Columbia University Press The Habermas-Luhmann Debate

Fifty years ago, the two leading German philosophers and sociologists since the Second World War, Jürgen Habermas and Niklas Luhmann, embarked on a sweeping and contentious debate that would continue for decades. Their coauthored 1971 book Theory of Society or Social Technology laid out their opposing positions on meaning, communication, consensus, and dissent―and ultimately the foundations of modern social thought. Habermas and Luhmann would elaborate their disagreement in the years to come in a controversy whose aftershocks divided social theorists by presenting what appeared to be two fundamentally divergent views of the nature of society and what systems theory was capable of explaining. This is the first book in English about one of the most important conflicts in social theory today. Gorm Harste analyzes the Habermas-Luhmann debate from its inception through Habermas’s most recent works, exploring issues such as methodology, ideology, truth, history, and politics. He contextualizes their positions in terms of how each grappled with the legacy of Nazism and sought to provide grounding for an antitotalitarian politics. Harste follows the evolution of the debate, as the fundamental dispute over the normative and practical desirability of agreement and disagreement came to touch upon political questions including the rule of law, the separation of powers, human rights, individualization, and secularization. Ultimately, Harste emphasizes the convergence between Habermas and Luhmann―and the pressing need for social theorists to further unite these two formative accounts of contemporary society. Review The Habermas-Luhmann debate has been systematically misunderstood, misrepresented, and misinterpreted in the English-reading world for the past fifty years. The consequence is that an immensely rich vocabulary and truly revolutionary leap in social theory and social philosophy has remained out of reach. This book sets the record straight through an exhaustive, nuanced, and immensely knowledgeable account of the positions of Habermas and Luhmann and their ongoing exchange. It highlights both the commonalities and differences as well as the long-term significance of what was without doubt the most important exchange in continental European scholarship in the twentieth century.--Poul F. Kjaer, editor of The Law of Political Economy: Transformation in the Function of Law The Habermas-Luhmann debate is a major intellectual encounter in contemporary social and political thought. Gorm Harste untangles this debate as it unfolded over three decades with equal sympathy for both thinkers. In so doing, he offers fascinating insights into profound resonances between critical theory and social systems theory.--Hans-Georg Moeller, coauthor of You and Your Profile: Identity After Authenticity This is the most comprehensive, informed, sophisticated, and, in a word, the best book or essay that has ever been written on the famous debate between Habermas and Luhmann. Harste shows with great thoroughness and brilliance that this was not only a debate from 1971, with some smaller rearguard actions in the 1980s and early 1990s, but instead a lifelong concern of both scholars.--Hauke Brunkhorst, coeditor of The Habermas Handbook This is a remarkable book on one of the great theoretical debates of the twentieth century. It goes well beyond simple reconstruction of the terms of the debate, articulating the broad context and deep theoretical preconditions that shaped the work of Luhmann and Habermas. The result is erudite, original, and stimulating.--Chris Thornhill, author of The Sociology of Law and the Global Transformation of Democracy About the Author Gorm Harste is associate professor of political science at Aarhus University. He is a specialist in theories of European state building, and his books in English include Law and Intersystemic Communication: Understanding “Structural Coupling” (2013).