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Rating: 
Summary: Gets me interested in political philosophy
Review: I started noticing the works of Habermas because of his discourse ethics and its affinity with Kant's position. I never really had much interests in political / social philosophy (e.g. Locke, Hobbes, Marx, Weber, Freud, etc.) but this book changed me.The issue addressed by the keynote essay 'Postnational Constellation' explores the problem of the possibility of democracy in the process of globalization (esp. in Europe) where the traditional power of the nation states-- the traditional home of democracy-- continues to decline. While this might not be a very important problem say 50 years from now, the analysis is very interesting to me because: 1. It emphasizes the importance of 'normative basis' in social-political debates. 2. It incorporates many insightful (at least to me) observations of empirical historical trends with normative considerations. 3. Habermas is a real thinker! After reading the book, which also includes a short summary of his account of the history of the philosophical idea of modernity and a short essay concerning human rights among other works, I am now interested in Habermas' social / political theory as expounded in his other books Facts and Norms and the Inclusion of Others. A side-note: Habermas' shorter essay Against Human Cloning is not as well-argued as other essays in the collection.
Rating:
Summary: Gets me interested in political philosophy
Review: I started noticing the works of Habermas because of his discourse ethics and its affinity with Kant's position. I never really had much interests in political / social philosophy (e.g. Locke, Hobbes, Marx, Weber, Freud, etc.) but this book changed me. The issue addressed by the keynote essay 'Postnational Constellation' explores the problem of the possibility of democracy in the process of globalization (esp. in Europe) where the traditional power of the nation states-- the traditional home of democracy-- continues to decline. While this might not be a very important problem say 50 years from now, the analysis is very interesting to me because: 1. It emphasizes the importance of 'normative basis' in social-political debates. 2. It incorporates many insightful (at least to me) observations of empirical historical trends with normative considerations. 3. Habermas is a real thinker! After reading the book, which also includes a short summary of his account of the history of the philosophical idea of modernity and a short essay concerning human rights among other works, I am now interested in Habermas' social / political theory as expounded in his other books Facts and Norms and the Inclusion of Others. A side-note: Habermas' shorter essay Against Human Cloning is not as well-argued as other essays in the collection.
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