Hans Joas
Biographic Data
| ID | 164307 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Hans Joas |
| GIVEN NAMES | Hans |
| FAMILY NAME | Joas |
| SIGNATURE | JOAS H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 229 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 292 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 217 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 12 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Erneut vernachlässigt
This essay has its point of departure in an observation: The monumental history of philosophy that Jürgen Habermas has published has as its guiding thread the relationship between religion and philosophy, faith and knowledge. It culminates in a presentation of the philosophy of Charles Peirce. But, oddly, it has nothing to say about Peirce’s own understanding of religion and the relationship between religion and philosophy. The essay briefly summ…
The Anthem Companion to Karl Jaspers
Neglected Again? Peirce's "Neglected Argument" and the Theory of Religion Today
This essay has its point of departure in an observation: The monumental history of philosophy that Jürgen Habermas has published has as its guiding thread the relationship between religion and philosophy, faith and knowledge. It culminates in a presentation of the philosophy of Charles Peirce. But, oddly, it has nothing to say about Peirce's own understanding of religion and the relationship between religion and philosophy. The essay briefly summ…
Beyond Doubt
The Power of the Sacred
Hans Joas’s 2017 book, translated into English in 2021 as The Power of the Sacred: An Alternative to the History of Disenchantment, presents a powerful critique of Max Weber’s famous notion of the “disenchantment of the world” and its legacy for the sociology of religion. By subjecting the narratives and concepts in Weber’s theorizing to rigorous analysis, Joas seeks to emancipate sociology from “dangerous nouns of process.” The editors of Max We…
Agire sociale e natura umana
Nel 1980 Axel Honneth e Hans Joas pubblicano a quattro mani Soziales Handeln und menschliche Natur, un’opera di antropologia filosofica. Sulla scia dei movimenti femministi, ecologisti e controculturali, i due autori sfidano i consueti timori verso una ripresa del concetto di natura umana e riportano al centro del dibattito delle scienze sociali l’urgenza di ripensare l’essere umano alla luce della sua appartenenza alla natura e della sua relazio…
The Cloud Over the Highway. On the Inescapability of Mystical Experience
Adam Zagajewski’s essays on poets and poetry are interpreted here in the context of scholarly debates about the specificities of mystical experience. From the four criteria the great American philosopher and psychologist William James developed in 1902, “transiency” and “passivity” can be brought together as indicators of what I call the inescapability of mystical experience, while the two other criteria, namely “ineffability” and “noetic quality…
Réplique
Joas revient sur certains moments de la réception qu’a connus son œuvre par ailleurs, précise le projet d’ensemble auquel ressortit Les pouvoirs du sacré – conçu comme premier volet d’un triptyque – et regrette que la discussion en direct n’ait pas pu avoir lieu pour cause de pandémie. Il donne son accord à la perspective d’ensemble et à la teneur de ce que Tétaz met en avant dans l’introduction au dossier. Il dit son intérêt pour le texte de Gon…
Les droits de l’Homme sont-ils d’origine religieuse
La réception des déclarations des droits de l’Homme de la période révolutionnaire par les Églises chrétiennes a été plutôt contrastée : revendiqués par une partie du protestantisme, ils ont été sévèrement condamnés par le magistère catholique. Ce n’est qu’au lendemain de la proclamation de la Déclaration universelle des droits de l’Homme par l’ONU que les différentes confessions chrétiennes se sont ralliées à cette philosophie politique, non sans…
Disenchantment, Rationalisation and Collective Self-Sacralisation. Reply to Siniša Malešević
History of Religion as Critique of Religion?
The Scottish eighteenth-century philosopher and historian David Hume can be considered a pioneer of the “natural history of religion” in the sense of a universal history of religion that is not based on theological presuppositions. This chapter offers a characterization of his methodological achievements and a reevaluation of his empirical claims concerning monotheism, polytheism, religion and tolerance. It also interprets the German reception of…
Copyright Page
The Sacred and Power
This chapter presents the outlines of an alternative to Max Weber’s narrative of disenchantment. It does so first by setting out a theory of the dynamics of sacralization in summary form. Second, this theory is applied to the history of the fusions of this dynamic and the dynamics of power formation and the history of the tensions between the two. The guiding thread for this alternative history is the topic of collective self-sacralization and th…
Fields of Tension
Max Weber’s “Intermediate Reflection,” also known under the title “Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions,” is usually interpreted as the classic text for a theory of the differentiation of value spheres. As such it has become part of the sociological canon. The new and very detailed interpretation presented in this chapter demonstrates that this view is problematic both with regard to Weber’s own intentions and in itself. An alte…
Multiple Forms of Ideal Formation or Process of Disenchantment?
More than any other authors around 1900, Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch developed a synthesis of the history, psychology, and sociology of religion. While in the conventional view the two thinkers were rather similar, this chapter contrasts them. I characterize Troeltsch’s views as a study of history that is open to ever new sacralizations. Weber’s notion of a world-historical process of disenchantment, meanwhile, I interpret and criticize as base…
Transcendence as Reflexive Sacredness
This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the debate on the so-called Axial Age. It presents the major contributors from Karl Jaspers on, but also the predecessors in the 18th and 19th centuries. , It explores concepts such as the age of transcendence that have been used to characterize the fundamental innovation of that age. It particularly emphasizes the emergence of moral universalism in that period. The chapter also attempts to bring …
Religious Experience and the Theory of Signs
The foundation of the psychology of religion in the work of William James and others is a major methodological breakthrough in the empirical study of religion. This psychology of religion focuses on experience, offering an alternative to the emphasis on religious doctrines or institutions. This chapter first presents a reconstruction of William James’s relevant writings. It then compares them to the theological writings of Friedrich Schleiermache…
Ritual and the Sacred
Émile Durkheim’s sociology of religion is presented in this chapter not as a functionalist analysis, but as an understanding of religion that sees it as anchored in collective corporeal practices. These practices and the intense experiences to which they give rise lead to the attribution of sacredness to times, places, persons, and ideas and make ideals possible. This Durkheimian idea has a rich prehistory which is reconstructed here with a speci…
Come nascono i valori
I valori compaiono con frequenza nelle discussioni politiche, mediatiche e accademiche. Eppure, \nuna questione rimane spesso priva di risposte: come nasce un valore? Come emerge e come si \ncostituisce qualcosa che è importante per noi, e a partire da cui possiamo valutare persone, cose, \neventi, situazioni della nostra vita? In Come nascono i valori, Hans Joas presenta una risposta \noriginale a tale interrogativo: i valori nascono da esperien…
Sakralizacja i desakralizacja. Panowanie polityczne i interpretacje religijne
"Mnie pomsta, ja oddam -mwi Pan" 1 . Czytelnikom 2 Biblii sowa te s z pewnoci znane, ale zapewne take osoby niereligijne musiay si ju z nimi zetkn, choby dlatego e Lew Tostoj uczyni je mottem swojej powieci o maestwie -Anny Kareniny
Un cristiano attraverso guerra e rivoluzione. La tetralogia di Alfred Döblin Novembre 1918
The Power of the Sacred
Disenchantment" is a key term in the self-understanding of modernity. But what exactly does this concept mean? What was its original meaning when Max Weber introduced it? And can the conventional meaning or Max Weber's view really be defended, given the present state of knowledge about the history of religion? This book attempts to divest this concept of its enduring enchantment. The first chapters of the book deal with three empirical discipline…
Geisteswissenschaft – was bleibt?
Die Beiträge des Sammelbandes setzen sich zum Ziel, die Gegenstände, Grenzen und Herausforderungen der Geisteswissenschaften im 21. Jahrhundert zu bedenken und zu bestimmen. Folgende Fragen stehen dabei im Zentrum: Inwiefern ist Geisteswissenschaft eine Wissenschaft? Was ist überhaupt Geist? Wie verhalten sich Naturwissenschaft und Geisteswissenschaft zueinander? In welchem Verhältnis stehen Geisteswissenschaft und Kulturwissenschaft? Kann Geiste…
Geisteswissenschaft - Was Bleibt?
Faith as an Option
Mind, Self, and Society
George Herbert Mead is widely recognized as one of the most brilliantly original American pragmatists. Although he had a profound influence on the development of social philosophy, he published no books in his lifetime. This makes the lectures collected in Mind, Self, and Society all the more remarkable, as they offer a rare synthesis of his ideas. This collection gets to the heart of Mead's meditations on social psychology and social philosophy.…
The Power of the Sacred
Disenchantment" is a key term in the self-understanding of modernity. But what exactly does this concept mean? What was its original meaning when Max Weber introduced it? And can the conventional meaning or Max Weber's view really be defended, given the present state of knowledge about the history of religion? This book attempts to divest this concept of its enduring enchantment. The first chapters of the book deal with three empirical discipline…
Die Kreativität des Handelns
Social Action and Human Nature
Punishment and Respect
Discussions of punishment in the modern era turn on the question of the definition and importance of human rights. To understand this linkage, it is important to examine critically two narratives of the origin and development of modern Western forms of punishment, namely that of the Enlightenment, and that of the process of 'disciplination' to be found in the work of Foucault. In this article, I suggest an alternative to both these narratives, na…
Morality in an Age of Contingency
Let me begin this essay with a note of caution or perhaps an 'all clear' sign: it will not be a jeremiad. I will not lament a process of ongoing fragmentation, of the loss of all values in our time, of the disappearance of community or trust or commitment or the social significance of character formation. Such jeremiads are so common in current debates about values and morality that they constitute a rhetorical genre of their own both in the soci…
George Herbert Mead and the 'Division Of Labor
By presenting some results of an extensive reconstruction of George Herbert Mead's work published as yet only in German it is argued that Mead's work as a whole and particularly his social psychology contain an implicit conception of social order. This can be characterized as the idea that it is not normative integration as such, but communicative coordination that makes possible human society and social order. This is shown by findings on the ea…
Durkheim et le pragmatisme La psychologie de la conscience et la constitution sociale des catégories
Joas Hans, Sagnol Marc. Durkheim et le pragmatisme. La psychologie de la conscience et la constitution sociale des catégories. In: Revue française de sociologie, 1984, 25-4. pp. 560-581
Institutionalization as a Creative Process
On Articulation
The Modernity of War
In this article the fact of war in the modern age and the interpretations of this fact by intellectuals are used as a probe to discuss the adequateness of modernization theory for understanding the social developments of our time. The author sketches the liberal and Enlightenment dream of a modernity free of violence and then briefly develops steps of a critical revision of this view by discussing the role of defensive modernization; the connecti…
Beyond the Normative and the Utilitarian
The Autonomy of the Self
This paper addresses the question of the relationship between creativity and autonomy - originally related to each other in the concept of the 'self' as one of the crucial parts of the Meadian and symbolic interactionist heritage - and asks how we should construe this relation today. After a brief reconstruction of the history of the notions of 'self' and 'identity' the paper takes up the postmodern challenge of these notions by clarifying and pa…
The Changing Role of the Social Sciences
An Underestimated Alternative
The main goal of this paper is to examine the intellectual and biographical reasons why the theorists of the Frankfurt school did not embrace pragmatism. This goal is pursued in four areas: (1) the epistemological area of the debate about subjective and objective 'reason'-here the misleading character of Horkheimer's and Mar-cuse's writings on pragmatism is demonstrated; (2) the area of political theory-here the tension between the American democ…
Bauman in Germany
This text of a lecture describes the importance of Zygmunt Bauman's work for sociological theory and intellectual debate in Germany. The main points are: (1) the tension between the German Sonderweg thesis and Bauman's analysis of the Holocaust; (2) the relationship between Bauman's theory of modernity/postmodernity and the writings of Elias, Horkheimer/Adorno and Beck; (3) a critique of Bauman's neglect of democratic alternatives within modernit…
"Communicative Action, Essays on Jurgen Habermas's "The Theory of Communicative Action
Giddens’ Theorie der Strukturbildung
Anthony Giddens’ Theorie der Strukturbildung wird als ein Versuch gedeutet, Motive der marxistischen Praxisphilosophie in eine umfassende soziologische Theorie zu transformieren. Im ersten Teil werden knapp die Entwicklungsschritte von Giddens’ Denken nachgezeichnet und wesentliche Charakteristika seiner heutigen Theorie (Handlungsbegriff, Kritik des Funktionalismus und Evolutionismus, Theorie der Zeitlichkeit und der Macht) herausgearbeitet. Im …
A secularização conduz à decadência moral
Os debates sobre ética e religião, sobre a significância da fé na mediação dos valores e da coesão sociais, e sobre os riscos das religiões para a tolerância e a coexistência pacífica tendem a ser distorcidos em razão de deficiências empíricas. Os argumentos, em geral, se fazem de um modo que poderíamos denominar "a priori". Neste artigo, proponho uma abordagem "empírica", querendo dizer com isso uma atitude que envolva um mínimo de vieses concei…
Foi et morale à l'âge de la contingence
Cet article aborde de manière critique un aspect important de la sociologie des religions de Peter Berger, notamment son hypothèse que le pluralisme moderne affaiblirait la religion. Cette hypothèse est abordée sur les plans historique, sociologique et psychologique. Je soutiens que Berger exagère l'homogénéité religieuse du passé, néglige les effets revitalisants du pluralisme religieux et déforme l'émergence de l'engagement religieux en lui app…
The Creativity of Action
G. H. Mead
The Classics of Sociology and the First World War
Kommentar zu Johannes Berger, „Intersubjektive Sinnkonstitution und Sozialstruktur“ (ZfS Oktober 1978)
Faith and Knowledge
Jürgen Habermas' philosophical oeuvre so far contained only few references to thinkers prior to Kant. The publication of a comprehensive history of Western philosophy by this author, therefore, came as a surprise. The book is not, as many had anticipated, a book about religion, but about the gradual emancipation of 'secular' 'autonomous' rationality from religion, although in a way that preserves a normative commitment to Christianity. While welc…
Kommentar zu Johannes Berger, „Intersubjektive Sinnkonstitution und Sozialstruktur“ (ZfS Oktober 1978)
George Herbert Mead and the 'Division Of Labor
By presenting some results of an extensive reconstruction of George Herbert Mead's work published as yet only in German it is argued that Mead's work as a whole and particularly his social psychology contain an implicit conception of social order. This can be characterized as the idea that it is not normative integration as such, but communicative coordination that makes possible human society and social order. This is shown by findings on the ea…
The intersubjective constitution of the body-image
Durkheim et le pragmatisme La psychologie de la conscience et la constitution sociale des catégories
Joas Hans, Sagnol Marc. Durkheim et le pragmatisme. La psychologie de la conscience et la constitution sociale des catégories. In: Revue française de sociologie, 1984, 25-4. pp. 560-581
Critical Social Psychology.Philip Wexler
G. H. Mead
The development of a radically democratic intellectual - George Herbert Mead, 1863-1931 Mead's position in intellectual history and his early philosophical writings the definition of the physical the origin of the concept of symbolic interaction ethics constitution of the physical object and role-taking temporality and intersubjectivity scientific progress and social progress
Durkheim's Sociology of Religion
Giddens’ Theorie der Strukturbildung
Anthony Giddens’ Theorie der Strukturbildung wird als ein Versuch gedeutet, Motive der marxistischen Praxisphilosophie in eine umfassende soziologische Theorie zu transformieren. Im ersten Teil werden knapp die Entwicklungsschritte von Giddens’ Denken nachgezeichnet und wesentliche Charakteristika seiner heutigen Theorie (Handlungsbegriff, Kritik des Funktionalismus und Evolutionismus, Theorie der Zeitlichkeit und der Macht) herausgearbeitet. Im …
Giddens' Theory of Structuration
Anthony Giddens' theory of structuration is interpreted as an attempt to transform themes of the Marxist philosophy of praxis into a comprehensive sociological theory. In the first part of the article, the development of Giddens' thought is briefly traced and essential features of his current theory are described (his concept of action; his critique of functionalism and evolutionism; his theory of temporality and power). In the second part, the a…
G. H. Mead
The antinomies of neofunctionalism
Since the beginning of the ‘eighties of the present century, a circle of relatively young American sociologists who are followers of Jeffrey Alexander are making energetic and spectacular efforts to supply sociology with a uniform and comprehensive theoretical framework by continuing Talcott Parsons' lifework. The present article is an appreciation of Alexander's achievements in the justification of a general sociological theory (especially a the…
Die Antinomien des Neofunktionalismus
Seit dem Beginn der achtziger Jahre unternimmt ein Kreis jüngerer amerikanischer Soziologen um Jeffrey Alexander energische und spektakuläre Versuche, durch Anknüpfung an das Lebenswerk von Talcott Parsons der Soziologie zu einem einheitlichen und umfassenden theoretischen Gerüst zu verhelfen. In diesem Aufsatz werden Alexanders Verdienste bei der Rechtfertigung allgemeiner soziologischer Theorie (insbesondere Handlungsund Ordnungstheorie) gewürd…
Die Konstitution der Gesellschaft
Institutionalization as a Creative Process
How to Explain What Collins Thinks
The Federal Republic of Germany
G. H. Mead
The Classics of Sociology and the First World War
Social Action and Human Nature
Communicative action
Introduction: Axel Honneth and Hans Joas. 1. The Transformation of Critical Theory: Herbert Schnadelback. 2. Language and Society: Charles Taylor. 3. The Two Meanings of 'Communicative' Rationality: Martin Seel Habermas and Critical Theory: Beyond the Marxian Dilemma?: Jeffrey Alexander. 4. Communicative Reason and Interest: Gunter Dux. 5. The Unhappy Marriage of Hermeneutics and Functionalism: Hans Joas Complexity and Democracy, or the Seducemen…
Zwischen machtpolitischem Realismus und pazifistischer Utopie
Social Action and Human Nature
Between Power Politics and Pacifist Utopia
Die Kreativität des Handelns
Social Action and Human Nature
This work applies itself to a critique of Marxian theory, which is especially sensitive to issues in the new social movements, ecological and feminist. The work of writers such as Gehlen and Plessner, and that of three historical anthropologists is discussed
Philosophy (160 works) · Epistemology (114 works) · Sociology (82 works) · Political science (65 works) · Psychology (63 works) · Law (49 works) · Computer Science (37 works) · Philosophy (35 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (31 works) · Mathematics (26 works)