Habermas: A Guide for the Perplexed

Lasse Thomassen is Senior Lecturer in Political Theory in the Department of Politics at Queen Mary, University of London, and Garcia-Pelayo Fellow at the Centro de Estudios Politicos y Constitucionales, Madrid, Spain.

• 1. Introduction; 2. Critical Theory: The Early Programme; 3. The Public Sphere; 4. Communicative Action and Reason; 5. Discourse Ethics; 6. Democracy, Law and Politics; 7. Beyond Traditional Politics; Bibliography; Index

"In this introduction to Jurgen Habermas, Thomassen attempts to make the work of this German political philosopher more accessible to readers encountering it for the first time. The book covers all of Habermas' major topics, including his writings on the public sphere, his theories of communicative action, validity, and deliberative democracy, and his most recent work on supra-national democratic institutions and the role of religion in contemporary societies. Thomassen places Habermas' writings into their political and philosophical contexts, and contrasts his work with that of other thinkers, especially the members of the Frankfurt School." -Eithne O'Leyne, BOOK NEWS, Inc.