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Copied after Phillip Atkins on
Cover of Habermas: A Very Short Introduction
By James Gordon Finlayson
What do you suppose it meant to Phillip Atkins?
Why do you suppose I chose to copy it? What do you think it meant to me? jeanne
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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created:August 5, 2006
Latest Update:August 5, 2006
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
Notes from the Preface, pp.i - ix"Jürgen Habermas is one of the most important and widely read social theorists in the post-Second World War era." (Finlayson, at p. i.) I think it's important that you know that, for Habermas is much better known in more elite East Coast schools and in major Universities, both here and in Europe than he is in the general population of the US.
Not everyone agrees with him. Sometimes even Susan and I don't agree with some of what he says. I don't think humans are nearly as "rational" as he hinks we are. Maybe we know different humans. Or maybe he's just describing different views of society. But he has thought and written about many of the important questions we face today. One thing that is almost always agreed upon is that he is an important thinker. That makes him a model for us as we learn to think critically and develop the sensitivity and humanity that his predecessors, Adorno and Horkheimer, felt that we had killed with the Enlightenment that we thought would bring justice, truth, and equality. The 20th Century proved us hopelessly wrong. Man does not always ise knowledge and creativity for "good." Now we hope that by imitating some of the thought processes of thinkers like Habermas we can find new paths to a better way of "living together" without killing one another.
Discussion Questions
- Why is Habermas so important?
Consider what it is that has led to his being called a great thinker. He has lived and managed to be recognized as one of the most important thinkers of the 20th Century in Germany, where as a 16-year-old, he was, like most other German youth, in the Hitler Youth. (Ibid., at p. iii.) He took his philosophical inheritance from Adorno and Horkheimer, who saw no hope, and forged a system of social understanding that led to a path on which we might all (humans) live together without killing each others in wars of greed and self-interest. We aren't there yet. Not by a long shot. But he is at least pointing a way, and offering hope.Such thought inspires at a time when we could all use inspiration. jeanne
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