Habermas and the Unfinished Project of Modernity

Critical essay on the Philosophical Discourse of Modernity
This collection of ten essays offers the first systematic assessment of Jürgen Habermas´s Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, a book that defended the rational potential of the modern age against the depiction of modernity as a spent epoch. The essays (of which four are newly commissioned, five were published in the journal Praxis International, and one -- by Habermas -- first appeared in translation in New Critique) are divided into two sections: Critical Rejoinders and Thematic Reformulations. An opening essay by d´Entrèves sets out the main issues and orients the debate between Habermas and the postmodernists by identifying two different senses of responsibility: a responsibility to act versus a responsibility to otherness (an openness to difference, dissonance, and ambiguity). These are linked with two alternative understandings of the primary function of language: action-orienting versus world-disclosing. This is a fruitful way of looking at the issues that Habermas has raised in his attempt to resurrect and complete the project of Enlightenment. Habermas´s essay discusses the main themes of his book in the context of a critical engagement with neoconservative cultural and political trends. The main body of essays offer an interesting collection of points of view, for and against Habermas´s position by philosophers, social scientists, intellectual historians, and literary critics.