post-secular, liberal society.
This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars in philosophy, religion and the social sciences and humanities generally.
- GenresPhilosophy
272 pages, Paperback
Published May 19, 2017
About the author
Jürgen Habermas
378 books741 followersJürgen Habermas was a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and American pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his work on the concept of the public sphere, the topic of his first book entitled The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. His work focuses on the foundations of social theory and epistemology, the analysis of advanced capitalistic societies and democracy, the rule of law in a critical social-evolutionary context, and contemporary politics—particularly German politics. Habermas's theoretical system is devoted to revealing the possibility of reason, emancipation, and rational-critical communication latent in modern institutions and in the human capacity to deliberate and pursue rational interests.
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June 2, 2018
I have a pet theory that completing his massive two-volume Theory of Communicative Action (1981) was such an ordeal that Habermas developed an aversion to book-length treatises. With two exceptions, all of his books since 1981 have not been monographs but collection of loosely related essays. Postmetaphysical Thinking II (2017) follows this pattern. But more than any other, it really smacks of scraping the bottom of the barrel. No less than three of the essays it collects are reprinted replies to critics. Another is a reprinted preface written for a book by a different author. And even some of the original pieces largely add little of substance to his existing body of work.
Where the volume really shines, however, is in the opening three essays, which expand on certain links between Habermas’ earlier work on speech-act theory and his more recent work on religion and public life. One major theme of these essays is the cognitive status of what, following Husserl and Heidegger, he calls the “lifeworld” (Lebenswelt). On Habermas’ analysis, the horizon of traditions, norms, and practices that forms the background of everyday interactions can be understood as institutionalizing those reasons for acting that a given cultural group has identified as being the most convincing, thus stabilizing communication and facilitating social coordination.
Another important theme is the difference between religious and nonreligious discourse. According to Habermas, ordinary communication is characterized by the triadic structure of a speaker and a hearer trying to achieve mutual understanding about something in the world. In contrast, ritual practice lacks the third element: It is not about anything. In Habermas’ view, it should instead be understood as a stabilizing practice by which individual members of a society reassure themselves of their dependence upon the collectivity and, in doing so, generate the “strong normativity” required to ground social solidarity. This in turn explains what separates religious discourse, which conserves its link to ritual, from ordinary communication.
Habermas’ analyses have far-reaching implications. Enlightenment-era thinkers often represented tradition, and especially religious tradition, as an obstacle to progress and an encumbrance to rational autonomy. On Habermas’ account, in contrast, it is just the opposite: Traditions are stable though slowly evolving stores of the most tried and true reasons available to a culture. Similarly, religions, insofar as they generate social solidarity, are crucial to a well-functioning democratic process. The essays in Postmetaphysical Thinking II are a mixed bag, but as slapdash as some of it may be, its three opening essays alone make it worth the read.
Where the volume really shines, however, is in the opening three essays, which expand on certain links between Habermas’ earlier work on speech-act theory and his more recent work on religion and public life. One major theme of these essays is the cognitive status of what, following Husserl and Heidegger, he calls the “lifeworld” (Lebenswelt). On Habermas’ analysis, the horizon of traditions, norms, and practices that forms the background of everyday interactions can be understood as institutionalizing those reasons for acting that a given cultural group has identified as being the most convincing, thus stabilizing communication and facilitating social coordination.
Another important theme is the difference between religious and nonreligious discourse. According to Habermas, ordinary communication is characterized by the triadic structure of a speaker and a hearer trying to achieve mutual understanding about something in the world. In contrast, ritual practice lacks the third element: It is not about anything. In Habermas’ view, it should instead be understood as a stabilizing practice by which individual members of a society reassure themselves of their dependence upon the collectivity and, in doing so, generate the “strong normativity” required to ground social solidarity. This in turn explains what separates religious discourse, which conserves its link to ritual, from ordinary communication.
Habermas’ analyses have far-reaching implications. Enlightenment-era thinkers often represented tradition, and especially religious tradition, as an obstacle to progress and an encumbrance to rational autonomy. On Habermas’ account, in contrast, it is just the opposite: Traditions are stable though slowly evolving stores of the most tried and true reasons available to a culture. Similarly, religions, insofar as they generate social solidarity, are crucial to a well-functioning democratic process. The essays in Postmetaphysical Thinking II are a mixed bag, but as slapdash as some of it may be, its three opening essays alone make it worth the read.
