Habermas, Jürgen (1929–)

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AbstractJürgen Habermas has a strong claim to be considered the most important and influential social theorist of the twentieth century. He is the inheritor of a German intellectual tradition reaching back to Immanuel Kant, yet Habermas's work ranges far beyond Continental philosophy, reaching into other traditions such as analytic philosophy and American pragmatism. There are multiple areas of academic inquiry to which Habermas has made a significant contribution, and the current debates within the disciplines of philosophy, linguistics, developmental psychology, philosophy of science, sociology, cultural studies, and political theory are all influenced by his work. In addition to his scholarly contributions, Habermas has been one of the more prominent public intellectuals over the past several decades. He has contributed to political debates surrounding immigration, German unification, the expansion of the European Union, the role of religion within liberal democracies, and the memory of the Holocaust within German public life. Few individuals have made a greater contribution to both intellectual understanding and public life.