action

In this intellectual portrait of the enfant terrible of the Frankfurt School, S. Müller-Doohm presents us with an indefatigable polemicist whose various stands have marked the last fifty years. This first ever biography of Habermas also takes us through post-war German history.

The quality of an explanation depends much on the relationship between the sociologist and her informants. The more unequal it is, the more she will resort to “third person” explanations—a tendency most visible among the fathers of the discipline. Yet listening to the actors does not necessarily mean turning to a “soft” sociology—because actors are able to map and explain the social space in which they live.