Review: Amy Allen and Eduardo Mendieta, ‘The Cambridge Habermas Lexicon’
Review of Amy Allen and Eduardo Mendieta’s The Cambridge Habermas Lexicon (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 810 pages
Abstract
Edited by Amy Allen and Eduardo Mendieta, The Cambridge Habermas Lexicon is a comprehensive and systematic study of the work of the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, over the course of seven decades. Since the 1950s, Habermas has not only become highly influential in various academic disciplines, but he has been proven to be a critical and eminently disputatious intellectual, intervening in or initiating public debates with the aim of challenging existing (undemocratic) conditions and bringing about reason by means of communication. He has succeeded in developing a distinct theoretical approach that endeavours to promote the democratisation of living conditions and has been the subject of intense reception and discussion around the world for many decades.
Reviewed by Rainer Winter
This is the first encyclopaedia published by Cambridge University Press to deal with a scholar who is still alive and active. Following on the heels of Habermas’ 2019 publication of his two-volume work “Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie” [This Too a History of Philosophy] (Habermas 2019), 2022 saw the publication of “Ein neuer Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit und die deliberative Politik” [A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Deliberative Politics] (Habermas 2022a). The main essay in this volume has already appeared in TCS as a translation into English (Habermas 2022b).
Habermas is one of the most influential philosophers of our time. His way of thinking and the concepts he has created have profoundly and profitably transformed our understanding of the social and cultural world and our role in it. He has opened new ways of (self) understanding, of reflection, of using reason and of (political) action. The Habermasian project aims to salvage and consolidate the realm of communicative reason, while protecting it from the logic of the market. He stands in the tradition of the Frankfurt School, yet he has vehemently criticised and vigorously transformed the school’s approach. His concept of the "public sphere" as a subsystem of society that is open to all and capable of shaping the public use of reason stands out as a salient example. Contemporary discussions of the public sphere must contend with the Habermasian conception, which not only introduced a paradigm shift but has proved seminal across a variety of disciplines. Instances of other terms that have entered our vocabulary and have become indispensable include, “ideal speech situation”, “communicative rationality”, “discourse ethics” or “deliberative democracy”.
But Habermas has not only coined terms for use in the field of research; he has also emerged as Germany’s most eminent public intellectual, frequently engaging in debates on German, as well as European, issues. He recently adopted a nuanced and carefully considered stance on the war in Ukraine, focusing in particular on the publicly staged surges of indignation (2022c). This courage has earned him criticism — some of it harsh and unfair — from an alliance of journalists (e.g., in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”) and politicians (e.g., from the Green Party) who have joined forces to render critical forms of reflection taboo in the public sphere and who favour exclusively military solutions.
On the one hand, The Cambridge Habermas Lexicon features 122 articles on terms from “aesthetics” to “world disclosure” that play an important role in Habermas’ oeuvre and that were coined or created by him. This provides a compelling insight into the conceptual universe of this innovative philosopher. The transformative power unleashed by his ability to name and analyse is made abundantly clear. It is noteworthy, however, that while there is an entry for “power”, no entry exists for “domination”, a term that was of crucial importance to Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno and Herbert Marcuse. This points to the shift in focus in Habermas’ written work.
On the other hand, the expansive book contains 83 references to authors from Theodor W, Adorno to Iris Marion Young, who contributed greatly to the development and formation of his own thinking, along with entries relating to companions and students. Readers will find entries on the many authors who were instrumental in the development of his very own approach, e.g. Emile Durkheim, G.W.F. Hegel, Immanuel Kant, Lawrence Kohlberg, Niklas Luhmann, Karl Marx, Talcott Parsons, Jean Piaget and Max Weber. Also included are articles on authors whose work has been critically acknowledged by Habermas, such as Cornelius Castoriadis, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault or Richard Rorty. Finally, the publication features authors who have engaged critically with his writings or pursued a related project, such as Enrique Dussel, Michael Hardt and Toni Negri, Jean-François Lyotard or Raymond Williams. Regrettably, there is no mention of Ulrich Beck, who, like Habermas, combined the diagnosis of our times with interventionist thinking in a manner that is both cogent and impactful.
All contributions are accompanied by recommendations for further reading. In addition, the encyclopaedia includes a chronology of Habermas’ life, an index of his works, and a detailed bibliography.
The editors and authors have accomplished an impressive achievement that will prove to be groundbreaking and indispensable in any scholarly examination of Jürgen Habermas. It is not only aimed at readers who are already well-versed in the work of Habermas, but will also appeal to students and anyone who seeks a better understanding of the present and who refuse to abandon their faith in communicative reason.
References
Habermas, Jürgen (2019) Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie. Zwei Bände. Berlin: Suhrkamp.
Habermas, Jürgen (2022a) Ein neuer Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit und die deliberative Politik. Berlin: Suhrkamp.
Habermas, Jürgen (2022b) Reflections and Hypotheses on a Further Structural Transformation of the Political Public Sphere. Theory,Culture & Society Vol. 39, Number 4, pp. 145-171.
Habermas, Jürgen (2022c) Krieg und Empörung. Süddeutsche Zeitung 28. April 2022.
Rainer Winter is Managing Editor of Theory, Culture & Society
Email: tcs@sagepub.co.uk
