It caused quite a stir when Jurgen Habermas, at an advanced age – after an extraordinarily extensive and varied writing career – in several publications emphasized religion as a positive resource in modern societies, opposing the thesis that religion has lost its relevance in secular societies. Habermas understands the crisis in complex modern societies primarily as a normative crisis, connected to social integration and a motivational deficiency. With regard to social integration, Habermas particularly focuses on religion, on religious practice, and the mediation of religious traditions. Based on, inter alia, the works of developmental psychologist Michael Tomasello, Habermas develops a hypothesis on the developmental-historical role of ritual actions. Ritual practices, and hence religious rituals, are understood as important because they generate "normative binding energies". Habermas considers Hume an objectivizing sceptic, critical towards religion, and lacking the philosophical resources to justify universally valid normative principles.

This article contains reflections on the further structural transformation of the public sphere, building on the author's widely-discussed social-historical study, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, which originally appeared in German in 1962 (English translation 1989). The first three sections contain preliminary theoretical reflections on the relationship between normative and empirical theory, the deliberative understanding of democracy, and the demanding preconditions of the stability of democratic societies under conditions of capitalism. The fourth section turns to the implications of digitalisation for the account of the role of the media in the public sphere developed in the original work, specifically to how it is leading to the expansion and fragmentation of the public sphere and is turning all participants into potential authors. The following section presents empirical data from German studies which shows that the rapid expansion of digital media is leading to a marked diminution of the role of the classical print media. The article concludes with observations on the threats that these developments pose for the traditional role of the public sphere in discursive opinion and will formation in democracies.

Jürgen Habermas obchodził w 2019 roku 90. urodziny. Wykorzystaliśmy tę rocznicę jako okazję, aby porozmawiać z jednym z najbardziej wpływowych współczesnych intelektualistów o aktualnych wydarzeniach społeczno-politycznych w kontekście jego myśli filozoficznej. W tym celu odwiedziliśmy go w marcu 2019 r. w jego domu w Starnbergu, gdzie odbyliśmy rozmowę wstępną. Właściwy wywiad przeprowadziliśmy w październiku w formie pisemnej. Claudia Czingon, Aletta Diefenbach i Victor Kempf1

En esta entrevista excepcionalmente rica, Jürgen Habermas, último filósofo europeo de importancia mundial, repasa algunos de los temas principales de su pensamiento, y analiza las tendencias sociales y políticas actuales en Europa y en el mundo.

In this essay Habermas contends that, until 1989, four phases are discernible in how postwar Germany attempted to come to terms with its “unmasterable past.” Between the end of the war in 1945 and the foundation of two German states in 1949, the first reconstruction generation mythologized the Nazi period as a criminal abyss. If this strategy allowed the government of the Federal Republic to assume legal responsibility for reparation claims, it also served to release individuals from working through their own painful pasts. This stage yielded to a second phase, one of “communicative silencing,” during the Adenauer years from 1949-63 in which the second reconstruction generation chose not to speak of the past but rather to concentrate on building the Wirtschaftswunder. The student movement of the 1960s challenged this presentism with demands for disclosure and accountability, and from the mid-1970s until 1989 this quest for unmasking existed in tension with an ongoing desire for evasion. This tension drove the “Historians’ Debate” of those years. Since reunification in 1989, Germany’s attitude toward its past has remained ambivalent. Today a New Right calls for the self-confident reassertion of a German nation unburdened by its past. But the past will lose its hold over Germany, Habermas argues, only through the work of a truly faithful memory.

E tanulmányában Habermas a könyv formában 1983-ban, tehát két évvel e szöveg megjelenése előtt közölt (Diskursethik Notizen zu einem Begründungsprogram) diskurzusetikai elméletét ért vádakat igyekszik kivédeni egy elképzelt Kant-Hegel ütköztetés képében. Módszere, hogy kiválaszt néhány szerinte Kantot illető hegeli kritikát, majd egy részüket elfogadja, a többit pedig rövid érvelés után elutasítja. Mindeközben saját diskurzusetikai elméletét tisztázza Kant normatív filozófiájához képest pozicionálva azt.

Malgré la conscience de défis communs, les pays européens sont pris dans un cercle vicieux : les politiques d’austérité accroissent les inégalités au sein de l’Union, qui nourrissent le populisme de droite, qui pousse les gouvernements à accorder la priorité à des intérêts nationalistes de court terme au détriment de la solidarité européenne.

The "global success" of nation states is currently brought into play by the new requirements of multicultural differentiation and globalization. After commenting on the common concepts of "state" and "nation" and discussing the formation of nation states, the author explains the particular achievement of the national state and the tension between republicanism and nationalism built into it. The challenges that arise from the multicultural differentiation of civil society and from trends towards globalization throw light on the limitations of this historical type.

Tout au long de son parcours philosophique, Jürgen Habermas a été en dialogue, ou en opposition, avec d’autres traditions, qu’il s’agisse de penseurs allemands comme Heidegger ou Carl Schmitt, des Français Foucault et Derrida, ou de la tradition anglo-saxonne incarnée par Rawls ou Dworkin. Il retrace ces échanges dans cet entretien, tout en revenant sur sa conception de la démocratie, qu’il confronte à sa situation actuelle.

Dans ce discours inédit, Habermas indique les expériences personnelles à la source de ses intérêts philosophiques : l’expérience de la maladie et les difficultés liées à son handicap l’ont conduit à réfléchir à l’importance de la communication langagière, tandis que la vie politique allemande d’après-guerre a nourri sa réflexion et son engagement pour la démocratie. Il en tire des enseignements sur le rôle de l’intellectuel dans la cité.

In this unpublished speech, Habermas talks about personal experiences which are at the root of his philosophical interests : the ordeal of illness and the difficulties caused by his disability led him to reflect on the importance of communication through language. German post-war political life, on the other hand, prompted his involvement in favor of democracy. These experiences also shaped his understanding of the role of intellectuals in the public sphere.

Can the process of European unification lead to a form of democracy that is at once supranational and situated above the organisational level of a state? The supranational federation should be constructed in such a way that the heterarchical relationship between the Member States and the federation remains intact. The author finds the basis for such an order in the idea of the EU constituted by a ‘doubled’ sovereign - the European citizens and the European peoples (the States). In order to sustain such an order, reforms of the existing European treaties are needed. It is necessary to eliminate the legitimation deficits of the EU in a future Euro‐Union - that is, a more closely integrated core Europe. The European Parliament would have to gain the right to take legislative initiatives, and the so‐called ‘ordinary legislative procedure’, which requires the approval of both chambers, would have to be extended to all policy fields.

The European Union is at the crossroads between intelligent expansion of future horizons and frightened shrinking to a perspective of local areas. Fear of descent of the citizens on one side and a politics of crisis, that goes along with harsh injustice have made upset the national societies against each other, missing courage on the side of politicians, to bring European issues to the fore, endanger the European project. There is only one way to overcome this situation by establishing a democratic union, which conserves not only the social and civilian achievements of the national state, as well as the assets of a greater democratic political unity, that offers an unity of European citizens and European state demos.

ConstellationsVolume 21, Issue 2 p. 199-201 Original Article Merkel's European Failure: Germany Dozes on a Volcano† Jürgen Habermas, Jürgen HabermasSearch for more papers by this author Jürgen Habermas, Jürgen HabermasSearch for more papers by this author First published: 19 August 2014 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.12104Citations: 4Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume21, Issue2June 2014Pages 199-201 RelatedInformation