Translated by Knut Erik Tranøy.
The basic concern of these essays is that of the ‘incarnation of our thoughts’, or the situatedness of reason, understood in terms of the discursive tension between universal pragmatics, as in Apel and Habermas, and contextual praxeology, as in Wittgenstein. The common position is one in favour of a ‘post-skeptical rationality’.
This is a collection of essay in applied ethics. The author elaborates his programmatic notion of rationality by discussing cases related to our environment and lifeworld, that is, to our oikos – hence, “eco-philosophical manuscripts”.
A Crisis in the Humanities?
Rationality and Modernity focuses on the philosophical discussion of rationality and basic norms. Its perspective is that of the ‘pragmatic turn’ and its discursive dimension that of a mutual criticism between hermeneutic contextualism and trans-contextual pragmatics.
With present day critical theory as his philosophical horizon, Skirbekk discusses in particular the significant contributions of Apel, Habermas, and in this connection, also Wittgenstein.
The common aim of these essays in philosophical pragmatics is to make visible, theoretically and practically, a way of thinking which brings together contextual praxeology and universal pragmatics.
A History of Western Thought is a comprehensive introduction to the history of Western philosophy from the pre-Socratics to the twentieth century. Along with in-depth discussion of all the major philosophical movements, Skirbekk and Gilje also look at the historical factors that have influenced Western philosophy, including the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities, as well as political ideologies such as liberalism, socialism and fascism.
It is an ideal introduction for anyone coming to the history of western thought for the first time.
"I have read Gunnar Skirbekk's History of Philosophy in the first German translation of 1993 - it was a translation from the fourth Norwegian edition of 1987. These dates alone are telling. There are good reasons for the fact, that these two volumes are both best-sellers and long-sellers: they present us with the most interesting and innovative history of Western Philosophy I know of. The author is an original mind who never writes in the style of a mere history of ideas but presents each of them as a result of interconnected problem-solving processes." Jürgen Habermas, May 2015.
Cf the Norwegian original, Filosofihistorie.
To what extent is religion modern?
To what extent is modernity rational?
And what is rational about rationality?
(1) The Modernity Debate: Rationality – universal and plural?
(2) A Crisis in the Humanities?
(4) Ethical Gradualism beyond Anthropocentrism and Biocentrism?
Multiple Modernities approaches the concept of modernity through two historical phases of Norway. The first study focuses on the interplay between Lutheran state officials and popular movements in the nineteenth century as an essential aspect of the growth of social democracy. The second examination of modernization centers on twenthieth-century Norway after World War II. The book is balanced between theoretical remarks on conceptual issues, an assessment of modernization processes, and a study of basic epistemic and structural challenges that confront us in our time. Scandinavian countries are often noted as cases of successful modernization processes. However, these references to a "Scandinavian model" tend to focus on the mid-twentieth century after World War II. In Skirbekk’s view, the uniqueness of modernization processes in Scandinavia, for instance in Norway, is better conceived historically, not least by focusing on the nineteenth century with a continuation into the twentieth century.
(vi) A popular book, but why?
Why is argumentative reason essential, in modern societies?
Why is freedom of expression a precondition for these societies?
Modernization processes in Scandinavia, why are they special?