December 2, 2017
Habermas On Postmetaphysical Thinking
I read about philosophy and about American pragmatism and the philosophy of religion. I recently saw a review on Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, an online site for the review of philosophical books, by Peter Dews, University of Essex, that fascinated me because it was about issues I had thought about and involved a thinker I wanted to know better. Dews reviewed the work I am reviewing here: "Postmetaphysical Thinking II: Essays and Replies" by the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas (b. 1929); and I learned a great deal from his review of this difficult book. Habermas' book was published in German in 2012 and published in the English translation by Ciaran Cronin in 2017 by Polity Press, which kindly sent me a review copy.
Habermas has had a long, prolific career, and his thought appeared to expand in scope to include a strong concern with religious issues in about 1988. when Habermas published the predecessor to this volume, "Postmetaphysical Thinking" (English translation, 1994). In the Preface to the new book, Habermas states that its broad theme is the same as the earlier volume: "the self-confirmation of philosophical thinking". He continues: [p]hilosophy is not a scientific discipline that could be defined in terms of a fixed method or a set subject matter. Philosophical discourses derive their unity instead from the formation of a canon -- in other words, from the texts that have been associated with the history of philosophy for two and a half millennia. What philosophy can achieve is therefore an essentially contested question. Nevertheless, this is not an idle question that we can sidestep." Habermas attempts to find the current nature and role of philosophy. In so doing, he addresses a host of broad difficult questions about religion, science, politics and the social sciences.
Many philosophers from varying perspectives question whether there is a place for the broad philosophical endeavor of metaphysics. The very title of this book suggests that Habermas is among them. He argues that since the time of Hume and Kant the grand vision of giving a rational picture of reality and of the human place in it has become untenable. He traces this result further to the rise and success of the natural sciences and to the nominalistic philosophy arising in the Middle Ages. Thus philosophical thinking is "postmetaphysical." Such thinking must admit that it is fallible, abandon the quest for absolute certainties, and learn from and follow the findings of science. In these conclusions, Habermas is close to many of the American pragmatists. Still, that is not all there is to it. Philosophy has a role to play that does not deduce to science or, necessarily, to a worldview limited to science. Philosophy is critically self-reflective in a way the sciences are not in that philosophical thinking turns on the thinker and reflects on conditions of knowledge and meaning. Not all thinking, or language use, is scientific in character. In reading Habermas, I thought of the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor and his recent book "The Language Animal: The Full Shape of the Human Linguistic Capacity." (2016), which I have reviewed here.
Habermas' account of the nature of postmetaphysical thinking has a distinctly genealogical and historical base. Because this book consists of a series of essays and responses to criticisms written at different times, the book can be confusing and repetitive. Although Habermas expands throughout, his approach is stated most fully in the Preface and in the first part of this three-part book, "The Lifeworld as a Space of Reasons", a title which suggests an indebtedness to the German phenomenologist Edmund Husserl. Habermas in fact goes back to prehistoric times to suggest that human language is closely tied to gestures and, in matters of religion, to ritual that may have proceeded linguistic speech. In the Axial Age, described by Karl Jaspers and by the late Robert Bellah (in his book "Religion in Human Evolution") a degree of separation of everyday life from criticism and self-reflectiveness took place almost simultaneously in Greek metaphysics, the Hebrew prophets, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Confucianism. The Axial Age gave rise to many of the world's great religions and separated the critical, reflective self from the self as an object. The world of the everyday and of object became increasingly the focus of what became scientific knowledge through an epistemological focus on knowing. Ultimately this led to the end of metaphysics, for Habermas, but not to the end of religion, which arose out of the human lifeworld and of the rituals of religion before its conceptualization. It may not be the case that the human lifeworld is reducible to the approach of the physical sciences. But Habermas finds that the rise of science means that metaphysics cannot be the rational mediator, somehow, between science and religion. Philosophy is fallible and non-essentialist but it still has a role to play separate from the sciences in its self-reflective character which leads to the possibility that the world of science, which separates itself off from the lifeworld for a particular purpose and study, may not be the only world their is or the only approach to reality. In Habermas' emphasis on the self-reflective character of philosophy, I was reminded by the book by the American idealist philosopher Josiah Royce "The Spirit of Modern Philosophy" which unfortunately is little read today.
All of this is vague, difficult, and complex, and the writing and format of the book does not particularly help things along. Habermas considers himself an agnostic and non-religious, but it would be easy to take issue with this self-characterization and with his claim that his philosophy is "postmetaphysical" rather than "metaphysical", points made by some of Habermas' interlocutors in this book and by the review I mentioned by Peter Dews.
