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Michel Foucault was one of the twentieth century's most influential thinkers whose work has unsettled and transformed the field of social philosophy and the social sciences. The essays and articles selected for this volume are written by many of the most important of Foucault's interpreters and interlocutors and show the range of Foucault's influence and the debates it has provoked about Foucault's own approaches and in relation to substantive areas of social philosophy and social science such as power, critique, enlightenment, law, governance, ethics and truthfulness. This volume provides a comprehensive introduction to, and overview of, the development of Foucault's thought and demonstrates its enduring significance on our understanding of how we have become what we are.

Originally published separately, Weber's Science as a Vocation and Politics as a Vocation stand as the classic formulations of his positions on two related subjects that go to the heart of his thought: the nature and status of science and its claims to authority; and the nature and status of political claims and the ultimate justification for such claims. Together in this volume, these newly translated lectures offer an ideal point of entry into Weber's central project: understanding how, as Weber put it,'in the West alone there have appeared cultural manifestations [that seem to] go in the direction of universal significance and validity.

Foucault contra Habermas is an incisive examination of, and a comprehensive introduction to, the debate between Foucault and Habermas over the meaning of enlightenment and modernity. It reprises the key issues in the argument between critical theory and genealogy and is organised around three complementary themes: defining the context of the debate; examining the theoretical and conceptual tools used; and discussing the implications for politics and criticism. In a detailed reply to Habermas′ Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, this volume explains the difference between Habermas′ philosophical practice and Foucault′s between the analytics of truth and the politics of truth. Many of the most difficult arguments in the exchange are subject to a detailed critical analysis. This examination also includes discussion of the ethics of dialogue; the practice of criticism; the politics of recognition, and the function of civil society and democracy.

Maturity and Modernity is the first book to analyze Nietzsche, Weber and Foucault as a tradition of theorising and to chart the development of genealogy as a mode of critique. It provides clear accounts of the main ideas of Nietzsche, Weber and Foucault (as well as a useful Glossary) and illustrates the relations between these thinkers at methodological, substantive and politcal levels.