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Catholicism and Liberal Democracy seeks to clarify if there is a place for Catholicism in the public discourse of modern liberal democracy, bringing secular liberalism, as articulated by Jürgen Habermas, into conversation with the Catholic tradition. James Martin Carr explores three aspects of the Catholic tradition relevant to this debate: the Church’s response to democracy from the nineteenth century up until the eve of the Second Vatican Council; the Council’s engagement with modernity, in particular through Gaudium et spes and Dignitatis humanae; and Joseph Ratzinger’s theology of politics as a particularly incisive (and influential) articulation of the Catholic tradition in this area. Jürgen Habermas’s theorization of the place of religion in modern democracy, both in his earlier secularist phase and after his ‘post-secular’ turn, is evaluated. The adequacy of Habermas’s recent attempts to accommodate religious citizens are critically examined and it is argued that developments in his later thought logically require a more thoroughgoing revision of his earlier theory. These developments, it is argued, create tantalizing openings for fruitful dialogue between Habermas and the Catholic tradition. Using analytical tools drawn from communications theory, the debates on same-sex marriage at Westminster and in the Irish referendum campaign are analyzed, assessing whether Catholic contributions to these debates comply with Habermasian rules of civic discourse. In light of this analysis, the prospects of, and impediments to, Catholic participation in public discourse are appraised. Carr concludes by proposing a Ratzingerian critique of contemporary attempts to redefine marriage within a broader, more fundamental critique of the modern democratic state as currently configured. A political system founded upon secularist monism cannot but regard Christian Gelasianism, and its Catholic variant in particular, as an existential threat. Thus, Catholics, however Habermasian their political behavior, can never be more than uneasy bedfellows with modern liberal democracy.

Insights into the problem of our relation to language

Kenneth Burke and Contemporary European Thought: A Rhetoric in Transition reflects the present transitional nature of rhetoric and society. Its purpose is to relate the rhetorical theory of Burke to the theories of four major European philosophers—Jürgen Habermas, Ernesto Grassi, Foucault, and Jacques Derrida—as they discuss the nature of language and its central role in society.
 
This book describes a rhetorical world in transition but not a world in chaos. It points to the centrality of symbolism in theories of language and rhetoric and illustrates Burke’s influence as a pivotal things and theorist in the communication arts and sciences, suggesting that the observations regarding shifting paradigms and perspectives made by other scholars are indeed emergent in the realm of rhetoric. It also regards the powerful impact of language and symbolic action in both the critique and construction of human knowledge and augurs a central role for rhetoric in the intellectual and social transformations of this and the next century.
 

Sociability and Its Enemies contributes both to contemporary studies of political theory and to discourse on postwar Germany by reconstructing the arguments concerning the nature and value of sociability as a form of interaction and interconnection particular to modern bourgeois society. Jakob Norberg argues that the writings of Hannah Arendt, Jürgen Habermas, Carl Schmitt, and the historian Reinhart Koselleck present conflicting responses to a hitherto neglected question or point of contention: whether bourgeois sociability should serve as a therapeutic practice and politically relevant ideal for postwar Germany. The book sheds light on previously neglected historical and conceptual connections among political theorists, and it enriches established narratives of postwar intellectual history.