Jürgen Habermas

»Jürgen Habermas,« wrote the American philosopher Ronald Dworkin on the occasion of the great European thinker’s eightieth birthday, »is not only the world’s most famous living philosopher. Even his fame is famous.« Now, after many years of study, intensive research and in-depth conversations with contemporaries, colleagues and with Habermas himself, Stefan Müller-Doohm presents the first comprehensive biography of the most important public intellectual of our time. In it, he illuminates Habermas’s combination of philosophical reflection and intellectual intervention, and the interdependency of his life and work, against the background of historical events.

What emerges is the image of a unique thinker, among whose most important philosophical accomplishments is his theory of communicative action, but who, when he perceives that society is not living up to its potential for creating free and just conditions for living, becomes a rigorous and persistent critic.

»This [book] makes for fascinating reading« The Guardian

»Habermas is a biography of an accomplished living intellectual whose audience is extended much beyond the academic world. Stefan Müller-Doohm is a perfect storyteller and he tells the story of Habermas in such a way that you will not be able to put it down before you finish it. Nobody knows the art of biography better than Müller-Doohm.« The Washington Book Review

»Few would contest the verdict that Habermas has achieved – in both his philosophical work and in his role as a public intellectual – a place of enduring significance that surpasses that of any other thinker in our time. The definitive new biography by Stefan Müller-Doohm […] lays out the evidence for this conclusion with great care and enormous sympathy for its protagonist.« The Nation
 
»Heidegger’s lapidary biographical summation, ›The man was born, he worked, and then died,‹ may have been appropriate for Aristotle, but is woefully inadequate for the philosopher who is arguably our era’s version of the great Greek polymath, Jürgen Habermas. For not only is he still very much alive and producing new work at a vigorous pace, but it is also the case that his voluminous contributions to philosophy, sociology, political theory, and cultural criticism demand to be read in the context of his remarkable career as a committed public intellectual. As his masterful biography of Adorno already demonstrated, Stefan Müller-Doohm shows himself to be fully up to the task of discerning figures in the intricately woven carpet of a major thinker’s life and work.« Martin Jay, University of California Berkeley

»Habermas was and is an exemplary intellectual […] he was a Berliner, soberly mindful of the weight of the old world, hopeful for the prospects of the new. This book is a monument to this challenge, and to his commitment.« The Australian