Between Facts and Norms

In Between Facts and Norms Jürgen Habermas works out the legal and
political implications of his Theory of Communicative Action (1981), bringing to
fruition the project announced with his publication of The Structural Transformation
of the Public Sphere in 1962. This new work is a major contribution to recent
debates on the rule of law and the possibilities of democracy in postindustrial
societies, but it is much more.The introduction by William Rehg succinctly captures
the special nature of the work, noting that it offers a sweeping, sociologically
informed conceptualization of law and basic rights, a normative account of the rule
of law and the constitutional state, an attempt to bridge normative and empirical
approaches to democracy, and an account of the social context required for
democracy. Finally, the work frames and caps these arguments with a bold proposal
for a new paradigm of law that goes beyond the dichotomies that have afflicted
modern political theory from its inception and that still underlie current
controversies between so- called liberals and civic republicans.The book includes a
postscript written in 1994, which restates the argument in light of its initial
reception, and two appendixes, which cover key developments that preceded the
book.Habermas himself was actively involved in the translation, adapting the text as
necessary to make it more accessible to English-speaking readers.