Toward a Rational Society: Student Protest, Science, and Politics

A collection of essays from the late 60s, this book cast Habermas in a new light for me. Having only read, to date, his Truth and Justification (from the early/mid 2000s, if I recall correctly), his roots in the critical theory tradition were not as manifest before reading this book, in which Habermas engages with the thought of Adorno and (particularly) Marcuse, as well as some other "unexpecteds" like Weber and Talcott Parsons.

Not being very familiar with the German student protest movements in the 60s, the first few essays, which deal with the orientations, tactics and future of such movements, were hard to get into, but nonetheless worthwhile.

Habermas really shines, though, in the fourth, fifth and sixth essays, discussing the role of science and technology in the modern world; the transition from the traditional societies that was engendered by changing relations between institutions and techno-scientific production; Weber's concept of "rationalization" and Marcuse's critique of it; and the role that Habermas' famed concept of "undistorted communication" must play in ensuring that modern democratic societies do not succumb to the technocratic temptation to do away with questions of "practice" (i.e. politics and ethics) in deference to questions of "technics." ( )