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Religion and Rationality: Essays on Reason, God & Modernity
This important new volume brings together Habermas' key writing on religion and religious belief. Habermas explores the relations between Christian and Jewish thought, on the one hand, and the Western philosophical tradition on the other. In so doing, he examines a range of important figures, including Benjamin, Heidegger, Johann Baptist Metz and Gershom Scholem.
In a new introduction written especially for this volume, Eduardo Mendieta places Habermas' engagement with religion in the context of his work as a whole. Mendieta also discusses Habermas' writings in relation to Jewish Messianism and the Frankfurt School, showing how the essays in Religion and Rationality , one of which is translated into English for the first time, foreground an important, yet often neglected, dimension of critical theory. The volume concludes with an original extended interview, also in English for the first time, in which Habermas develops his current views on religion in modern society.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in theology, religious studies and philosophy, as well as to all those already familiar with Habermas' work.
In a new introduction written especially for this volume, Eduardo Mendieta places Habermas' engagement with religion in the context of his work as a whole. Mendieta also discusses Habermas' writings in relation to Jewish Messianism and the Frankfurt School, showing how the essays in Religion and Rationality , one of which is translated into English for the first time, foreground an important, yet often neglected, dimension of critical theory. The volume concludes with an original extended interview, also in English for the first time, in which Habermas develops his current views on religion in modern society.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in theology, religious studies and philosophy, as well as to all those already familiar with Habermas' work.
184 pages, Hardcover
First published June 21, 2002
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114 people want to read
About the author
Jürgen Habermas
378 books697 followersJürgen Habermas is 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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January 12, 2018
Religion and Rationality was published just a year after the acceptance speech that first announced Habermas' "religious turn" of the 2000s. No doubt motivated by Habermas' unexpected shift of focus to religious matters, Eduardo Mendieta - himself a reliable scholar of Frankfurt School critical theory and of the role of religion in public life - has brought together Habermas' various occasional writings on religion before the religious turn. Only two pieces are new to this volume: Mendieta's introduction and his closing interview with Habermas on "God and the World."
Mendieta's introduction is excellent and serves two purposes. On the one hand, it situates Habermas' engagement with religion in the broader context of the Frankfurt School's critical approach to social theory. In this regard, Mendieta traces back Habermas' project of a postmetaphysical appropriation of the cognitive contents of religious traditions to the work of his mentors Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. On the other hand, the introduction provides an overview of the complex ways in which Habermas' thought has encountered religion, from his early writings of the 1960s to the publication of his magnum opus, the Theory of Communicative Action, in 1981.
The first essay, titled "The German Idealism of the Jewish Philosophers," was originally delivered as a radio programme and presents more of a historical than a philosophical interest. Habermas traces the relation of reciprocal influence that subsisted between, on the one hand, German thought from Kant onward, and on the other, the mysticism and historical consciousness of Jewish thought. Especially interesting in this regard is Habermas' conjecture that the philosophies of silence developed by both Kant and Wittgenstein are inherently attractive to (and in Wittgenstein's case, indebted to) a Jewish mode of thought conscious of its own imperfect understanding of God.
The second essay is a review of Klaus Heinrich's book titled Versuch über die Schwierigkeit, Nein zu sagen (Essay on the Difficulty of Saying No). Heinrich, a theologian, anchors his analysis of protest in terms of a Judaic tradition that refuses to pass off the imperfection of this world under silence as the mere flipside of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Here again, Habermas extols the dialectical or communicative thrust of the Jewish tradition as a means of resitstance to the passive conformity of both the ontological and the positivistic silencing of negativity.
The third essay, "Transcendence from Within, Transcendence in this World", is a response to a conference held at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago in 1988 titled "Critical Theory: Its Promises and Limitations for a Theology of the Public Realm" and is in many ways the highlight of the volume. Habermas seeks to elaborate the conditions of a successful exchange between philosophy and theology, or more generally between secular reason and religious faith. In this regard, the essay may be understood as a precursor to his work of the 2000s. Seeking at once to explain the shared ground of such an exchange and to distinguish theological from philosophical thought, Habermas attributes communicative rationality to both varieties of discourses and elaborates a doctrine of "methodological atheism" as the distinguishing feature of postmetaphysical thinking.
After this blueprint for dialogue between religious and secular worldviews, there follows a number of exchanges with theologians and philosophers who are perhaps more religiously inclined than Habermas himself. First of these is a short reflection on Horkheimer's assertion that "to seek to salvage unconditional meaning without God is a futile undertaking." Against Horkheimer's skepticism, which leads him to subsume procedural rationality under the heading of a merely instrumental use of reason, Habermas defends his own model of communicative rationality as the locus of a postmetaphysical and non-repressive conception of unconditional truth.
