Rawls John Political Liberalism A Reply To Habermas英文电子书.pdf

132 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY REPLYTO HABERMAS* irst, I want to thank Jurgen Habermas for his generous discus- sion and acute comments on my work, and for his setting the Fstage for me to reply to the instructive criticisms he raises. Doing this offers me an ideal context in which to explain the mean- ing of political liberalism and to contrast it with Habermass own pow- erful philosophical doctrine. I must thank him also for forcing me to rethink things I have said. In doing this I have come to realize that my formulations have often been not only unclear and misleading, but also inaccurate to my own thoughts and inconsistent. I have ben- efited greatly by trying to face up to his objections and to express my view so that its main claims are made perspicuous and more exact. My reply to Habermas begins in part I by reviewing two main dif- ferences between his views and mine which in good part are the re- sult of our diverse aims and motivations. With this done, I try to reply to his more central criticisms, though for reasons of space I focus largely on what I believe are the most important criticisms in parts II and III of his paper. We agree on many philosophical points, though there are basic differences I try to make clear, especially in parts I and II below. Throughout, I take for granted some acquain- tance with his writings, and so much of my discussion consists of re- minders of what he says. I. TWO MAIN DIFFERENCES Of the two main differences between Habermass position and mine, the first is that his is comprehensive while mine is an account of the political and it is limited to that. The first difference is the more fun- damental as it sets the stage for and frames the second. This con- cerns the differences between our