Habermas

Hugh Baxter is Professor of Law and Philosophy at Boston University.

"The great merit of Hugh Baxter's book is not just that it assesses Habermas's legal philosophy against the background of his more general social theory but that it provides a sophisticated assessment of both aspects of Habermas's program. This is not just a good book on Habermas's theory of law but also contains the best discussion of Habermas's theory of system and lifeworld that I have encountered."—Joseph Heath, University of Toronto Law Journal "Baxter's own predilection is to reconfigure Habermas's project as a more porous version of Niklas Luhmann's autopoietic systems theory. With attention to Talcott Parsons, Frank Michelman, Ronald Dworkin, John Rawls, and particularly Luhmann, Baxter contributes an immanent and comparative critique of Habermas."—G. D. Miller, CHOICE "A must read for all those interested in an exposition of Jürgen Habermas's fundamental contribution to legal scholarship."—David M. Rasmussen, Boston College "A clear, well-judged, and cool assessment of Jürgen Habermas and his debates with Niklas Luhmann, two giants of twentieth-century social theory."—Tim Murphy, The London School of Economics and Political Science "Baxter's study offers the first extended discussion of the development of Habermas's views on law and society—a development not without its own tensions and difficulties—from The Theory of Communicative Action to Between Facts and Norms. It also highlights the underacknowledged influence of Niklas Luhmann, the other great contemporary German legal and social theorist, on Habermas's views as a whole. An informed and important contribution to our understanding of Habermas's political, legal, and social theory."—Kenneth Baynes, Syracuse University