The next paper takes the form of a dialogue with the German theologian Michael Theunissen, whose though is in many respects close to Habermas' own. Like Habermas, Theunissen seeks to salvage the contents of Christianity by a philosophical appropriation of the contents of faith. Unlike Habermas, however, he does this by inserting the metaphysical concepts of Christianity qua metaphysical concepts back into philosophical thought while attempting to justify them on postmetaphysical grounds. He does this by reworking Kierkegaard's argument that selfhood is possible only through a relation to an Other by which the self is itself posited, i.e. through a relation with God. Habermas argues against this appropriation of Kierkegaard and replaces Theunissen's insistence on an otherwordly transcendence with the "transcendence from within" inherent to communicative action.
The sixth essay is a reply to another German, albeit Catholic, theologian, Johann Baptist Metz. Metz insists on the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and calls for a return to the anamnestic reason of Jewish thought against the Greek influence that has made Christianity insensitive to the voices of suffering. Against Metz's condemnation of the Hellenistic tradition, Habermas stresses the anamnestic reason that belongs to the philosophical tradition itself in its various revolts agains Platonism. Against Metz's praise of the Christian tradition as the model of the egalitarian universalism necessary to a multicultural world society, Habermas points out the Enlightenment ideas that are indispensable to Christianity if it is to abandon the assimilating pseudo-universalism of its colonial past and to embrace a true universalism sensitive to the inescapable "fact of pluralism."
The seventh paper, which is by far the least interesting and the least relevant to the study of Habermas, takes the form of a review - or perhaps even merely a brief overview - of the meticulously documented biography of Sabbatai Sevi published by the Jewish philosopher Gershom Sholem in 1973. Habermas writes about Scholem's fascination with that aspect of mystical experience that escapes all communication and so must remain outside of tradition and history. Hence Scholem's attempts to locate the "Other of history," which motivates his interest in the heretical movements -among them Sabbatianism - that remain alien to the Jewish tradition and embody this ineffable experience of illumination. Habermas ends with some bafflingly tenuous considerations regarding Scholem's ambivalent relation to the Enlightenment and its relevance to his interest in heretical movements.
The final piece, which is, along with "Transcendence from Within, one of the most interesting for scholars of Habermas, takes the form of an interview conducted by Eduardo Mendieta under the amusingly broad title "A Conversation on God and the World." This interview dates from the very beginning of Habermas' religious turn and was conducted specifically for inclusion in this volume. It sees Habermas addressing - and sometimes dodging - Mendieta's insightful and often pointed questions about the relation between religion and globalization, the problem of a modernized religious consciousness, the implications of new forms of communication for religious traditions, the relationship between Christianity, Eurocentrism, and colonization, the religious roots of Western philosophical thought, the debt of Habermas' thought to the first generation of Frankfurt School critical theorists, the tensions internal to the project of a postmetaphyical appropriation of the contents of religion, and the potential for religious traditions to reignite a sense of solidarity that is absent from a secularized morality of Justice.
As previously mentioned, this volume consists primarily of occasional writings of Habermas'. Most of these are conceived specifically as answers to or reviews of the works of other thinkers. Accordingly, several of them are of very little relevance to those who seek to learn more about the philosophical views of Habermas himself. Worst still: apart from the review of Klaus Heinrich's book, all of the texts gathered in this volume were already available in English in Habermas' various extant collections of essays. There can be no doubt that Mendieta's introduction and his closing interview with Habermas are indispensable to scholars of Habermas' recent work. However, these could easily have been published as separate pieces. This being the case, it is not clear to me that that the book has any real reason for existing. Nonetheless, it contains enough interesting material - both new and old - to be worth reading for anyone who is not yet familiar with the pieces reprinted therein.
Mendieta's introduction is excellent and serves two purposes. On the one hand, it situates Habermas' engagement with religion in the broader context of the Frankfurt School's critical approach to social theory. In this regard, Mendieta traces back Habermas' project of a postmetaphysical appropriation of the cognitive contents of religious traditions to the work of his mentors Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. On the other hand, the introduction provides an overview of the complex ways in which Habermas' thought has encountered religion, from his early writings of the 1960s to the publication of his magnum opus, the Theory of Communicative Action, in 1981.
The first essay, titled "The German Idealism of the Jewish Philosophers," was originally delivered as a radio programme and presents more of a historical than a philosophical interest. Habermas traces the relation of reciprocal influence that subsisted between, on the one hand, German thought from Kant onward, and on the other, the mysticism and historical consciousness of Jewish thought. Especially interesting in this regard is Habermas' conjecture that the philosophies of silence developed by both Kant and Wittgenstein are inherently attractive to (and in Wittgenstein's case, indebted to) a Jewish mode of thought conscious of its own imperfect understanding of God.
