Legitimation Crisis

Critical Theory originated in the perception by a group of German Marxists after the First World War that the Marxist analysis of capitalism had become deficient both empirically and with regard to its consequences for emancipation, and much of their work has attempted to deepen and extend it in new circumstances. Yet much of this revision has been in the form of piecemeal modification. In his latest work, Habermas has returned to the study of capitalism, incorporating the distinctive modifications of the Frankfurt School into the foundations of the critique of capitalism. Drawing on both systems theory and phenomenological sociology as well as Marxism, the author distinguishes four levels of capitalist crisis - economic, rationality, legitimation, and motivational crises. In his analysis, all the Frankfurt focus on cultural, personality, and authority structures finds its place, but in a systematic framework. At the same time, in his sketch of communicative ethics as the highest stage in the internal logic of the evolution of ethical systems, the author hints at the source of a new political practice that incorporates the imperatives of evolutionary rationality.

Author: Jurgen Habermas, Juergen Habermas
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 08/25/1975
Pages: 196
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.57lbs
Size: 8.52h x 5.46w x 0.47d
ISBN: 9780807015216

About the Author
Jürgen Habermas, professor of philosophy at the University of Frankfurt, has been hailed as the foremost social and political thinker in Germany today (Times Literary Supplement). Included here are essays on his theories of communication, socialization, social evolution, and the development of law and morality.