From: "E.Pavlov" <epavlov-AT-mail.ru>
Subject: HAB: Matustik's biography
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 22:52:50 +0000 (GMT)


Thomas wrote:
> > Speaking of "portraits of Habermas" has anyone read the strange biography
> > by Martin Beck Matustik - Jrgen Habermas. A Philosophical-Political
> > Profile (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001)???

I am holding Matustik's book in my hands, I have only read some of it here 
and there but I find it quite interesting or *strange* if you wish. I understood
your question as relating to what opinion have listmembers have about his book, 
that implied that you yourself have not yet read this book? I don't think I
am yet qualified enough to give my opinion, but since no one yet answered
I thought I'd just give a short description of Matustik's project.

In the introduction 
("Walking with Habermas through the twentieth century") he proposes 
to look at Habermas's life and career from three *angles* - existential 
questioning that will look for _formative_situation; philosophical-political 
questioning that will sketch the period 1945-68 to see the formation of H's
"profile and interventions"; and critical questioning to see how H's response
to theoretical debates influenced the _impact and discontents_ of his ideas.

So there are three parts in this book that deal with each angle. In Part I he
deals with "three key situation clusters that give rise to Habermas' defining
orientations" - the years of liberation and restoration (1945-59), the years of
incubation and revolt (1960-69) and the years of revision, hope and renewed
revision (1970-2000). The question in this part is "What does it mean to become
contemporary with Habermas' work and questions in relation to the existential
and sociopolitical upheavals of his life's journey?"  Part II deals with the question
"What does it mean to become contemporary with the problems of the present 
age, the crises of its institutions, and the profiles of its generations?" Part III asks
"At what theoretical understanding do we arrive when we reconstruct Habermas'
normative ideals (in ethics, morality, and politics) as complementary to his key
situations and interventions in problems of his era?"  

Evgeni



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