The Liberating Power of Symbols

In this new collection of lectures and essays Jurgen Habermas engages with a wide range of figures in twentieth-century thought. The book displays once again his ability to capture the essence of a thinker's work, his feeling for the texture of intellectual traditions and his outstanding powers of critical assessment. Habermas has described these essays as 'fragments of a history of contemporary philosophy'. The volume includes explorations of the work of Ernst Cassirer, Karl Jaspers and Gershom Scholem, as well as reponses to friends and colleagues such as Michael Thuenissen, Karl-Otto Apel and the writer and film-maker Alexander Kluge. It also includes pieces on the Finnish philosopher Georg Henrik von Wright and the theologian Johann Baptist Metz. This new volume will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of Habermas and twentieth-century philosophy.

Preface. Chapter 1: The Liberating Power of Symbols: Ernst Cassirer's Humanistic Legacy and the Warburg Library. Chapter 2: The Clash of Beliefs: Karl Jaspers on the Conflict Between Cultures. Chapter 3: Between Traditions: A Laudatio for Georg Henrik von Wright. Chapter 4: Tracing in History the Other of History: On Gershom Scholem's Sabbatai Zwi. Chapter 5: A Master Builder with Hermeneutic Tact: Karl-Otto Apel's Path of Thought. Chapter 6: Israel or Athens: To Whom does Anamnetic Reason Belong? Johann Baptist Metz on Unity Amidst Multicultural Plurality. Chapter 7: Communicative Freedom and Negative Theology: Questions for Michael Theunissen. Chapter 8: The Useful Mole who Ruins the Beautiful Lawn: The Lessing Prize for Alexander Kluge. Index