The essay offers an evaluation of the legacy of the writings of Jürgen Habermas. In part personal, it considers the fate of critical theory, especially in light of Habermas's turn to normative political philosophy. I argue that the core of his work was to find normative foundations of reason in human communication, which is open-ended but fragile. The guiding thread in his writings was that truth claims are implicit in communication and are what enables critique, providing it with its conditions of possibility. This is ultimately what allows human beings to transcend historical experience and what provides them with a constant orientation to the future. The distinctive achievement of his work was a conception of modernity as the expansion in the reach of reason, such that domination is constantly challenged by people demanding justifications for the exercise of power. The threads of reason are interwoven into the fabric of social life, enabling people to challenge power. However, despite the sociological importance of this perspective, his later work despite its unquestionable value for deliberative democratic theory lacked engagement with pressing political problems and social struggles.
Gerard Delanty (Mon,) studied this question.