The second essay is a review of Klaus Heinrich's book titled Versuch über die Schwierigkeit, Nein zu sagen (Essay on the Difficulty of Saying No). Heinrich, a theologian, anchors his analysis of protest in terms of a Judaic tradition that refuses to pass off the imperfection of this world under silence as the mere flipside of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Here again, Habermas extols the dialectical or communicative thrust of the Jewish tradition as a means of resitstance to the passive conformity of both the ontological and the positivistic silencing of negativity.
The third essay, "Transcendence from Within, Transcendence in this World", is a response to a conference held at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago in 1988 titled "Critical Theory: Its Promises and Limitations for a Theology of the Public Realm" and is in many ways the highlight of the volume. Habermas seeks to elaborate the conditions of a successful exchange between philosophy and theology, or more generally between secular reason and religious faith. In this regard, the essay may be understood as a precursor to his work of the 2000s. Seeking at once to explain the shared ground of such an exchange and to distinguish theological from philosophical thought, Habermas attributes communicative rationality to both varieties of discourses and elaborates a doctrine of "methodological atheism" as the distinguishing feature of postmetaphysical thinking.
After this blueprint for dialogue between religious and secular worldviews, there follows a number of exchanges with theologians and philosophers who are perhaps more religiously inclined than Habermas himself. First of these is a short reflection on Horkheimer's assertion that "to seek to salvage unconditional meaning without God is a futile undertaking." Against Horkheimer's skepticism, which leads him to subsume procedural rationality under the heading of a merely instrumental use of reason, Habermas defends his own model of communicative rationality as the locus of a postmetaphysical and non-repressive conception of unconditional truth.
The next paper takes the form of a dialogue with the German theologian Michael Theunissen, whose though is in many respects close to Habermas' own. Like Habermas, Theunissen seeks to salvage the contents of Christianity by a philosophical appropriation of the contents of faith. Unlike Habermas, however, he does this by inserting the metaphysical concepts of Christianity qua metaphysical concepts back into philosophical thought while attempting to justify them on postmetaphysical grounds. He does this by reworking Kierkegaard's argument that selfhood is possible only through a relation to an Other by which the self is itself posited, i.e. through a relation with God. Habermas argues against this appropriation of Kierkegaard and replaces Theunissen's insistence on an otherwordly transcendence with the "transcendence from within" inherent to communicative action.
The sixth essay is a reply to another German, albeit Catholic, theologian, Johann Baptist Metz. Metz insists on the Jewish origins of the Christian faith and calls for a return to the anamnestic reason of Jewish thought against the Greek influence that has made Christianity insensitive to the voices of suffering. Against Metz's condemnation of the Hellenistic tradition, Habermas stresses the anamnestic reason that belongs to the philosophical tradition itself in its various revolts agains Platonism. Against Metz's praise of the Christian tradition as the model of the egalitarian universalism necessary to a multicultural world society, Habermas points out the Enlightenment ideas that are indispensable to Christianity if it is to abandon the assimilating pseudo-universalism of its colonial past and to embrace a true universalism sensitive to the inescapable "fact of pluralism."
The seventh paper, which is by far the least interesting and the least relevant to the study of Habermas, takes the form of a review - or perhaps even merely a brief overview - of the meticulously documented biography of Sabbatai Sevi published by the Jewish philosopher Gershom Sholem in 1973. Habermas writes about Scholem's fascination with that aspect of mystical experience that escapes all communication and so must remain outside of tradition and history. Hence Scholem's attempts to locate the "Other of history," which motivates his interest in the heretical movements -among them Sabbatianism - that remain alien to the Jewish tradition and embody this ineffable experience of illumination. Habermas ends with some bafflingly tenuous considerations regarding Scholem's ambivalent relation to the Enlightenment and its relevance to his interest in heretical movements.
The final piece, which is, along with "Transcendence from Within, one of the most interesting for scholars of Habermas, takes the form of an interview conducted by Eduardo Mendieta under the amusingly broad title "A Conversation on God and the World." This interview dates from the very beginning of Habermas' religious turn and was conducted specifically for inclusion in this volume. It sees Habermas addressing - and sometimes dodging - Mendieta's insightful and often pointed questions about the relation between religion and globalization, the problem of a modernized religious consciousness, the implications of new forms of communication for religious traditions, the relationship between Christianity, Eurocentrism, and colonization, the religious roots of Western philosophical thought, the debt of Habermas' thought to the first generation of Frankfurt School critical theorists, the tensions internal to the project of a postmetaphyical appropriation of the contents of religion, and the potential for religious traditions to reignite a sense of solidarity that is absent from a secularized morality of Justice.
As previously mentioned, this volume consists primarily of occasional writings of Habermas'. Most of these are conceived specifically as answers to or reviews of the works of other thinkers. Accordingly, several of them are of very little relevance to those who seek to learn more about the philosophical views of Habermas himself. Worst still: apart from the review of Klaus Heinrich's book, all of the texts gathered in this volume were already available in English in Habermas' various extant collections of essays. There can be no doubt that Mendieta's introduction and his closing interview with Habermas are indispensable to scholars of Habermas' recent work. However, these could easily have been published as separate pieces. This being the case, it is not clear to me that that the book has any real reason for existing. Nonetheless, it contains enough interesting material - both new and old - to be worth reading for anyone who is not yet familiar with the pieces reprinted therein.
