Jurgen Habermas's concept of Public Sphere
Jurgen Habermas developed the concept of Public Sphere, an open network to facilitate exchanges, as a part of a larger project dealing with the paradoxical consequences of rational western capitalism.
The project is deeply rooted in Weber's reflections on the role of religion (Calvinism) in the development of capitalism in the North-Atlantic Rim, and the Marxist critique of such reflections as laid out by the members of the Frankfurt School (Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer).
Adorno and Horkheimer, however, found themselves at a deadend when they were unable to de-reify their own concept of culture. It is precisely there where Habermas breaks away from the concerns of the Frankfurt School and begins his own reflection that, on the one hand, de-reifies the concept of culture (culture uiltimately is a product of institutions and human interaction and not a variable with life of its own, as Adorno and Horkheimer assumed at some point).
Habermas stand on the development of capitalism leads him to recapture an insight from the old Marx: capitalism, with all its contradictions and fallacies, has the seed of its own transformation (destruction for Marx) in the form of the exchanges that it encourages, but mostly because of its very need of rational domination. If rational domination is required (as opposed to traditional or charismatic), then it is necessary to discoursevely build the agreements that the law embodies.
If so, then institutions like the Parliament are unavoidable and with it some discussion of public issues and concerns.
Habermas finds the origin of such discussions and concerns in the emergence of coffee-houses all over Europe during the Enlightenment era. Of course, participation in such activities was heavily restricted by class and in some cases (the European Jewish populations are a perfect example of it) by race and/or ethnicity.
Habermas finds that even if such restrictions exist, the drive of the Enlightenment project will be enough to allow for progressive openings, that over time will prevent against discrimination.
Habermas is well aware of the limitations of his model.
development of public awareness, which stand for the individual freedom thinking and civic consciousness. With prompting citizens to identify themselves with public linked together, in interaction with others, discussions, negotiations universality found consensus and common values is the process of public awareness, and at the same time, promote active citizenship into public sphere. Public sphere, in rhetoric, a place for citizens to express their ideas and opinion, are becoming an important concept in China
Summarise and discuss the main contributions of Habermas’s theory of communicative action. As a critical theorist of the rationalist standpoint, Habermas disagreed with the epistemological perspective of rationality portrayed by the positivist school of thought and the concept of modernity which stemmed from Capitalism. Jürgen Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action (TCA) incorporates Marx’s paradigm whilst also building upon the well known classical theorists and philosophers of social sciences
Government that we can draw conclusions about his view on freedom of expression and democracy. Additionally we can contrast Meiklejohns views through further analysis of his model of the Town Hall debate and comparison with Jurgen Habermas (1964) and his theory of the Public Sphere which will be used to draw examples from. In both theories outlined by Meiklejohn and Habermas the relationship between freedom of speech and the acknowledgment of recognition in relation to democracy is outlined specifically
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Feminism, the Public and the Private Conceptualizations of the public and the private have always been central to the politics of second-wave feminism. The slogan, "the personal is political," implied that private life was often the site, if not the cause, of women's oppression. In 1974, some of the authors of Woman, Culture and Society (Lamphere and Rosaldo 1974), one of the founding texts of academic feminism, asserted that the universal cause of women's oppression lay in their confinement to
foundation for social philosophy and a just society: it is the philosophic framework of Modernity itself which is the foundation of all modern philosophies, in the dialectic of Enlightenment and its Counterenlightenment other. The social philosophy of Jurgen Habermas, outstanding philosopher and master dialectician of our time, has an immediate appeal to American philosophers, educated in the history of the Protestant migrations to the New World in search of religious freedom; educated also in the Founding