The Public Sphere Liberal Modernity, Catholicism, Islam by Armando Salvatore (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 293 pages.)

Abstract

A shortened version of his 2005 Habilitation thesis at Humboldt University,
Berlin, this ambitious book both leans on and disagrees with German philosopher
JürgenHabermas, the authoritative western theorist on the public sphere
and communicative action. Salvatore applauds how Habermas created an
original synthesis between the idea of civil society developed in the Anglo-
American tradition and the more radical version of “civic virtue” in the
European republican tradition emanating from Immanuel Kant. Habermas
has masterfully wedded his theories of the public sphere and communicative
action in such a way that “the only secure way to vindicate public reason is
identified with a democratic process” (p. 240).
A great achievement, no doubt, but at what cost? Salvatore sees this theory
of the public sphere as condemned to an impasse. The “Habermas effect”
has three main weaknesses: (1) it ultimately rests on the shaky ground of private
trust; (2) its theory is limited to a western view of the self and citizenship
and, in the end, to the reach of a hegemonic western culture; and (3) this
limitation leaves out the all-pervasive dynamic of religious traditions in most
other parts of the world ...