Habermas and Theology

224 Pages·2011·3.187 MB·English

by  Maureen Junker-Kenny

Habermas and Theology
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Other titles in the Philosophy and Theology
series include:
Zizek and Theology, Adam Kotsko
Nietzsche and Theology, Craig Hovey
Girard and Theology, Michael Kirwan
Wittgenstein and Theology, Tim Labron
Hegel and Theology, Martin J. De Nys
Derrida and Theology, Steven Shakespeare
Badiou and Theology, Frederiek Depoortere
Vattimo and Theology, Thomas G. Guarino
Kierkegaard and Theology, Murray Rae
Kant and Theology, Pamela Sue Anderson and Jordan Bell
Adorno and Theology, Christopher Craig Brittain
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Habermas and
Theology
Maureen Junker-Kenny
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Published by T&T Clark International
A Continuum Imprint
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New York, NY 10038
www.continuumbooks.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Copyright © Maureen Junker-Kenny, 2011
Maureen Junker-Kenny has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 13: 978-0-567-03322-2 (Hardback)
978-0-567-03323-9 (Paperback)
Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India
Printed and bound in Great Britain
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For Aedan O’Beirne,
1915–2010
Godfather and oldest friend
in gratitude for his presence and wisdom
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Contents
Introduction 1
Part 1 The Theological Reception and
Critique of Habermas’s Work in the First Two
Phases of Its View of Religion
1 Attraction and Critique of Habermas’s Theory
of Communicative Action in the Disciplines
of Theology 7
1. Systematic Theology Oriented Towards Christian Praxis 7
a. Practical Reason as Constituted by the
Memory of Liberation 10
b. The Paradox of Anamnestic Solidarity 13
2. Practical Theology and Its Subdisciplines 18
a. Theory of Pastoral Care 19
b. The Local Congregation at the Intersection
of Lifeworld and System 21
c. Practical Theology Reconceptualized as a
Theological Theory of Action 22
3. Theory of Religious Education 25
4. Theological Ethics 29
a. Beyond Reciprocal Requirements: The Risk
of Advance Unilateral Action 30
b. Personal or Universalizable? The Disjunction
between the Ethics of the Good Life and
Normative Morality 32
c. At the Intersection of the Good and the Right:
Churches as Communities of Interpretation 34
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Contents
Part 2 Habermas’s Theory of
Communicative Reason in Philosophical Debate
2 The Paradigm Change from the Philosophy
of Consciousness to Language Theory 43
1. Language as an Alternative to the Dualisms of the
Philosophy of Consciousness 43
2. Objections from Philosophers of Subjectivity 46
a. Intersubjectivity against Solipsism? 46
b. Descending into Naturalism? 50
3 The Relationship of Metaphysics to Modernity 57
1. Habermas’s Concept of Metaphysics 57
2. Questions Regarding Its Adequacy 58
3. Modern Understandings of Metaphysics 61
4. (Post)metaphysical Thinking and Theology 64
4 Postmetaphysical Philosophy as Stand-in
and as Interpreter 67
1. The Role of Stand-in for Universalistic Questions
in the Individual Sciences 68
2. From Judge to Interpreter 75
5 The Foundation of the Discourse Theory
of Morality 81
1. Core Concepts and Steps of Habermas’s Argument 81
a. Discourse as a Reflexive Form of
Communicative Action 81
b. Justifying ‘U’, the Principle of Morality:
Two Versions and Their Implications 85
2. Recognition as What? Albrecht Wellmer’s Critique 89
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Contents
6 The Motivation for Agency and the Aporias
of Morality 95
1. Agency and Its Motivation 96
a. Evil Will or Weak Will? 96
b. Why be Moral, and to What Extent? 97
2. The Scope of Recognition and the Aporetics
of Moral Action 103
Part 3 The Current Phase: Cooperation
and Translation in Theological Debate
7 The Rediscovery of Religion in the Genealogy
of Reason and the Foundation of a Species Ethics 111
1. Genealogy and Translation 111
2. Genetics and the Ability to be a Self 116
a. Subjectivity Rediscovered in Disputes on
Genetic Intervention 117
b. Species Ethics as a New Level of Explicating
Human Self-understanding 123
c. ‘Being Able to be a Self’ without ‘the Ground
That Posited it’: Reading Kierkegaard in
Postmetaphysical Immanence 129
8 Religious Resources for the Project of
Modernity in Theological Debate 132
1. Freedom as the Ability to Say No: Creation
versus Emanation 133
2. Religious Resources in Postsecular Democracy 135
a. The Rationality of Religious Belief from a
Postmetaphysical Standpoint 136
b. Equal Participation and Mentalities of Solidarity
against the Pathologies of Modernity 137
c. Secularity and ‘Democratic Common Sense’ 140
ix
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