Habermas Jürgen (b.1929), German philosopher and social theorist, a leading representative of the second generation of the Frankfurt School of critical theory. His work has consistently returned to the problem of the normative foundations of social criticism and critical social inquiry not supplied in traditional Marxism and other forms of critical theory, such as postmodernism. His habilitation, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1961), is an influential historical analysis of the emergence of the ideal of a public sphere in the eighteenth century and its subsequent decline. Habermas turned then to the problems of the foundations and methodology of the social sciences, developing a criticism of positivism and his own interpretive explanatory approach in The Logic of the Social Sciences (1963) and his first major systematic work, Knowledge and Human Interests (1967).
Rejecting the unity of method typical of positivism, Habermas argues that social inquiry is guided by three distinct interests: in control, in understanding, and in emancipation. He is especially concerned to use emancipatory interest to overcome the limitations of the model of inquiry based on understanding and argues against ‘universality of hermeneutics’ (defended by hermeneuticists such as Gadamer) and for the need to supplement interpretations with explanations in the social sciences. As he came to reject the psychoanalytic vocabulary in which he formulated the interest in emancipation, he turned to finding the basis for understanding and social inquiry in a theory of rationality more generally.
In the next phase of his career he developed a comprehensive social theory, culminating in his two-volume The Theory of Communicative Action (1982). The goal of this theory is to develop a ‘critical theory of modernity,’ on the basis of a comprehensive theory of communicative (as opposed to instrumental) rationality. The first volume develops a theory of communicative rationality based on ‘discourse,’ or second-order communication that takes place both in everyday interaction and in institutionalized practices of argumentation in science, law, and criticism. This theory of rationality emerges from a universal or ‘formal’ pragmatics, a speech act theory based on making explicit the rules and norms of the competence to communicate in linguistic interaction. The second volume develops a diagnosis of modern society as suffering from ‘onesided rationalization,’ leading to disruptions of the communicative lifeworld by ‘systems’ such as markets and bureaucracies. Finally, Habermas applies his conception of rationality to issues of normative theory, including ethics, politics, and the law. ‘Discourse Ethics: Notes on a Program of Moral Justification’ (1982) argues for an intersubjective notion of practical reason and discursive procedure for the justification of universal norms. This ‘discourse principle’ provides a dialogical version of Kant’s idea of universalization; a norm is justified if and only if it can meet with the reasoned agreement of all those affected. Between Facts and Norms (1992) combines his social and normative theories to give a systematic account of law and democracy. His contribution here is an account of deliberative democracy appropriate to the complexity of modern society. His work in all of these phases provides a systematic defense and critique of modern institutions and a vindication of the universal claims of public practical reason. See also CRITICAL THEORY, FRANKFURT SCHOOL , HERMENEUTIC. J.B.