A CRITICAL READING OF HABERMAS’ DEFENSE OF MODERNITY

Ilkim Ozdikmenli Celikoglu ()
Additional contact information
Ilkim Ozdikmenli Celikoglu: Dokuz Eyul University

Anadolu University Journal of Social Sciences, 2011, vol. 11, issue 3, 239-258

Abstract: Jürgen Habermas has engaged in a critical defense of reason and Enlightenment against the rising postmodernism in the 1980s. Reading the modern philosophy as a discourse constituted by the attempts to transcend the subjective character of Enlightenment thought, Habermas claimed that the attempts by Nietzsche and his followers ended up with the denial of reason and thus strengthened reactionary movements, yet remained within the boundaries of subjective philosophy. According to him, the way to avoid the tyranny caused by subjective philosophy is not to deny reason but to reconstruct it on the basis of intersubjective communication. In this article, those resources and assumptions of Habermas which have several in common with that of anti-modernist thinkers he discussed with are dwelt on, and some criticisms brought to his attempt through the theory of communicative action to explain and resolve the problems of modernity are examined.

Keywords: Jürgen Habermas; Modernity; Postmodernism; Theory of Communicative Action (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.anadolu.edu.tr/arastirma/hakemli_dergil ... 011_3/2011-03-13.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:and:journl:v:11:y:2011:i:3:p:239-258

Access Statistics for this article

Anadolu University Journal of Social Sciences is currently edited by Ramazan Geylan

More articles in Anadolu University Journal of Social Sciences from Anadolu University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Social Sciences Institute ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).