Selected Essays (v. 2)

This is the second volume of a two-volume collection of Karl-Otto Apel's selected essays, which gathers his most important work on discourse ethics and the communicative theory of rationality, both of which he has been elaborating since the late 60s with Juergen Habermas, his longtime friend and colleague at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. In addition to clarifying the foundations of de-ontological ethics, in the tradition of Kantian universalism and proceduralism, which nevertheless presupposes the "linguistic turn" (Peirce, Wittgenstein, Searle, Austin) of philosophy and the hermeneutical enlightenment tradition (Heidegger, Ricouer, Gadamer), the book also contributes greatly to the understanding of the difference between Apel's and Habermas's versions of discourse ethics. Whereas Habermas has elaborated his version of discourse ethics in terms of a theory of communicative action, individuation through socialization, and the internal reference between solidarity and justice, Apel has developed his discourse theory of ethics in terms of a theory of a typology of rationality. Most importantly, the book illustrates how a theory of rationality presupposes a theory of ethics and vice versa. This theme is explored via a detailed analysis of the different modalities of rationality, be it instrumental, practical or communicative. This collection should be useful to all scholars concerned with contemporary moral and ethical problems, contemporary history of philosophy, and the convergence and entwinement between analytical philosophy, pragmatism and Continental philosophy.

The a priori of the communication community and the foundation of ethics - the problem of a rational foundation of ethics in the scientific age; the question of grounding - philosophy and transcendental pragmatics of language; types of social science in the light of human cognitive interests; types of rationality today - the continuum of reason between science and ethics; the conditio humana as an ethical problem; limits of discourse ethics? - an attempt as a provisional assessment; macroethics, responsibility for the future and the crisis of technological society - reflections on H. Jonas; the challenge of a totalizing critique of reason and the programme of a philosophical theory of types of rationality; a planetary macroethics for humanity - the need, the apparent difficulty and the eventual possibility; the hernemeutic dimension of the social science and its normative foundations; the rationality of human communication - on the relationship between consensual rationality, strategical rationality and systems rationality.

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