An Awareness of What is Missing E-Book

Jürgen Habermas

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 136

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

In his recent writings on religion and secularization, Habermas has challenged reason to clarify its relation to religious experience and to engage religions in a constructive dialogue. Given the global challenges facing humanity, nothing is more dangerous than the refusal to communicate that we encounter today in different forms of religious and ideological fundamentalism.

Habermas argues that in order to engage in this dialogue, two conditions must be met: religion must accept the authority of secular reason as the fallible results of the sciences and the universalistic egalitarianism in law and morality; and conversely, secular reason must not set itself up as the judge concerning truths of faith. This argument was developed in part as a reaction to the conception of the relation between faith and reason formulated by Pope Benedict XVI in his 2006 Regensburg address.

In 2007 Habermas conducted a debate, under the title ‘An Awareness of What Is Missing', with philosophers from the Jesuit School for Philosophy in Munich. This volume includes Habermas's essay, the contributions of his interlocutors and Habermas's reply to them. It will be indispensable reading for anyone who wishes to understand one of the most urgent and intractable issues of our time.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title page

Copyright page

Contributors

Preface

1: Habermas and Religion

Starting Point: The Renewed Visibility of Religion

Habermas and Religion – A Relation with Many Facets

Context and Location of the Essays in the Present Volume

Notes

2: An Awareness of What is Missing

3: On the Attempt to Recall a Relationship

What Kind of Lack Are We Talking About?

Who is Missing Something?

What is missing?

Defeatism or Practical Resignation?

And the Religious Communities Themselves?

A Tractatus theologico-politicus for the Twenty-First Century?

Notes

4: How Far Can Faith and Reason Be Distinguished?

Plea for a Broad Understanding of Religion

Situating Religion Within the Domain of Ethical Worldviews

Remarks in the Philosophy of Religion on the Relation Between Faith and Reason

Outlook

Notes

5: Postmetaphysical Reason and Religion

I

II

6: A Dialogue in Which There Can Only Be Winners

7: A Reply

Note

References

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Start Reading

CHAPTER 1

Pages

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First published in German as Ein Bewußtsein von dem, was fehlt © Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 2008

This English edition © Polity Press, 2010

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ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-4720-3 (hardback)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-4721-0 (paperback)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-9470-2 (epub)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-9377-4 (mobi)

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The translation of this work was supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut which is funded by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Contributors

NORBERT BRIESKORN, S. J. is Professor of Social and Legal Philosophy at the Jesuit School for Philosophy in Munich and is a member of its Institute for Social Policy.

JÜRGEN HABERMAS is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Frankfurt University.

MICHAEL REDER is Adjunct Professor of Social Philosophy and Philosophy of Religion at the Jesuit School for Philosophy in Munich and is a member of its Institute for Social Policy.

FRIEDO RICKEN, S. J. is Emeritus Professor of the History of Philosophy and Ethics at the Jesuit School for Philosophy in Munich.

JOSEF SCHMIDT, S. J. is Professor of Philosophical Theology and the History of Philosophy at the Jesuit School for Philosophy in Munich and Director of its Institute for the Philosophy of Religion.

Preface

What is meant when contemporary society is described as “post-secular”? With this concept, Jürgen Habermas has exercised a major influence on the recent debate concerning the social role and importance of religion. This is clearly testified by the widespread public response to his speech on receiving the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 2001, and the discussion with the then Cardinal Ratzinger at the Catholic Academy in Munich in 2004. At the center of Habermas's reflections on this issue are the questions of the relation between faith and reason and of the relation between secular and religious citizens. He challenges reason to reflect on what it is missing and on its relation to religion.

The contributors to this volume take up Habermas's challenge to reflect on “the awareness of what is missing.” Their remarks are intended as contributions to the conversation with the philosopher and they wish to provide encouragement to continue the debate. The texts originated in a podium discussion between Habermas and the representatives of the Jesuit School for Philosophy – Norbert Brieskorn, Michael Reder, Friedo Ricken, and Josef Schmidt – which took place in Munich in February 2007. Habermas's contribution was followed by a lively and stimulating debate. For this volume, the participants have developed their reflections further in their contributions, into which arguments from the plenary discussion on that occasion have also found their way.

October 2007

1Habermas and Religion

MICHAEL REDER AND JOSEF SCHMIDT, S. J.

Starting Point: The Renewed Visibility of Religion

Religion is once more a topic of debate. It is once again being increasingly perceived as a social phenomenon, a development not prompted solely by the events of September 11, 2001. Against the background of the sociological debate on secularization of the 1970s and 1980s, in western countries religions seemed destined to lose ever more of their importance with progressive modernization and individualization. Yet this hypothesis has not been confirmed; on the contrary, today religions play an extremely important role in western societies.