Also a History of Philosophy, Volume 1

ISBN-13: 9781509543892 / Angielski / Twarda / 2023

Jurgen Habermas

Recenzje

'A wonderful English translation of Jürgen Habermas's magnum opus tracing 1,300 years of philosophy in the West. This volume is at once a reconstruction of the encounter between faith and reason, so defining of the Western philosophical legacy, and a reflection on philosophy's role in shaping who we are and how we relate to the world around us. Brilliant, breath-taking in scope, and profound in its assessment of the modern self-understanding, this magnificent work is a vital contribution to contemporary philosophy.'Simone Chambers, University of California, Irvine'Among all the philosophers and social theorists of our time, Jürgen Habermas has distinguished himself not only for his philosophical acumen, but also for a certain epistemic modesty - a willingness to learn from both his contemporaries and the preceding tradition. In this monumental volume, Habermas shows us how the ideal of philosophy as a learning process can assist in reconstructing our own philosophical history. He guides us through an exhilarating series of past encounters between faith and knowledge that contribute to the rational but fallibilistic model of postmetaphysical thinking today. The result is nothing less than a masterpiece.'Peter E. Gordon, Harvard University

Spis treści

AcknowledgementsTranslator's NoteAbbreviationsPrefaceI. On the Question of a Genealogy of Postmetaphysical Thinking1. Crisis Scenarios and Narratives of Decline in Major Twentieth-Century Philosophical Theories(1) Carl Schmitt(2) Leo Strauss(3) Karl Löwith(4) Martin Heidegger(5) The reconstruction of learning processes and the independent legitimacy of modernity2. Religion as a 'Contemporary' Formation of Objective Mind?(1) The sociological controversy over the secularization thesis(2) John Rawls: political reason and religion(3) Karl Jaspers: philosophical and religious 'faith'3. The Occidental Path of Development and the Claim to Universality of Postmetaphysical Thinking(1) The analysis of the formative power of world religions in the theory of civilizations(2) Intercultural understanding, secular mode of thought and concerns about the Eurocentric narrowing of perspective4. Basic Assumptions of the Theory of Society and Programmatic Outlook(1) The problem of social integration and the stages of social evolution(2) Sketch of the line of thought(3) From world views to the lifeworldII. The Sacred Roots of the Axial Age Traditions1. Cognitive Breakthrough and Preservation of the Sacred Core(1) The concept of the Axial Age(2) The two elements of religion(3) Excursus on the concept of 'religion'2. Myth and Ritual Practices(1) Performance of rituals and enactment of myths(2) The meaning of ritual practices(3) Excursus on the origins of language3. The Meaning of the Sacred(1) The self-referential character of ritual behaviour(2) From symbolic to linguistic communication(3) Myth as a response to the cognitive challenge of openness to the world(4) The complementary dangers of exclusion and hyper-inclusion(5) Ritual as a source of solidarity(6) The explosive power of dissonant empirical knowledge4. The Path to the Axial Age Transformation of Religious Consciousness(1) Pantheon and religious practice in early civilizations(2) Cult of the gods(3) The differentiation of forms of knowledgeIII. A Provisional Comparison of the Axial Age World Views1. The Moralization of the Sacred and the Break with Mythical Thought(1) The step of abstraction from the gods to the transcendent divine(2) Essence and appearance(3) Second-order thinking: discourse and dogmatics2. The Repudiation of 'Paganism' by Jewish Monotheism(1) From henotheism to the monotheistic creator, lawgiver and judge(2) The universalistic meaning of the covenant with the transcendent God(3) The overcoming of magical thinking and the disenchantment of ritual(4) On the singular status of monotheism3. The Buddha's Teaching and Practice(1) Brahmanism, the Upanishads and meditative practice(2) The Buddha's life and teachings(3) Aims and paths of salvation in Buddhism and Judaism(4) Meditation4. Confucianism and Taoism(1) Emergence of Confucianism and the era of the 'Warring States'(2) Confucius's life and teachings(3) Confucianism as ethics and learned religion(4) The counter-model of the Taoist doctrine of salvation5. From the Greek 'Natural Philosophers' to Socrates(1) The very different original context(2) The Presocratics(3) Socrates6. Plato's Theory of Ideas - in Comparison(1) The structure of the Platonic system(2) The decoupling of doctrine from cultFirst Intermediate Reflection: The Conceptual Trajectories of the Axial Age(1) Emergence, dynamics and structural transformation of world views(2) Excursus on the concept of lifeworld(3) The structure of world views and the dogmatic form of thought(4) The concept of the Axial AgeBibliographyDetailed Table of ContentsNotesIndex

O autorze

Jürgen Habermas is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt and one of the leading philosophers and social and political thinkers in the world today.