An Essay on Habermas' Concept of the "Public Sphere" (original) (raw)
Habermas: rescuing the public sphere
2006
Habermas If we are to believe what many sociologists are telling us, the public sphere is in a near-terminal state. Our ability to build solidarities with strangers and to agree on the general significance of needs and problems seems to be collapsing. These cultural potentials ...
2011
The main purpose of this paper is to examine Habermas's account of the transformation of the public sphere in modern society. More specifically, the study aims to demonstrate that, whilst Habermas's approach succeeds in offering useful insights into the structural transformation of the public sphere in the early modern period, it does not provide an adequate theoretical framework for understanding the structural transformation of public spheres in late modern societies. To the extent that the gradual differentiation of social life manifests itself in the proliferation of multiple public spheres, a critical theory of public normativity needs to confront the challenges posed by the material and ideological complexity of late modernity in order to account for the polycentric nature of advanced societies. With the aim of showing this, the paper is divided into three sections. The first section elucidates the sociological meaning of the public/private dichotomy. The second section scrutinizes the key features of Habermas's theory of the public sphere by reflecting on (i) the concept of the public sphere, (ii) the normative specificity of the bourgeois public sphere, and (iii) the structural transformation of the public sphere in modern society. The third section explores the most substantial shortcomings of Habermas's theory of the public sphere, particularly its inability to explain the historical emergence and political function of differentiated public spheres in advanced societies.
Contesting Consensus: Rereading Habermas on the Public Sphere
Constellations 3, no. 3 (January 1997): 377–400.
Communicative reason is of course a rocking hullbut it does not go under in the sea of contingencies, even if shuddering in high seas is the only mode in which it 'copes' with these contingencies.
The Normativity of Habermas’s Public Sphere from the Vantage Point of Its Evolution
Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Philosophica. Ethica-Aesthetica-Practica, 2019
The paper argues that the original normativity that provides the basis for Habermas’s model of the public sphere remains untouched at its core, despite having undergone some corrective alterations since the time of its first unveiling in the 1960s. This normative core is derived from two individual claims, historically articulated in the eighteenth-century’s “golden age” of reason and liberty as both sacred and self-evident: (1) the individual right to an unrestrained disposal of one’s private property; and (2) the individual right to formulate one’s opinion in the course of public debate. Habermas perceives the public sphere anchored to these two fundamental freedoms/rights as an arena of interactive opinion exchange with the capacity to solidly and reliably generate sound reason and public rationality. Despite its historical and cultural attachments to the bourgeois culture as its classical setting, Habermas’s model of the public sphere, due to its universal normativity, maintains...
Habermas and the Concept of Public Sphere: A Review of Public Sphere Theory
China Media Research, 2024
Since the mid-1960s, public sphere studies have received increasing attention; because of the theoretical contribution of the German academic researcher Jürgen Habermas, who traced the history of the emergence of the public sphere in Europe in the modern era. The main dimension of Habermas' contribution was related to the nature of the communicational public sphere, as distinct from the political sphere, and from the civil sphere where relations based on mutual interest and trust. So, this contribution sought to identify the public sphere theory in public space; to monitor the structure of this space and its functions, and the role it played in understanding the issues of the contemporary world.
Habermas : Testing the political
Thesis Eleven, 2015
In this paper, I show how the notion of the political as an emerging reality, characterized by a fundamental indeterminacy and a propensity to produce its own borders, features in Habermas’s work. The motif of the public sphere is bound with topics that all seem to attach the political to principles or authorities that precede or surpass it: the validity attributed to political statements, the weight of morality in the public sphere, and the concern to preserve science and complexity. I examine each of them in turn, in order to demonstrate how, precisely, the responses provided enable us to identify a place for the political in Jürgen Habermas’s philosophy. This place could be called an interstice; nevertheless, it is located at the normative level of his theory, and it is a recurring aspect of Habermas’s work.
The Theory of Public Sphere: an Analysis and Critique of the Habermasian Model
This paper attempts a critical discussion on the Habermasian model of Public sphere. The concept of the public sphere has become a key term in social science literature since it was introduced by German scholar Jurgen Habermas as a philosophically and sociologically pertinent concept. The public sphere refers to the discursive space that exists in modern societies between the state and society. It deals with a domain that is generally related to civil society, but goes beyond it to refer to the wider category of the public. The public sphere comes into existence with the formation of civil society and the forms of associational politics to which it led. However, Habermasian model, although widely praised and accepted by many, is not without its criticisms. The second section of the paper makes an effort to bring together some of the major criticisms of the model as postulated mainly by feminist scholars.
Revisiting Habermas' Public Sphere: Welcome to the Virtual Sphere
Academia Letters, 2021
It's been more than a half century since the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas first introduced the concept of the Public Sphere in his book titled The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Habermas coined the term "Public Sphere" to refer to the discussions and interaction that took place between merchants and among citizens of 18th century Europe. These discussions about the happenings of the day, often took place in coffee houses, taverns, town squares, as well as in books, pamphlets and newspapers. With the rise of liberal thinking, particularly the works of Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and others, the feudal public sphere transformed into what Habermas called the bourgeois public spherewhich described a place where individuals could discuss and debate on the issues of the time, not only politics and commerce but also philosophy and the arts. Of course, technology, the industrial revolution, and many other factors transformed the public sphere. One of the most influential factors being woman's suffrage movements in the late 19th and 20th century, particularly in the United States. The influence of radio and television, the global conflicts of the 20th century, the civil rights and other movements during the latter half of the 20th century, the rise of multilateralism, globalization, terrorism, and of course, cable television and mass media, all significantly impacted the evolution of the public sphere. This is not surprising. In fact, Habermas himself described how the bourgeois public sphere of the 18th and 19th century, would give way to a "mass-media" driven public sphere, driven not by rational communication but rather by public relations, commercial and partisan interests, and consumerism. This sounds about right, if we think about today's public sphere. However, today's public sphere is fundamentally different from what Habermas envisioned.