Habermas elaborates on the view developed in the first part of his book on "The Lifeworld as a Space of Reasons" in the second part, titled simply "Postmetahpysical Thinking". This part begins with a conversation on the revival of philosophical interest in religion that took place between Habermas and the philosopher Eduardo Mendiata in 2009 on Long Island. It is the most accessible section in the second part of the book. The remaining two sections consist of Habermas' extensive replies to critics of his work at seminars held on postmetaphysical thinking and religion at New York University in 2009 and at a symposium on faith and knowledge held in 2005 at the University of Vienna. These replies, and the works of the scholars Habermas addresses, are repetitive in part but they add considerably to the first part of the book. Unfortunately, we only have Habermas' responses to the critiques of others which makes his reply, and the difference between his position and the positions of his critics, difficult to follow in places.
The third part of the book, "Politics and Religion" addresses the role of religion in public life in a state and in governments, but not necessarily in societies, that have become secularized. This issue is alive in both the United States and Europe, although in different ways, as a result of multiculturalism, the continued commitment of many individuals to a religion, religious pluralism, immigration, polarization of public opinion on many issues of concern to different religions in different ways, and many other factors. The underlying issue is the role of religions and of religious reasons that individuals may have for different public policies in the public sphere.
Much of the third part of the book consists of Habermas' consideration of the work of the American philosopher John Rawls. Habermas and Rawls had engaged in a celebrated discussion in 1993 of Rawls' book "A Theory of Justice". Rawls had asked Habermas to review the draft of his book, "Political Liberalism" and to comment. In the essays in this book, Habermas offers fair and insightful treatments of Rawls' early work, including his BA thesis which had a strongly religious tenor that Rawls had abandoned by the time he wrote "A Theory of Justice". In his latter work, Rawls struggled to explain the scope and limitations of the consideration of religiously motivated views in the public sphere. Habermas expands upon and critiques the views of Rawls while offering his own thoughts on this issue in the final section of this book.
This is a thoughtful, difficult, valuable book. The book is highly erudite in its consideration of a wide range of historical and contemporary philosophical sources, particularly Kant and Husserl and of a range of sociological sources as well. The book will be of interest to readers with a strong background in and passion for philosophy, metaphysics, and religion.
Robin Friedman
I read about philosophy and about American pragmatism and the philosophy of religion. I recently saw a review on Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, an online site for the review of philosophical books, by Peter Dews, University of Essex, that fascinated me because it was about issues I had thought about and involved a thinker I wanted to know better. Dews reviewed the work I am reviewing here: "Postmetaphysical Thinking II: Essays and Replies" by the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas (b. 1929); and I learned a great deal from his review of this difficult book. Habermas' book was published in German in 2012 and published in the English translation by Ciaran Cronin in 2017 by Polity Press, which kindly sent me a review copy.
Habermas has had a long, prolific career, and his thought appeared to expand in scope to include a strong concern with religious issues in about 1988. when Habermas published the predecessor to this volume, "Postmetaphysical Thinking" (English translation, 1994). In the Preface to the new book, Habermas states that its broad theme is the same as the earlier volume: "the self-confirmation of philosophical thinking". He continues: [p]hilosophy is not a scientific discipline that could be defined in terms of a fixed method or a set subject matter. Philosophical discourses derive their unity instead from the formation of a canon -- in other words, from the texts that have been associated with the history of philosophy for two and a half millennia. What philosophy can achieve is therefore an essentially contested question. Nevertheless, this is not an idle question that we can sidestep." Habermas attempts to find the current nature and role of philosophy. In so doing, he addresses a host of broad difficult questions about religion, science, politics and the social sciences.
Many philosophers from varying perspectives question whether there is a place for the broad philosophical endeavor of metaphysics. The very title of this book suggests that Habermas is among them. He argues that since the time of Hume and Kant the grand vision of giving a rational picture of reality and of the human place in it has become untenable. He traces this result further to the rise and success of the natural sciences and to the nominalistic philosophy arising in the Middle Ages. Thus philosophical thinking is "postmetaphysical." Such thinking must admit that it is fallible, abandon the quest for absolute certainties, and learn from and follow the findings of science. In these conclusions, Habermas is close to many of the American pragmatists. Still, that is not all there is to it. Philosophy has a role to play that does not deduce to science or, necessarily, to a worldview limited to science. Philosophy is critically self-reflective in a way the sciences are not in that philosophical thinking turns on the thinker and reflects on conditions of knowledge and meaning. Not all thinking, or language use, is scientific in character. In reading Habermas, I thought of the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor and his recent book "The Language Animal: The Full Shape of the Human Linguistic Capacity." (2016), which I have reviewed here.