February 14, 2023
17. it dates back to the 19th century and is 19. the ideas of modern positivism and naturalism, which will officially keep the European enlightenment alive in the century, have a philosophy that was formed by destroying mythological beliefs, dogmas and every opinion that reason does not accept through knowledge. Habermas also discussed the reflections of this rational philosophy, which emerged from a destruction that determined the fate of humanity, in all areas of social life, and presented its more concrete reflections.
The enlightenment ideal that gave rise to naturalism, mythological
he considers that humanity has passed from the age of faith to the age of reason by abstracting from images and dogmas, and this is perhaps the most valuable part of the historical evolutionary process that man has undergone. In fact, OK, the naturalistic-positivist mind, which is now accepted as this last stage, has given birth to Nietzsche, Derrida, Adorno, Foucault, Deleuze, Habermas and many other thinkers whose names I can't name, and naturalism has also been examined and received deep criticism. This new prolegomena, which has not yet been named and was initiated by Nietzsche, takes us to a completely different stage. This work by Habermas actually contains the messages of this new prolegomena. Of course, this part is my personal comment. Because we are in a post-modern positivism and naturalism stage in thought. Habermas also gives hints about what happened in this work by calling this stage the post-metaphysical stage. Thus, a new one has been added to the three laws of state that Comte explained with theological, metaphysical and positivism. He is also post-metaphysical...
Of course, when Habermas became the author, his struggle against Nazi Germany, his radical democratic attitude, scientific analysis of communication were the other main topics included in the book. In these aspects, this work written by Habermas acquires a much more important and meaningful identity. In the book, it is possible to see in particular the connection of the theory of communicative action with naturalism and modern positivism. Since the purely agreement-oriented use of the language we use acquires a function that organizes our behavior and reveals the concept of "difference of interpretation" in thinking, we can see the background of the formation of naturalistic reason (we can also call Kantian reason).
At this point, it is explained in full detail that the opposition between science and religion, as they say on the street, is the criterion that determines the structure of today's societies. While societies that have mostly received a scientific education and act within the framework of technological and scientific data in all fields are acquiring a new epithet, societies that have not yet applied to this path and are more based on religious references are also taking on an old quality.
The book is a tremendous work that sheds intellectual light on our future in every aspect. Although the language is quite light in places, some parts can make you tired. I wish you a pleasant reading.
The enlightenment ideal that gave rise to naturalism, mythological
he considers that humanity has passed from the age of faith to the age of reason by abstracting from images and dogmas, and this is perhaps the most valuable part of the historical evolutionary process that man has undergone. In fact, OK, the naturalistic-positivist mind, which is now accepted as this last stage, has given birth to Nietzsche, Derrida, Adorno, Foucault, Deleuze, Habermas and many other thinkers whose names I can't name, and naturalism has also been examined and received deep criticism. This new prolegomena, which has not yet been named and was initiated by Nietzsche, takes us to a completely different stage. This work by Habermas actually contains the messages of this new prolegomena. Of course, this part is my personal comment. Because we are in a post-modern positivism and naturalism stage in thought. Habermas also gives hints about what happened in this work by calling this stage the post-metaphysical stage. Thus, a new one has been added to the three laws of state that Comte explained with theological, metaphysical and positivism. He is also post-metaphysical...
Of course, when Habermas became the author, his struggle against Nazi Germany, his radical democratic attitude, scientific analysis of communication were the other main topics included in the book. In these aspects, this work written by Habermas acquires a much more important and meaningful identity. In the book, it is possible to see in particular the connection of the theory of communicative action with naturalism and modern positivism. Since the purely agreement-oriented use of the language we use acquires a function that organizes our behavior and reveals the concept of "difference of interpretation" in thinking, we can see the background of the formation of naturalistic reason (we can also call Kantian reason).
At this point, it is explained in full detail that the opposition between science and religion, as they say on the street, is the criterion that determines the structure of today's societies. While societies that have mostly received a scientific education and act within the framework of technological and scientific data in all fields are acquiring a new epithet, societies that have not yet applied to this path and are more based on religious references are also taking on an old quality.
The book is a tremendous work that sheds intellectual light on our future in every aspect. Although the language is quite light in places, some parts can make you tired. I wish you a pleasant reading.
April 20, 2010
Brilliant, often very dense essays relating religion to German idealism, pragmatism, philosophy of language and postmodernism.
January 25, 2021
Boring and pompous as usual. Never got anything out of almost 50 years of reading Habermas!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews