Habermas Sociology Of Law Thought

Jurgen Habermas (1929-) is a famous thinker in our contemporary era and he is a leader of the second generation of Frankfurt School . As a member of western Marxist, Habermas sustains critical spirit of Marx on the base of which he produces something of his own.As a social theorist, Habermas studies law from the perspective of the society as a whole and the inner interaction of its different aspects.He starts his theory of sociology of law with the two concepts: lifeworld and the system to analyze the dual characters of contemporary law which ar"emedium"and"institution". He views law as a transformer between lifeworld and the system and he constructs legal procedure pattens based on communicative rationality and discourse theory of democracy in order to settle the legitimacy of contemporary law. This thesis falls into three parts to study Habermas'theory of sociology of law.Part One introduces the theoretical and practical backgrounds of Habermas's theory of sociology of law. From colonization of lifeworld in advanced capitalism and the turn of western philosophy of language and Marx Weber's rationality theory, Habermas builds his special theory of sociology of law on the base of communicative rationality and discourse theory of democracy.Part Two expounds in detail the main ideas of Habermas' thought of sociology of law including its core concepts , thoughts of facticity and validity of modern law, the functions of transition and integration of society by modern law , the principal morals of modern law,crisis and legitimacy problem faced by modern law,and views of democracy and law held by procedurism.Part Three mainly presents the reviews about characteristics, contributions and defects of Habermas' theory of sociology of law.