Habermas' account of the nature of postmetaphysical thinking has a distinctly genealogical and historical base. Because this book consists of a series of essays and responses to criticisms written at different times, the book can be confusing and repetitive. Although Habermas expands throughout, his approach is stated most fully in the Preface and in the first part of this three-part book, "The Lifeworld as a Space of Reasons", a title which suggests an indebtedness to the German phenomenologist Edmund Husserl. Habermas in fact goes back to prehistoric times to suggest that human language is closely tied to gestures and, in matters of religion, to ritual that may have proceeded linguistic speech. In the Axial Age, described by Karl Jaspers and by the late Robert Bellah (in his book "Religion in Human Evolution") a degree of separation of everyday life from criticism and self-reflectiveness took place almost simultaneously in Greek metaphysics, the Hebrew prophets, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Confucianism. The Axial Age gave rise to many of the world's great religions and separated the critical, reflective self from the self as an object. The world of the everyday and of object became increasingly the focus of what became scientific knowledge through an epistemological focus on knowing. Ultimately this led to the end of metaphysics, for Habermas, but not to the end of religion, which arose out of the human lifeworld and of the rituals of religion before its conceptualization. It may not be the case that the human lifeworld is reducible to the approach of the physical sciences. But Habermas finds that the rise of science means that metaphysics cannot be the rational mediator, somehow, between science and religion. Philosophy is fallible and non-essentialist but it still has a role to play separate from the sciences in its self-reflective character which leads to the possibility that the world of science, which separates itself off from the lifeworld for a particular purpose and study, may not be the only world their is or the only approach to reality. In Habermas' emphasis on the self-reflective character of philosophy, I was reminded by the book by the American idealist philosopher Josiah Royce "The Spirit of Modern Philosophy" which unfortunately is little read today.
All of this is vague, difficult, and complex, and the writing and format of the book does not particularly help things along. Habermas considers himself an agnostic and non-religious, but it would be easy to take issue with this self-characterization and with his claim that his philosophy is "postmetaphysical" rather than "metaphysical", points made by some of Habermas' interlocutors in this book and by the review I mentioned by Peter Dews.
Habermas elaborates on the view developed in the first part of his book on "The Lifeworld as a Space of Reasons" in the second part, titled simply "Postmetahpysical Thinking". This part begins with a conversation on the revival of philosophical interest in religion that took place between Habermas and the philosopher Eduardo Mendiata in 2009 on Long Island. It is the most accessible section in the second part of the book. The remaining two sections consist of Habermas' extensive replies to critics of his work at seminars held on postmetaphysical thinking and religion at New York University in 2009 and at a symposium on faith and knowledge held in 2005 at the University of Vienna. These replies, and the works of the scholars Habermas addresses, are repetitive in part but they add considerably to the first part of the book. Unfortunately, we only have Habermas' responses to the critiques of others which makes his reply, and the difference between his position and the positions of his critics, difficult to follow in places.
The third part of the book, "Politics and Religion" addresses the role of religion in public life in a state and in governments, but not necessarily in societies, that have become secularized. This issue is alive in both the United States and Europe, although in different ways, as a result of multiculturalism, the continued commitment of many individuals to a religion, religious pluralism, immigration, polarization of public opinion on many issues of concern to different religions in different ways, and many other factors. The underlying issue is the role of religions and of religious reasons that individuals may have for different public policies in the public sphere.
Much of the third part of the book consists of Habermas' consideration of the work of the American philosopher John Rawls. Habermas and Rawls had engaged in a celebrated discussion in 1993 of Rawls' book "A Theory of Justice". Rawls had asked Habermas to review the draft of his book, "Political Liberalism" and to comment. In the essays in this book, Habermas offers fair and insightful treatments of Rawls' early work, including his BA thesis which had a strongly religious tenor that Rawls had abandoned by the time he wrote "A Theory of Justice". In his latter work, Rawls struggled to explain the scope and limitations of the consideration of religiously motivated views in the public sphere. Habermas expands upon and critiques the views of Rawls while offering his own thoughts on this issue in the final section of this book.
This is a thoughtful, difficult, valuable book. The book is highly erudite in its consideration of a wide range of historical and contemporary philosophical sources, particularly Kant and Husserl and of a range of sociological sources as well. The book will be of interest to readers with a strong background in and passion for philosophy, metaphysics, and religion.
Robin Friedman
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