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Title: Religion and Rationality: Essays on Reason, God and Modernity (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
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Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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| Religion and Rationality: Essays on Reason, God and Modernity (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) by The MIT Press Habermas is interesting, but selection of essays is questionable | This collection of Habermas's essays dealing with religion is a very mixed bag. A number of them are so specific in topic (and so historically-minded) that it's hard to draw any real inferences about Habermas's own opinions. The introductory essay by Eduardo Mendieta is nearly worthless for those who don't already know Habermas's other work quite well, so it fails to open up the volume to theologians and clergy who want to engage with his thought.
Nevertheless, some of the essays are very illuminating, including "Transcendence from Within, Transcendence in this World," "Israel or Athens: Where does Anamnestic Reason Belong?" "Tracing the Other of History in History," and the final interview. Given some of Habermas's commitments to reason and methodological atheism, I expected him to travel down roads similar to the ones Dewey explores in Common Faith, which folks like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are exploring in the present day, but I never found him actually rejecting the way religious people now enter the public sphere. It definitely gives cause for hope and entices the reader to explore Habermas's philosophical work. | | Religion and Rationality: Essays on Reason, God and Modernity (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) by The MIT Press Product Description | This important new volume brings together Jürgen Habermas's key writings on religion and religious belief. In these essays, Habermas explores the relations between Christian and Jewish thought, on one hand, and the Western philosophical tradition on the other. He often approaches these issues through critical encounters with the work of others, including Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Johann Baptist Metz, and Gershom Scholem.
In an introduction written especially for this volume, Eduardo Mendieta places Habermas's engagement with religion in the context of his work as a whole. Mendieta also discusses Habermas's writings in relation to Jewish Messianism and the Frankfurt School, showing how these essays reflect an important yet often neglected dimension of critical theory. The volume concludes with an original extended interview that examines Habermas's current views on religion and modern society. |
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