ABSTRACT
It is ironic that while Jürgen Habermas is arguably the premier social theorist of his generation, his work is probably less known and discussed, at least among his Anglo-Saxon peers, and certainly less often used or put to the test in substantive areas of inquiry, than that of numerous more transient or superficial thinkers. Undoubtedly this is in part because of the scope of his interests and his dense, heavy and discouraging writing style. It is probably due in no small measure too to his determined opposition to the – frequently faddish – excesses of postmodern texts (see Habermas, 1987a). This volume as a whole sets out to begin to make good the neglect of Habermas’ work within the specialist domain of medical sociology.
