Habermas Commentary/Books/TCA1

Page-by-page commentary on Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, vol. 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society
copyright 1981 by Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
translated by Thomas McCarthy
published 1984 by Beacon Press (Boston)

Introduction: Approaches to the Problem of Rationality

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1 Introduction to Habermas's writing style.
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3 Learning as an internally reconstructible sequence of stages of competence.
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"Rationality" -- A Preliminary Specification

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9 Objective judgment.
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11 Distinction between realist and phenomenological approaches.
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14 Intersubjective understanding.
15 Communicative rationality within a communication community.
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17 Critique of Wittgenstein’s rules, as used by Habermas.
18 Argumentation vs. force. Strategic and communicative action. Grounding is interwoven with learning.
19 Redeeming validity claims.
20 Cultural values, norms of action, and claims to universality.
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35 Warranted and unwarranted consensually achieved decisions.
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40 Heuristic value of lower-level validity claims.
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Some Characteristics of the Mythical and the Modern Ways of Understanding the World

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Relations to the World and Aspects of Rationality in Four Sociological Concepts of Action

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77 Popper's third world.
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The Problem of Understanding Meaning in the Social Sciences

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Max Weber's Theory of Rationalization

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Occidental Rationalism

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The Disenchantment of Religious-Metaphysical Worldviews and the Emergence of Modern Structures of Consciousness

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Modernization as Societal Rationalization: The Role of the Protestant Ethic

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The Rationalization of Law: Weber's Diagnosis of the Times

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Intermediate Reflections: Social Action, Purposive Activity, and Communication

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From Lukacs to Adorno: Rationalization as Reification

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Max Weber in the Tradition of Western Marxism

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The Critique of Instrumental Reason

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