from PART V - THE DEFENSE OF MODERNITY
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
In the profane understanding, anyone who is also interested in the latest German writing is a Kantian. In the scholarly understanding, a Kantian is only he who believes that Kant is the truth and that, if the mail coach from Konigsberg were ever to have an accident one might well find oneself without the truth for some weeks.
F. Schlegel, Athenaeum, Fragment 104We have to stand by our traditions . . . if we do not want to disavow ourselves.
Jürgen Habermas, “On the Public Use of History”If in what follows we appear critical, it is not because we are unappreciative of the real achievement of the work of Jürgen Habermas. The theory of communicative action makes the case that rationality is a relevant moral social concept. That humans speak with and to each other places them, he shows, in a moral relationship, simply by the actuality of the fact of that speech. Habermas develops this position into a critical defense of modernity around a vision of the “formation of autonomous public spheres, which . . . enter into communication with one another as soon as the potential for selforganization and the self-organized employment of communication media is made use of.” This is a democratic picture based upon the potential egalitarianism of uncoerced participation in discourse.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.